Fulsi pumped her vined fist in the air. “Victory!” she said. “Well done. Can’t believe the Cabal dungeon sent their slimes separately. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the other one.”

Kandra did feel a bit of pride in her slimes, but it was overwhelmed by concern. “Is it really a good idea to start with that? What if they send out even more next time?”

“Their mana pool will still limit them, same as it limits you,” Fulsi said. “Glad that worked out in our favor. Looks like the other dungeon is slower than you - and you’ll pull ahead even further now that your slimes are free to roam the valley and hunt at will.”

Kandra nodded. “So that’s going to be a factor? Who has the most different creatures?”

“It can be,” Fulsi said. “But that depends on how you use them. Having a greater variety will help you stand out.”

“Can you explain the terms of this…contest to me?” Kandra asked, annoyed she even had to ask. Why didn’t Fulsi just tell her things?

“I suppose you have a reason to know,” Fulsi said. “So your profile, once it’s updated with everything it needs, will have several grades, but I only want you to worry about three. One is the quality of your mana and the strength of your mana pool - essentially, a measure of your overall power as a dungeon. That’s an objective measurement - once you’re strong enough for your profile to register your mana, it will appear. The second grade is given to you by adventurers. They can access the Dungeon Mesh through their own devices, and they will leave reviews on you as a dungeon. They’ll write their thoughts, but also just leave star ratings. You want your stars to average at least four and a half out of five.”

“How hard is that to achieve?”

Fulsi waved the question away. “You have me guiding you, it won’t be an issue at all. The important thing to keep your rating up - if you maim someone, try not to leave them alive. People who leave with only one arm tend to use the other to make a rude gesture at you.”

That seemed so basic it was almost insulting, but Kandra didn’t push back right now. Fulsi was clearly going to only tell Kandra what she thought Kandra needed to know. As soon as possible, Kandra needed to get into other meshsites and start talking to other Circle dungeons - and hopefully find someone who wasn’t as frustrating at Fulsi.

“The third grade, the one that is extremely important, is your assessment score. A guild assessor will come by once your mana grade is at least a D. You’ll have to wait for the other dungeon to reach D as well, likely - the assessor will only want to make one trip. You’ll be graded on the quality of your dungeon construction, quality of your mobs, quality of the boss fights - basically every element of your dungeon. It’s possible to get top marks in that grade even at D, because the assessment is scaled - you’re judged against other dungeons at the same mana grade as you.” Fulsi shook her head, and leaves fluttered about her skull. “You need to beat this other dungeon there.”

“Why?” Kandra asked.

Fulsi looked at Kandra like she was stupid, and Kandra resolved to get a new mentor as soon as possible. Her patience with Fulsi was wearing thin - that seemed like a perfectly normal question to ask. “Because,” Fulsi said. “Adventurers will spend more time in the better rated dungeon. You’ll grow faster, get stronger quicker, and the other dungeon will only be left with the dregs the Pact mandated minimum the Guild throws their way. And if you lose…that could be your fate.”

Kandra stared at Fulsi open mouthed. “What?” she said finally.

Fulsi nodded. “There is a chance you can avoid that if the grades are close enough,” she said, her voice - for once - comforting. “An A+ and an A- grade dungeon will still do well. But if they get an A grade, and you get a C grade…you’ll be delayed for centuries. Honestly at that point you’d be better off becoming a support dungeon for someone else for a few decades. It’s not a fun life, but it’ll help you not fall too far behind.”

“So I have to either win, or come in close enough to the other dungeon that I don’t end up two grades behind them.” Kandra sighed. “No pressure, then. Just the rest of my existence is at stake.”

“Cheer up,” Fulsi said. “It’s not the rest of your existence. Just the next century or so.”

To someone who had been born a week ago, that was hardly a comfort. Kandra turned back to her slimes, hoping for some good news.

Her hopes were answered. Both of the slimes were flapping and bouncing their way back towards her, each containing some small animal’s slowly dissolving body. “Oh good,” Fulsi said. “If your slimes die, they can just send the pattern back, but if you’re working with the corpses that makes things much easier. And two at once? That’s rare, and lucky that you found two animals with the spark at once. You’re ahead of the curve. And oh, is that a bird?” she leaned in towards the mirror, looking closer at one of the animals. “It is! You got lucky, it must have already been dead or injured. Birds are very compatible with firmament mana, but they’re hard for basic slimes to catch. Go ahead and start with that one.”

“What do I do?” Kandra asked, eager to start the process of mob creation.

Fulsi opened her mouth to speak, then cocked her head to the side, as if listening to something Kandra couldn’t hear. “I’ll leave you with the instructions,” Fulsi said. “Sounds like the other dungeon’s mentor is not happy with what happened, and I need to speak to Circle leadership about it. You’re fine, don’t worry, it was all within the rules, but the Cabal loves to whine. I need to address that.”

Kandra just nodded as Fulsi created another book for her to absorb. The Basics of Pact Compliant Mob Creation, 5th Edition. Knowledge flooded her mind, and Kandra wondered why dungeons didn’t just get all the books right away. Something to ask someone other than Fulsi, once she got on the wider Mesh. Kandra sent her slimes back out to hunt for more as she got to work.

The first step was to absorb the body, the same way she absorbed stone. In addition to giving her a surge of mana, she learned what these to animals were. The bird was a sparrow, the other animal was a mouse, both common woodland animals. The mouse belonged to a subgroup known as mournmice, small creatures that fed on the blood of dregwood trees and other crymons. Kandra left that alone and went to work on the sparrow.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She had to make a statue of it out of any material, although stone was best because it was most durable. She went with that, focusing on the pattern in her mind. It wasn’t just the appearance of the sparrow. It was also the internals - the veins, the organs, the bones, how they all connected. If she hadn’t had the corpse to absorb, those would have been trickier to manage, but with that knowledge she knew on a fundamental level how to leave hollow spots in the stone to account for all of that.

