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The Core Problem
20. Cheat Code

20. Cheat Code

Kirishima and Yaoyorozu’s first day in a fantasy world was, indeed, filled with manly things. Namely, training and figuring out how their bodies, skills and abilities worked, with Uraraka (and even Toga) doing their best to help them.

Kirishima quickly realized that aside from being much taller he was also significantly stronger. He proved this by managing to lift Uraraka and Yaoyorozu, each of them with just one hand.

And despite his intimidating size and strength, his body was neither cumbersome nor unwieldy. In fact, it felt pretty nimble, making him more flexible than he was in his old life (then again, he wasn’t a champion of flexibility back then).

As for his senses, there wasn’t much to speak of. His five senses appeared to be mostly identical to what he had as a human.

There was also… another element to his new body that Izuku decided to not address. He also decided to not address the moment when Kirishima excused himself for a moment and did check what was now existing under his loincloth. Only to come back looking somewhat confused and maybe a bit blushing.

Yeah, it was best not to dig into it.

As for Yaoyorozu, she quite quickly concluded that her new body was definitely weaker than her human one, at least judging by her ability to lift heavy weights, but was capable of much greater flexibility, seemed to have a better sense of balance and an improved kinetic vision.

She still lost to Toga in the agility and speed department, although mostly thanks to Toga’s martial arts. Still, elves definitely weren’t particularly gifted towards physical combat, although with appropriate martial arts this likely no longer mattered.

Then again, her senses were significantly improved. Especially eyesight. While Kirishima’s eyesight was fairly comparable to a human one (which meant beating beastkin at long range eyesight and color recognition but losing massively in the night vision and movement detection), Yaoyorozu’s was just… better.

She claimed to be better at spotting movement and had a much better long-distance eyesight. When Izuku briefly borrowed her eyes, he could confirm that much. The movement spotting didn’t reach the level of what the beastkin were capable of, but when she briefly left the Dungeon and looked towards the distant slope of the mountain…

Yeah. She could actually see the mountain. In fact, she could reliably (if she were to waste the time to do something so pointless) count the trees spotting the mountain.

It was going to be extremely useful in the future, dealing with the biggest weaknesses that their away group had. Namely, the fact that they had a very limited eyesight, with everything past a hundred meters at best being naught but a complete blur.

Her magic worked pretty much as you’d expect magic to do. You do things, and magic happens.

No incantations though, just a will to cast a particular spell and the imagination combined with spatial awareness to maintain a clear and precise mental image.

In short, to fire a [Lesser Firebolt], you needed to imagine it properly. Without knowing where it was fired from and where it was heading to, it could easily fizzle. It’s as if without a constant mental image the flame just didn’t know what to do in the next second and just scattered.

It’s why good eyesight was pretty important. And why a staff turned out to be extremely useful. It offered a very precisely located point of origin for offensive spells, one that you could easily keep in your sights while casting it.

And yes, they weren’t sure how exactly it worked, but the crystal at the end of the staff was very easy to use in that way.

There were also spells that didn’t need such a clear image to cast. An example of that turned out to be [Suppress Smell], which was exactly what it said on the tin - a spell that allowed you to - for an extremely brief period of time - suppress all the outgoing smell by surrounding yourself by a small air bubble that kept it all in.

You didn’t need constant awareness of the spell to be active. To some degree it worked on its own once initiated.

It was a bit like breathing - you could do that consciously and unconsciously, and the only difference here was that if you didn’t take a conscious breath every five seconds or so, you could no longer breathe unconsciously until you recast the spell.

This metaphor, on a second thought, would work better with [Waterbreathing].

There were also spells that required no maintenance once fully cast. [Mist] for example seemed to condense the water vapor in the area around you, which limited visibility (working both ways), and when you cast it once, it takes a while to dissipate, just as a natural fog would.

[Lesser Firebolt] fired a small ball of flames at the designated target. [Burst of Flames] caused a sudden discharge of flames around her, likely to push back melee fighters. [Mist] was used to make life harder for enemy archers. [Flametouch] made her hands burst up in flames, without injuring her though.

