“No man has enough time to level all his skills. Few men have enough talent to maximize their use of even a single skill. Be diligent and prudent both. Let your natural talents direct you to greater heights.”

- “An Uncommon Guide for Growing Strong”

Besides evolving everything I possibly could, and recording all of human knowledge, or at least the tiny parts that I remembered, I had still had to make the dungeon functional. And that had involved making a fairly massive purchase to make my dungeon as nonlethal as possible. The original cost was 3500 AP. Learning had reduced the cost down to 3150 when I bought it, but it still reduced my total AP down to 2667, cutting it by more than half. I had also been rather annoyed when learning leveled right afterwards. I knew it had likely leveled as a direct consequence of the purchase, but I still wished it had done so before so I could get the extra discount.

Regardless, I had the new skill that I needed.

Dungeon Law II

Create dungeon laws that will act automatically, replicating anything that you could do on your own under triggered conditions. The complexity, number, and capacity of the laws increases with skill level.

I had been able to use the skill to do what I wanted, but I was fairly certain I was only able to get away with the complexity of my command because I was able to spell out exactly what I wanted it to do. It was complex, but I wrote it all down first and then commanded it to act out what was on the slab. Not sure if that was a work around, or only worked because I could easily explain what I wanted. My second law was more ambiguous and made use of my intent more. The second law told the dungeon how to handle anyone trying to enter where my core, and its various decoys, were located. Part of that had been exempting them from the first law. The gist of the law was kill them, though it was a bit more detailed since it involved making use of tactics and traps.

I tried to make a new law after that, just as a test, but I could feel that it was not going to work. I was not sure if I would get more than the ability to create one law per skill level eventually or not. Hopefully, I would. I had some incredible plans for them. Sadly the two laws I had already made were my number one priority.

With that set up I had been able to work on making the dungeon the way I wanted. It started with a beginner area. It was large, easy to navigate, had only a few obvious and non-damaging traps, and had nothing above level one living there.

Appraise was enough to let me know the levels of the various monsters I was working with, but they also showed up and sorted themselves in my dungeon menu. Honestly, more than anywhere else, I could tell that the system was reading my mind when I was working with the dungeon menu. If what I needed was available it would pop up for me to use. I might still need to put in the exact parameters for solving puzzles, how creatures should behave, and so on, but the right option showed up at need. If only the ability purchase menu was so obliging.

One of the things I was worried about, however, was space. I had checked everywhere and there seemed to be nothing much I could do about that. The amount of area I controlled was fairly massive. Many cubic miles of space in total. However, that space already had other things in it. There were massive ecosystems already in place among all the caves. The growing areas and the Starlight Grotto were actually pretty small when looking at the total space I was working with. The largest thing I had made previously was actually all the precautions to protect my core.

The new areas I was adding to the dungeon were large though. I didn’t want to just create the equivalent of hallways and rooms with some monsters in it. I wanted ecosystems. If I added rooms and hallways, I wanted them to be buildings or ruins in a larger setting. Even a small ecosystem that is large enough to have adventurers running around in it was fairly large. Especially since I wanted my beginner areas to be really easy to navigate. That meant I either created boring buildings or large open spaces. Even a small natural space like a meadow was large, especially when considering the amount of clearance overhead needed to make it feel open and spacious rather than cramped.

To my annoyance, I knew that at least some of this problem was going to sort itself out. If our new guests had just shown up a few weeks later I would have a lot more space. I was gaining about 1400 feet of radius in a week now. I was about two miles across now. That meant I had an amazing thirty three miles of cubic volume to work with. Sadly, as I was moving things and clearing out stone it was starting to get cramped. If I had another month this would be much easier. I would have something like four times as much space to work with. Hell, if I just had another week I would have about one and half times as much space to work with. I would always be gaining an exponentially larger amount of space to work with each week as long as I kept expanding.

I didn’t know what my maximum size was though. And I didn’t really wish that my new guests had taken longer to get here. They were the most interesting thing that I had encountered so far. And I would have started to go mad with boredom if I didn’t have other people to interact with. I just wished I didn’t feel like I was compressing more and more things into a limited space; mainly, because I was.

Regardless, the tests should slow them down at least a little and I had enough to start with. I would rather do a dungeon that was built my way, and progressed properly for beginners, than rush into creating something more dangerous but sloppy. If my designs worked out properly my dungeon would ultimately be able to work for people at any level of skill. I had no idea how common that was, but I was hoping it was rare.

Apart from the dungeon, I had been working on many other things as well. I had been using at least one shard to work out something that interested me at all times. It was a good way to stave off boredom.

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So far, I had tried to cast spells. It was both something that interested me, and something that I knew would prove immensely useful so multiple shards had been dedicated to experimenting with it at various times.

And so far I had essentially no luck. There was something different about the mana used in spells. It was like spells were made of glass, compared to the loose sand of ambient mana. I had tried forcing lots of mana together in a small area, but it had never combined properly into a single whole. I had tried using my will to force it to work, but nothing had happened. Spinning it, ramming particles together, and all my other methods had failed.

I had tried to use mana crystals, aka light crystals, to store mana in the specific patterns that were used for the spells, but while I could create the right shapes, the mana remained loose.

I had more success working on the mana crystals themselves. Compressing mana crystals in the same way I worked with other kinds of stone would let me store more mana in them and make a brighter light… up to a point. Past that point the material would get tougher, but it would store less and less mana the further it was compressed after that. I had a general sense of how mana crystals worked due to feeling its pattern, but I couldn’t actually see what was making the change. Hopefully, I would get the tools I needed to see that kind of microscopic change eventually.

