I watched in awe as Leeko’s mana attunement itself shifted away from the common mishmash of elements to something stronger. Leeko’s matrix itself shifted, ever so slightly. It was nothing like my heavy-handed Intent fueled attempts, the adjustments so precise it might as well have been making the changes manually. Leeko stood tall as the very mana around him shifted slightly, giving him an aura of supremacy.

I was, for obvious reasons, a truly terrible judge of sword technique; but even I could tell this guy had it going on. With each slice, his moves grew more precise, his body adjusting to his new attunement. An ENAD would have sat there in awe at the showing, hoping to absorb a fraction of this guy’s enlightenment. But I didn’t need to make notes.

I made copies instead.

If I could isolate or reverse this guy's attunement, each copy I took now would vary in skill. If Leeko kept up his current improvements, he’d be some sort of expert or something in a few days. No, I don’t know the official term. I’m literally a hunk of rock.

I left Leeko to it and got back to planning out the Underworld. Leeko would need all the advantages he could gather, for after this the true training would begin.

Mwhahahahahaaa.

“Granite, are you talking to yourself again?”

“What? Uh… no. Definitely not.”

The current layout was basically a giant 3D maze, with stairwells and winding corridors and the like. As I saw it, the place needed two changes.

First, I needed a set system for the Adventurers to gain their freedom. While watching for acts of valor sounded nice in theory, people tended to be pretty unremarkable without proper motivation. The obvious solution was to tie freedom tokens to boss mobs, then give freedom to whoever killed the boss but… ok, that actually sounded fine.

Hooray for simple solutions.

The second change was the place’s layout. A giant maze sounded fine, but it lacked a certain… something.

“Ryia, I need an undead themed floor idea. Got anything?”

“Graveyard?”

“Seriously? SERIOUSLY? I thought you were all about unique ideas and monumental themes. A graveyard is about as cliche as you can get!”

“Fine. Castle?”

“Meh.”

“Crypt?”

“What’s that?”

“It's a place where ENADS stick their dead people while making art with their bones and writing jokes about death on the walls.”

“...”

“Granite?”

“NO! Absolutely not! ENADs are insane.”

Ryia’s orb brightened as inspiration struck.

“A dungeon!”

“Isn’t that what I’m making?”

“Not a Dungeon, a dungeon, lowercase d.”

“Ok… what does that have to do with the Underworld.”

“Imagine the mobs you could make! A disgraced general, left rotting for a thousand years. Or maybe an unkillable evil, sealed away. Plus, they're kind of stuck in the Underworld, so having a dungeon theme really fits the bill. Beyond that, theres no need to stick to a single theme for the floor. You can change the layout every so often to keep things… interesting.”

“Hugh. That's… actually a good idea.”

“Why do you sound surprised?”

“I don’t know, you haven’t really helped make the dungeon so far.”

“I helped… helped… fine, ya got me.”

As Ryia explained a typical dungeon setup, I started reshaping the Underworld. I sealed of the current Adventurers, who were still mostly unconscious, and divided the Underworld into three floors. Each floor was sealed into four sections, with each section holding 8 cells. There were four cells to a hallway’s side, and would eventually hold various mobs. The dungeon was set up as a square, with the stairwell up to the next floor located on the opposite corner of the dungeon.

The first issue I ran into was the problem of doors. Right now there was nothing stopping a cultivator from slamming the door down and moving on to the next section; Normal metal or stone wouldn’t hold up long against a determined golem. I’d handled this problem on the second floor with chained force projection runes but while that might work it lacked a certain… elegance. I was sure I’d need to stop ENADs from going places as long as I had a dungeon, and making something solid now would help me down the line.

Let's see… that inverted force projection rune had worked pretty well in the Throne Room. Maybe tuning up the strength even more?

I flicked my perception to the testing room and set up the rune. Engravings could be made from anything or nothing at all. The physical representation was more for the sake of the engraver, as the engraving was made of mana channels. When you fed mana into a rune or whatnot, it traveled through the channels and did… something. The books said they created Intent that affected stuff, but that seemed a bit lacking. After all, what was Intent?

Powering up a rune was a two step process. First, I spent more time and effort carving out the channels. While I could probably make a rune using pure Intent, it was easier to just carve it into the stone. Secondly, I trickled a bit of mana in and slowly ramped up the pressure. My Intent when setting up the inverted force projection rune was a thin shell around the rune where motion stopped.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The rune lit up, slowing the air particles around it. As I channeled more power, the particles slowed, and slowed, and slowed. It took a surprisingly long time for them to come to a near stop. Even then they were still moving a bit but hey, what can you do?

Well that was surprisingly easy. Setting one of these up on a door would stop even a crazy ENAD from trying to break through, as the molecules that made up their attacks were stopped cold. It would take energy to keep the thing running, especially if an ENAD tried some funny business, but Zimy boy had one thing going for him: his mana corpse makes for a great battery

Which reminded me…

Leeko was on a roll; mob after mob dying to his sword. While they weren’t intelligent, I still felt a twinge at their deaths. Still, they were mobs; dying was pretty much their reason for existence. As long as they died a clean, respectable death that was fine by me.

Mostly.

Anyway, he seemed to have gotten his act together. Only time would tell if he collapse in a quivering heap when faced with actual battle. Which left me with a problem.

I have no crudding idea how to make a skeleton with this guy.

