Ashi and Trella accompanied Kaden down to Echo Lake and into his dungeon. It should have taken months—or years—to increase to rank five. Instead, the dungeon was bursting at the seams with directed Mana, and Kaden knew exactly why.

King Chemaniz and his family had once rented out BirchHome, and his youngest son, Etrimalu, hadn’t been able to take part in the Fangwood dungons. And yet, the Dungeon Core clearly remember the boy entering. Blasting Thorn Monkeys. Moving out to wolves. Running in fear from the Bearzerker, and finally, developing a pattern that let him demolish most of the dungeon.

The things that boy had done to Kaden’s dungeon monsters would fill a book of horrors.

And he’d done it over and over, experimenting with his spells like a young boy with a new toy. How much had the King paid for the Adventurer’s Guild to allow him exclusive access? How mana potions had it taken for Etrimalu to destroy the monsters?

“It is not right,” Ashi said. “Perhaps with the increase in rank, you should make your dungeon more dangerous. Second tier Adventurers must be challenged.”

Exactly. Kaden selected the option to increase his dungeon rank.

Dungeon Rank increased.

New level cap: 25

Bond Level: 4

New capabilites: Generate Enchanted Loot (Grade - Rare), Dungeon Connection

Your Core requires Directed Mana x400,000

4000x Adventurer Party

20x [Matched Entity Seeds]

10x [Matched Loot Seeds]

1x Secondary Entrance (acquired)

1x Unique Boss Monster

[Generate Enchanted Loot]

At the cost of directed mana, you may cause your dungeon to create enchanted loot. The quality of this loot will increase with each level. This loot is persistent and may take any form your dungeon has acquired.

[Dungeon Connection]

Even when you are not present, your connection to your dungeon core remains accurate. You may review and make changes from a distance. The nature of these changes will grow as your bond does.

All the accumulated directed Mana drained away. The pressure in the dungeon receeded, but this time, the dungeon didn’t grow larger in diameter. Kaden’s sense of the space available expanded, both upward and downward.

The ground shook under him, and Trella gripped Kaden’s hand. “What’s happening?”

“The Core, it moves of its own accord,” Ashi said. “I did not think this would happen, but perhaps your Guardian title works on Dungeon Cores.”

The ground of the dungeon rippled. The trees at the antechamber both grew and shrank, as brush thickened and the trees changed shape. The sound of rushing water betrayed a stream that ran towards the woods section.

Kaden let it all change even as the changes rippled out further and further. Beasts cried out across the dungeon, and wood cracked and exploded. When the din settled, Kaden adventured out. The thorn monkeys were gone, but the familiar mound of a Formicidean colony rose.

Trella drew a map from Inventory. “I want the Quest for this. Leave it hostile, I can survive and scout.”

She collapsed into a shadow on the ground and raced off into the dungeon.

“I never expected this,” Kaden said. A new emotion poured over the bond he had with the Dungeon Core. Anticipation. “It can’t wait for the first adventurers.”

“But what has it done? You must guide it.” Ashi paced as she waited for Trella.

Thirty minutes later, three shadows rushed together and rose up, forming the shape of the woman who Kaden loved. “It’s huge. And broken, you have to fix some of this. There are no wolves on patrol, only [Bearserkers].”

Ashi and Kaden headed out and right, ignoring the way tall grass moved and growls from beyond the treeline promised threats. The spiderweb of paths Kaden had made in imitation of Fangwood had remained, except now they narrowed and grew larger and varied like natural paths. The [Bearserkers] struggled just to fit through the path. Its thick brown fur tangled in the branches, and the monster growled with sheer frustration.

Kaden pushed his will, forcing it to despawn, and then replacing it with a wolf.

A moment later, the wolf shriveled out of existence, and a giant land-crab replaced it.

“Like a child, petulant and stubborn,” said Ashi. “There are no land-crabs in forests. Make sense, dungeon!”

Room by room, with Trella at his side, they surveyed the new dungone. Now, the hills of his vineyard were rolling and uneven, less constructed and more natural. Now the farmhouse had worn wood and missing shingles, and broken glass in a window.

The well’s bucket lay broken to the side.

“There’s an entire layer down there, it’s a demonic cult with cultitsts and a minotaur as the miniboss,” Trella said. “The loot’s terrible. It’s a few spellbooks and a wand.”

Ashi hopped on the edge of the well and hovered down. “I will adjust.”

Kaden explored the farmhouse. “The basement has a broken wall that leads into the viper’s nest, and now there’s a maze. It’s a small maze and there’s only two wrong-turns and an ambush, but I like it. I spawned a few scorpions throughout.”

