The crevice the core had rolled into was little more than a fissure in the earth from where the roots of a fallen tree had opened the ground. Still, it continued downwards for a few meters, and blocked out the entire sky.

The core realized that rolling was a much less disorienting method of travel than being carried and jostled about. With perception extending equally in all directions, rolling did not shift or really alter the core’s view as much as the stepping motion of its former mount.

Once the core came to a stop in the shallow depths of the earth, it hesitated for a bit. It was still disturbed by all of the changes it had experienced over the last few days, but it really had nothing aside from its few weeks of existence in the dragon’s lair to offer much perspective. It was essentially a newborn, and like all newborns, subject to easily being either overwhelmed or distracted.

Both occurred at this moment, as for the first time, the core was able to observe the nearby life forms. It had moved away from the dragon’s lair, which meant there was ambient mana in the air once again, and it filled the plants and creatures nearby. So far, the more powerful presence of the humans had overwhelmed the core’s perception, drowning out smaller creatures, such as bugs and such.

The core was finally given a reprieve and peace, and it quickly became distracted by the endless tiny activities happening all around.

Earthworms wriggled through the dirt, eating detritus and opening up tiny passages.

Grubs gnawed on the roots of trees and other plants.

Beetles marched around, searching for food and mates.

A mouse scurried by, briefly cleaning its whiskers before it hurried off in search of its stash of seeds.

A few centipedes and millipedes ran through, each on their own mission, their dozens of legs racing along.

Most intriguing though, was an ant nest that had been established quite close to where the core had ended up. The core watched, perplexed, as lines of ants ran in and out of the nest in lines. Some were off to search for food, others to collect food that had already been found. More were returning from collecting food, bringing it back for the larva and the queen.

Inside the nest was even more activity. The core saw that the strange tiny creatures were performing a strange series of actions: the largest of the ants was producing little sacks that contained the tiniest traces of life within them. Those sacks were then being collected and gathered up in nearby chambers within the nest, where they were sorted, arranged, cleaned, and rearranged again and again in no particular order that could be determined.

Elsewhere, helpless little larva were being fed, cleaned, and cared for.

In still another chamber, there were what looked like more of the tiny sacks of miniscule life force, though these were bigger, and the life within them was stronger. Most perplexing was the fact that the insides of these larger sacks were not all the same. Some were more of the larva, others a gelatinous goo, while others were almost fully formed creatures that looked practically the same as their caretakers.

The core was fascinated. It had never seen so much activity take place, and it all appeared to be so organized. It continued to focus on the ant nest. Dawn came and went, but the core noticed nothing more than the rising heat nearby.

Noon passed, and still the core focused on the ants.

As shadows once again started to fall, a change occurred that intrigued the core, but also changed its entire existence. A frog hopped up to the ant nest and started eating the ants.

This was nothing surprising to the core, as it had already seen the food chain in action around it, and had also seen the humans kill each other the night before. No, what was surprising was the reaction that took place inside the ant nest when the frog appeared.

No sooner had some of the ants been devoured, than the caretakers inside the nest burst into a feverish frenzy, and they all raced to transport and relocate the eggs, larva, and pupae.

The core was initially confused by the activity, but then something suddenly registered: the ants were protecting their young. Now, the core had no concept of eggs, young, age, or almost anything else regarding life, but it had been born with an understanding of treasure, as well as an innate need to protect its treasure.

That was what these tiny creatures were doing. They were protecting their treasure.

At that moment, the core reached a new understanding of its desires and instincts. It had lost its treasure and been ripped away from its hoard by invaders. It had not known how to react at that time. Seeing these ants move their young into the depths of their nest to protect them, this was something the core could understand on a deep, instinctual level. This was its purpose.

And yet, despite its newfound clarity, the core also felt that something was missing. This purpose was somehow still incomplete. Something more needed to be done, but what?

As the core continued to observe, the frog hopped away, sated and content.

The ant nest continued to seethe for the next thirty minutes or so, as the ants fixed the exterior damage and ensured that everything was safe.

As things were calming down for the ants for the night, the core suddenly had yet another revelation: the creatures it was observing were able to move their treasure to protect it, but what could the core do? For starters, it had no treasure, so what would it protect?

On some level, even more importantly and disturbing to the core was the realization that it had no means of moving anything at all, even if it did still have its treasure.

This was a problem, but what to do?

