“Rule # 1 - The dungeon is trying to kill you, don't die. Dead adventurers don't spend gold.”

* 50 Rules For Dungeon Divers

For a moment I was struck dumb with surprise and too shocked to even begin to think of a proper reply. After a moment I pulled myself out of it.

Exsan?

No. I Exsan. Who you?

No, I meant… never-mind. I am Caden.

Caden. Core Exsan Caden. Core mine. Caden mine.

I took a moment to think. I could see myself as belonging to Exsan if I looked at it from a certain angle. We were both part of the same core. And by that logic, Exsan belonged to me. We belonged to each other, each of our actions having an impact on the other. I had been in the driver’s seat before, with Exsan being the mostly ignored backseat driver. Now… we had to act as partners.

Yes. We can look at it that way. We are both two parts of a whole. How did you learn to start speaking, thinking?

All broken. Shattered. World dim. Put together. Is better. Felt Caden. New. New thoughts. Lost in them. Saw you. Felt you. You learned. Language. Took knowledge. Took English. Tried understand. New language. Thoughts, words. Speak.

English? Honestly I hadn’t thought about it, but I was always speaking English in my head. This was the first time…

A Hidden Skill has been Revealed!

English IX (Language)

The language you brought with you from another world. A language of artistry, poetry, and insanely long novels. Too bad you don't remember most of them. No you won't get any rewards for being the best English speaker on the planet.

Right… That wasn’t odd at all… Both Exsan and the snarky language.

Sadly it was probably easier to understand the snark. The system had told me that it had customized the interface. Apparently my own sarcasm was being reflected back at me. The customization of the system probably also explained why I was getting the skill now. I had thought about English and then it showed up.

As for Exsan... apparently he had been changed a great deal by whatever process had repaired us. Not sure I was happy that Exsan was getting knowledge from me, but whatever. Hopefully he was just getting it because it counted as a skill and he wasn’t going be able to just riffle through my thoughts at will.

The next question was, what now? I was about to ask when I noticed that Exsan was doing something else. Exsan had started to extend aura out in the shape of two cylinders. He was hollowing the stone out of them as he went along. The two tunnels sloped gently downward and were going in almost totally opposite directions.

Exsan, why are you making those tunnels?

They come. Prepare. Make path.

So informative.

Who is coming?

They heard song. Lure. Prey comes.

What song? What is the prey?

Would creatures be lured into the dungeon? Was that how dungeons grew? I wondered if we would be eating the creatures, making them into part of the dungeon, or both. This could actually be interesting to see, a natural life cycle that helped a dungeon to grow.

Dungeon sings. Prey. Prey is prey. Caden know. Stone. Prey by core.

I took a moment and tried to figure out what he meant. I could feel the constant flow of mana back and forth across my aura, rippling back and forth across the dungeon. Was that the song?

As for prey… I looked around the core room and quickly saw the statues of Tam.

Oh. Prey. Right.

Suddenly I could see myself as a red crystal shark talking to Exsan as a black crystal shark. “Humans are friends, not food.” That just wasn’t going to work.

Why do we even need humans, uh, prey? We already get plenty of mana.

Not enough. Grow good now. Eat mana. Only mana stop. Not grow.

I would need to take his word for it. For whatever reason, mana would not be enough to keep growing. I wasn’t sure exactly what else we would need though. And why would anyone come to the dungeon if it ate them? Well, there was a simple enough answer to that. People would come to the dungeon for loot.

You don’t eat all of the people right?

No. Let escape. Offer bait. Bait bring more. More come. Test. Some die. Some escape. Grow.

I didn’t particularly want to kill anyone, but I knew that this could be the literal purpose of the dungeon. People were going to come here seeking treasure and expect the dungeon to do its best to kill them. Actually… how was Exsan planning on killing them? We had no monsters and Exsan honestly didn’t seem bright enough to make decent traps yet.

How are you going to offer bait? How are you going to… test them?

Possess bait. Good bait. Grow strong. Test with monsters. Strong survive. Weak eaten.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

What monsters? Where will they come from?