Trella studied her map. “Where’s the core? I’m at ninety-nine percent and didn’t find it. The Tri-Terror is still the boss, but you have to choose, you can run the gauntlet straight toward it, or branch left or right and face a sub-boss. And it’s not an [Emerald Hydra] anymore, they’re all TriTerrors.”

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With Trella at his side, Kaden headed down through a bog, under a set of bog-spider traps and down the set of cut-backs which lead to the TriTerror. She—no, now the TriTerror was a he, stood a good three feet taller than Trinity. His tail ended in a cluster of spears, each jagged and brittle, and his middle head had plates down the center of the spine.

“Show me,” Kaden said, sending out his will.

The ground under the TriTerror shuddered and rose, six pillars supporting a hidden room where the core floated above a pedastal. The gem had been aquamarine in color ever since Kaden saved it with his own mana. Now the edges looked razor sharp, the gem didn’t just contain aqua mana, but was a window into a realm of pure mana. And hanging from the ceiling above the orb, a smoking black spider waited. It drooled a drop of fire that made Burney blaze.

“Hello,” Kaden said. “Remember me?”

The core didn’t answer, it just flooded him with feelings of hapiness. Maybe they weren’t truly intelligent, or maybe this one was just too young.

Trella stayed hidden behind Kaden. “That was the missing part of the map. Is it going to zap me?”

“No.” Kaden reviewed the Core’s observation of Trella. “It’s disappointed you didn’t engage with any of the monsters, and at the same time, grateful you didn’t wipe them all out.”

Kaden considered his new ability. “I can create enchanted loot. Like your blackout necklace, anything it has a pattern for, I can create. It costs Directed Mana, but if you need it, I can make it.”

“Doesn’t the dungeon need that mana?” Trella asked. “And how are we going to get you through the first parties?”

The core pulsed with bright light, shining a beam across the boss room, where Ashi came striding. “If the core is awake, Kaden will only feel the overflow of emotions. And there will be an overflow. Greetings, Core. I am Asha Vanter Opton Rahm. You have the blessing of the Rahm Dynasty. Grow strong. You must be mighty, so those who face you are also mighty.”

The core again pulsed brightly.

The feeling Kaden got from it was like it didn’t have the slightest idea what she’d just said, but it did like the mana that radiated off Ashi. It really wanted to see her radiate more, maybe by eradicating a wolf or three, or maybe by dying. Yes, dying would be perfectly acceptable, and then it would swallow her corpse and absorb it.

Kaden shook his head, clearing away the feelings. “We should probably give it some time alone. Is it going to respawn the Bearserkers?”

“It is rank five, and your bond increased,” Ashi said. “Select the core and choose ‘Lock Layout.’ This will give it time to adapt.”

Kaden did, ignoring the flood of disappointment. “All right. Grow, core. I’ll find you a unique boss. I’m not certain how to modify them, but I will find out.”

Your skill with Beast Command has increased x2 (The Zoo Dungeon Core).

Build your bonds to progress.

Now that was something that left Kaden surprised. He wasn’t certain the bond with the core even counted. At tier two, every skill increase was significant. Now he understood the limits better, the way intent mattered in the command. “Let’s get out of here. Before we head north, I have to go see a man about a monster.”

Together they left the dungeon.

Trella was deeply pleased. “I got the map. Quest Master granted me two more, so I need to turn this in to the Adventurer’s Guild.”

“I will go with Kaden. Soon, Adventurers will come. This time will be different,” Ashi said.

Trella [Shadow Stepped] to the FarPortal, while Ashi stayed by his side.

“Who is this man?” Ashi asked.

“Professor Treadle. I need a [Vivomancer] to alter the Destruction Wyvern so its power can be turned off. Ideally so its power doesn’t directly affect it.” That would be the key. It was the right thing to do. “I don’t like him, but he’s the most talented in all six colleges.”

“His recklessness nearly unleashed another [Slaver] on the world. Have you forgotten the price Trella paid?” Ashi’s tone held an underlying bitterness.

“I haven’t forgotten.” And he wouldn’t. But Kaden needed someone to modify the Destruction Wyvern so it could survive, and all four of the [Vivomancers] he’d reached out to claimed it was impossible.

At the FarPortal, Kaden hesitated.

His education as a young boy had been basic, reading, writing and the simplest math. In the Saint’s Hall, a strong back was more valued—and fed—than a strong mind. To go to Plexis, home of the [Vivomancer] colleges was to step into a world where Kaden felt he didn’t belong. Beasts needed someone to feel their needs, not analyze them.

