…I GOT IT! A FOREST! I'LL MAKE A FOREST! I proclaimed within my head. Ideas flooded into my head. But first, I need to make a forest. And then I realized I need to make my small cave into a huge forest

…fuck. This is probably gonna suck. I thought as I realized the implications of having a forest in my cave. Now, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure a forest needs sunlight to sustain itself which is problem number 1. The next problem? I have nothing to inhabit the forest. Except for my elementals and my wind spirit. Spirit? OH SHIT! An idea struck me. A magic forest! I'm a fuckin dungeon, capable of creating seemingly anything. Why do I need to hinder myself with something as petty and lame as the laws of reality, physics, and whatnot? MAGIC FOREST! But before my excellent forest? I need room. Lots, and lots of room…

Fuck.

So, first I need to figure out how to make this place bigger. I also desire to find out how deep I am. And I'm pretty sure I can kill two birds with one stone here…

I closed my theoretical eyes and imagined. I imagined a small hole drilled into the stone above me. I WILLED it to be. Slowly, I felt my mana drain. I was doing it. I kept on going up. As I felt my mana drain, I let my vision come back to me, and I saw the hole.

Fuck yeah! I thought, excitedly. It slowly went up and up, the stone itself seemingly disappearing into nothing.

And then I realized another problem. How was I going to monitor all my floors? If I was gonna, you know, be a dungeon, I needed more than 1 floor. And I don't think I can change perspectives. So how the hell am I supposed to see everywhere at once?

Can I have…something like security cameras? Or can I look through a monster's eyes? Also, how do I move to the lower floors? I can't just stay here forever, ya know? I gotta go higher in the world. Or, well, deeper. But, as I continued that train of thought, something within me stirred. Then my everything stirred, and I felt something change. My vision, more accurately. That was all. Just my vision. Anyways! As I stirred, I started seeing…more? Yeah. instead of just seeing in a 360-degree view, now i saw…everywhere at once? Yeah.

Then I saw a crystal. Just under it, was a pedestal made of rock.

It's me. I realized. I'm a crystal now.

…which, honestly? Not that much of a shocker. I knew I wasn't human, and since I had no arms, legs, or any body in general, I expected to be a spirit of some sort. But, I guess it makes more sense for me to be a floating gem, as that would maybe explain why I couldn't move.

Okay, maybe being a floating gem doesn't make sense, and I'm freaking out a little, but shut up! That's not important right now! What is important is my new vision! I no longer ‘looked’ around, as I was…looking everywhere at once? It was freaky. I was even in the hole I was digging. I could see everything connected to me. Well, nothing connected to me.

…fuck I'm gonna shut up now. I can't explain this sight very well. I digress. What a nice word. The word had just popped up now. Digress. What a… smart-sounding word. But I digress(haha, get it?).

Anyways… the hole was finished. Finally, I couldn't see anything around me. Well, I could see, but I couldn't peek outside. All I saw were the clouds. It was kinda like looking straight up. I can see everything else but the outside. Also, quick note, this hole is fuckin deep. Like, REALLY deep. I'd estimate about a few hundred feet. So deep. Which, probably isn't a good thing. Do you know how long the staircase down to me would be?

Another idea. What if the theoretical adventurer had to fall down a deep hole to get down to me? And would there be something to cushion their fall? That’d be cool as hell.

…how would they survive a few hundred-foot fall? A bunch of leaves probably wouldn't cut it. Is there a way to enchant the ground to make it to where you don't turn into a red paste?

Maybe… but I'll think about that later. For now, hole! I started making my hole wider. Like, the entire thing at once. Which was probably a bad idea. The amount of mana being drained was insane. I ran out after just a few seconds, and while the hole was about 5 feet wide now, I wanted it to be wider. And this mana regen is way too slow. For me, at least. So, I needed a new alternative.

An alternative…a…reversal? A theory formed in my head. What if instead of being drained of mana, I drained the drainer? What I should first do is find a way to get to the surface.

