As Ike is levitating the soulstone through the town, it passes by one of the guardsmen. Sensing a disturbance, he calls out in alarm. The nearby denizens show no signs of stirring -- it was not meant for their ears. The guard takes two choreographed steps forward, chamber-regulated spear in hand.

"There's someone prowling 'round here," he mutters to himself.

A moment passes, the guard's eyes on constant alert. For the glory of the Lyrian Empire, not a soul will pass by unaccounted for. With an exaggerated swing of his upper body, he looks left. Then right. A pause... then quickly left again! Nothing. The street -- his street -- is empty as far as the eye can see and then some. He carefully takes the two steps back to his preordained post, hands taut and eyes sharp.

"Must've been the wind," he announces, a sense of finality on those words that calms the eerie tension in the air.

Around the corner, Ike's soulstone bobbles and bounces along, unaware of the scene that transpired no more than fifteen meters away.

--------------------

If before my subconscious was being subtle, now it’s screaming. The mere thought of anchoring my domain to this soulstone in my grasp sends shivers down my metaphorical spine.

This is Right.

At this point, I have a good many small entrances to the surface which I use only for, uh, non-nefarious purposes. The closest and most frequently used one is disguised as a rabbit warren, and I must say, it’s a convincing disguise. In fact, despite being a secret passage to my dungeon, it is still very much a real network of rabbit burrows. You see, when I first excavated it, I wanted to experiment on dungeon influence. More specifically, I wanted to discover whether or not I can maintain control over animals who spend a lot of time outside my domain.

The results of this little side-project have been illuminating yet disappointing; animals, in this case a specially selected family of absurdly fluffy black rabbits, can not be directly commanded if they spend approximately one quarter of their lives away from my domain. This helps explain why the slower breeders I’ve assimilated have taken longer to dominate. For an organism that has lived for years, I can only imagine my best option for “adding them to memory” is via breeding or just straight up killing them. Though it’s too soon to make that claim, I haven’t actually tested this process on other species. For all I know, it’s not a linear relationship.

While I’m on that topic, it now makes sense why a species is “added to memory” upon death as well. Apparently, I’m able perform limited hybridization with the help of species modification and any “memorized” species’ genome is fair game. Therefore, killing something I’m unable to breed, for whatever reason, still provides utility. Speaking of which, why should death or birth be necessary to memorize a species’ genome instantly anyway? What’s so special about either of those two events with respect to biological information storage? Can I even assume that it’s DNA which is being memorized in the first place?

That’s something to think on later, and when I say later, I mean soon. I have several ideas for my upcoming modification projects, I feel I’ve been underutilizing my abusive ability.

The soulstone floats through the rooty soil burrows dug by both mammals and giant ants alike. With tunnels weaving through the regolith of rhyolite boulders and the decomposing root systems of once-great hardwood trees, the soulstone enters a clearly artificial shaft plunging straight into the bedrock. Contrary to what you’d expect from a magical material, it does not glow or otherwise reveal its perplexing nature.

Too bad no one will ever be able to see and admire my handiwork.

The walls of the vertical shaft are overgrown with clinging plants who exhibit roots which tunnel through solid stone via a mechanism I haven’t even begun to understand. Indeed, excepting the most frequently trodden paths, my fledgling library, and the stone block depot, every available surface in my domain is thoroughly encrusted with plants and fungi.

Something I’ve noticed that’s worth investigating later is that there are segregated regions where the vegetation conforms to local color norms. That is to say, there are some areas dominated by specific colors of arcanasynthesizers; green, blue, purple, black, etc. Furthermore, self-contained groves of predominantly transparent, bioluminescent, OR carnivorous flora have emerged. Indeed, these fuzzy boundaries have only continued to solidify and grow more distinct over time. That’s fascinating because it implies the presence of variable environmental conditions in different sections of my dungeon. It’s my job to identify those variables.

Look at me, bragging about simple access tunnels, though they are well-made, if I do say so myself…

I could’ve called a few dungeon helpers over to haul my prize to the core room, (Or cubby, really. It’s a matter of perspective though, scale means little to me now.) but I don’t want to waste any more time. Transporting it telekinetically is simply faster.

Still, this takes a while, after all, my dungeon has grown to be quite expansive and the tunnels quite labyrinthine.

Before bringing the soulstone into my core room, I tether a small spherical volume of domain to it in order to verify that I can also ‘dis-anchor’ domain from it. It would be a shame if I caused permanent damage to my dungeon, so it’s best to make sure I can undo any changes in advance.

Without any real fanfare, the soulstone readily fixes to the designated ‘test’ domain space. Though notably, the procedure goes by much faster than with the other materials, taking only a split second to anchor a few cubic meters, and it also consumes way less mana. Neato.

Tossing it around to confirm the linked domain space moves in synchrony with the position and attitude of the superior anchor, I will the soulstone to release its connection with the anchored domain.

Thankfully it instantly detaches, ditching the connected domain in its current position.

This proves I should be able to exert a reasonable level of control over my anchors.

Or does it? What would happen to the domain anchored to an object if said object was, say, rent in half? Luckily that’s easy to find out!

Taking a random blue leaf striated with mesmerizing magenta veins from my surroundings, I link a tiny sphere of domain to it.

