Dungeons, what are they?
Dungeons are naturally forming entities that take the shape of structures, a series of caves, and many other things. Dungeons come in a great many different varieties and combinations, mainly providing unique areas that a Diver could explore and slay monsters. At the same time, they search for loot and treasure the Dungeons naturally produce to draw in Divers.
Dungeons also come in many different types, whether it be Floored Dungeons, Cave Dungeons, Tower Dungeons, Structured Dungeons, Field Dungeons, and even floating island Dungeons. Still, there exist two types that produce extremely dangerous or deadly dungeons, these being Dimensional Dungeons and World Dungeons.
Dimensional Dungeons make up a small dimension that grows with time and energy. These Dungeons can seemingly freely connect and disconnect with other dungeons and planes, making it hard to keep track of the Dungeon.
World Dungeons, however, were much more dangerous but just as unique. Instead of taking the form of a theme or 'type,' World Dungeons seemed to create entire worlds in their dungeons, bringing forth countless different monsters from different themes. Not only that, but World Dungeons were also known to construct lore, produce unique environments, items, and so much more for their Dungeons, with some World Dungeons living long enough to create an entire world within their depths.
Luckily, Dungeons most exhibit very basic intelligence.
However, what most don't know, is that some Dungeons are intelligent, allowing for more complex designs to their dungeon interiors, monsters, traps, and loot.
And the smarter of the Dungeons are even capable of speech and complex thought.
What happens if you combine one such intelligent core with the Dimensional and World type?
No one knows, or, to be more accurate, no one knew until now. As a Newborn, Core was born.
This newborn Core, while confused, knew its purpose.
To build, expand, and grow stronger while providing raw resources, training, and systematic resources to Dungeon Divers.
At the moment, the newborn Core was going over some of the knowledge within its head, pondering what type of monster it should start with to help in its expansion.
At first, it was considering going with a low-intelligence Goblin, an incredibly weak dungeon monster with great amounts of potential for evolution and growth, but decided against it since, as it was an organic monster, it would need sustenance to function for long periods of time.
But with some thought, it did find a suitable monster worker that wouldn't require substance, could work tirelessly, and had the potential for growth.
The monster? Skeletons, weak monsters under the Undead type that, while not nearly as filled with potential as Goblins, still had great potential for evolutionary growth.
And as an added bonus, the Undead Type Monsters had a great many abilities, magic, and skills that suited combat against the living, which was an added bonus for the Core.
And with it currently only having its Core Room that makes up its Dungeon, it wanted to expand as quickly as possible to hide its core and prevent early destruction.
Due to many Dungeons not hiding their cores early on in life, most are destroyed or enslaved by the very Divers Dungeons that seek to use and nourish so that they can grow.
You see, Dungeons need Divers. Divers bring in and leak mana and nourish the Dungeon with energy over time, allowing for much faster growth, and if a Diver were to die inside the Dungeon? All of their energy would be collected by the Dungeon. Still, while most foolish cores seek to end every adventurer that seeks to dive into their Dungeons, some, like itself, would prefer to nourish the Divers until they grow strong enough to give off a much greater amount of energy inside their Dungeon and eventually succumb to the Dungeon's much stronger monsters deeper in its interior.
Although the newborn didn't really care, it just wanted to build, expand, and grow while it created something truly beautiful and stunning.
And for the first few moments of its birth, while it thought of all of this, a stream of messages echoed in the youngling's mind.
[Birth of a New Dungeon Core found]
[Adding into System]
[Scanning Core]
[Dimension Type Documented]
[World Type Documented]
[Intelligence Documented]
[Generating Status...done]
/=====+=====\
Dungeon Name: None
Individual Name: None
Dungeon Type: Dimensional and World
Mana Units Per 24 hours: 1,000 Units
Mana Storage: [5,000/15,000 Units]
Monsters: 0
Difficulty: 0
Abilities: [Creation], [Absorption], [Manipulation], [Monster Communication], [Monster Domination], [Contract Creation], [Rule Creation], [Select Evolution], [Dungeon Portal Creation], [Dimensional Manipulation]
\=====+=====/
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Deciding to ignore such messages since it knew instinctually everything stated, it got to work on creating its first monster.