After waiting for a few minutes, I had hopefully enough mana to do what I wanted. I imagined a…tendril? Sure, how about a tendril. I don't think an arm would work anyways. I imagined a tendril of mana coming from my crystal. I willed it to go as high as it could into the hole. The process was surprisingly cheap. It was a few mana points a minute to keep this bad boy up. As it reached the top, I felt resistance. Like a barrier was stopping me. I drew my tendril back a little and poured mana into it. I'd say about 100 mana. The drain suddenly became much more expensive, but I kept going. I tried to treat the tendril like a spring. It pulled back, and i..released? Yeah. I released it onto the barrier. It made contact with it and…pierced the barrier? The tendril reached the surface and kept on going up. It went until I was about 10 feet in the air. The tendril dissipated. The surface looked pretty normal. I seemed to be in a forest. I made another tendril of mana, but my movements were unimpeded now. Looks like my “domain” has spread further. Much further. Now for my theory. I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I think I have an idea. Right now, my small tendril is being fed by me. But what if I try to control the connection? I severed it, but kept hold of it. The tendril was still dissipating at a rapid rate, but if I could just figure this out…

I don't think I've explained the connections very well. You see, you know veins? It's kinda like that. Every time I make a tendril, there's some sort of magical vein inside of it, and I'm the heart pumping its blood, or mana. I tried to shove the “vain” into the air, and it worked! And, I tried recreating the sucking feeling. I concentrated, I willed it. And after what felt like an eternity…

It worked. My tendril was sustained by magic in the air. I didn't even know if there was mana in the air. I just guessed. And thank god my guess was correct. Now, to find a way for the mana that's sustaining the tendril to come to me…

You see, I could still control the tendril fully. It was just getting mana from a different source.

Maybe I could add to the connection? If I can sever them, surely I can make them? This time, I imagine my mana going into the tendril, and going into the connection. All it did was feed the tendril.

And I know what you're asking. What does mana look like? No idea. I just imagine it as a blue liquid. It works though!

…who’s asking me? Bah! Who cares?

Wait…what if I just imagine the connection?

I tried…and it worked! I connected myself to the tendril. It tried to drain me, but I stopped that shit immediately. I was the one doing the sucking now.

…as in I'm sucking mana. Nothing else shut up.

I had a problem though. The suckage was weak. I wasn't getting enough mana. So I sucked more. And I got more mana. More, and more, and more. Eventually, after a few seconds, I was full again. But what if I could get more? I imagined a ball of mana. A really small, condensed ball of mana. I felt the drain, and I let it happen. It drained until I was empty. Then I drained the tendril. My hopefully infinite mana source provided me with mana. I sucked, sucked, and sucked. The ball was growing rapidly. It started as a ball the size of a marble, to about the size of a small child. And it only grew faster. Holy shit. After about a minute, I stopped the entire process. I stopped any and all suction that was happening. I kept a connection with the ball, but let the tendril dissipate. If I needed more mana, I would call for another one.

I looked at my giant ball. It was big, bountiful, and beautiful. I loved it. It was about the size of a full-grown man now. I know that's not a lot to go off of, but deal with it.

Ok, the mana problem is now fixed. Back to my hole. And by that, I mean I started expanding it again. It grew and grew, until it was about 25 feet wide now. My beautiful gaping hole.

I'm never saying that again.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Anyways, now I need a way for an adventurer to safely get down here. Maybe an elevator? You know, a rope one? Nah, too safe and lame. Wait. I have another idea.

…but for now, I'll put it on hold. I need to make my forest first. Does a tree count as a living being? Let's find out. The system said I just needed to kill it. The easiest way I could think of was my wind spirit. After I imagined where I wanted it summoned and invoked its name, the giant tornado human stood in the forest, right next to my hole.

It was probably confused right now. How can I get it to follow my orders?

…a connection? I shot a tendril of mana right into its head. After I pierced it, I tried to send it my will. I felt a slight drain of my mana. Maybe 2 or 3 points? Nothing too serious. It immediately got to work. And by that, I mean it raised its arm, and a…arc of condensed wind came out? That's the best way I can describe it. The wind sliced right through a tree, after which, the system chimed in

You have unlocked the [tree] template!

