We had seen God in His splendors, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.

-Ernest Shackleton

The air pressed against me, cold and omnipresent. The ground beneath my hands was rough and its cold was equally startling after the more muted sensations that had become my world.

I could taste the air, the faint taste of stone mixed with saliva. It tasted amazing.

I looked up; my core hung in the air above me. Its light shed a wreathing halo of light and shadows fading into the dark. The room had other lights too, remnants from experiments, and from the power sources of my old prison and feeder. Each was an island of light in the pooling shadows. The room was darker than a human would usually prefer, and I could feel the shadows playing tricks on my eyes.

Was I back? Was I alive, like I used to be?

The core was still mine; I could sense it, and even as a shard ran this body the others resumed their duties in working on the dungeon at my direction.

I assumed that something as strange as this would be reflected in my notifications and was soon proved correct. The little icon was there flashing at me.

Your skill Soul Meditation II has increased to Soul Meditation III

You have gained a new skill:

Past Life Projection II

Error

.

.

.

Normal skill incompatible with species – skill will be adapted.

You are the first dungeon variant to achieve any degree of this skill.

Skill changed for new species, Skill is now:

Dungeon Soul Manifestation II (Soul)

You have tapped into a former body imprinted on your soul. Now you can manifest this form as a partial avatar of your soul. Fidelity and usefulness of the avatar will increase with ability. Go forward and see this new world as you once were.

(First) Your dungeon abilities are hybridized with your avatar

You have gained a new title:

One Small Step for a Man I

You are the first of your species to gain a particular skill. Use your unique knowledge and gifts to become what you desire.

+1000 Ability Points

+2% Additive bonus to all other learning bonuses from titles and skills

My first thought, somewhat bemused, was why English hadn’t given me that title. My second was a fervent wish that the descriptions of my skills were as detailed and helpful as my titles.

As my thoughts reengaged I realized that this was an indication that I not exactly alive again. I was, a… projection. Whether that meant an illusion, a temporary body, or something else I wasn’t sure.

Looked like it was time to run tests again.

I looked down at my naked flesh. Yep… clothes first. I was naked again and not particularly enjoying it.

Imagining myself in clothes caused exactly nothing to happen. The rules for my avatar were different in some way from the strange soul space I had found myself in before. A similar lack of results came from imagining food, books, a mirror, and anything else I could think of off the top of my head.

I created a bowl on the ground and raised it up on a pillar. The bowl was perfectly smooth and I filled it with samples of the food that I had copied from the adventurers. These abilities were as effortless as ever.

I reached down to pick up a piece of fruit and my hand passed right through it.

“Aw, not again.”

I scowled at the food.

Looked like I was some kind of illusion after all. Or maybe not an illusion exactly. I could taste the air, and my eye worked just as they had when I was human. I felt the rough texture of the stone and cold that seeped from it. If I could feel… why the hell couldn't I pick up some fruit?

I extended my hand toward the fruit again. This time I didn’t try to pick it up. I tried to touch the surface, and I could. The leathery textures of dried fruit and dried meat met my fingers. The faint stickiness of the natural sugars on the surface of the fruit and the salty grittiness on the seeds pressed into my skin.

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I tried to grab them in my hand and my hand passed through once again.

I stopped and felt all the various foodstuffs again. Each could be felt but not moved.

Was my status different in this form? Maybe there would be a clue there.

I called it up.

Status

Dungeon Name: None

Name 1: Caden

Name 2: Exsan

Species Type: Dungeon Core

Subspecies: Twin Souled

Level: 7

Crystal Integrity: 100% - Undamaged

Status Effects: Current synchronization: 1% (~350 days)

Available Mana – Caden: 799/800

Available Mana – Exsan: 798/800

Passive Mana Generation: 169/Day

Survival Points: 200

Next level: Costs 1000 Mana + 300 Survival Points

Subsections Available: 2

Ability Points: 3867

Skills:

Directed Mana Absorption II,

Limited Omniscience (Dungeon)

Soul Mana II (Mana)(Soul)

Dungeon Aura Expansion II

Manipulate Earth II (Earth)

Learning III

Enhanced Aura Perception II

Ambient Mana Manipulation II (Mana)

Soul Meditation III (Soul)

Interdimensional Repository II

Aura Mobility II

Destructive Assimilation III

Matter Fabrication II

Found Dungeon

Pain Resistance II

Vital Comprehension III (Life)

Mana Construct Intuition II (Mana)

Mana Lexicon II (Language)

English IX (Language)

Living Creation II (Life)

Mana Diffusion II (Mana)

Dungeon Control Menu

Appraise II

Manipulate Metal II (Metal)

Dungeon Law II

Dungeon Soul Manifestation II (Soul)

Titles: (Shared)

First of its Kind

Skill Evolution

Mana Specialist II

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

Dungeon Progression I

Innovator III (Dungeon)

Swift Descent

Soul Bond (Master)

Additive Pact I

Soul Adept I

One Small Step for a Man I

Titles: (Caden)

Reborn Soul

Titles: (Exsan)

Immortal Soul

Wow, that was quite a lot of information. Nothing new for this form though. I was still just considered to be myself, I supposed.