This was the most frustrating game of twenty questions ever. I knew Exsan was probably trying to answer as best he could, but that didn’t help much.

Okay. To be fair, for speaking English for only a tiny bit of time he was actually doing amazingly well. However, it was obvious that he and I were using very different viewpoints. I wonder if Exsan found my lack of understanding equally frustrating.

Exsan was looking at the world and taking parts of the universe as simply given. Unfortunately I had no idea what they were. Not entirely true. I knew human nature enough to guess that the bait he was referring to was the gold, silver, etc… which I had absorbed before in the sewers.

Monsters here. Dungeon make monsters.

What was I supposed to make of that? Perhaps the dungeon simply created monsters automatically when people entered. Honestly that would be no stranger than any of my other abilities. I scanned through the dungeon again, just in case.

The usual life filled it, and there were no signs of monsters yet.

What was the point of buying the various creatures, plants, and so on in the AP store then? Hmm… well I suppose they could simply create a larger variety of monsters, or make stronger ones. Maybe each dungeon had a normal type of monster that they produced. Of course I hadn’t seen anything in my status like a monster type. Eh… this was all just guesswork anyway. Hopefully Exsan would pick up more English fast enough that I wouldn’t need to have too many conversations with a caveman. “Igg talk good. Igg bash with rock.”

I went silent for several minutes as I thought, but Exsan didn’t interrupt. For the moment that was probably for the best. At least I had some crucial information. Humans were going to be coming for the dungeon. I wasn’t sure about the signal that was drawing them. However, there would also be monsters in the dungeon. I wasn’t sure about that either, but Exsan had the dungeon instincts, not me.

Of course, Exsan wanted to kill some of the people coming. That was not too much of a surprise. It fit right in with the instincts I had felt from him before. Honestly I should probably glad that he wanted to farm people and wasn’t an omnicidal maniac. Nope, just a homicidal one. He saw the approaching people as food and bait to acquire more food.

I was not entirely sure what to do about this. Until Exsan had a better grasp of English we weren’t likely to have any good conversations either. Exsan seemed content with things as they were. He viewed me and him as belonging to each other and that was enough for him.

Honestly I could remember how possessive those instincts had been. How all the space around me had belonged to me and only me. How they wanted me to never let it go.

And now I needed to prepare for visitors. I was getting them far sooner than I thought I would. So for now I continued extending my aura to various places and gradually expanding the dungeon. The most I could do at the moment was prepare by opening up space.

Exsan’s tunnels started from the single point where they met. From there I started to create a large room, so the tunnels would actually enter the room from a decent distance apart.

This would be the main area… probably. Honestly I wasn’t sure what else Exsan might do with the tunnels. Hopefully, this would be the main area that people entered, and I wanted it to impress. I wanted people to believe that this dungeon was special. The more unique the dungeon was, the less risk people would want to destroy it. Unless there were special rewards for destroying special dungeons… damn, I really wished I knew more. I damned my paranoid brain for overthinking everything and making this harder than it needed to be.

I didn’t know how common dungeons were and how people would treat a new one. I was hoping for a symbiotic relationship, but I was going to be practical and prepare for the worst anyway.

I considered trying to stop Exsan and get more time, but I didn’t know what that might do. I might be able to cause a stalemate with him, but he might also get very angry. And I had no way to really communicate why I was doing what I was doing. Not yet. I was literally attached to him, so it would be a bad idea to make him my enemy. I needed to bide my time until I had more information. I could confront Exsan later.

The amount of mana that Exsan and I were using was just below the natural rate at which we were recharging. However, as the hours passed our combined mana kept increasing as the feeder slowly chugged away. The moment our combined total hit sixty I got a prompt.

Exsan is attempting to level up.

Total mana required: 60

Current mana totals:

Caden: 33

Exsan: 27

Would you like to level up?

Yes No

I was glad to see that leveling up was still possible and that it would combine different amounts of mana to meet the total with no problems. I briefly reviewed the message and willed yes. The notification light blinked into life and I opened it.