Sadly it only had very basic knowledge, such as a few different weak monsters, some plants, basic knowledge of all its being, and some examples of normal dungeons and how they operate along with how it's supposed to operate.
Frankly, though, the youngling didn't care about how it was supposed to act and operate as a Dungeon.
Focusing back on the task at hand, the young Dungeon began designing its first monster in its mind, a Human Skeleton with weak and brittle bones, with two empty eye sockets with two small red lights that represented its eyes.
Creating said skeleton took about 100 Units of Mana, but the skeleton by itself was useless unless he had a monster that could sustain itself with bones.
The next part would be to imbue the Skeleton with Necrotic Mana and to reanimate it, making it into an undead.
Mana came in countless different types and forms, and while the Dungeon Core knew instinctively that there existed other types of energy, it only knew a few, Mana, being the most important that it knew.
As it transformed about 15 Units of Mana into its Necrotic variant, a Black cloud of energy formed above its core on its pedestal before flowing into the Skeleton's body, reanimating it into an Undead.
With the red lights igniting in its eye sockets, the Skeleton slowly got up from the ground and stood there, which did not surprise the core, seeing as most undead, upon reanimation, creation, or birth, lacked any intelligence and, in most cases, were either just feral or puppets for a Necromancer or similar mage.
The core noted that the information it had from birth was a bit strange and seemed to be incomplete, seeing as it knew what some things were, yet didn't know a great many other things.
Focusing back onto the Undead, the core scanned over its being with its senses.
Annoyingly, another screen blocked the Core's 'eyes.'
/=====+=====\
Name: None
Species: Skeleton (Undead)
Size Type: Medium
Level: 1
Health: 60/60 (17.5 Per Hour)
Mana: 0/0 (0)
Stamina: ∞/∞
Abnormalities/Mutations: None
Physical Attributes:
[Atk] Strength: 5
[Atk] Agility: 5
[Def] Vitality: 5 (+2 Health, +3 Health Regeneration, +1 Stamina Regeneration)
[Def] Endurance: 10 (+5 Health, +3 Stamina, +0.25 Health Regeneration)
[Support] Perception: 5
[Support] Reaction: 5
Mental Attributes:
[Atk] Intelligence: 0 (+2 Mana, +0.25 Mana Regeneration)
[Atk] Wisdom: 0 (+0.5 Mana, +1 Mana Regeneration)
[Def] Willpower: 0
[Def] Resistance: 5
[Support] Control: 0
[Support] Focus: 0
Skills: [Bone Replacement Lvl 1]
Perks: [Infinite Stamina], [Horde Mentality Lvl 1]
Level Up Rewards: 5 Stat Points
Drops: Variety of Bones [Grade: Trash(F)] (60%), Bonemeal [Grade: Trash(F)] (20%)
\=====+=====/
Once again, ignoring the screen that appeared within its mind, the core scanned its body thoroughly, finding that what the screen stated was correct.
A simple skeleton that only cost the Core 115 Units of Mana to create.
Even then, the Skeleton was weak, slow, couldn't think, and would easily be destroyed by even a human child of age 14 and above, not that the core knew what a Human was, let alone a human child.
And despite all its imperfections and utter weakness, each monster inside a Dungeon had the potential to grow and evolve. Sure, while some monsters may hit the end of a particular evolution tree, a great many monsters could grow to become literal Gods, given time, experience, and energy.
And Dungeons could set their created monsters at set levels, evolutions, and more so long as a monster of theirs has reached the stage and strength and have the Dungeon memorize the Monster's genetic make-up, allowing for much easier replenishment of high leveled monsters after death.