Frustrated, I kicked the pillar and watched as it leaned to the side sending the bowl clattering to the ground and sent various food tumbling away.

Wait, what?

I looked at the pillar where the stone had tilted.

Huh,

Maybe if I tried to move the bowl?

I took a few steps to it and put my hands under it on each side. I lifted and the bowl lifted into the air. Beneath the bowl a narrow column of stone connected it to the ground.

I tried touching the fruit again but nothing happened.

Hmm…

I knelt on the floor and then rested my hands flat on the surface. I pushed down trying to move the stone and the stone sank creating hand prints.

I pushed on the floor again, not trying to move it, and my hands pressed against the surface. Then I tried to move through the stone and passed straight through the stone without resistance. The stone remained, untouched and unmoved.

I quickly tested it with other materials, but only things made of stone, sand, dirt, or metal, could be manipulated. Looked like it was related to my manipulation skills.

I could create living matter easily, but actually shaping it was beyond me for now.

I briefly imagined a piece of fruit rising to my lips on a pillar of pulsating living flesh… Yeah, no. Not going there. Ugh.

Let’s save the eldritch abominations for if I really need to scare someone away from my core or something.

My senses were a little different in this form, but my abilities otherwise were the same as what I could do as a dungeon. There was still hope though. The skill description said that the utility of this form would increase with the skill’s level. And having a form that could focus on the human perspective was useful. Not to mention I was sure that I would find it psychologically stabilizing.

Actually, I could put this form to use right now.

And even more important… did I have to walk everywhere, and how could I get some freaking clothes?

Solving transportation turned out to be easy. I imagined where I wanted to be and I was there. Anywhere in my aura at least. I couldn’t leave my aura. I found this utterly unsurprising, if mildly disappointing.

The problem of clothes proved to be intractable. I could create clothes, but since they passed right through me they were entirely worthless.

It was still night time and my guests continued to sleep, so I started to work.

I teleported to the entrance tunnel and was immediately glad, for the first time, that I was an illusion. Snow had settled into the entrance and it was bitterly cold. Despite the sensation of chill, I wasn’t actually cold; I could simply feel it. I could barely see through the blizzard raging outside my entrance. My first real view of the outside world since I founded a dungeon proved to be sadly uninspiring due to the blinding snow.

I absorbed the snow, clearing my entrance way back out. I added more lights, and kept absorbing any snow that got too close.

Finally I could see the stonework that framed the entrance.

I actually looked pretty good, though the columns on each side were bugging me for some reason and I wasn’t sure why. I messed around with them for a minute until I realized that I needed to make the columns narrow a little towards the top. Then they looked right.

I looked out into the snow.

I put two extremely bright lamps to each side of the entrance. They were inside of my designated dungeon space, so it shouldn’t be possible to steal them. I looked at it and then added another even brighter light right at the top of the embossed stonework.

Once people had a proper path here I could revisit whether I needed to change the design, but for now I wanted people to be able to find me.

I walked up the tunnel and fixed some minor spacing on the lights as well as correcting a little bit of the upper Celtic knot-work by making it larger. That way it still appeared to be in proper perspective from the ground. I even checked on the bathrooms. Since the entire tunnel was made of a repeating pattern I was able to mirror the changes through the entire tunnel and just skipped to the opposite end.

The Starlight Grotto… took my breath away. It was everything I had been trying to make. It was ethereal, beautiful, and dark. I did make a few tweaks to the lighting and the statues. It turned out my core could actually see better in the dark than my human form. Underground was a dungeon’s natural environment, so that made sense.

Most of the statues were fine as they were, but a few minor corrections were needed to make sure the proportions were once again good for viewing from below. I was actually distorting things from a perfectly realistic model, but they looked better this way.

After that I went through the three major areas of the dungeon I had already finished. My three ‘floors’ I supposed, and took a look at my fourth section that was still under construction. Quite a few changes were made there, and by the time I was finished morning was beginning to show.

Curious, I appeared in one of the top sections of my aura that was outside. I was hip deep in the stone and surrounded by snow. I cleared away the snow in a wide area, repeating what I had done in the past, though now I could actually see what was outside my aura.

It was still a snow storm, but lighter where I was at.

Even with the storm the air was getting lighter, though there was an immense outline of a shadow above me. What the hell was that? A really dense cloud maybe…?

Regardless, there was not much to see up there until the storm had passed.

By the time I was done the adventurers were starting to stir.

I wonder if they could see me?