I unfold my senses, feeling strangely awake and present at the moment. I feel shocked and blind when I can't expand them more than a few centimeters away from my heart. And my shock redoubles as I notice how much my emotions are shifting.

This is new.

Vague knowledge on my new species, instincts, and Trait rush inside my consciousness, information settling in like roots unearthing nourishment. My mind works much more efficiently than I could remember doing, taking that knowledge and parsing through it in seconds.

A minor fraction of my new strange mind starts to panic about what has happened. The Blue Scorching, my children's unfair death, the discovery of a sentient cause behind all of this, my Unique evolution, losing my Traits and Titles; all of this is just too much to simply accept so quickly. Especially as I am now, with all this new focus.

Yet, that doesn't mean I am fully occupied.

No, far from it.

I could multitask even as an Elder Tree, infusing my aura where needed, checking for corruption or imbalances in the ecosystem, but this... this is much more. My new instincts are telling me I could split my mind into hundreds of tiny pieces, each and every single one of them working on their own project. The efficiency would be really low for each of them, but it is something I can do.

Efficiency...I would never have thought I would be thinking in terms of productivity and numbers. Time was meaningless as a tree. Decades went by without me even realizing it. But now... now I almost cannot stop thinking, considering, pondering. This is what it means to be an animal? A mortal?

I have to examine, reflect, analyze. I cannot stop, cannot let the moment flow away.

A large majority of my consciousness excitedly starts to explore and experiment. To act. And the tension slightly fades away, my mind satisfied I'm doing something, anything.

I take in what I can, but the only thing I see right now is a bright and small brown gemstone with emerald glints and tints. On the magical spectrum, mana is shifting, flowing, and shimmering around and inside it, runes forming and shattering constantly. I quickly recognize this is my new heart, my new core. And feeling foolish for not already having done this when I woke up, I reach for my status, the response similar to before.

Dungeon Core - Unnamed

Species: Viridescent Dungeon Core (Unique)

Titles: None.

Traits: A leaf amongst thousands.

Current Mana: 20/20

Mana Regeneration: +1/hour

A flash of irritation runs through my new heart as I see the 'Unnamed' tag. I own a Name, my Name!

I will my status to display it there, and at this moment I realize I completely forgot what it was. What? I know I had one, I know Names grants power and potential, but it's like there is a blank, a void that was filled before. A void that I immediately try to fill.

Attention! Condensing a Name for yourself or another being without enough Renown will shatter your consciousness! Proceed with caution.

I quickly halt, the flows of mana around me going out of control for a fraction of a second. I felt the shadow of death in that instant. Like I was trying to squeeze something out of me when I have nothing.

I don't have enough Renown? What does that even mean?

I concentrate on the question, but I don't remember having ever heard of something like this. Not that I had much knowledge of dungeons before.

Actually, I don't have much knowledge at all. Trees are not curious or active beings, and they take life as it comes. And all that time wasted is irritating for my new dynamic self now.

Damn.

I quickly start doing something else to distract myself, following the new set of craves and drives. I try to grow myself in all directions, making reality more me and less the rest of the world. Expanding my new domain, my dungeon. As I do this, I feel pleasure similar to what I felt growing my roots or absorbing sunlight as a tree.

This is amazing.

I can sense everything in those places as well. This is how a dungeon core's senses work, huh. I can only perceive the world inside my domain. It's different from the senses I had before.

I focus as much as I can on the task but rapidly notice that my progress is not uniform in all directions. I'm already a few centimeters up and around me, where I can see there is nothing, not even air, but I'm obstructed when going downward. I look closer and taste it as I would do with a root. I recognize dead heartwood, durable and incredibly dense; my internal wood as an Elder Tree.

Oh!

I am inside my heart, or where my heart was before I evolved, encased in my most dense protection. That is how I endured the blue fire! It didn't seek me inside here since I'm not giving out any life mana as I did before. And my core is the only thing that really transformed since I changed to a completely different species, like a snake molting its skin.

I was really lucky to evolve into a dungeon core, huh.

Ideas spring inside my mind as I realize this. Knowing where I am more or less located, I can already start to think about my future plans. I leave a background thought working on various projects with the help of my instincts. For the moment, I simply want to grow.

Since I cannot expand down as efficiently, I reach for every other direction, making progress much faster and following the hollowed-out sphere inside my old trunk.

I keep going for an hour until my pressing need to do something starts to ebb, my consciousness relaxing. My thoughts flow more calmly instead of being a raging river. I'm almost done too, two-thirds of the hollow sphere are my dungeon now.

My new instincts direct me again, and I check my status.

Dungeon Core - Unnamed

Species: Viridescent Dungeon Core (Unique)

Titles: None.

Traits: A leaf amongst thousands.

Current Mana: 0.1/20

Mana Regeneration: +1/hour

I am almost out of mana. I was so focused I did not even realize that to expand my domain, I have to consume my own stored mana. And now I can only wait to slowly regenerate it back up.