Your status has changed – Level Up

Status

Dungeon Name: None

Name 1: Caden

Name 2: Exsan

Species Type: Dungeon Core

Subspecies: Twin Souled

Level: 4

Crystal Integrity: 100% - Undamaged

Status Effects: Current synchronization: 1% (>400 days)

Available Mana - Caden: 0/100

Available Mana - Exsan: 0/100

Passive Mana Generation: 84/Day

Next level: Costs 120 Mana

Subsections Available: 2 (increased by +1)

Ability Points: 2502 (increased by +440)

Skills: Directed Mana Absorption II,

Limited Omniscience (Dungeon)

Soul Mana II

Dungeon Aura Expansion II

Manipulate Earth II (Earth)

Learning II

Enhanced Aura Perception II

Ambient Mana Manipulation II

Soul Meditation II

Interdimensional Repository II

Aura Mobility II

Destructive Assimilation II

Matter Fabrication II

Found Dungeon

Pain Resistance II

Vital Comprehension II (Life)

Mana Construct Intuition II

Mana Lexicon II (Language)

English IX (Language)

Living Creation II (Life) (New)

Titles: (Shared)

First of its Kind

Skill Evolution

Mana Specialist I

Escape Artist IV (Deception)

Dungeon Martyr III (First)

Touch of the Grave I

Dread Salvation I

Seen the Infinite Void

Investment Specialist

Back from the Brink I

Titles: (Caden)

Reborn Soul

Titles: (Exsan)

Immortal Soul

Living Creation II (Life)

Matter Fabrication will now take far less time and mana to create living organisms and tissue

Honestly, despite this being my second skill with life affinity, I wasn’t exactly certain what qualified as life magic. Obviously there were certain skills that used it, probably spells too. Or maybe it only counted when I broke down or created living material? I doubted that though, there had been mentions of death and soul magic as types too. It would just have to be added to my ever growing list of things to learn about later.

I had made some decent progress on clearing out and reinforcing a large area. I wasn’t sure how the decorations would turn out, but having the option to use living materials without bankrupting my mana added an entirely new dimension to consider.

Part of my problem was that I simply had no idea how many people to expect. I had no frame of reference for this. And I suspected that Exsan would simply say something like “few prey, then many prey.” Should I be expecting a few people each day or hundreds? I had no real idea how far away I was from civilization, or how dense it was. I could be a mile from a city and I would have no idea. Exsan had detected people responding from two different directions, but I had no idea how far that sense extended.

At least I should be able to gain some perspective soon. Knowledge was key, and there was a reason I wanted to get to the surface. The stone was growing colder where my aura continued to reach up through it.

Not long after leveling up I reached the surface.

More accurately I reached the end of the rock and dirt. Calling it the surface was a bit of a stretch, since my aura was still buried in the snow. I knew how far my aura would extend past the rock now, too. A whole three feet, which was definitely less than I was hoping.

I stored away the ice and compacted snow. More fell in and I stored that away too. Eventually no more snow fell into my aura, but I couldn’t sense any light or air moving. I probably just cleared away a little snow cave leaving a pocket of air buried beneath more snow.

Well then, looks like I need to be more proactive.

I made a drill tip and gradually widened it from below until it was five feet wide. The top was out of my aura by now. I twisted the drill and extruded more from the bottom until I stopped feeling resistance. I tried extending my aura up the drill, but nothing happening. Apparently, for whatever esoteric rules governed me, it still counted as being the surface.

Since I couldn’t extend my aura up it I simply reabsorbed the drill until it was gone. More snow promptly fell into my aura as I removed it. Honestly, I wasn’t surprised. With a sigh I absorbed the snow until no more fell in. Now I could feel air moving, and sense a dim light.

Now that I knew I could eventually get more information I sent out my aura along the surface in every direction. I absorbed the snow in my aura and more fell in repeatedly, but soon an enormous amount of snow was cleared away. I should be able to see now. As soon as my aura there converted to dungeon I was going to find out where I was.

Unfortunately, the wait would probably be awhile.