Darius turned to Gunner and spoke with a smile. "We are largely done here. The core understands what it needs to do and what the future entails. Instead of outright upgrading it with Transmutation, I'll let it grow with our incumbent territory."

Gunner walked over and stood behind Darius, as the fellow continued. "For now, we'd best leave so that the core can do some remodeling. Oh, before we go…"

Darius turned and placed a finger on the core.

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness) into a Newborn Dungeon Core (Light)? This will cost 23 Conversion Points.]

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness) into a Fledgling Dungeon Core (Darkness)? This will cost 87 Conversion Points.]

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness) into a Newborn Dungeon Core (Light & Darkness)? This will cost 56 Conversion Points.]

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness) into a Fledgling Dungeon Core (Light & Dark)? This will cost 184 Conversion Points.]

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core(Darkness) into a Newborn Dungeon Core(Light, Dark, Death)? This will cost 526 Conversion Points.]

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core(Darkness) into a Fledgling Dungeon Core(Light, Dark, Death)? This will cost 1,245 Conversion Points.]

Darius smacked his lips. Testing things out like this revealed his limits with the Transmutation ability in regards to Dungeon Cores and how much he could change as a Journeyman.

He could freely change the single element to another while keeping the core at its current grade, he could upgrade the core's grade while keeping the element the same, he could add another element or, if he were to convert some Lunar Dew, he could add a second element AND upgrade its grade.

A third element, while possible, was unfortunately too costly for him, no matter the core's grade.

Darius felt that a Wood element dungeon like the one in Listo would be the best choice for a growing town, rather than its current Darkness element which was more niche.

There was already a water source nearby, so there was no inherent need to turn this into a Water dungeon, yet without any short paths to other civilizations for trade, food would be hard to acquire stably.

However, a purely Wood-based dungeon wouldn't help with gathering meat. Even though they were in a jungle, it was obviously going to be largely uprooted to make way for a settlement, the wood being used to build houses and warm fireplaces.

The animals here wouldn't stay long after that, migrating to greener pastures. In other words, his soon-to-be subjects would need a source of meat if he wanted them to reside here.

Of course, Darius could change this one to Wood Element and create a new Water or Fire element core for this purpose.

Water would definitely have different types of fish on the Amateur level, with elementals and sentient species like mermaids spawning on the Journeyman floor and below.

A Fire dungeon would have beats like Demonbulls, Hellchickens, and Fire Crows on the first floor, but the rest would have elementals and Fire Demons. With enough harvesting, a steady amount of meat could be captured, even taking out some monsters to be reared.

However, such a thing was hardly done because of the difficulty. To rear monsters, they would need to be placed in an area with plenty of energy relating to their respective element and they would have to be fed with special feed.

It was honestly just better to rear normal animals and hunt down these exotic ones in the dungeon. After all, it was not like they were a limited commodity, they would be in every instance of the dungeon, allowing multiple people to cull them and bring them out.

Darius pondered this in passing. However, he felt it would be best to make a decision now, because it would be a while before he would return to this area, and the core would soon start spending its accumulated Soul Energy to strengthen itself and increase its territory.

According to the core, about 100,000 Soul Energy was required to naturally rise from newborn to the fledgling grade, which was almost 5 times what it had accumulated passively over this time.

Darius could only hope that now that it had been repaired and its consciousness was awake, that its gathering rate and efficiency would increase as well.

He walked over to the core and placed a finger on it once more. He sent over his Mind Power tendrils and saw that the core was just about to get to work, but feeling that Darius had connected to it, it was curious what its benefactor wanted.

Darius gently informed it that he was going to make it better, but didn't mention he would be changing its element.

Who knew how it would react to that, and he had little time to slowly convince it that this was for the better. The core naturally accepted Darius' kindness in powering it up with gratitude.

[Would you like to change the Newborn Dungeon Core (Darkness) into a Newborn Dungeon Core (Wood)? This will cost 17 Conversion Points.]

Darius paid it out and watched as the core began to shine resplendently. Its size remained the same, but the elemental energy and light within had greatly changed.

The darkness that had veiled this chamber was banished, and grass started to sprout. Flowers of different kinds emerged neatly in beds all over the chamber, and a lovely scent started to emerge.

Darius had kept his tendrils connected to the core during the change as he had wanted to experience how Transmutation worked firsthand. It would deepen his understanding of the intricacies of his ability.

What he could say was that it was… instantaneous.

Before his tendrils could even register the change, it had already occurred. All that light show was just for some sick sort of flair, as the core had gone from darkness to wood in less time than Darius could recognize.

He checked in with the consciousness of the core and found that it was groggy, but it was definitely the same entity as before.

This pleased Darius, for he had been willingly taking the risk that the core would have a new consciousness that he would have to convince to accept him.

When the current consciousness got it's bearings together, it sent over feelings of confusion and worry. What was it doing before and what happened?