The core continued to observe its surroundings as it fretted about this violation of its very existence.

The core had inherited the greed and protectiveness of a dragon, but had failed to inherit any scrap of a dragon’s overbearing power. It was literally a helpless stone with the instincts of an apex predator.

Days passed, and the core continued to sit in the crevice in the ground, undisturbed and unaware of the world beyond its small sphere.

Skirmishes broke out between Farun and Tamaran forces, but the core was unaware of such things. None of the soldiers returned to the forest where the first skirmish had been fought, and there was no reason for most people to step foot in such a remote region.

Two things started to occur during this time, one of which the core noticed, but the other matter completely escaped the core’s detection.

The first was that after a week, the core’s sphere of perception had actually grown, giving it a few more centimeters to observe in all directions. This was noticeable to the core, as it realized that the edges of its world were expanding, and it was seeing things that it had never observed before.

As for the second matter, the mana density within the core’s sphere had started to rise. This increase occurred so gradually that the core did not notice, and it happened evenly throughout the area, so there was no way for the core to have any difference with which to make a comparison.

Throughout all this time, the core continued to observe its realm, still focusing predominantly on the colony of ants, never noticing that the amount of mana the tiny creatures held was also increasing, due to their surroundings.

Something finally changed about two weeks after the core had arrived within the hole in the forest: a mole burrowed into the core’s sphere, hunting for grubs.

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Other creatures had passed through in the past, but the mole was the first creature to actually stay. As minutes, and then hours, passed, the core suddenly noticed that the amount of mana within the mole started to increase slightly. Not only that, the core felt as though the mole had somehow become more real, as though it had been partially absent before.

What did this mean?

The core shifted its focus onto the mole from the ants, only to realize that it was able to give both equal attention. Never before had more than one or two simultaneous events taken place within the core’s perception range that it felt any desire to pay attention to, and so this was a new discovery as well. However, the core did not even really register the fact that it was able to split its thoughts and attention so perfectly, as how could it possibly have any idea that a split mind was not a normal phenomenon.

The core also started to focus on the edges of its perception, looking for other creatures entering its sphere. As it did, it noticed the same slight increase in internal mana in all of the tiny bugs and other creatures that arrived. On top of that, the core noticed the tiniest exchange taking place. As creatures arrived, they gave off tiny amounts of mana that had a different feel to it, and that energy was replaced by the ambient mana that surrounded the core.

It traced this outside mana, and saw that it slowly drifted towards the core itself, and was abruptly sucked inside the moment it made contact with the core. Less than a moment later, the core gave off a small amount of mana with the same feel to it as what filled the core’s surroundings.

What was this?

The truth of the matter was that the core was marking its surroundings in the same instinctive manner that a dragon marked their lair and treasure. While people believed that dragons placed tracers on their hoard so that they could sense it and track it, the reality was that it was an automatic process that occurred while the beasts cycled their mana in a manner somewhat similar to breathing. Instead of air, mana would be pulled into the beast from their surroundings, and then tainted, touched mana would be released once again. This process was an energy cycle that closely mirrored a living creature’s oxygen exchange, with exhaled air being “touched” with greater amounts of carbon dioxide.

However, while dragons were biological creatures with an innate gift for magic and a need for mana, the core was a unique consciousness that had been formed from energies that had been trapped within a gemstone. This led to a very, very different sort of energy cycle that supported and maintained the core. Still, the core was tainting its surroundings.

As the core studied and observed this energy exchange, it also looked at how the more time creatures spent within its sphere, the more real they felt. Unconsciously, unknowingly, the core was claiming its surroundings as its own.

Quickly, one of the most important unique aspects of the core’s energy cycle was revealed. While powerful magical beasts would stain their environment with their mana, the core was unprecedented in the fact that it could stain living creatures as well. Once again, the core had no understanding or knowledge to explain how special this detail was, but on some level, the core had started to consider all within its sphere as its property, including the living creatures.

Finally, a day came when the core’s sphere extended just enough that it was able to view a tiny portion of the surface world. Given the fact that it lay in a crevice in the ground that had opened by a tree falling, the core was situated in a small glade in the center of a forest, and the undergrowth had exploded with the increased sunlight.

The core was finally able to see where some of the ants were going when they traveled to the surface, and the core was introduced to aphids, as well as the concept of farming.

It watched, curious, as ants climbed plants, cared for aphids, and then milked them before returning with food for the colony.