Usually.

He dispatched the [Falcrow] anyway.

The FarPortal blazed to life, and Kaden stepped through, emerging into a drizzly gray day in a circle of towering stone buildings. Clocks set to different times hung from the towers all around, and it was always something-o-clock somewhere, which meant the bells rang constantly.

Everywhere, [Vivomancers] in multi-colored robes rushed through the rain, eager to get somewhere and probably mutate something. With Ashi at his side, Kaden stepped off the FarPortal and headed for the nearest building, where a proctor stood, smoking a pipe.

“Sir? I’m looking for the sixth college. Treadle Barnes?” Kaden asked.

The proctor’s eyes grew round. “You. Your name’s attached to the [Burning Dream Queen]. Is it true, it spewed smaller wasps from its jaws?”

“It is not.”

The man looked entirely less enthused. “The Professor is held—I mean, holds classes—in the main hall, across there.”

Ashi marveled at the construction. Ashi marveled at the rain. Kaden began to wonder if she would marvel at the half-eaten sandwich in the gutter. She watched the crowds as they rushed to a new class. “In Vichor, learning is calm and patient. It is methodical. Here, they have not lost their joy or excitement.”

From a building across the way, screams rose up and crowds rushed as something shook the ground and glass shattered. Kaden headed straight for the building, not so much fighting his way upstream through the crowds as bashing them out of the way with the Eldritch Shield.

The closer he got to the hall, the thinner the crowds, probably because everyone who could run, had run. It was also possible that vivomancers had identified Kaden’s shield as another threat and were actively avoiding him.

“What kind of monster is it?” Ashi asked as Kaden stepped over broken glass and shattered doors.

A blast of sound hit Kaden and Ashi like a fist.

HONK!

Hard to Kill has granted you a new resistance: Resist Deafening.

Your skill with Resist Deafening has increased.

Not a dragon. No, worse.

Kaden shouted. “Some kind of Goose!”

The interior of the hall had once been a classroom, like the ones where Kaden learned exactly how teen girls liked to be kissed and exactly how they didn’t. Except this hall had very few students, which was not to say none. What it had plenty of was goose.

A goose thirty feet tall stood, nipping at the lights on the ceiling. Its feathers had turned crimson, its eyes blood red, and a smell like death rushed off of it.

[Murder Goose]

This was a goose, which made it plenty murdery to begin with. Then it was used to illustrate the basic [Vivomancy] skill, [Enrage] and then used to illustrate the less basic [Vivomancy] skill, [Enlarge]. We’d say the guy who did this needs a point or three in [Common Sense] but he was eaten by a large, enraged goose. This particular Murder Goose is deeply frustrated because it was created in what amounts to a large box and most of the murderable things have run away.

Except you. You aren’t running.

Yet.

*Goose.*

[Identify] didn’t offer level or skills but Kaden didn’t need them. He focused on [Mind Speech]. *Can you get its attention without hurting it?*

Ashi brushed a mana stone in her wrap and her skin turned electric blue. A bolt of lightning blasted out to hit the [Murder Goose] in the bill. In a move so fast [Split Second] activated, the beast’s head whipped down.

Kaden activated [Moment of Speed] and tackled Ashi, driving her clear just as the beak snapped shut where she had been—then he sprinted forward, slapping his hand on a webbed foot ten feet across.

You have bound a Beast (Murder Goose).

As an unnatural creation, this beast does not confer attribute bonuses.

With less than a thought, Kaden directed it to lower the massive head and climbed aboard the neck. This was easy and right and it felt amazing to finally control the [Murder Goose] as it followed his direction, flapping upward to push the clock at the front of the hall out.

Adventureres were screaming. Outside, and in his dungeon, and Kaden had never been so happy to hear their screams. Let them run. Let them hide. The [Murder Goose] was filled with the hunger of a thousand geese, and the rage of at least one.

“Kaden!” Ashi shouted. “Stop! Do not let the core influence you! The feelings are not yours!”

At the sight of her, Kaden fought a civil war in his heart. The Dungeon Core was quite clear, sometimes, the right thing to do with an Adventurer was feed the to a fifty foot tall goose. The other part of him liked Ashi. Who would ask ‘What have you done?’ if she were devoured by a goose?

The goose honked, loud and long, and [Beast Soul] interpreted it perfectly. *There’s a thousand of them. If you don’t want to eat that one, let’s go get some of the others.*

What a magnificent idea.

The [Murder Goose] flapped, and stretched and squeezed—and emerged in the square. That’s when the real terror began.