The first step to building a dungeon is making the actual space where the dungeon will be.

As such, I let my dungeon instincts guide me in moving and shaping the earth around me.

Unfortunately, nascent dungeons such as myself are weak. Too weak to directly create or destroy in any appreciable manner.

Sure, a small amount is possible, but it’s too small to matter. And over too long a time frame. Especially with the horrendous efficiency I currently have, it’s not really worth it.

So, I instead do my best with just the shaping ability I obtained.

The asbestos rich earth is pushed to the sides, compressing into walls. Probably a feat of physics impossible without magic, this technique allows me to form relatively solid tunnels without having to move the soil above ground.

It doesn’t take long and just a couple hours later I already have a long and winding tunnel, reminiscent of a cave. The beginnings of my dungeon.

For now, I left it linear, too little time left to prepare anything more complex. Especially if I also wanted to protect all the routes a complex layout would create. But that’s not how it’ll remain for long.

Before that though, I have to survive.

And for that I need protectors.

A brief scan through my mind gives me a good starting option. Powerful enough for them to be worth the cost while still being relatively cheap to make.

Cane toads. One of the more famous invasive species on Earth. The scourge of Australia, though I suppose many creatures possibly have that name there.

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They were introduced into the Australian ecosystem to combat some farming pests, though it backfired immensely. With no natural predators and their strong poison, they soon reproduced into an unmanageable number.

For now, I mostly want them for the poison, though if things work as I suspect in this world, their other attributed will come in handy later.

But first I’ll have to create them. They probably don’t even exist in this world which is a bit of a problem, if only a slight one.

Us Dungeon Cores gain new creatures in one main way. By absorbing those that fall within our halls. Though this does not work on humans and the other “civilized races”. In truth, they are just an arbitrary group of creatures that enjoy the favour of at least one god.

Be that as it may be, there’s also a second method, even if it is much more limited.

Not too dissimilarly to when I initiated the forming of my core, I reach out to the magic that permeates this world and feed it images of what I want.

Even as flashes of the bulbous and ungainly frog race through my mind, I can feel the same mystical energies converge just a few metres in front of my core.

But instead of continuously gathering until a threshold is reached, the energy instead transforms and the vague outline of a toad begins to take shape.

In a moment of inspiration, I push the image of the toad being much bigger to the magic. Sure, on Earth that may have created a whole host of problems biologically speaking, but I trust the magic to take care of it.

Soon after, they cane toad is fully materialized. Standing and just under a metre tall, it’s status as a monster is cemented in anyone who sees it. It’ll need a new name, cane toad no longer cut it.

But the magic isn’t done yet. Whatever energy it is that managed to force life into the world envelops the newly spawned toad for a second. Then, carrying the shape it imprinted upon itself, the magical energies approach me, that is, my crystal core.

Once again, it does something and flows inside me. More specifically, into one of the facets of my crystal.

The single affected side out of the four seems to shift, loosing its iridescent nature. And yet, while it now feels distinct from the other three walls of my crystal, it can also tell that from the outside it’d still look the same.

And that’s it.

The second option. Somehow, by letting magic create what I want, the resulting monster is imprinted onto me. Sure, it gives me a couple of benefits when it comes to creating the monster in the future, but there are only so many times I can do it.

No matter. It’s time to finish the first iteration of the dungeon.