It was also while watching this harvest that the core noticed that every time the ants left and returned to its sphere, they carried a bit of mana that was exchanged with the core.

Realization struck as the core understood that this mana that it was receiving was responsible for its perception growing.

Finally, the core had the start of a path forward. It needed to either send out the creatures within its sphere and have them return, or encourage other creatures to enter its sphere.

Once again, the problem of being unable to move arose, stopping the core from being able to accomplish anything. It knew what to do, as a desire for growth was another of the consciousness’s instincts, yet there seemed to be no way to proceed down the path that lay before it.

Frustration arose, as well as a mounting sense of anger and helplessness. What could be done? The core could not move itself, or anything else. It could not influence anything at all, aside from its passive mana exchange, which also seemed to not really accomplish very much.

The core pushed outwards, acting by some innate reflex or guidance, and something pushed back. The core was startled, and it instantly pulled back. What was that? It had not only perceived with mana, but had somehow felt something with mana as well. Did this mean there was another way that it could interact with the world?

The core pushed again, harder this second time. It tried to feel where the resistance came from, as well as what the resistance might be. Harder and firmer the core pushed. Something was there, just out of reach. If it could just get past this strange resistance-

Snap

Startled, the core instantly stopped. The resistance had disappeared, and instead, some strange connection was in place, a resonance. What was it?

The core cautiously probed the strange new sensation, trying to understand what had just happened. It reached out to the connection, and tried to sense the odd resonance.

It was the mole.

The mole had remained within the core’s sphere, and was the largest creature to have remained close to the core without interruption. Naturally, the mole also had the largest amount of mana in its body, but its own mana had been almost entirely replaced by the core-tainted mana. The resistance had been the final dregs of the mole’s mana. It had been the mana that had been with the small beast from birth, and was therefore locked in place as a rather fundamental part of the creature’s being. The snap had been the core dislodging that congenital mana, and replacing it, which had led to the connection and resonance.

The core pushed again, but this time there was no resistance. The mole instantly reacted, moving away from the core and towards the edge of the sphere of perception.

Again, the core froze, only to be startled even worse when the mole did the same.

While the core remained frozen and surprised, the mole turned back around and resumed its hunt for grubs and abandoning its former route.

The core hesitantly pushed once more, and again, there was a reaction from the mole. However, this time the core was pushing closer to itself, and the mole instantly started to move straight towards the core.

This was it! This was the power the core had wanted and needed!

Once again, the core pushed, but avoided the connection to the mole. However, there was no feeling of resistance, as there were no creatures within its sphere that possessed enough mana for the core to be able to influence.

Still, this was already incredible progress, as the core had a path forward. It finally had a way to move things and influence its environment. It was only a matter of time before it was able to increase its influence.

With this in mind, the core started to push, moving the mole about. As the core did so, it started to realize that it was sensing certain things from the mole. They were only vague impressions, but the core could feel a sense of comfort and pressure. A feeling of earth as the mole swam through the ground.

The core was ignorant, uneducated, and a very young existence, but this did not mean that the core was stupid or incapable of reasoning. It had realized that it needed to understand its control of the mole, as well as find out some of the limits. After all, the core had not even known that it could establish control with creatures within its sphere, so what else might be possible that the core was still ignorant of?

The core soon sensed discomfort from the mole, which was a confusing sensation. Fearing that something was wrong, the core stopped controlling the mole, and the small creature immediately hurried to find some food. It had simply grown hungry.

The core had already (it believed) developed an understanding of the need for food and such, as all of the creatures it had observed had taken various opportunities to consume food, including even the soldiers who had taken the core. Thus, it had no problems with occasionally allowing the mole to eat, and a day or two passed as the core practiced moving the mole around.

After feeling satisfied with its progress, the core knew what it needed to do: it needed to send the mole out so that it could bring more of the outside mana to the core.

A goal established, the mole was directed to swim through the earth towards the closest edge of the core’s perception. Even after all this time, the core’s sphere was not that large, and it did not take very long for the mole to reach the edge and cross it.

However, that was when everything collapsed, along with the mole.

For the first time, the core was able to perceive something outside of its sphere, but what it was able to sense was the mole’s death.

The moment the mole had left the core’s sphere, the connection between the two had been lost, and all of the core’s mana was returned to it, along with every other scrap of energy within the mole.

Thus, as a surge of energy returned to the core, the first dungeon creature fell.