[Avardum: Day 008 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus]

Marcus was a busy, busy boy. He had spent the day purifying Mana and figuring out what his skills and abilities did. He learned many things, but the most important of which was the simple fact that Marcus could not purify Mana without a barrier composed of mana-rich dirt or air/ The only reason he had been unable to accumulate enough Mana to protect himself above was due to the winds above, as well as the pain. This is ironic as had he not had the pain, he would have been able to prevent the pain.

"Seems a little fucking cyclical." Marcus mused to himself as he read through the data Aurora was presenting to him. After a little experimenting, they realized that she could present data to him in a way not dissimilar to how she received it, just formatted for easy reading. It was strange. It did not have the polished look of the system screens; it was just a raw data text file with some color and bolding, but it rather neatly laid out what he needed to know.

"Alright, Aurora, I finished reading the whole list. What are the top ones I should focus on?" Marcus asked after finishing the list of several dozen skills and abilities he had as a Dungeon core.

"Here you go," she said, presenting him a new list.

Dig up dirt, stone, and other things both inside your domain as well as directly adjacent to your domain. All bi-products are deposited into inventory. Leveling this skill will increase the speed and amount of area you can affect at one time.

Spawning monsters is inherent to all dungeons, and the spawned entities can be of any number of types for any number of purposes. At the first level, your spawns will have a stat block that is roughly in the 35th percentile, based on your stat block.

If damage is done to your core, use a specially set aside mana pool to do damage. At the first level, the mana pool is capped at ten thousand.

As a last resort, you can strike at invaders personally. This is not easy, though, as you must solidify Mana into a form that will deal the damage. At the first level, it costs one hundred Mana per point of damage you wish to inflict on your target. Also, at the first level, 10% of this damage is unblockable and

You are a dungeon core, something beyond a mere mortal. As such, you have the ability to set tasks to be automated. At the first level, you are allowed two automated tasks.

As a dungeon core, even one who retains their memories, communication is difficult for you. You must train this skill if you wish to one day converse once more. At the first level, your communication is limited to basic shapes, such as arrows, being inscribed on floors/walls ahead of time. Text, Speech, and Images are beyond you.

As a Dungeon Core, you are the ultimate scavenger. When something is killed, dies, or is dropped in your Dungeon, you may choose to tag the body, item, or other thing for assimilation. When the tagged entity is not within range of a restricting entity, the System will automatically Assimilate it, allowing you to recreate it for a cost in Mana.

Marcus examined the seven abilities and agreed with Aurora. "These are good. Do we have any that we can immediately train up?"

"Just and at the moment. You can, however, begin setting aside Mana into the pool." Aurora said.

So Marcus did just that, immediately setting one of his available automations to create high-density sandstone blocks from the dirt and sand he had in his inventory. He also elected to send five percent of the Mana he generated into the pool. And finally, He began to . It seemed that Marcus could dig up about a cubic foot of material per minute. It also seemed that this was true regardless of the material, as after an hour of digging, he had mostly dirt and roughly three cubic feet of Basalt.

As an experiment, Marcus brought out a small piece of the Basalt, saturated it in Mana, and then set about compressing the rock with as much force as he could bring to bear. He expected it to crumble into sand, but what happened surprised him, as he was left with material the System called Mannium and a brief overview of the material that outlined its general uses and that it was what more commonly referred to as 'Dungeon Stone' and could be made from any kind of stone compressed with enough Mana. It was nearly indestructible without high-level magics or sufficient technological advancement and acted as the basis for almost all 'Dungeon Tech.'

"Well, that's rather fucking convenient." Marcus thought as he began to quickly saturate all the stone in his inventory with Mana and compress it into Mannium.

The remainder of the day was spent digging, saturating, and compressing stone into Mannium.

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[Avardum: Day 009 - 014 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus]

Upon realizing that he was going to do a lot of digging, he began to dig out a room directly underneath the hole he had bored into the plains. Outside, the winds howled. Marcus knew he would be producing a lot of Dungeon Stone, so he decided to do an experiment. He used his inventory to place a ring of the Dungeon Stone around the hardened and compacted rim of the hole leading into the room he had dug. Almost instantly, the mana barrier keeping back the Nullmana rose to the top of the ring of stone, and Marcus could feel the rate at which he lost Mana through the barrier drop significantly.