With the other Adventures, their elemental forms were basically expressions of their cultivation. If someone had an Earthen Soul Body Cultivation Technique or something, they were basically overlaying part of the matrix of an elemental over their natural matrix, gaining benefits from that. Every cultivator I’d seen specialized in an element, and elementals were just natural expressions of an element, so it made sense. Give their matrix the right ingredients and a hint of Intent and they’d adjust no problem.

All that to say, I couldn’t make a skeleton in the purest sense. However, a skeleton with streaks of emerald running through its bones might work. Maybe. It all depended on the guy’s cultivation. If it was super strict or something it would probably only manifest with a pure emerald elemental. Only one way to find out.

I constructed a simple skeleton with emerald threading through its bones, then overlaid a copy of Leeko’s cultivation over it. I wasn’t sure exactly how the process worked, but it had something to do with the nature of mana and all. Cue complaints about Sigmundr.

Leeko’s matrix brushed over the streaks of stone, hesitating. I held my breath at this momentous occasion, the sheer drama and suspense and-

“Oh get on with it!” Ryia shouted at the matrix, an inch away from the mana construct. I could have sworn the matrix flinched before reluctantly seeping into the emerald.

And just like that, I had my first self-created non-biological mob.

Sure, it looked like an extremely overpriced pile of rattling bones, but this was progress!

I could detail the next week spent refining the transfer technique, examining how the matrix interacted with the stone, and slowly parsing together a matrix patch that allowed Leeko’s mobs to move like a drunk human compared to a dying human, but that would be boring and time consuming. Suffice it to say that a week later, I had a way to make shambling skeletons.

I took a moment to stare at what I’d made. There were no ghostly lights floating within the skull, no aura of death and decay. In fact, the skeleton wasn’t really all that menacing. But still, it was a mob I’d created, and I was proud of it.

“Granite-”

“I KNOW! It needs work, just give me a sec to pat myself on the back would ya?”

“Ok ok.” A pause then, as if the words were dragged out of her: “Nice work.”

My worldview trembled as Ryia, for the first time in living memory, gave an unreserved compliment.

“When was the last time you got some sleep?”

“Don’t start.”

Leeko had spent the week improving his skills. When the cats were too easy for him, I advanced him to Panther Cats, then eventually KingCats. That bloodline was really something else, honing his form and mental state to the next level. The arrogant kid that had entered my dungeon was mostly gone, leaving an arrogant battle maniac in its place. You take what you get.

“Hi!” I cheerfully proclaimed.

Leeko paused, his sword hovering over a KingCat’s throat. The corpses of several other monarchs littered the ground, testament to the guy’s new skills.

“Dungeon.” The word was said with a complex swirl of emotions. Fear, obviously. It was stupid for a mob not to fear its Core. But the fear was constrained by self-control and offset by a touch of… respect? Wait, this guy respected me?

“Granite, stop laughing. This is important.” Ryia stated flatly.

“Yeah yeah. Leeko, it’s time we had a talk.”

“Indeed.”

Who actually says “Indeed” these days? Maybe that bloodline affected more than just sword skills. Something to look out for.

“I need you to be a dungeon mob. Well, actually I need you to be the base matrix for my entire floor, but that’s beside the point. I could just force you on pain of death and all, but threats usually don’t get the same results. So, what do I have to do to get you to channel your inner villain?”

The cultivator paused to carefully examine the question, silence dragging on for several minutes. I waited. After all, the wording of contracts and all were very important. No, I’m definitely not saying that out of personal experience.

“Freedom.” Leeko stated simply.

Crud.

“Hate to break it to you, but that’s a no-can-do. I’ve infused you, and letting you out of my dungeon would just lead to your slow and painful death.”

A flash of confusion flitted across Leeko’s face.

“Oh? I have never heard of such restrictions on other dungeons.”

“Hugh? Listen, I got that tidbit of info from an A ranker and if you think… wait...”

Could the Director have… nah, there’s no way Sigmundr would be so obvious… ok, he probably would be. But still, that’s a whole new level of making stuff up, and the explanations had sounded so plausible. Plus, when my dungeon had blown up, I’d felt myself lose connection to the stone shards blown off. My mana, even contained in a matrix, didn’t like to stray. If Leeko was telling the truth, and he was if memories were anything to go by, then I was missing something.

“Alright, here’s what I’ll do. If I find a way to get you out of here without you dissolving, I’ll do it. In exchange, any copies I take of you will operate as normal mobs.”

“And what of these… copies. Will they not be copies of myself as I am now? How will I know you have honored your bargain, and why would these copies resign themselves to eternal slaughter of Adventurers?”

That… was a pretty good point. From the matrix's perspective, they would just be killing Adventurers without end, with no knowledge of the “real” Leeko’s escapades outside.

I hesitated, trying to think up a reason that would drive even Leeko’s copies. What did Leeko want from life? Looking back on his memories he probably wanted to please his father and family or be respected and rich. But this Leeko was different; his bloodline had seen to that. So the better question was: What did his bloodline want?

What would the bloodline of a guy called the Emerald King want most? What would the descendant of a powerful cultivator possibly- oh.

“Any copies who advance in cultivation will be given power, and more chances to grow. Each of the copies will be able to ask one thing from me for their cultivation every… year. As long as it doesn't take away too much of my power, or harm those I care about, or majorly disrupt my dungeons operation, I’ll do it.”

After all, every cultivator wanted power. Leeko hesitated for a long moment, before finally nodding.

As I prepared to explain the new Underworld to the Adventurers, I couldn’t help but think that everything was going perfectly. I looked to the future, planning my next steps. After all, what could possibly go wrong? I realized that I’d just laid the mother of all jinxes on myself just as I wondered where Ryia was.