A separate thought pings me that I should feel strange for being able to generate the incredible energy like this and not just absorb it with my roots and leaves, but most of my being already adapted to the new situation. I'm a dungeon core, not a tree anymore.

I did not have those two lines in my old status, but comparing the feeling, I can say that dungeon cores are truly unmatched in mana potential. While 20 units might seem low, from my foggy memories, they feel more or less the same amount an Uncommon creature might need to reach a Rare evolution.

For being just born, this is incredible. And it is neutral mana as well.

Maybe...

I focus on my core and take a tenth of my remaining mana out, waiting for the rest to regenerate. I keep the small sphere of mana as far as possible from my body to avoid incidents, and I start to mold it, attuning it to Life.

My memories give me a model, and my new instincts a way to work with mana to understand it.

This is so interesting. Why didn't I try to do any of this before? Ah. I couldn't. I didn't have this level of sensitivity toward mana before.

Half an hour later, I get it right, and a feeling of accomplishment I never felt before washes over me. My Records ping me something, but I ignore it for now, too immersed in my work.

I aim to do the reverse, changing life-attuned mana to neutral mana, and the process is much easier to understand after I was the one to attune it. I get it right five minutes in, and I immediately start to work on all the other patterns I can remember.

I lose my sense of time as the process becomes harder and harder with attunement patterns I have less familiarity with. My status constantly trying to get my attention.

I don't even realize when I regenerate 10 units of mana, and the urgency to do something productive comes back. At least my sense of time didn't change that much. Ten hours went by in a flash.

I guess I will try to stay at the halfway point with my mana as much as possible. At least until I get used to my new way of thinking. Right now, I am neither too focused and tense nor I am too relaxed.

I reach my status, accumulated messages flashing.

You can now acquire the patterns of Life-Attuned creatures slain inside your domain.

You can now acquire the patterns of Wood-Attuned creatures slain inside your domain.

You can now acquire the patterns of Water-Attuned creatures slain inside your domain.

You can now acquire the patterns of Earth-Attuned creatures slain inside your domain.

You can now acquire the patterns of Fire-Attuned creatures slain inside your domain.

Creatures' patterns?

Nothing. I know nothing about those as well. Why didn't I try to learn as much as I could before? I wasted a thousand years doing nothing but sleeping. Ugh. Maybe I'm being too harsh on my former self; my way of thinking was really different.

I divide another small portion of my mind, hoping it will understand something about those. I feel my central consciousness slow down a fraction in every thought and action, but at least the compelling urgency to do something ebbs a bit too.

Since I am already over half capacity with my mana, I start to expand my domain again, doing it slower this time. I never truly paid attention to the details before, but following the curve right now, I see that my heart was about two meters in diameter.

I wonder how big- I don't even finish the half-formed question in my mind when it spits back an answer using only my blurry memories. I guess dungeon cores need to precisely know how big things are.

My trunk was about a kilometer in width, a hundred meters more or less near my roots or crown. And it was eight kilometers in height before it began to separate into my branches.

I guess I grew a lot in the years. That's why everything felt so small to me. Amusing how I am a rough and small sphere barely five centimeters in every dimension now.

Even if a fraction of my trunk was burned away, at this rate, it will take years to find a way out, and I don't even know how I can do it. I only understand that is possible because my instincts are urging me to open a channel out. Before that, I have to extend my domain and fill this hollowed-out sphere. I am almost done anyway.

In the end, I need another ten hours to finish growing inside the whole sphere since I want to stay halfway with my mana as much as possible. When I reach the opposite side of the ceiling, I find the space sealed. I immediately feel relief and safety. All the while, the urge to open a hole to the outside world increases. Well, at least contrasting instincts are not a first for me.

I reach inside myself for the message.

Congratulations! You have shaped your First Dungeon Room!

Neutral patterns converted to attuned variants.

Please choose a pattern.

Wood - Wood Spinner (Common): The spider order is incredibly extensive, with millions of different species or variations. While some of its cousins are much more venomous or capable of hiding much better, the Wood Spinner specializes in catching its prey with its spiral wheel-shaped web instead of any other method. Prolific builders, Wood Spinners can fill entire forests with their almost invisible and sticky cobwebs in a matter of days. To kill their prey, they usually suffocate it to death with their web instead of going for a bite and risk retaliation.

Water - Natatory Wasp (Common): The Natatory Wasp is a bizarre and unusual species within the wasp family. It is rather prolific, aggressive, and much bigger than its mundane cousins, reaching 20 centimeters in body length as an adult. Since they are much larger and fecund, they require a significant amount of food as well. This species adapted and overcame the relatively small insect's limitation on prey, seeking large animals and fishes in groups. Natatory Wasps usually live near bodies of water in huge colonies. What sets them apart from other wasps is their ability to dive and stay underwater for a long time, where they swiftly swim and use their long stinger to inject their potent venom deep into their prey's bodies, usually killing them instantly. This doesn't mean they don't seek and kill land's prey as well; everything is fair game for these greedy creatures.

