The first thing I tried was getting some hints from the entity.
"How do dungeons move rock?"
Silence.
"Why don't I have dungeon instincts? Are other dungeon cores self-aware?"
Silence.
"...Which way is up?"
Silence, which was a real shame because I had no indicators about that one and it seemed pretty fundamental. The pressure from null mana was more or less equal around me, so until I could make something fall and point in the other direction, I had no idea where the surface even was. Asking for information on my feats was allowed, but the entity seemed unwilling or unable to respond to questions about the world in general, or how to do things I hadn't already worked out. Even if I already had the skill for it. For example...
"Mana Conversion: Red? Information please?" I asked, sticking to a question format that it was able to respond to.
Mana Conversion: Red
Represents your ability to convert Null Mana to Red Mana. At higher levels more mana may be converted at once.
Current Skill: 1
Not exactly a useful factoid, but I went through everything else on my status anyway, just in case there was something I could use.
Mana Sense
You can sense the flows of mana around you, as well as the Quiddity, to an extent.
Current Skill: 2
Mana Conversion: Black
Represents your ability to convert Null Mana to Black Mana. At higher levels more mana may be converted at once.
Current Skill: 1
Null Mana Manipulation
You can move Null Mana around, take it into yourself, and expel it. At higher skill levels you may move more mana at once, and it becomes easier to move lower amounts.
Current Skill: 1
Black Mana Manipulation
You can move Black Mana around, take it into yourself, and expel it. At higher skill levels you may move more mana at once, and it becomes easier to move lower amounts.
Current Skill: 1
Red Mana Manipulation
You can move Red Mana around, take it into yourself, and expel it. At higher skill levels you may move more mana at once, and it becomes easier to move lower amounts.
Current Skill: 1
Will Exertion: Mana
Through sheer will alone, you can alter the flows of mana. At higher skill levels improve range, power, and finesse of your alterations.
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Current Skill: 1
I had acquired an interesting set of tools so far, but nothing stood out to me as a get-out-of-rock-free skill.
It was time to experiment.
I spent a while pulling in Null Mana. It was a slow process, isolating small areas and bending the flows around it to guide it towards me, but after an hour my status had confirmed that I had about 100 Null Mana in reserve, as well as having drawn in a small amount of White Mana that got caught up in the flows. I didn't get the White Mana Manipulation skill for that though so I guessed it had to be deliberate to 'count'. My Null Mana Manipulation skill went up to 5, too.
Next, I needed to work out how to release the mana I had absorbed. I turned my thoughts towards how my spherical body felt compared with when I had just woken up. I could still feel the heavy mote of Black Mana quite clearly, and after a little while I could feel the Red Mana darting around my core. I felt a few pinpricks on the edge of my attention as I continued trying to feel the Null Mana, absorbing more to see where it went. It wasn't until I started bringing in slightly larger amounts that I realised the answer: Most of my core was a nexus of Null Mana. If I had been presented with my status at 'birth' I probably would've noticed sooner, but Null Mana was swirling around the rest of the mana I had absorbed. It was hard to pick out because I had mistook it for, well, nothing.
Now that I knew how to find it, I mentally held what I judged to be about 10 mana directly, Since it was technically a part of me I didn't need to use as much finesse moving the surrounding flow to extract it, and once it was outside of me again, I released it.
This was... anticlimactic. The rock seemed to glow a little bit, but did not budge or show signs of weakening, and the mana I released disappeared into the natural flows around me. Speaking of which, now that I was being less introspective, I noticed a fair few motes of a new kind of mana on my surface. They felt almost metallic as I pulled them in.
Mana Conversion: Purple
Current Skill: 2
Purple Mana Manipulation
Current Skill: 2
Experimenting with deliberately converting mana would have to be on my list, but for now I needed to work out how to use the mana I had to deal with this rock. Just releasing it didn't help, so either my method was wrong or I didn't go big enough. I didn't have enough of any non-Null mana to try anything interesting yet, and I didn't want to get side-tracked on fixing that until I'd exhausted the possibilities of using Null Mana for the task. With that in mind, I moved 20 mana to just below my surface, focusing on the area I planned to release it into, and watched the natural flows as I poured mana into the space. Again, the rock glowed, but this time I could see what was happening much more clearly. As my mana pushed in, it met the resistance of the natural flow... I began to form an idea. And a mental grimace.
I prepared another 10 mana for this test, partially because if I was right it wasn't to do with how much mana I used and partially because if this didn't work I was probably going to end up with whatever a dungeon core calls a migraine. Carefully, I pushed the natural flow out of the space I was simultaneously pushing my own mana into. I could feel the pressure of the natural mana trying to move around my area of influence, but as it pushed against me I pushed back, in two ways.
"Slow."
It worked, interfering with the natural flow enough to make a gap I pushed my own mana into and kept holding onto. The rock began to glow again, but this time I wasn't overwhelmed. After what seemed like an hour but couldn't have been more than ten minutes judging by the wooziness I felt, the natural flows stopped pushing against me. I released my will slowing their movement, and my hold on the mana I was pushing. The rock dimmed a little. Taking a few minutes to regain focus and confirm it wasn't changing further, I then tried to pull my mana back in, and was rewarded with a satisfying sensation as the rock came apart with the mana, and flowed into my core.
Mana Tunneling set to 1
Material Discovered: Granite
Mana Tunneling By infusing matter with mana, you have learned how to manipulate it. By deconstructing matter, you have expanded your influence.
I felt pretty pleased with myself. I'd solved this little riddle of expanding and learned I could somehow store the raw materials I 'claimed' with my mana. I could even feel the pressure against the incredibly tiny tunnel I'd formed in the same way I could feel it against my core. Looking closer, a thin layer of mana-infused rock covered the walls of the tunnel, my mana linking it directly to me.
I tried to move it.
Ouch. I did not succeed in moving it. At least I didn't break it. Break me? I certainly felt the feedback as if it was an extension of myself.
I spent the next few hours carving out a ten-meter-cubed room, both so I could practice the skill and so I could finally get an answer to one of my more pressing questions: Seriously, which way is up?
Once I finished and was happy the thing wasn't going to collapse, I picked a side and excavated around a small piece of stone. Assuming the veneer of mana I'd leave on it wasn't able to hold it up, I should get a pretty good answer as to which way stuff falls.
Physics - at least in this case - did not disappoint, though if I wanted this room to be traversable I'd have to adjust the angle of the floor by... about 30 degrees? That could wait for now though. The surface beckons!