Of course, memorizing the Monster's makeup would result in a carbon copy of the dead monster upon recreation, which is why it's better to have a wide array of monster samples so that the Dungeon can make some adjustments if needed without the whole body falling apart. And while this did require experimentation to get it right, it wouldn't be too hard so long as it wasn't an incredibly complex and unique creature.
If Dungeons didn't do this, they would have to create basic monsters and grow them to the point they could replace the dead high-level monster, which would take too much time and too many resources the Dungeon could use elsewhere.
Focusing back on the Skeleton standing within its core room, the Core ordered the Skeleton to start digging away at the compact dirt that made up the room's walls with its skeletal hands.
Seeing that it was inefficient with its hands, the Core used a single unit of mana to create a block of stone which shifted into the form of a shovel that the Core commanded the Skeleton to use.
At first, the Skeleton was even less efficient than it was using its hands. Still, after the Core mentally imprinted how it should use the tool, the skeleton's digging efficiency greatly increased. The core began absorbing all the loose dirt into itself for later use or recycling.
The Core's Dimension was currently in the shape of a perfect square, with its core room sitting directly in the middle of the dimension.
The Core could shift and change the shape of the Dimension at will and even increase its size but didn't really have any say about the inside of the Dimension that the Core hasn't claimed and connected itself with yet.
And as far as it could tell, its Dimension was currently filled with dirt, which it would have to begin removing so that it could build a basic floor with weak monsters.
Sure, it could just use its mana to dig out and absorb all the compact dirt, but the Core felt it would be much cheaper on its resources to create monsters to do the work instead.
Speaking of Monsters, the Core created three more skeletons as well equipping them with stone shovels as well.
With each skeleton going in a different direction, it only took a few hours before four hallways were created from the Core room.
With its current layout being that of a cross with a square at the center, the core had the four skeletons begin digging out rooms at the end of the hallways they dug out.
The Core wanted first to dig out an entire floor and everything above the floor before creating an atmosphere and fake sky.
With its Dimension currently taking the shape of a cube, it would leave half of the Dimension underground and the other half in an open area. Of course, the Dimension currently lacks oxygen and various other gases, so if a Diver were to enter, they would die from suffocation. For most Dungeons, this was not a problem, seeing as once the entrance was open, the gas would leak in, but for Dimensional Dungeons? They would have to create the gases themselves since they wouldn't leak in through the portals the Dungeon Uses to connect to other dimensions.
While the Skeletons endlessly worked to expand the rooms they dug out, the Core quickly glanced at the stone shovel of one of the Skeletons, curious.
/=====+=====\
Item Name: None
Item Type: Tool/Weapon (Shovel)
Grade: Trash
Description: A simple shovel made of stone that was created by the Unnamed Dungeon for its Skeletons to use as tools.
Note 1: This Tool will easily break or snap in half if used on anything other than dirt.
Note 2: This counts as a Drop from the Skeleton with a 50% chance of dropping upon death.
\=====+=====/
Ignoring the screen blatantly calling its creation trash, the core focused on the Skeleton and the shovel it used.
As the screen suggested, the shovel could only be described as trash. It was clear that the stone would easily chip and break if used on anything other than dirt and was best not used as a weapon.
Wanting to try something, the Core gathered up five units of mana and infused the stone with it.
/=====+=====\
Item Name: None
Item Type: Tool/Weapon (Shovel)
Grade: Uncommon
Description: A simple shovel made from mana-infused stone that was created by the Unnamed Dungeon
Enchantments: [Durability II] and [Mana Efficiency I]
Note 1: This Tool will easily break or snap in half if used on anything other than dirt.
Note 2: This counts as a Drop from the Skeleton with a 50% chance of dropping upon death.
Note 3: Mana-Infusment of this tool has greatly raised the tool's durability and Mana efficiency, allowing for the digging of tougher materials and an easier cast of spells on and through the item.
\=====+=====/