[Float] was a very meek levitation spell that could be useful in having Toga cross over the river (they just needed some form of propulsion as [Float] was just that, floating). The similarity to Nana Shimura’s quirk was left unsaid, but it was clear that Tomura Shigaraki had some complicated feelings about it.

[Move] allowed you to create and control small but really concentrated gusts of winds, which allowed one to move small objects around. Something like Izuku’s mother’s quirk, but more omnidirectional and still included wind, so you can accidentally make other things move.

[Suppress Smell] was exactly what was described above.

[Earthen Shield] pulled a solid chunk of dirt from the ground underneath and formed a sort of improvised shield centered on her left hand. Depending on the amount of earth, it could be condensed to withstand at least some blows. But it definitely wasn’t super powerful.

[Dirt Pellet] was a version of the [Lesser Firebolt] spell that was much less useful and literally an equivalent of throwing a fistful of dirt at someone, except you could aim it better.

[Remove Footprints] was another support spell of more rogue-ish nature, one that allowed you to smooth out the recently disturbed dirt at will, helping you leave no traces of passing by. At least no physical ones.

Did nothing to your smell, so bloodhounds (or, you know, beastkin) could still easily track you.

When they had her use her spells repeatedly outside of the Dungeon, they realized that she had a limit. After some introspections, Yaoyorozu realized that the ‘White Core’ was some sort of manapool she could feel inside her (at least when it started to empty itself and she could feel what she was lacking).

It seemed to empty itself pretty quickly… but was refilling equally fast. Unless they go for a prolonged battle, she would be able to cast pretty freely, only to require a few minutes to recharge.

As for Kirishima’s martial arts, [Fortify Flesh] seemed to work like his quirk (just without Unbreakable mode and didn’t last for as long). It also prompted Shigaraki to become himself .

wow

Does it work for his log?

If so, he’s definitely going to be even more popular among the ladies

Are you trying to make me show you more traumatizing things?

Yes

Even your fucked up brain has to run out of horrid things to show me, eventually

And then I’ll be free

Oh, really?

Well, I’m sure that All Might will understand.

Here, All Might in his muscular form, naked, with cat ears, cat tail and not only his, eeer, hammer of justice but also a pair of breasts to match the size of the rest of his body.

And some really wide hips.

OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME AND WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING CREATIVE RGYSBRGKrbglserhgrtbhg

Suffer.

[Heavy Blow] was just that, some short-time strengthening of muscles that massively empowered a single blow. [Shockwave] in the meantime, seemed to empower a single blow in a very particular way, causing intense shockwaves to spread from the point of impact.

They decided to not test what the effect would be on a living being, but when directed at the floor, it was powerful enough to make everyone in a few meter radius lose their balance, and even interrupt casting ( especially interrupt casting, Yaoyorozu was pretty vulnerable to it).

That has given them some baseline to work with. Kirishima as a tank, Uraraka as the spear to his shield, Toga doing her own things in the background and Yaoyorozu as their ranged attacker, though with rather limited damage but a lot of potential in the field of more utility magic.

Look, [Lesser Firebolt] was pretty much a honeybee sting when compared to the sledgehammer blow to the face that Kirishima was capable of. Getting hit by some flames would definitely stagger an opponent and force them to cover their face at least on instinct, but… that was all.

It was just a burst of flames, lacking medium and existing for too short a period of time to set someone on fire unless they were doused in gasoline earlier.

“So…” Yaoyorozu says while glancing towards Uraraka. “... what do we do next? The basics are established and I must say that I wish to see more of the world out there.”

“Izuku?” She asks, looking up at the ceiling.

I… am not sure, really.

Aeonia.

What?

Our party grew.

Maybe we’re strong enough to open one of the burial chambers?

Find a new undead to kill and bring here

So on

Oh, that makes sense.

Okay, so Shigaraki had a good idea (for a change) and suggested visiting Aeonia’s graveyard and finding out if we can open one of the burial chambers there.

For, you know, practical combat training without getting too far away from the Dungeon?