It still took a while. By the time the template was made, her mana pool had refilled, and her slimes had returned - empty handed this time. Well, empty…internals? Whatever it was, they didn’t have anything to give her. Fulsi had warned her about that - the longer her slimes were out, the more animals would get spooked and leave the area. Kandra resolved to keep them inside for now - the failure of her slimes meant the other dungeon would be having the same problem.

That other dungeon…Kandra wanted to contact them. She was deathly curious. But at the same time, her very future depended on overcoming them. This was no time to make polite conversation with the enemy. Instead, she focused on pouring her mana into the stone statue. Known as a template, it told her mana what shape she wanted it to take.

It took her entire mana pool, and Kandra was exhausted. Mana started to flow from the statue, leaking out the beak - but that was supposed to happen. It floated a bit away until it found an empty space, and then it began to take shape. It remembered the shape of the sparrow. If Kandra had access to pure mana, which was something that apparently could be refined, although Kandra didn’t know how, it would have created a perfect mirror of the sparrow. But since she only had firmament mana, that energy influenced the shape the mob started to take.

The firmament was what ancient people had believed the sky to be, a thin membrane on which the stars and sun danced. Now it was known that the sky was not that solid object, but thousands of years of belief in firmament had shaped the mana into something new.

The sparrow’s shape was warping and distorting in front of Kandra. Its legs grew longer, its body grew larger. The sparrow wings spread out, the feathers taking on a gossamer texture, almost translucent.

Moments later it started to bounce around on its long legs, chirping happily. It still resembled a sparrow, if sparrows stood on legs almost two feet long and a body that made the legs look proportional. It spread its wings, and light shimmered off them as it flapped. The beak was the most impressive part, however - it had grown a bit longer, and become pearlescent, shimmering in the pale glow of Kandra’s mana. It hopped back and forth, testing its legs.

The last step required Kandra to name her new creature. she said to the bird.

The skyrrow chirped happily at the name. Kandra had to reabsorb it to learn the skyrrow pattern, then make a new template for the creature. When she had more skill, she could make templates with no base animal to work from - but for now, skyrrows could be summoned just by putting mana into the template. If she put mana into the original sparrow template, it would produce a new firmament-based variant on the sparrow -but that wasn’t recommended. Better to wait until she had Sylvian or Sacred mana and try them instead. Skyrrows would be cheap to produce going forward.

Happy with her creation, Kandra created a couple Skyrrows and let them hop around, watching them with unbridled delight as they started to preen each other. It was annoying when Fulsi’s telepathic voice pulled Kandra from her bird watching.

Kandra almost went into the Mesh, just so she could have teeth to grind in annoyance. Instead, she mastered her emotions and responded.

Fulsi sniffed.

Kandra shot Fulsi a questioning sound through their link before asking,

Fulsi said with a sigh.

Kandra chafed at the fact that it was an order, but wasn’t going to be needlessly defiant, since the offer did sound ideal. One thing made her hesitate.

Fulsi said.

That grabbed Kandra’s curiosity.

Fulsi’s mental voice carried weight when she said that, like she was expecting Kandra to gasp or object. When Kandra just sat there and waited for the response, Fulsi sent her a sigh.

Kandra had already been curious, but now she was excited. She’d already expected it would take decades to meet a Dark Lord, and now she was meeting one soon.

Fulsi said.

Kandra paused, and then pulled her awareness more into the Mesh, gesturing down at her lumpy, misshapen Avatar. “-this,” she finished.

Fulsi nodded in firm agreement. “You need a pattern to work from to make a humanoid form that looks this good - that or a lot more practice at sculpting. I imagine the Cabal is pulling out all the stops to impress the arbiter, so we need to do the same. But we can definitely get you something less…swamp creature that’s been partially disintegrated. Also, something that shows off your firmament affinity. Start working on a basic humanoid form again. This time, use stone. The prettiest stone type you have. I’ll be back with a pattern for you to use.”

Kandra’s eyes narrowed and she held out a hand before Fulsi could leave. “You can just give me patterns? Why do I need to hunt for mobs then? Can’t you just…push me ahead?”

“We could, in theory, yes,” Fulsi said. “But patterns aren’t free, and you don’t have any money.”

“What do we even use for money? Can’t we make whatever we absorb and just have infinite money?”

Fulsi held up a hand, finds extending to make an upraised finger that then pointed at Kandra. “Exactly the problem we had to wrestle with. Fortunately, we found an answer. We use the shells of nullipeds.” Fulsi saw Kandra’s confused look and went on. “Nullipeds are a species of insect that are naturally immune to magic. Their shells are very durable as well, but too small to be of much use to anyone. Mortals hunt them and sell them to us - one of the few ways we can give mortals actual coins under the Pact still - but because they’re immune to magic, we cannot absorb and recreate.”

Kandra leaned forward. “How do I get the shells?”

“Once you’re established, adventurers will hunt for nullipeds to sell to you. You won’t make much this way, but it’ll be your basic income as a starting point. When you’re more mature, you can get a job with the Guild or doing other services for dungeon cores - some more mercenary cores like working with both factions.” The sneer on Fulsi’s lips made it clear what she thought of those cores. “But don’t worry about that now. I’ll get you a cheap but nice looking baseline Avatar, and once you start earning, you can pay me back. It’ll probably be a week’s worth of shells, given regional averages for nulliped sales.”

The idea that Kandra was spending her first week of pay before she’d even earned it was annoying, but better than going to the meeting looking like a lump of bark that got ideas above its station. “I’ll get to work then.”

It was just a week’s worth of shells, she told herself. It couldn’t be that bad to pay off.