Important: Usually I take my time editing my story until it’s happy, but the process is slow and not always an improvement. So I’m going to go out of my comfort zone and upload a chapter I write after I’ve checked it a couple of times to make sure there’s no glaring problems ^.^ Perhaps sometime in the future, when this story is finished, I might go back and improve the quality.
A quick apology guys! I changed a few small things in the previous chapter to make the next one make sense. This is entirely my fault so I’m sorry :c
Note: When I upload chapters, and their length, will vary. Some might take a day, others a week. Please put up with it c:
Note: This is my first time using the tables, and I find them a bit tricky. I hope they turn out ok.
Other than that, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
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I was about to focus my mind on the task when I suddenly hear a thump. Slightly annoyed, I open my eyes and the pinpoint the noise. My eyes turn from annoyance to shock, as I stare at the dead body of the human I just sent outside. He was lying face flat on the ground just past the entrance, as if he simply fell over and died. A horrible thought occurred to me.
What if my minions are constrained like I am.
I quickly race over to the human. His body is still intact. Perhaps it can be salvaged. I quickly dragged him back in. A few minutes passed as I checked him all over, making sure he wasn’t killed by a different means. Suddenly, as I was checking him, he sat upright with wide eyes. I sighed. Happy but confused. It didn’t make sense.
Before I had time to ponder the thought, the human stood up. Suddenly turning around, he walked through the entrance again.
Thud.
I sigh again, this time massaging my temples, something my previous host used to do when frustrated. Mindless. I drag him back inside, this time farther away from the entrance so that I could stop him in time. I payed close attention to his body this time, trying to discern why he revived. As time passed, I noticed a faint blue light surrounding his body. Over time it increased until it glowed. Suddenly he revived again, sitting upright with wide eyes. This time, as he strode to the door, I uttered a command.
“Cease movement and rescind previous orders.” The Human suddenly stops. I look around, trying to figure out what that blue light on his body is. I laugh this time as I notice why.
I’m an idiot. Of course things aren’t that simple. The cave I’m in is surrounded by a glowing blue light as well. It must be what sustains us. That’s the reason we can’t leave.
My laughter dies off really fast as I realise what this means. I can’t send creatures outside to hunt. I’m going to have to figure out how to attract some creatures instead. I’ll have to put aside the information gathering for now. I spend a few hours trying to figure out a way to attract some animals, but nothing comes up. I have no clues, and no information. I was at a loss. Until a thought occurred to me.
I don’t need to attract new creatures. I need to breed more creatures.
Creating anything I currently know was out of my reach, but I still remember what I saw when I was born. Bugs. I quickly start searching, looking through all the crevices. If I was my old self, I could’ve found them with my expansive view straight away, but being human I can only see things through my eyes. This body has many disadvantages. Finally after a few more hours of scavenging, I find them. Or rather it. I grimace. Only one. I quickly pick it up and consume it.
Worthless.
I gained almost no energy from it. But it was a simple creature, so it took almost no energy to create more. I quickly use up almost all my remaining energy to make over a dozen of the creatures. 16 to be exact. I quickly tasked them to breed, noticing that one of them stood out from the rest.
Slightly bigger, this bug had a red shade to it instead of the green on all the others. I picked it up, but I couldn’t discern the difference. Must be a variant, but I have no knowledge on what it does. I set it back down and let it get to work. I’ll have to figure that out later. For now, I can let them breed, and focus on my previous task. I sit back down and put myself into a meditative state, closing my eyes. I started sorting through the humans’ memories, finding out what I could from them. Hopefully they have something useful in them.
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I blink, noticing my surroundings had changed quite a bit. After the first day, I decided to close the door. I found out that it doesn’t remove me from the world, just hides the entrance. Not much protection, but better than nothing. Weeks passed since I had started meditating. It seems the bugs had been feeding on some moss growing off the walls, and had produced at an insane rate. Somehow I knew the exact amount of bugs.
617 Bugs
145 Bug Variants
Interesting the bug variants seemed to have distanced themselves from the other bugs. Either way, I had quite a bit of energy at my disposal. Not to mention what I discovered in the humans memories. I consumed a few of the bugs that were variant so that I could recreate them. One finished, I quickly cataloged the information I got from the human, from least important to most important.
* The humans are part of a guild focusing on dungeon research. Their greed got the better of them, and they murdered everyone else in the guild to cover up their discovery
* Their discovery was sheer luck, with very little chance of being replicated. They burned all their research before heading over here to test it out. Humans are stupid
* A part of the development focused on accessing the information the dungeon had
Apparently, from the information I gathered about humans, they will investigate these murders and inevitable be led here. I need to be prepared for that time. Luckily, the information access the humans built is two-ways. With a little bit of fiddling, I should be able to access my own information. I wonder how it’ll come out. Focusing on myself, I delve deep inside in order to find where they kept the command. It took a while, but I found it. It was a small ball entirely black, spinning furiously as if to contain itself. Intrigued, I poked it.