“Alright then!” Uraraka throws her arm up. “I’m in! Let’s go fight some undead!”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Monoma and Spinner, though?” Kirishima asks. He was still wearing clothes that were pretty much a somewhat lengthier than usual loincloth. He didn’t seem to mind. Then again, his hero uniform had him fight enemies pretty much topless, so there was a precedent to that. “More fighters, or more people to defend the Dungeon while we’re away.”

You’d have to wait for a long time, annoying hero student #4

We need to get a new Node Room on 2nd Level to house them

This is going to be most of the day, especially if we decide to change anything else in the meantime

Speaking of, annoying hero student #1, are we putting the shrine anywhere?

Hmmm? Me?

Yes

Why not? Probably by the entrance, it’s not like there’s a point in hiding what we are anymore.

Sure, let’s make it right away, we have enough power either way and the beastkin might decide that the process of taming us is proceeding as planned and will give us more free stuff

They’ve created it quickly. Just a small room beyond a set of closed doors in the entryway cave.

Inside of it was now a larger version of the statue that the beastkin brought, that of a tall wolfkin warrior raising a giant battleaxe above his head, with a burning brass bowl in front of him. The flame seemed crimson in color.

Well, that looks… kinda cool.

Aggressive, but kinda cool.

Tokoyami-kun would love it. It’s sufficiently… grimdark.

Holy fuck

?

oh

There was blood on the battleaxe, dripping from its blade onto the warrior and onto the ground under his feet. They had no idea where it was coming from, was the blade itself bleeding ?

If all local temples have this sort of special effects, I can understand religions being popular.

It’s probably because it’s in a Dungeon, dumbass

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Operating on the rules of a Spiritual World, remember that?

Right!

The beastkin probably offered us the statue to get themselves a very high quality place of worship, yeah.

Definitely looks that way to me!

WHAT

Whose that?!

Isn’t it obvious?

How are my favorite kidnapping victims doing?

Don’t answer it, I already know the answer. Being a god is pretty cool.

Luna.

In person!

Anyway, I’ve spent a while reading about the isekai genre of your world and I figured out that I fucked it all up.

I haven’t given you any cheats to help you in your journey, which makes me objectively worse than all the fictional deities responsible for the whole ‘multiversal kidnapping but with better PR’ scheme in those stories.

And we can’t have that, amiright?

I’ve decided to take advantage of you unlocking the [Religion] tab to drop by and fix the problem.

Why are you writing coherently?

Yeah, I expect you to write in a completely messy style, anarchy and all

I know, and that’s why I’m writing completely normally - I do what you didn’t expect me to do! :D

Anyway, wanna get a cheat skill?

… what’s the fine print?

Have I ever lied to you? ;)

Anyway, my first idea was something perfect for Tomura.

Namely, an ability to freely buy extremely horny female (or male but feminine) slaves of various species that unconditionally treat you as the love of their life regardless of your flaws as a human being as only owning the other person and making them unable to leave or not love you is able to overcome the isekai’d character fear of rejection (natural thing for when you’re a loser).

That seems to be the most common ‘quirk’ of the isekai protagonists.

… ouch.

Luna’s not wrong for you, Shigaraki.

Screw you.

And I almost had that set up but then I remembered that slavery and exploitation is what Tyrannus is into and I hate him by default (being his polar opposite and so on), so it’s out.

Especially considering how many slave rebellions I orchestrated in the past (and how many I will in the future).

Then I decided that I have a better idea.

Check the [Religion] tab, now!

And they do so. Because now, there is a [Religion] tab, beneath [Locations]. A quick inspection of it confirms to them that they can earn some ‘favour’ from the gods (by sacrifices and rituals being made to them within the confines of the Dungeon), exchanging it into summoning their daemons and shard spirits (binding them to the Dungeon), and unlocking extremely special Biomes.

In short, they could pick a single Level and have it converted into a smaller version of a Spiritual World dedicated to their deity of choice. So, for example, with enough favor from Luna they could make a single level look like her nearby realm of [Evernight].

Just one level in the whole Dungeon.

… right, so you want us to put Evernight on a sufficiently deep level to deal with that Chosen One.

