A glittering golden speck soared high above a sea of rocky red hills dotted with long dead trees and scraggly plants somehow holding onto the last few threads of life. A once sickly buzzard transformed into a great big avian covered with brilliant golden feathers soared high above, scanning the land below for any signs of life.
The golden vulture soared with barely a flap of her wings, following a dried up river valley below. As she followed the river the rocky hills slowly transform into a vast open expanse, off in the distance she spotted a copse of scraggily trees, seemingly healthier than those scattered across the hills. Flying closer to investigate the glittering buzzard found a small divot in the river bed where some water formed a small pond, seemingly left there from the last time it rained. On either side of the river bed once proud trees survived off of the small amount of water, within the river bed several enterprising grasses had begun growing sure to find they had made a mistake the next time this river ran full with water.
Beneath one of the trees on the western side of the river bed sat a surprisingly long rodent, having long passed away from some unknown sickness. The thing did not look particularly appetizing with its sickly body however starved of her normal carrion diet the vulture swooped down and began to feast, while not the best meal she had ever had it was far from the worst.
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My new golden friend swooped down into my ever expanding hole and onto a branch of our protective tree and began to peck at a long purple fruit, approximately the size of a finger, still hungry despite her earlier meal. I had modified the once bush turned fruit tree to grow the fruits once I realized that my feathery friend would need some form of sustenance, this wasn't ideal for her since as a scavenger she would eat carrion but there weren't exactly many animals out there. In fact that dead rodent had been the only other one I had seen besides her.
Luckily seeing that dead creature I figured out what could cause this vast land of death, Mana Corruption. Something which occurs when mana is left stagnant, it also causes a slow and painful death for creatures and plants left within the area. As well as being even more harmful for anyone who tries to make use of stuff.
Normally Mana Corrupted land was just a small pocket out of reach from the natural Mana currents of the world but this one had spread uninterrupted for likely thousands of years. From what I knew it should be impossible for Mana Corruption to grow as large as this one seemingly had, as any disruption of the stagnant mana would begin returning it to its usable state. The only reasoning I could come up with for how this had gotten so large was there had not been creatures who could use mana in the area for thousands of years, allowing it to grow to the point where not even natural mana currents could prevent its growth.
However as my Father said, every gray cloud has its silver lining. It was difficult to look on the bright side but this dead land would be the perfect place for me as a Dungeon Crystal, a place to do with as I pleased.
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Something I had noticed that interacting with my much more active Mana was seemingly cleansing the land within and around my claims. The most noticeable evidence of this cleansing was was seen in the several plants I had come to encompass turning ever more green and healthy, some outside my territory were even showing signs of improving.
Considering my possibilities I knew I could just hole up in the middle of these lands and no one would ever find me, but something from my past as a farmer screamed that I needed to heal the land. So that was what I would set out to do, and I think that some part of me also hoped to be noticed and that my grandfather would, in his lust for exploring, come to check out an interesting new dungeon in the middle of a long dead desert.
The general idea of what I would do was to send out my new, as of now unnamed, flying companion to explore the surrounding area and help me map it out. While she was doing that I began carving out a valley between the hills, with unnaturally steep cliffs on either side, at the end of the valley would be my little oasis and I would let a trickle of water flow out and hopefully to that dry river bed I had spotted near my location. Then while also healing the surrounding land, hopefully some creatures would find their way upstream where I could infuse them with my mana and make them mine.
The idea was beginning to take shape but it was taking longer than I thought it would, so far all I had was a small round hole in the land surrounded by steep cliffs. Within the little hole sat my first companion turned fruit tree and a small little pond of water fed by the same magic I had created earlier, the pond was for my feathered friend as she still needed the stuff.
Once my hole got a bit larger I would begin to create an actual oasis and incorporate many of the plants I had under my control but hadn't done anything with. Hopefully I would not encounter any issues along the way.
Deciding I needed a little break I decided to go over the changes I had made to my new vulture friend, and I was quite pleased with how I had changed her. She had encountered to me looking sorry and with one foot in the door to the afterlife. After fixing her up I had decided that she needed to be distinct and eye catching, I didn't know if I wanted the changes to be a sign of having been touched by a Dungeon Crystal or just to please myself.
The changes I made to her is a striking red head, still bald, and wonderful golden plumage with stripes of silver along the bottom of her wings and belly. While pleasing myself I knew that there was one thing for certain with her new appearance, some rich bastard would likely spend quite a bit just to get one of her feathers.
With her appearance up to my standards I began doing some internal changes to her body, as I got started doing so I noticed a small Soul Crystal had formed. Those were as I under stood only formed from killing dungeon touched creatures or others with a Soul Crystal and taking their Mana Essence, however I suppose it did make sense that a dungeon touched creature would naturally form one.
With her new ability to use mana thanks to her Soul Crystal I changed her bones to no longer be hollow and made her larger, normally birds shouldn't be able to fly with these changes but I ingrained the ability to use mana to help her fly into her mind. She would be much more durable and stronger than your average vulture.
Overall I was quite pleased and was glad I doubled checked her because I did notice some minor changes to make her better. Now I Try not to toot my own horn but I felt the changes I had made to her body were pretty damn good. Finishing up I decided to meditate and give her some rest before the next journey I sent her out on, she had earned it.