Woops.
Suddenly whatever the ball contained flung out and enveloped me. Consuming me, I thought it was trying to take over, until I realized that it had infused itself and become a part of my being. I was confused however, as I had gained no new information. Then a thought occurred to me.
Wouldn’t the information be in a manner suited to humans?
“Access Information” I commanded. Suddenly these blue boxes appeared in front of me, overflowing with the information I had wanted. It was in the human language, but luckily having become human I could understand it completely. After a bit of poking, I figured out how it worked.
Saying ‘access information’ pulled up a box showing all available submenus. Currently there were four, along with various submenus for ‘information’ and ‘Creations’. I read all of it to catch up.
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Status Window
Abilities
Creations
Information
Status WindowDungeon NameLuciferDungeon TypeUniqueDungeon Level0Total LF2/5000 LF
AbilitiesHidden DungeonCloses or opens dungeon entrance. Useful for hiding, but doesn’t blend into surroundings. Easily found by more intelligent creatures.Mind AssimilationTook over another’s mind. Granted their intelligence and knowledge.Catalogued InformationCatalogues all information related to dungeon into a management system. System currently in use.
Can be commanded through voice or thoughts.Lumite DetectionCan detect the blue glow Lumite exceeds.
Creations
Natural
Discovered
NaturalGoblinCost: 200 LFQueenCost: 500 LF
Additional: UniqueKingCost: 1000 LF
Additional: Unique per levelButlerCost: 2000 LF
Additional: Unique per levelDeathCost: 100,000 LF
Additional: Unique
DiscoveredHumanCost: 50 LF
Additional: 20% AssimilatedBugCost: 1 LF
Additional: 100% AssimilatedBug VariantCost: 5 LF
Additional: 100% Assimilated
Information
General
Creations
GeneralLFLF stands for Life-Force. Any action you do consumes LF. LF can be obtained by consuming Life-Forms, but you gain only 70%
of their total LF. Core taking damage consumes LF. When this reaches zero you become unconscious and absorb any Life-Force
near you that is weak/dead.EvolutionMaxing LF automatically evolves the Core at the cost of all LF except 1. Evolution has infinite progression.AbilitiesAbilities are various actions you’ve acquired through experience or natural means.LevelsThe level of the dungeon. A level is gained every evolution.RestrictionsInhabitants of the dungeon cannot leave the dungeon.VariantsVariation of original creature
CreationsGoblinExpands dungeons by excavating. Creates additional rooms and hallways. LF required to expand.QueenCreates New Life-Forms.KingDefends dungeon. Extremely powerful, but costly and only one can be created per level. King decided upon creation.Butler??Death??HumanDefends dungeon.BugBreeds rapidly. Useful as an LF/food source.Bug Variant??
The system seems to contain information you know, and discover. Extremely useful. It can’t act on unknown information however, so the Bug Variant is still unidentified. I’ll figure out a way around that later. For now, I need to create a Queen. She seems the most useful creature right now. No point in expanding a dungeon without creatures to inhabit it. Some time had passed while I did all this, so I currently had 825 Bugs and 150 Bug Variants. The Bug Variants seem to breed slowly and, as I don’t know their purpose, I won’t consume any of them. I need to gain 499 LF. Bugs cost 1 LF to create. Consuming all of them gives me 577.5 LF. 77.5 LF is equivalent to 110.7 of them. So 111. Quickly running it through my head, I got back just under 500 LF. It was strange how well I could handle Math when I didn’t even understand it, but I pushed that aside. I’d use this as a test as well. I quickly consumed 714 of the bugs and checked my status window.
Status WindowDungeon NameLuciferDungeon TypeUniqueDungeon Level0Total LF502/5000 LF
I was right. LF only works definitively. I can’t have half of a Life-Force, so I need to add that information into my equation. While I was at it, I quickly looked at the information on LF.
GeneralLFLF stands for Life-Force. Any action you do consumes LF. LF can be obtained by consuming Life-Forms, but you gain only 70% of their total LF. Core taking damage consumes LF. When this reaches zero you become unconscious and absorb any Life-Force near you that is weak/dead. LF is always whole.
I grin. The information updated, so I was right. Everything seems to be in order. Now that I have the LF, its time to summon the Queen. I quickly activate my Core, gathering it to form a being.
The being that came out resembled a human form, only her skin was completely covered in black scales and her eyes glowed red like coals. A small tail swathed back and forth behind her, the same color as her skin. She had long flowing red hair that went all the way down to her waist. It seemed almost unnatural with the rest of her body. I grinned, she was perfect. But it was time to get to work.
“Explain to me what you can do,” I commanded.
“No.”
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