Yep! But don’t worry, I’m not a jealous god, you can unlock levels dedicated to the remaining gods :P

Except for Pentagram.

If you unlock anything from its domain, spit it out or it will drive you violently and irreparably insane.

And why are [Laws] merely conventionally grayed out while [Religion] was completely hidden

Because unlocking [Religion] is theoretically optional.

Really?

Most Dungeon Lords see themselves as gods in their own domain.

Not all of them decide to bow to powers greater than themselves.

Anyway.

Let me now quickly use some OP PLS NERF divine power and bestow upon you a miraculous power of ISEKAI CHEAT POWER.

Whoosh!

There is suddenly a completely new tab in the [Religion]. It sticks out like a sore thumb, clearly being inserted there by some crazy deity without a shred of care for the aesthetic cohesiveness of the panel.

The writing on it (in a completely different font than the rest of the panel) says ‘Soul Management’. After clicking it, they discover that… wait, what?

You see, normally, souls bound to a Dungeon are rendered unable to develop or expand. They can have skills ‘inserted’ into them from the Dungeon’s expansive treasure trove of stolen skills and abilities, but they’re a temporary addition.

If a soul is bound to it temporarily, then when they leave it, they lose all their surplus powers.

Kinda sucks, doesn’t it?

Yeah, especially when you’re from a different world and you have no other skills that are useful in this universe and you can’t even, you know, free yourself from being a part of the Dungeon

Precisely!

This flippin sucks!

So, I’ve given you some additional… capabilities on the field of managing souls connected to you.

Option 1: You can permanently free the souls connected to you, but only those that came from your world. As in - the people you made will now be permanently bound to their body and will be able to leave the Dungeon forever. With their skills and so on. And since I need to balance this shit or someone drops a hammer on me, this works in one way only.

You cannot reconnect such souls to you. When they leave you, they’ll leave you forever, but they’ll maintain their skills and abilities, and will be able to reproduce and die of old age.

That’s… isn’t that kind of a debuff? If those people decide to fuck off, we lose valuable manpower

Shhh.

It’s not about buffing or debuffing, it’s about freedom.

Option 2: Your connected characters are now capable of independent growth. In short, Yaoyorozu’s [White Core I] can develop into a [White Core II] and unlock it for your Dungeon if she does it as a normal inhabitant of this world would do. Your servants are no longer sterile in terms of self-growth (though you’re still unable to procreate, sorry, that’s how it works for Dungeon servants). However, this comes with its own balancing mechanism.

No. More. Body-Switching.

In order for this to work, you have to convert the character in question into something more akin to a local inhabitant that’s bound to you. Call this state a ‘bound soul’.

In short, Yaoyorozu won’t be able to grow as a person unless she decides that she wants her current body, race, face and bodily proportions to be her permanent ones.

No coming back from this.

I assume that it’s best to wait until you… develop your current body more and decide that this is what you want to be.

You should also consider waiting with it until you obtain some powerful bodies. C’mon, you can be downright demigods with stats high enough.

Especially as until they fully detach themselves from the Dungeon via Option 1, you can still grant them skills per the Dungeon’s powers.

And that… that actually is potentially very broken.

In the distant future, yes.

Which only makes me curious as to how powerful the Chosen One is for us to require so much potential firepower to take him down.

His power level is somewhere around the level of ‘yes’.

Anyway.

Option 3: You can use one of your souls (the ones from your universe , and only those) to forcefully overwrite the soul of a daemon that you haven’t signed a consensual cooperation contract with.

In short - the Hamadryad yes, Aeonia in the future no.

Wait wait wait

So we can

possess a daemon instead of the other way around

Yes.

You can also possess a daemon possessing a human body for maximum amount of lmao.

You’re absolutely allowed to have one of your underlings pull an Uno Reverso card out of their pocket while doing that.

I’ll give you some bonus favor points for this alone :D

It’d be absolutely hilarious.

Anyway.

There is also a limit there, for balancing reasons.

You’re overwriting their soul in the process.

You can pull the soul in question out of them, but the result of this process will be an empty shell of a daemon.