Oh. that was easy. Hell yeah. Now, how to get rid of this spirit? Maybe drain it of its mana? It was made of mana, as far as i know. Let's try it!

Nothing. It was like sucking syrup through a straw. After forcing my will into it though, the spirit stopped resisting. So, it seems if you try to suck mana from a living being, it can resist? Good to know.

And for the spirits are made of mana theory? Nah. I drained it of all I could, but it still stood tall and proud. Whatever. I imagined it no longer existing.

With that out of the way, let's start with the first floor.

First, I needed to expand my room. Right now, all I had was like 6 pillars, my pedestal, and those ever-burning torches. I needed to fix that.

…but, I don't think you care. Just imagine there was a time-skip, alright? Because there was one. This took a very long time to do. And I also don't have enough words to make it interesting. I can rant for as long as i want, but at some point it’ll become really fucking boring. It would have been a lot of i did this, and i did that. So let's just pretend you went through this with me.

…have I gone insane? I keep on talking to no one. Shit. uhhh. BACK TO THE MAIN TOPIC!

The small little alcove of safety I used to have was gone. What replaced it was a big cavern.

Bigs a bit of an understatement. It was a square, and like…5 miles in length and width!

Ok, maybe that's not even the size of your average forest, or a small one.

…but I digress. It was big enough. I just need to make it really thick. It was about 200 feet tall.

Now for plant-life. What all did a forest have? I know it has trees and grass, but what else? Fungi? Flowers? Whatever. I'll do the details later. First, grass. I summoned a wind elemental this time, not a spirit, to pick some grass, and then proceeded to kill said elemental. I laid lucious, beautiful grass all over the floor of the cavern.

…but if I was doing a magic forest, it would need more, no? I laid a metric-fuck ton of trees all over the damn place. SIKE! I only placed down one tree. I needed to find a way to change its looks.

I had a general idea of what I wanted it to look like. Am i gonna tell you? No. fuck you. You’ll just have to wait a few moments.

So, the first test was to obviously pump a load of mana into the tree. I tapped upon the connection of my giant ball, and started giving the tree mana. I stopped at about…2,000 mana.

…which was apparently too much. The tree started growing, and growing, and growing. It reached about 75% there to the roof before it stopped growing taller. Then it started growing wider.

Oh…shit. I thought. The looks of the tree remained mostly the same, it just grew big. I summoned a fire elemental. Hopefully it will clean this mess up.

Have I explained what an elemental looks like? Here, let me tell you. So, a wind elemental looks like a ball of raging winds, and a fire elemental is just a floating ball of fire. Both of which are probably about the size of your fist. And, I would show you its stats, but honestly? It's just a bunch of name changes. Except its spells. The fire elemental had 1 spell. Here it is.

FIRE BOLT

DMG:4

MP COST:2

TIER:0

TYPE:Spell

Shoot a ball of flame that deals damage. Strong against wind, weak against earth.

Nothing too special. I had it throw a fire bolt.

…and suddenly there was no longer a big tree. Apparently, all the mana went to making the tree bigger. That's all. I quickly erased the ash, and killed the fire elemental. Now for test 2.

This time, I imagined a tree where I wanted it. Except, I altered it. Alot. instead of your normal bark, it had pink bark, with cracks in it that glowed a small white light. The leaves were a mix of blue and purple. The tree was about…20 feet tall? Yeah. It was tall. A notification popped up.

You have created a new species of [tree]!

Click [here] to name it!

Oh. cool. I'll just name it magic tree. Doesn’t need to be too special. Then another blue screen popped up.

You’ve unlocked the [magic tree] template!

Oh…that's all? No special reward?

no response

Well, fine, fuck you then!

Sigh, whatever. After a few seconds I made the grass yellow, and even more softer. The system did the template thing, and that was finished. Now to spread around the trees. There was no specific pattern. And now? With all my trees in place it was time for the 2…3? Yeah, three main events. The entrance, the monsters, and the exit.