"Interesting." Marcus thought to himself. "Aurora, can you analyze the efficiency of the mana barrier as it is now, compared to how it was without the Dungeon Stone?"

"I'll do my best." She replied.

Marcus spent the next few hours thinking about how he could allow access to his Dungeon in a way that would be easy for humans or other beings. The result that he settled on was a spiral staircase. Just as he was about to begin construction, Aurora spoke up.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Marcus, I have some notes on the Mana Barrier if you would like to hear them?"

"Of course, go ahead."

"The use of Dungeon Stone as a frame for the mana barrier seems to have decreased ambient Mana loss to 35% of its original state. It also has several other interesting effects. Any Nullmana pushed through the barrier takes significantly less effort to purify and convert to Mana. It would be interesting to see if enough layered Mana barriers could do the job themselves. The other interesting thing that happens now that dungeon stone is used is that any air coming through has all particulates removed from it, and from what I can see, it mostly goes into your inventory."

Marcus quickly looked into his inventory and did indeed see a couple of new entries, most notably, Bauxite, Nickle, Gold, Diamonds, Copper, Lead, and Zinc. The amounts were minuscule, with sulfur being the most at one gram. The others were all simply showing a 'less than one gram' indicator.

"Based on the data presented by the makeup of the particulates coming in, I can only assume that this area is a Volcanic Plain," Arurra said. Suddenly, Marcus received a notification:

[https://bluebox.akmedrah.com/VV_Notification-005.png]

"Well, I'll be, my first quest," Marcus said, reading over the notification.

"There is one more bonus to the Dungeon Stone." Aurora said, "It seems to allow for a naturally more dense Mana environment. Basically, if you have a structure of Dungeon Stone, it directly increases how much Mana you can filter out from the Nullman, as well as how much Mana you can use at once."

"So, build out of Dungeon Stone is what I am hearing?"

"Well, yes, but there is one problem."

"The amount of stone it takes, right?" Marcus asked.

"Correct. One cubic foot of Dungeon Stone requires about twenty-five cubic feet of stone."

"So let's dig!"

"It seems we must," Aurora said.

For the next four and a half days, that was all Marcus did. He would dig and dig until, finally, he was left with a massive room extending north of the hole he had originally dug. It was rectangular, with cavern-like walls of rough stone and sand. Length-wise, it measured about sixty-five feet, and on the short side, it was fifty-five feet. The room had ceilings roughly fifteen feet in height, resulting in a total cubic footage of roughly fifty-three and a half thousand cubic feet of stone and sand. As he dug, he condensed the stone into Dungeon Stone and the sand into the strange blocks he had made earlier. The result was that Marcus had enough to build with nearly 1500 cubic feet of Dungeon Stone and an even greater amount of sandstone blocks.

"Aurora, you still have the designs of the old drop-bunkers, right?"

"Of course."

"Great, pull it up, and let's get started." Marcus had a dungeon to build.

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[Avardum: Day 015-022 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus]

The week that followed gave Marcus a whole new appreciation for the support squadron and how quickly they had managed to build damn near anything he had ever requested. In a week, with his new abilities, Marcus was sure that Titaus would have been able to build a whole city with running water, but that was why he had been the support squadron commander. In that same week, Marcus had raised one old drop bunker. The Drop-Bunkers were originally designed to be dropped from obit with supplies inside them, but the impact would more often than not kill allies as well as enemies, so they had been dropped from rotation. However, Marcus had always enjoyed their simple design, one door, and thick walls of Durinium. Except in this case, the interior contained a spiral staircase to the depths, and both the stairs and bunker were made out of the grey Dungeon Stone.

Having a door standing open was somewhat concerning to Marcus, but for some reason, the System would pSystem if he tried to cut off the outside firm his core. So the doorway stood unfilled and happened to be facing into the wind, so it did manage to get him some more of the particulates in the air.

