My first few hours of consciousness was confusing to me, I awoke to a near pitch black sky and an environment consisting of gray stone and large patches of equally gray dust. I was a small golf ball sized green gemstone on an endless green landscape. I came into this world knowing what I was... I was a core, a dungeon core and I knew my purpose from the start.

But what was confusing to me was not the concept of being my own being, but the fact that I knew something was wrong... I looked up and saw a green and blue circle in the sky and bits of white moving across the surface. I was supposed to form there, on that planet up there... what was its name again... oh yeah, earth.

I was not only born knowing what I was and my purpose in life, but I had access to what I will call the archives... it is a collection of concepts, data and information that I am supposed to use to teach myself and use as a source of inspirations, it was my version of a encyclopedia or dictionary... or a web browser if I use sapient terms.

I knew there was a mistake but their was nothing I could do, but after days of thinking I had a realization. Their were no other cores up here with me, so I didn't need to share with anyone and there are no pesky sapient being up here to slow my progression either, I do need the experience from sapient beings to speed up my development, but that doesn't mean much other than taking a little longer in certain stages.

This was an opportunity that I didn't want to waste, I immediately started drawing on the mana within my core and began claiming as much land as possible... by the end of my first month I had claimed a majority of the lunar surface and by the end of my second month of life I had successfully claimed the surface of the moon and the space around it, I then began claiming downward.

At the end of my fourth month I had claimed the crust of the moon, claiming solid materials takes more mana and effort to do even when you have excess mana from not doing anything else... by the sixth month the mantle was now mine and I caught a few asteroids in my domain that circle the moon... by the eighth month I had the outer core, the deeper I got the denser the material I encounter and more mana and time is needed.

The inner core was a problem, no only was the material a problem but the very celestial being seemed to be fighting back against me, the very mana that made me had also turned the core of this oversized rock into a living being, it refused to submit... no... I wasn't going to give up now just because the eldritch horror that is the moons core finally decides to fight back.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

It may have taken four months, but I successfully took the moon. Though one weird thing did happen when I did claim everything, somewhere deep inside my crystalline body I knew that I did something wrong... no, not wrong... out of order.

The end goal of any core is to have total domination over the celestial body they were born on, this usually never happens due to human and sapient interference as well as the presence of other cores, the cores of celestial objects like planets, moons, star and more are like big semi-sentience mana rifts, that is where ambience mana comes from.

Why are they alive... well that's simple... it's a prize for any core who has taken their planetoid, the whole point was to grow big enough to challenge and establish dominance over the sentient rift and thus making it a part of yourself.

So it means that if I had attempted to claim the core earlier, I would have possibly been killed by the rift... well that was an unsettling thought. My next step is to burrow down to the rift and merge with it and become the new core of the moon and have total control of my lunar domain.

One month later and I have successfully become the core of the moon and can now start my little art project... what comes after this... well since I've taken the moon, the next logical step would be to claim earth and its rift which should be significantly stronger than my current one... now when I think about it why should I go to earth.

I mean I have the opportunity to claim mars with similar ease and the only problem is reaching it... the same goes for the rest of the solar system, well after looking through my archive it seems that planets that support life have significantly stronger rifts, so big planets like Jupiter and Saturn have powerful rifts, but none that could match earths rift.

So it seems I have started my journey with earth as my end goal and every other planet as my stepping stones, but right now my only concern is making sure I can keep my hold on the moon, though I'm powerful I can still be killed, it may be difficult to do so but it's possible.

I have time before humanity discovers me and more time until they can make their way to me, so I should focus on making sure I'm secure and that the moon is ok before I even consider taking a proper planet... also because I want to start making things, I've been alive for thirteen months and haven't even moved a particle of dust nor created any organisms.

I have been blessed with a huge blank canvas and now it's time to fill that canvas with my beautiful and scare art, I can tell that this little life of mine is gonna be fun.