Quest: Coreful Setup Complete!

· The Quadrangle core is now in your possession, but after it was removed from its cradle it fell into a dormant state. It will need additional materials in order to be awakened from its dormant state.

· Retrieve 1kg of Plutonium-239

· Reward: Dodge skill video.

“Later.” Albert said, delaying the appearance of the incoming skill video.

He would have never guessed, although it should have been at least partially foreshadowed by the contents of the quest he completed for it, that a dungeon core would need Plutonium as a source of energy as opposed to… you know, magical stuff? Anything else would have worked, really.

Mana crystals, other cores, materials extracted from slain monsters, a location carefully chosen on a leyline or on other sources of power…

None of that. Plutonium.

Still. According to his mental ballpark estimate, plutonium should be a pretty dense source of energy. A kilogram of it should allow the new building to keep running for a while.

Now the problem was figuring out how to—

Nevermind. It absorbed it.

The whole lead container with the radioactive material inside disappeared as soon as it touched the core, absorbed into it and never to be seen again. Following the absorption, Albert could immediately feel that the core was somewhat more alive, as if risen from a long slumber. Exactly as the quest instructions said would happen.

“Okay. Now deploy, I guess.”

He was already in the right spot, in the small clearing close to the forest and the mountain. A path led deeper into the forest, while another path led up the mountain, although the latter path was most probably dug by water rolling down the steep slope of rock rather than by elven feet.

On the other two sides were walls of solid stone going up several meters and offering unparalleled protection. Basically, this whole place was a sort of square where two adjacent sides were inaccessible terrain, and the other two were the paths.

Perfect, to say the least.

As soon as the core heard Albert’s words it sprung to life, morphing and shifting the terrain underneath it until the crystal ball was floating above a black marble pedestal. Then the crystal rapidly changed color, turning a deep green with streaks of black running across its surface like miniature lightning bolts.

“Hi! Thank you for rescuing me!”

It spoke? And what’s more, his voice sounded like Iron Man’s JARVIS but British. Why British, though?

“You are… welcome?” Albert said tentatively.

“Right. So, I guess you don’t know how this work, do you?”

Albert shook his head.

“No problem. Let me explain. I am a dungeon core, a very special one at that. You might have noticed, with the fact that I can speak and all that. I am very old, you see, and the older we get the more abilities we gain.”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

“I see. You grow with time.”

“And with expansion. And with gaining new materials. And, like in my case, if we are someone else’s property then our growth is also tied to theirs. Lots of variables, mate.”

Albert’s face scrunched up.

“I’ll drop the mate, how about it?”

“Yeah, good idea.”

“Right.” The core said, still sounding very British. “You’ll have time to find out the details later. Besides, right now not even I know what I can do. This is the thing with cores, we only know what we can do when we can do it. And right now, I’m a bit uh… let’s just say that I am back to the early levels. Level one, to be precise.”

“Cool! You have levels!”

“Yeppers. Very handy. But enough talking. You might have noticed that I like talking. Blame the HDF. They never let me talk. Before you ask… no, I don’t have their secrets. That data was stored on human servers. Bleh.”

“Okay okay. No worries.” Albert said. He still felt a bit awkward about the whole situation.

“Let’s begin then! Why don’t you give me a name so we can begin? Oh, how about The Lair? You know, because I will be your lair and all that.”

Albert inhaled. This guy… this core was going to be a handful.

“Great!” The Lair went on unfazed. “Secondly. I only have enough energy to create one structure at the moment. Your system should give you a quest when it’s time for me to expand, but for now why don’t you tell me what shape you want me to be? I think a warehouse could be nice. We could have a wide open space at the bottom, with a main entrance towards the forest and a smaller one towards the mountain. The other two walls would be hugging the rock faces.”

“Sounds good. I’m impressed, actually.” Albert said. By the fact that you can’t seem to ever shut up.

“There’s more. The roof of the ground floor will be five meters up to allow you to craft big machines if you need. Then, I will create a second floor above it with a couple of bedrooms, a kitchen and an open recreational space. Do you also want a gym? Ah, and don’t worry about toilets. I can recycle all waste!”

Albert shrugged. “Yeah, why not. Go all in.”

“Perfect! I will also flatten the terrain in front of the doors, create concrete steps and a ramp, and surround the garden with a wooden fence. My current limit isn’t much, so the garden will only expand ten meters outwards on the two open sides.”

“Sounds good.” Albert said, amused. “I won’t be doing the planting, though.”

“Oh no,” the Lair said smugly. “That’s not your job to plant stuff. I will! Both food and other interesting things I will unlock later. I think. Not sure on what or when though.”

“Alright.” Albert said. “Do it.”

The process took some time. At first the core began to pulsate with energy, which seeped into the ground. Then the earth began to move and flatten around the pillar with the orb, which also rose up to the sky. From the now flattened ground emerged first the concrete floor of the warehouse, then the four walls. They were sleek and black, reminiscent of those of the Quadrangle, but these were made of sturdy rugged steel polished to perfection.

Then windows appeared on them, and as the core floated up and up, the outline of the second floor began to develop under a growing roof. It appeared that the Lair would be housing its core in the main bedroom, close to what would be Albert’s bed.

Back downstairs, the concrete steps and a ramp were completed and the access to the outside tightly sealed by a large garage door and a smaller service door on the mountain side. The garden was also shaped as the soil was tilled and watered, and a fence was constructed. Around the fence, trees were also planted, but they were still small saplings.

“There.” The Lair said. “Now I’m out of most of my energy and materials. When you come back with more we can expand.”

“Thank you.” Albert said. “This was some rather impressive work!”

The core lit up briefly. “You flatter me, master Albert. I knew I chose well when I asked to work for you.”

“Say,” Albert said. “Can you eat other cores?”

“Uh? Other Dungeon Cores? I think so, but it might take a while to do it. Why?”

“Here.” Albert said, tossing the core he took from the Singapore dungeon. “Snack.”

And with that done, he went back downstairs. He now knew what he was going to spend the remainder of the day on, with the aid of analysis mode. He briefly teleported home and was back as soon as the cooldown hour was over, carrying with him the scraps of teleporter from that old quest he completed in the diner when he asked his mother about the HDF.

It was time to reverse engineer it, and come up with a way to let his family access the Lair.

Almost as if on cue, his phone rang with a text message. It was his mother.

>Albert, if you have the means to do it (you should have a skill called analysis mode) and if you have enough time, try to “grind up” the healing skill as much as you can. It might come in handy relatively soon, for business.

Damn. Now he had two things he absolutely needed to use Analysis Mode for.