Earth - Vamuff (Uncommon): The Vamuff is a cunning and voracious ambush predator, capable of silently devouring entire herds of unsuspecting large herbivores in a matter of days. It usually lives in swamps or marshes, using the dark green pigmentation of its long fur to camouflage its big body in wait for its prey to come closer and swallow it in one bite. It is not to be underestimated even in a straight fight; his big fangs and claws are sharp and carry many diseases, and its long spiked tail is a weapon Vamuff younglings learn to use rather quickly throughout their first hunts. A Vamuff would be a much deadlier hunter if not for its substantial weight and round body, making it pretty slow in prolonged chases.

Water - Searing Mobula (Uncommon): Sometimes called birds of the deep sea, Mobulas are beautiful and elegant creatures. They usually swim in a pack, living and defending themselves together, hunting for small fish. Mobulas are peaceful and rarely attack if not provoked, but are truly ruthless against whoever injures or kills one of the group, following and hunting for the perpetrator for thousand of kilometers until it is dead. Since they hunt and travel in a group, their bodies are accustomed to high speed and energy conservation. Their only weapons are the sharp blade at the end of their tail and lateral claws.

This variant has a mana gland inside the blade at the end of its tail. The organ can heat the appendage over high temperatures when the Mobula stabs the weapon inside the prey body, boiling it from the inside.

Wood/Life - Dryad (Rare): Spirits of Nature, Forest Nymphs are beings of magic and plant matter in the shape of a young woman. They live in symbiosis with their chosen tree, growing stronger together with them as time goes by. Dryads are extremely defensive about the tree they bond with, even willing to defend it to death. When the linked tree perishes, the dryad usually dies as well. Some might believe they are immortal, and while that is not correct, it is the truth that they age remarkably slow. With experience, they can become superb fighters with their above-average physical strength, and exceptional caster of nature magic, able to animate and control entire swaths of woodlands or poison their enemies.

When I open the message, another influx of knowledge reaches my consciousness, this time much greater. Straight after, a few small separate thoughts I left pondering on various questions stop and send their conclusion to me.

As a dungeon core, I can create every being in existence using only mana, giving them life and securing their loyalty to me. However, all those creations cannot leave my area for too long, or my link with them will be lost and they will become loose. And to generate a creature, I need to know the pattern for it.

It appears the Records can unlock some in special circumstances or achievements. However, this knowledge tells me most of them will come from killing intruders in my domain. Plus, my growth as a Unique species is connected to my creatures and my rooms. And I should focus on both of them.

From how the Records are unlocking my knowledge in bits, I think there are some other things I have to discover as well. I just don't know them yet.

For example, I know evolutions exist. Will my creature evolve, or is that something only wild beings can do? Will I gain their evolved patterns if that happens? And what consists of a room? It seems strangely coincidental this almost perfect tiny sphere was just enough to create my first room.

At least I'm starting to get the hang of this manner of thinking. Still, having more questions than answers is annoying me.

I almost start going through my options when I realize something. I'm still locked inside this small place, and I don't know yet how to get out. I think I should try to find a way before choosing. More information can only help me before I make a mistake.

I leave the decision waiting, knowing I can postpone it for how long I want it. As a Mana Tree, I forgot to accept a Trait for 30 years, and when I woke up again, the opportunity was still there.

Current Mana: 11.3/20

Good enough. The only question left is: where to go?

I sink into myself, checking for where my instincts are pushing me. The unfamiliar one who wants an open flow urges me to go up, while the one who wants safety down.

There is nothing on top of my old and dead trunk. And down is a boring and long way of dense wood. I think it's better if I expand my domain to the side. I should reach my old bark and open-air in 500 meters or so. At least I will get rid of this annoying urge to open an entrance.

Stumped on how to open a route, I concentrate on a far spot of wood touching my domain, and I sink my consciousness inside my core as well. Letting my actions be guided by my new instincts more than being in control.

With difficulty, I push my dungeon into the wood a centimeter or so, and then consume mana to scrape the wood inside. The dust slowly falls following the slope of my domain, settling down near me at the bottom of the sphere. This way, I slowly leave a small hole going forward.

Annoyingly, I have to enlarge the width of the tunnel when my dungeon becomes too long. It seems I need to have enough of my domain near a spot to exert control.

As I keep going, I realize the dust is only accumulating and clogging the tunnel, and I correct that by making the tunnel sloped a bit. I will have to think of something else if the tiny fragments of wood accumulating over my core start to fill my first room.

I relax in the repetitive motion between growing my dungeon and waiting for my mana to recover. At least I feel myself getting better and better at this. I'm going ever so slightly faster and being more and more efficient.

I slowly enter a peculiar trance, readying myself for years of monotonous grinding, when I jolt alert shortly after.

I found air and other things with my domain.

Am I already outside? That should not be possible; the tunnel is barely a meter and a half long. There is no way my trunk burned that much. I was a Legendary creature, not a Common one, and the azure fire should have quickly left after I evolved, no longer sensing life mana.

What is happening?