And then I telekinetically shred it to pieces.

Good, good! As soon as the leaf tore from its initial state, the relevant domain separated from the anchoring leaf and settled into its current position. I suppose only static objects would make good long-term anchors, anything which grows and develops or decomposes would probably be a poor choice as an anchor.

That will do just nicely; soulstones are inorganic.

I think, I mean, it’s not like I can taste one and see.

It’s time to see just how much domain I can affix to this little red crystal cluster. I can only imagine it’ll be a lot, so, much like I’ve done with my own core, I firmly embed it into the stone wall of my cubby. I don’t want it moving around and taking my domain with it.

I can hardly wait, so without waiting any longer, I initiate the now-familiar process of domain anchoring.

Right off the bat I notice something…alarming; it’s proceeding at a pace significantly faster than what I’d grown used to with the rhyolite pebbles or magicite crystals. By extension, the rate of mana consumption is unprecedented.

Worryingly so.

With the anchored volume ballooning to an enormous size of roughly three hundred cubic meters in a mere two minutes, I’m starting to wonder if I should be pacing myself.

But it’d be dishonest for me to omit that it’s exhilarating as well.

This is Right, there’s no other way to describe it. It’s such a fundamental feeling of correctness or contentedness. Since I’d first been reborn into this world as a dungeon core, my sensations have been almost entirely subdued. This, however, is so shockingly vivid.

Or perhaps that’s merely the result of my months-long effective sensory deprivation.

Regardless, by now my newfound instincts are metaphorically screaming at the surface of my subconscious, I need to continue!

And continue I do, with the anchored domain space now approaching a thousand cubic meters in volume, and showing no signs of slowing down, a second wave of doubt crashes into my mind.

Something I haven’t experienced in a long time tickles my awareness; the mana concentration in my halls has declined, though only slightly.

It’s funny, really, all this time I’ve been micromanaging the environment inside my dungeon in order to maximize biomass and biodiversity, all to allow for a higher defensive unit carrying capacity and an elevated mana regeneration rate. And though the first reason is entirely valid, the second has generally been a non-issue.

The only thing I’ve really used a noteworthy quantity of mana for has been species modification. It’d taken several iterations to perform the alterations on my super helper caste due to the bottleneck that is my mana capacity. But given my current size and all the investments in infrastructure I’ve been making lately; I could probably do it all in one go.

What I’m trying to say is this; for me to notice a substantial dip in my domain’s mana supply, this anchoring process must be consuming an ungodly amount in an absurdly short time frame.

To investigate a suspicion of mine, I wrap the soulstone with my sense and sample its temperature.

Ah, I forgot that I can’t sense anything about those particular objects. Eh, I’ve an easy workaround; I taste the air surrounding the soon-to-be domain space anchor.

Curious, the temperature of the air is roughly ambient.

Mana, it’s kind of like energy, right? Where then, is all that energy going? Am I unwittingly creating a bomb?

With that thought in mind, I decide to pause the domain fixation process and take a breather.

Oh no.

Well OK then, I guess I won’t be taking a break after all! Apparently, I’m completely unable to break away from this process, and if that wasn’t bad enough, I can’t even slow it down! Indeed, if anything the anchor is accelerating in its domain assimilation!

At least it feels nice, that means it can’t be bad! Right?

We have a potential catastrophe on our hands. Worst case scenario: I’m shunting a dangerous quantity of mana into a tiny object which has no good business containing it. Additionally, like a fool I’ve positioned it right next to my core!

Best case scenario? The process runs to completion, consuming all of my mana until I black out.

I guess I’ll await the inevitable…

…

Yup! I blacked out alright! But unlike the time I’d infused mana into my very core, I detect no hangover. My mind feels sharp and clear just as it had when I’d first got carried away modifying a fungus gnat.

Also, I’m very much alive. Well, if you consider a magic crystal as a ‘living’ entity, that is.

So, the obvious question; what happened?

Probing the inert soulstone embedded in the mossy stone wall of the cubby it shares with my own core, I observe my home.

The ambient mana I’ve grown so accustomed to suffusing the atmosphere of my dungeon is predictably scarce, though not entirely absent. Either I recovered a bit of mana before coming to, or the anchor didn’t consume it all in the first place. I suspect the first because otherwise I probably wouldn’t’ve passed out. One additional tidbit I manage to observe is that many of the flowering plants present within my domain have closed their blossoms. Perhaps that’s a response to low ambient mana? What purpose could such a behavior serve?

Perhaps I can establish more varied microbiomes later by varying the concentration of ambient mana at different locations?

I file these thoughts away as I come back to the burning question; how’s the soulstone doing?

Refocusing my attention on the hopefully successful anchor, I look for it’s connected domain space’s boundary.

I find…nothing?

Excuse me? All that for nothing?

Surely not. Sending my point of view back to the walled off tunnel I’d first used to test my anchoring abilities, I perform a quick check to try and confirm my hopeful hunch. Claiming a small portion of wilderness, I recheck for the anchor’s boundary.

Bingo! The freshly claimed domain reveals a clear border between the new and old territory.

The implications are profound…

I’ve somehow managed to anchor my entire domain to this single soulstone!

Is that good or bad? Let’s find out!

Here’s to being alive!