In short, you’ll lose them permanently, so consider finding out if a person wants to be a daemon before making them one.

And when we do all of that, can they be fully disconnected from the Dungeon and become a daemon fully?

Yes.

There is another downside to it, though.

Daemons are a singular cohesive whole.

Powerful, immortal, being able to return to the otherworldly realm they’re from, and having a bunch of other cool tricks… but they’re cohesive.

You can’t take things out of them, you can’t put things inside them (aside from, you know, wink wink , if you’re into it, you degenerates).

That’s the Cheat Skill from me.

You like it?

Y-yes. Yes we like it.

Yes, it’s okay

Will you answer a question or two from us before leaving (because you will leave, right?).

Yes (yes, and likely permanently until you finish or completely fail your quest from me).

Is there any way for us to have a physical body?

Yes, the most important question

I want to be free from him, for even a moment

Sure, from around 5th Level onward you can temporarily put your own consciousness in a body (identical to how your servants work like), creating a ‘proper’ Dungeon Lord.

And yes, you have two souls, so you can create two.

At some point afterwards (usually ~25th Level onward) you no longer need to keep your consciousness in the Core to manage the Dungeon.

It’s pretty normal for larger Dungeons to have their Dungeon Lord be their first guardian pretty much.

…Aeonia thinks we’re the tenth generation Dungeon and that’s why she offered us to be our first guardian, didn’t she?

No idea, she’s one of Nex’s toys, not my own.

If I get too involved, he might leave his little NEET cave and then we’ll all regret it.

Another question?

What’s our limit for Levels? In other words, what generation of Dungeon are we?

Fourth Gen one.

Our top limit is 140 Levels?!

Yup.

Whole 100 Levels more than the second largest Dungeon of Vestiria.

20 levels more than the strongest Dungeon currently active in the entire Western Karadia.

And don’t worry, you won’t need to develop to your full depth to get that guy pwned.

That would be way too long for me to be interested in you, ADHD is a horrible problem when you’re a nigh-omniscient and omnipotent god.

Chosen Ones are the strongest mortal servants of the Exarchs, far surpassing pretty much all daemons, lesser deities and even some demigods, so pretty much everything that you can reasonably expect to encounter on a Material Plane

But that guy is a relatively new one.

Good for you, since I know for certain that Salvia Aurelius, current strongest Chosen One (of my big daddy Honor btw.) has succeeded in reaching the Dungeon Core of the 1st Generation Dungeon .

You’d be absolutely boned if she was your target.

As it stands right now, I believe that with perfect preparations to counter himself and his party, you should have a shot at cornering him ~Level 70.

Any more questions?

Actually, let’s make it the last one, I’m bored already. BORED.

Midoriya, any questions?

I think I run out of them

Most of the things, like ‘where to find more stuff’ she’ll likely not answer

Correct.

You forget about something important, Shigaraki, but it’s very in-person for you.

Huh?

What are the [Laws]?

Kek.

Laws are a downscaled, locally working variant of the Absolute Magic that gods are capable of. In short, the ability to organize Reality according to your will, at least within certain limits (it’s not the aptly named Absolute Magic after all).

In simpler words, you can point at a particular doorframe and say ‘when the intruders walk through it, I want them to emerge from a doorframe on another Level’.

Or point at the door and say ‘they cannot be opened in any way unless you use that particular key’.

Or point at a passage filled with traps and say ‘If someone gets through it completely naked, they’ll open a special door leading into a treasure chamber’.

This sort of thing.

And how do we unlock that truly fabulous power?

Yeah.

Technically speaking, that’s another question altogether, but I’ll give you a freebie.

It will unlock on its own, eventually.

Around 15th Level, I believe.

Remember that as you’re right now, an average Dungeon wouldn’t even be sentient yet.

And you require a certain degree of intelligence to be able to utilize [Laws].

That makes sense

Yeah.

I think that’s all.

Sure, sure, have fun.

I’ll be going then.

*flies away*

Let’s tell the others what just happened.

Before they depart for Aeonia’s graveyard.

Sure.