Wait. no. I need flowers! And a river! And a lake! Fuck!

Sigh. whatever. First, was the lake. I picked some corner, and dug a 50-foot wide circle, and made it about 75 feet deep. I made the water out of water mana. Apparently, that just looks like glowing water. It's also expensive as hell to do that! My ball shrunk a bit from the lake alone!

I made it look as natural as possible, and fucked off. Now for flowers. Wait, no. It would make more sense to do a river. Hmmm. so, for the river, maybe the theoretical adventurers would have to cross it to get to the exit? Sure! First though, I need the exit. I decided to put it on the opposite side of the lake. So if the lake was in the south. The exit would be in the north. The river was fairly simple. It was mostly a straight shot, but I added in some small channels. Near the exit, the river forked in both directions, making a sort of line. By the way, the river was about 12 feet wide, so I don't think anyone will be jumping it. I made sure that the rivers raged. How? I imagined it. No idea how, other than that. Don't think about it too hard. Now for the flowers and herbs. You know when I kinda did a time skip then? yeahhhh I'm gonna do that again. So you in a bit.

Ok. welcome back. It's been a few days. Yes. DAYS! AGH! So, I realized that there can't just be like1 or 2 flowers, but a shit load of other plants. So I did that. I'm mostly gonna skim over them, but here are a few: first, you’ve got the fire bloom. It has the general shape of a rose, except the stem was pitch black, and the flower seemed to drip lava. Why hasn't the forest burnt down yet? I made it fire-proof. Im so fuckin’ OP. if you stepped on it for some god-forsaken reason, it would burn your foot off. The flower is several hundreds of degrees. Even being near it is a lot. However, if you nick it by the stem, you'll be fine and you can use it however. Quick note, I imagined this thing to have 10 points of fire-aspected mana in it. 10! That's all! Christ. And for the aspect thing? Don't ask. I imagine, the system does the rest. Easy-peasy.

…that's my only favorite. Sure, the rest are plenty interesting, but I couldn't be bothered to go over them. There's like…30 different plants. Some even have different variants, bringing it to like 50! Way too many, if you ask me.

And now that I'm finally done with that, it was time for the entrance, then the monsters.

You know, halfway through, I realized something. Wouldn't the trees break their fall a little? You know, hit some branches, get in some leaves, and you'll be fine? I mean, you won't be fine, but you’ll be breathing for the foreseeable future. The issue is, however, how is a brave adventurer supposed to run my dungeon, if they break their legs? I need something to break it…

Maybe a pile of bones? Like, ill imagine that if you touch one of the bones, you wont take any fall damage, and you can meander about happily!

…but what skulls do I make? Human? No…humanoid! YES! I made each skull different. One had three eyes, another had an elongated jaw, or had mouths on the side of its skull, you know, that kind of stuff. It resembles a human, but is different. And I'm pretty sure the enchantment worked too, as I felt quite the drain while making the skulls. I deem it, good enough.

Then I remembered something. The exit! I had only planned where I would put it! Swiftly, I made a spiraling staircase going down. It went from stone, to stone bricks. Why? Because I was doing either a crypt, or something. I don't actually know. But the staircase slowly went from stone to human made stone brick. The entrance to the spiral was simple, there was an iron door you would open, leading into a hallway, where you would use the staircase. I made sure to throw in some torches.

Now, it was time for the monsters. I had a few ideas, and a few theories, like, could an elemental hide in a tree?

…and that was the only theory. So I decided to test it! I made an earth element, which was essentially just a brown ball of light, and ordered it to hide within the tree. It quickly zipped inside one of the cracks, and was no longer seen. Sweet! I decided that for every tree there would be a different element, excluding life and death. It just didn't feel right to have those 2 here. And then…finally…i was fucking finished! I had a river, trees, monsters, a forest, all that shit. I gazed upon my creation in a tired joy.

Then I remembered something…the sunlight problem. Whatever. I'll just make it to where they get everything they need with mana. Good enough.

Now? Now it was time for my next floor.