Darius returned his attention to the Dungeon Core now that it was just him and Gunner in the chamber with the Dungeon Core. He first Analyzed it to see what he could glean off it.

[Dungeon Core (Damaged) - Unique

Durability: 1,200/8,000

Description: The nucleus of a dungeon and what carries its laws, instincts, and element. It can only come into being when special conditions are met, and can exist for eternity unless it is destroyed by an external force.]

'Hm, that was interesting, but told me very little in the end.' Darius remarked mentally.

Apart from what he could see, there was no visible damage to the Dungeon Core on the outside, except for the dark miasma that kept flowing out of it. Darius also noted its lowered durability in passing.

With a curious mind, he placed a finger on the core. He felt nothing but the coldness of its crystal body, which relieved him. He feared that it or the mist it released would possess the corruptive ability that Darkness energy was known for.

With that ascertained, he focused.

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness)(Damaged) into a Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness)? This will cost 6 Conversion Points.]

Seeing that it was within his range, Darius smiled. However, he didn't fix the Dungeon Core just yet as he wanted to try an alternative method that he had thought up after seeing how the core was structured.

Taking his finger back, Darius pointed at the Dungeon Core and used his basic level 16 Heal spell, meaning it healed 80% of a target's HP.

Darius noted the spell 'striking' the core, but also that it had done nothing to alleviate its problem. The black miasma still leaked from it and its durability had not changed in the slightest.

Darius chuckled at this failure. After all, while the Heal spell looked overpowered from how much it could healed, it had a very tight binding clause, which was that it restored a target's HP!

That was to say, if a target did not have HP, then it could not be healed but had to be repaired. This sounded obvious enough, but he had slightly hoped for a bizarre loophole similar to how this Life element attacks had been able to massively injure the undead.

Since there was none, Darius could only place his hand on the Dungeon Core once more and confirm the Transmutation to repair it. Once he did so, he noticed that the core shuddered visibly as its size expanded to almost double what it had been before.

Not only that, but the dark miasma that had been leaking from it instantly stopped, and was even rapidly re-absorbed into the core.

Minus the darkness that coated the walls and floor, everything else was sucked back into the core, which further brightened the energy swirling within.

Darius waited until all this was done before reaching out with his Mind Power tendrils, connecting with the energy swirling within. The moment Darius made a connection, he could feel a faint feedback from a weaker consciousness that wasn't sentient enough to form coherent thoughts yet.

However, even though it wasn't self-aware, it still had some ability to realize that it was connected with another being. As such, Darius kept receiving mental pulses of curiosity and wariness from the core.

This was a natural response to such an event, so Darius was quite happy. It was, far better than outright hostility which would prevent any negotiations or deceptions from his part.

'Hello there.' Darius transmitted over to the core through his tendrils.

The core shook and the energy within looked like it had been hit by a cyclone. Darius kept getting feedbacks of horror and pain, something which stunned him.

Then he realized that, due to his lack of skill, his casual greeting had likely struck this poor semi-sentient consciousness like a truck. In order words, he had accidentally been 'shouting' at it.

Darius quickly changed to a better method of communication, by replicating what the core itself had done. He began to transmit emotions and feelings instead of thoughts and mental speech.

He mostly sent over soothing feelings and gentle greetings. This seemed to calm down the core as it slowly recovered from the earlier attempt and responded to Darius' current one with fear, curiosity, and a slight rejection.

However, after Darius 'cooed' it with his mind for a while, the rejection and wariness soon left as all that came forth was endless curiosity. This kind of communication wasn't easy, since he had to interpret the other's signs, but the Dungeon Core seemed to be asking what he was and how he was here.

Darius then sent over an image of himself and as for the second question, he simply showed images of him clearing the dungeon and reaching here through a portal. Of course, he had deliberately left out the part where the Shadow Demon had been betrayed by him.

He also showed the core its previous state, how damaged and weak it had been, and how close it had been to dying. Then he showed himself placing a hand over the core and sending some form of divine light into it which had fixed it back to perfection.

The gullible newborn core ate everything he showed up and instantly believed him. After all, it was aware that it had previously been feeling extremely unwell, and its instincts had told it that it would die eventually.

Yet now, it was fine and even feeling much better than ever before. With Darius providing the answer as to how this came to be, the core took it as truth. As a response, it sent over a feeling of gratefulness and closeness to Darius, which pleased him.

Seeing that he had won over its trust, Darius proceeded to send it a feeling of curiosity as to how it got damaged. The core paused for a moment as it tried to remember what happened, but it came up blank.

Whatever had caused it to be defective had seemingly occurred before its first memory. Darius frowned, as this meant that either the core had been born defective, or something had struck it the moment it had spawned, right before it could even kickstart its pseudo-consciousness.

Both possibilities were quite intriguing and disturbing.