When I woke up I found myself in a green lit cave. The sensation was odd. I had no limbs and could see around me in all directions at the same time. Looking around I quickly realized that the cave was small. As long as my perspective hadn’t changed the cave was only a couple dozen feet deep and a few feet wide. At that moment a screen popped up.

Congratulations on finishing your character creation. You have been moved to a location appropriate for your race. 10 points awarded.

I considered the screen for a moment and then the okay button. I didn’t have hands so I couldn’t reach out and push it. Concentrating for a moment I found that I could push the button with my mind. After a moment I concentrated on the idea of a menu appearing and one appeared out of thin air.

Character

Monsters

Dungeon Inventory

Spells

Dungeon Map

World Map

Shop

Viewership Ranking

Curious about the shop, I selected it. There were an overwhelming number of options. Everything from one time creature purchases, spells, items, and various resources. The most overwhelming part was the items. It looked like anything imaginable was purchasable with enough points. Even better, most of the basic items only cost a single point.

With the 10 points I had been given earlier I could purchase a wide variety of items. For example I could purchase ten basic items, or refill my mana, or summon a second tier monster. In the end I decided on none of them. Until I figured out how to earn more points, or ran into something I needed, it was better to save the points I had.

For now the important thing was getting some defenses up. I would be helpless if anyone walked into the cave. Using mana I created a few pitfall traps at the entrance of the cave. Five of them only cost me two percent of my mana.

I wanted to expand the dungeon but based on the cost of digging those pits I could already tell it would be expensive. I estimated around half my mana to double the size of my dungeon. I needed a more cost effective method.

The other issue was that traps weren’t a strong enough defense. A cautious person could easily avoid the traps. I needed something that could attack my enemies.

I needed to learn how to summon monsters. Which was far easier than I expected. I selected the monsters tab and then selected create monster.

Select a monster to create

Male Goblin – Tier 1 Goblinoid

Female Goblin – Tier 1 Goblinoid

Additional monsters must be discovered before they can be created.

A few seconds later I managed to summon a male goblin. It cost me four percent of my mana. Which meant that I could summon twenty five of them. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that twenty five was also equal to my intelligence attribute. Before summoning more I decided to take a closer look at my goblin.

It was between three and four feet tall. It didn’t look like a short human though. It was spindly and had a smaller head and body than a human. If it didn’t have green wrinkly skin and a bald head I suppose someone could mistake it for a child. They would have to be quite far away though.

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Concentrating on the goblin resulted in a screen appearing. It showed the stats and attributes of the goblin I was concentrating on.

Male Goblin – Level 1

No equipment

Attributes:

Strength – 4

Constitution – 4

Dexterity – 5

Intelligence – 3

Wisdom – 2

Charisma - 1

Luck - 1

Dungeon Spawn – If the monster dies in the dungeon it will respawn in 24 hours. Monster obeys the commands of the dungeon core.

“Master what you want goblin do?” The goblin suddenly said and knelt before my crystal. I grimaced slightly. It was obvious that goblins were barely intelligent enough to talk. I ignored the goblin for a moment and opened up the inventory tab. There was nothing inside. For a moment I nearly panicked. What was my goblin going to do? Claw enemies to death?

Then I remembered the purchasable items in the shop. Each of the basic items cost me a point but I didn’t see how I had much choice. I purchased a spear for my goblin. But it didn’t show up. I switched to the inventory tab. The spear was there. I could either drop it or absorb it. If I absorbed it then I could create more using mana.

Since I planned to create more goblins I decided I had to at least test out absorbing the spear and using mana to create more. It cost me a tenth as much mana as my goblin cost. Which also happened to be equal to the cost of one trap. I was starting to wonder if maybe traps were more cost effective.

I went back to the shop. A pickaxe caught my eye. It would be very useful if I could get my goblins to dig for me. After purchasing it I noticed that the goblin I had created was totally naked. I grimaced as I bought a simple set of clothing for him. I didn’t like the idea of staring at naked goblins running around my dungeon all day.

Finally I created a pickaxe and dropped it next to the goblin. I was now at ninety three percent of my mana remaining.

“Get dressed and then take the pickaxe and start digging.” I commanded the goblin. It actually took repeating myself three times before the goblin understood.

The goblin struggled with the clothing a bit but eventually managed to put the shirt and pants on. Then it joyfully pounced on the pickaxe and started slamming it against the floor. I didn’t have a head, but suddenly I had a headache. “Not there. Go dig at the back of the cave and make it larger.” I said.

The goblin nodded stupidly and wandered into the back of the cave. Soon I heard the sound of it banging away with the pickaxe. Observing his progress I could tell that it was working. Unfortunately it was about a hundredth the speed of doing the task myself. It would probably help if the goblin had shown any skill at using the pickaxe. I suspected I’d be replacing more than a few of them. I just hoped it would be more efficient than doing all the work myself.

The other issue was that the goblin was starting to get quite the pile of rock and dirt. I needed to put all of it somewhere. Looking at it I decided to try to put it in my inventory. Sure enough it instantly vanished. When I checked my inventory I had a number of indicators displaying how much dirt and the various rocks I had.

At least now I didn’t have to get my goblins to carry all the rocks and dirt out of the cave. I could have them pile it up and then put it in my inventory. That would make things much faster. Just to check I tried directly putting the rock and dirt from the wall into my inventory. It didn’t work. Probably because it was considered part of the wall and not an item I could just pick up.

I created two more male goblins and three female goblins along with clothing and five more pickaxes. Then I sent them to go help dig. While they were doing that I created another male goblin. I purchased leather armor in the shop, absorbed it, and then dropped a set near him along with the spear. Unfortunately leather armor cost me twice as many points and mana as regular clothing. The extra defense was worth it though.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as the goblin struggled to get the leather armor on. Apparently goblins had trouble tying knots. I was pretty sure at this point that an intelligence score of three meant the average kindergartner could think circles around my goblins.

When it finished I sighed and sent the goblin to guard the front of the cave. Unfortunately the goblin managed to run right into one of the pit traps with a yelp. There weren’t a lot of spikes at the bottom of those traps but I was pretty sure the goblin managed to impale itself on all of them. After a couple of seconds of screaming the goblin passed out and then died.

Of course the rest of the goblins just had to come and see what was going on. Unfortunately one of the male goblins managed to tumble into the pit while looking inside. Now I was down two goblins.

“Stop. All of you get back to work.” I screamed at the goblins. One of them stopped just before it jumped into the pit. I didn’t even want to know what it had been thinking. All five goblins hurried back to their mining.