My attempts to store mana in other materials was a total failure, with only one exception. I had tried to use the pattern for mana crystal to store mana in other materials. Metals, stone, wood, other types of crystals, it didn’t matter, storing mana did nothing. It would enter and then escape into the environment as ambient mana.

The only exception was the silvery metal that Tam had used for his emblems. Appraise had identified it as folerth, also commonly known as sorcerer’s silver. And, while appraise did not give me an actual sense of item’s value yet, it did tell me how valuable an item was in comparison to other materials I possessed. Folerth was currently the single most valuable material that I could create. I wish I knew what it was really worth. Regardless, I had other things to work on.

One of the few things I really missed from Earth was music. I couldn’t really do a ton of things with conventional instruments, but I could do a few cool things. I made various chimes of metal or crystal. Little tiny ones with incredibly high notes, and massive deep ones that rumbled. Once I made those I realized I could create bells, and that had created a massive side project.

I definitely didn’t have perfect pitch on Earth, but I had played various instruments as a kid and while I was in school. I would not say I was particularly talented, but I had developed a true appreciation for it. I loved the way that music could make me feel. The almost electrical feeling when it touched something deep inside and I could feel it moving up my spine and making my whole body tingle. There was a word for that sensation, which I had looked up before. It was called frisson. I had been surprised to learn that not everyone could feel it.

I was pretty sure I had perfect pitch now, or some equivalent. It had to be a function of my new form. As I made the bells I was able to alter them and tune them by altering their shape. My memory definitely wasn’t perfect, but when I remembered a song I could use the notes to make a bell that played the same one. I could play some songs on the bells now. Carol of the bells was definitely an appropriate song to play, too. I could create automatic songs by spinning a cylinder of metal with various extensions that would hit the bells as they passed by. My collection was growing, but I could play a song off the top of my head much faster than I could create a ‘record.’

I made some large hollow tubes that would play notes when wind blew over them. They were haunting, but didn’t quite sound like an organ which was my original intent. I was sure I could find a use for them. I had better luck with dropping water onto metal pipes. I wished I could devote a lot more time to music, but I had forced myself to do more with that later. I had far too much to do right now.

I hadn’t found anything naturally magnetic yet. I knew that lodestone was some kind of naturally magnetized iron ore, but my investigations into all the iron ore I had found didn’t reveal any. I had been able to rub silk together to generate static electricity, but I couldn't sense anything special. I just saw the little sparks when they occurred. Trying to absorb them hadn’t done anything.

I had made a glass rod from volcanic glass. I rubbed it with silk like I had been shown in physics. This changed the charge of the glass. It would attract pieces of cloth, dust, and other random objects. I absorbed it, and honestly it didn’t feel any different than before, though recreating it caused it to act like it was still charged. At least I knew that my patterns could recreate electrical charge. I had far better ways to manipulate most things though.

I knew batteries involved moving around electrical charges, but I wasn’t entirely sure how that actually worked. So, for now, electricity had been shelved. I would come back to it when I had some way to work with it.

I had also tried to practice chemistry. I had what I thought was sulfuric acid from my geothermal areas. That was a fairly strong acid so I had just dried dissolving various materials in it. Copper, marble, and other materials all reacted, but I couldn’t really say that I knew what was happening. I had added pure calcium to water too. I enjoyed the fire from that, but I didn’t learn any skills. I absorbed everything and figured I would look more into it later.

I had made more traps, of various types. I used pressurized water to cut, and that had been fun. I used it to cut all kinds of materials as a test. Wood, stone, etc… It worked pretty well. I made some of my air guns shoot out solid sodium too. That should have some nasty explosive effects if it lodged inside someone.

I had thought about lasers, and I had moved some light around with crystals. While I could concentrate light with lenses, I had no idea how to make a laser with that. I knew that a laser was coherent light, but I would need to figure out a way to actually make that. I honestly didn’t think I was going to be able to do anything more than move light around. That could still be a weapon, but I wasn’t expecting to cut through materials with it.

My experiments using my aura as a form of telekinesis had so far proven fruitless. I had the feeling that it was doing something, but I might just not have enough control yet. I had been practicing with various materials and when I had practiced with dust I had actually been able to make it more resistant to moving in response to wind. It had quickly been disconnected from my aura when it eventually did move, but that was at least a sign of progress.

I had taken the time to try crafting things manually too. The less said about my attempts at sculpture the better. Sewing was actually pretty easy though. I had fine control and I could literally form a needle around a piece of thread. With some hands of stone I could connect pieces of cloth together. I quickly got bored though. I tried other things, too. Drawing with chalk mixed with various colors was easy to do, though like my sculpture, the products of my efforts were best left unmentioned. I had tried to make charcoal from wood, with moderate success, and I used that to melt some metal.

Not iron, I didn’t have a way to make a fire hot enough for that. However, copper melted pretty easily and I was able to manually pour it into some casts. I kind of liked the rough-hewn look it took on when I did that. I might use this method when I was deliberately making building environments that were meant to be rough. I also just got copper hot and hammered the crap out of it. Honestly, I could hammer it just fine when it wasn’t hot too. I suspected that might just be a result of my ability to apply a large amount of pressure and never get tired.

I used my ‘skill’ to hammer out some crappy copper blades and then went to work on some bronze with much the same result.

I didn’t get any crafting skills, but I wasn’t certain if that was simply a matter of more time, or I just didn’t qualify for certain types of skills. Whatever the case may be, I did at least gain some increased temperature options for my environmental controls. I could make some incredibly hot areas now, and I added some new environments by adding both heat, and also adding various metal ores to all my old ones.