"Well, what do you think, Aurora?"

"I believe that this structure does not live up to the guidelines set out in the Solarium's Marine Handbook, but for your first attempt at constructing something in all the time I have known you, I would say that you did a fantastic job!"

"Pfft," Marcus snorted and laughed. "It's ass, and we both know it, but I'll take it. Thank you."

[https://bluebox.akmedrah.com/VV_Notification-006.png]

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[Avardum: Day 023 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus]

Marcus was seeing if he could compress the Dungeon Stone even further, as well as if he could make Dungeon Stone from the sandstone blocks. The notification he received had him on edge, as well as the feeling of utter vulnerability from the strange creature that had entered the bunker. It looked like a beetle, and a mole had some kind of bastard child. However, the System let him know it was a Level 20 Molttle. Level 20 was high, but Marcus was determined to strike at it, so he immediately began pulling as much Mana as he could, forming it into a bolt of energy using the Skill. The Molttle moved quickly and clambered down the stairs in the center of the bunker, reaching the large open room at the bottom.

As soon as it laid eyes on the blue orb set on a pedestal of Dungeon Stone, the Molttle lost its mind and charged. At this point, Marcus had been able to pull together a solid manifestation of three thousand Mana and immediately unleashed the bolt. The System alerted him that he had done eleven of a potential thirty damage. Marcus began to panic. And time seemed to slow as things started happening. First, Marcus got a notification.

[https://bluebox.akmedrah.com/VV_Notification-007.png]

Second, the Molttle jumped through the air faster than he thought possible, and its strange limb glowed as it reached out to strike. Third, Marcus activated the . What followed was more shocking than Marcus expected, Yet it was all summed up neatly by the System in a noSystemtion.

[https://bluebox.akmedrah.com/VV_Notification-008.png]

A few moments later, another notification appeared.

[https://bluebox.akmedrah.com/VV_Notification-009.png]

The rewards were fantastic. Firstly, the map being unlocked without having to complete the cryptic task of "Learning more about the Area" seemed like a sure win in Marcus's book. Two skills leveled up, which made them more efficient. But the two best in Marcus's eyes were gaining the Molttle as a Spawnable Creature and the gift from the Goddess. The gift was a surprise because as soon as he finished reading the line, a sudden burst of knowledge flowed into him, and in it was the data needed to allow him to spawn a number of things with Mana. Of the hundred or so items, there were four that really caught his attention. Firstly, Food, which was bread, as well as some meats and cheeses. Secondly was drink, in the form of water and wine. Third was steel; there were any number of things he could do with steel. But lastly was a strange material he had never heard of before called Manastone. Marcus spent the rest of the day experimenting with Manastone. He found that it was far weaker than Dungeon Stone but had a drastically higher mana storage capacity and, if it was in contact with his core, could be directly influenced to filter Nullmana as an extension of his body.

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[Avardum: Day 024 | Location: Howling Plains | Marcus]

The map that Marcus unlocked told him much of the work that lay ahead. It also told him that he had probably started in the most difficult area he could have, so if he managed to make it here, he would most likely be successful throughout the rest of his mission. While he looked at the map, Marcus spent the day wondering just how long it would take him to do what he needed to do.

[https://bluebox.akmedrah.com/Vis-Voluntatis%20_%20AVARDUM.jpg]

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[Avardum: Day 025| Location: Howling Plains | Marcus]

On the 25th day of his time in Avardum, Marcus felt he was ready to toss himself fully into the work he had to do. So he began to plan.

1. Complete Manastone keep to filter Nullmana from the Howling Planes actively.

2. Expand Dungon's influence until he can build a rim of Dungeon Stone around the Howling Plains, thus sealing it from Nullmana

3. Establish a city...

The list went on and on, with Aurora providing input on the contents and order of the list. They planned for the whole day and through the night. They were about to finalize the list and really throw themselves into the work when a feeling washed over Marcus. Someone had just entered the Dungeon, and they were not alone.