As much as I wanted to get to play with my new skill right away, I still needed to use [Appraisal] first, to see if I could afford to spend MP playing around at all.

Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl: 1

Title: None

Size: 56.1039

Points: 21

HP: 10/10

MP: 29/73

Skills:

[Mana Absorption] [Devour] [Tunneling] lvl.1 [Appraisal] lvl.1 [Room Building] lvl.1

It seemed like, since the last time I had checked out my stats, I had somehow gained more points. I really wished I knew how I managed that, but it remained a complete mystery to me. It seemed like I would need to try out different things to see what caused the number to change. If I got them by eating, then I could just wait until I found something and check to see if my points had changed at all. If I gained them slowly over time, however? Well, that was the annoying one. I would have to stay perfectly still and do absolutely nothing, all while watching to see if something happened.

Since I was apparently the kind of Dungeon Core who seemed to be more fond of working than lazing about, I wasn’t looking forward to running that particular experiment. I’d rather go the rest of my life without ever knowing how points worked than spend any amount of time doing nothing when I had a choice to be doing something instead.

Still, it seemed like I had enough mana saved up to play a little bit, if when I played I still managed to put in some work, too. When I used [Tunneling] earlier I had been watching how fast my MP went down, which meant I had a pretty good idea of how much MP I burned through now while digging. My current problem was that I didn’t know how much MP [Room Building] would use.

Should I make a tiny test room to see how the skill worked and how much MP it cost? That might be a pretty smart idea, but at the same time, I wasn’t too fond of how it might end up looking. I didn’t want to build something ugly in my walls that I couldn’t get rid of later. Not only that, but I didn’t really want to build a new room so close to where the badgers had decided to build their own. It somehow felt too crowded and clustered together. I wanted to put more space between myself and them.

Maybe the smart thing to do would be to tunnel a little further away and then see what I could do with [Room Building]? It would make me feel more comfortable, and not just because there would be more space between us. As interesting as they were to watch, I still felt wary about them. They were powerful-looking creatures, after all, and I was a stone the exact size to fit in one of their mouths. It would actually be weirder if I didn’t feel vaguely uncomfortable around them.

That seemed to be that then. Before I played around with my new skill I needed to put distance between my core and the room where I assumed the badgers would be living. It didn’t look like it’d be big enough to hold them both to me, but maybe they liked being curled up against each other? While it looked like they would end up in a pile, for all I knew that was just how badgers slept. Really, what did I even know about badgers?

Actually, that reminded me. I needed to use [Appraisal] on the word desperately, the next time one of them entered the dungeon. Sure, [Appraisal] would most likely turn out to be absolutely useless, but I still might learn something new, and something was better than nothing. Right? Hey, inner voice, you can remember that, can’t you? That I need to check out the badgers when they come back? Don’t ignore me, I know you’re there!

Whatever, I’ll just have to remember it myself then. Apparently, I need to do everything around here.

I could only hope that I would be lucky and find lots of tasty treats hidden in the soil, as I ate my way along. That way I might be able to do what I wanted without having to fret over how much MP I might have in the end. The more I could fill myself up with tasty food, the less time I would end up sitting around doing nothing. It took a lot of MP to move my core, after all, so if I expanded the dungeon then I would need even more than I had at the moment in order to drag myself to the end of the finished tunnel.

That felt like a problem for future me. Alright, [Tunneling]! Let’s get to work!

I activated my skill and focused on the wall that would take me even further away from the entrance that Mama and Papa Badger had claimed for themselves. So far I at least knew I had one skill that did precisely as I wanted it to, and without any difficulty. [Tunneling] was a simple skill, perfect for a simple Dungeon Core such as myself. I pointed it where I wanted it, let it go, and then I could simply gobble up all the dirt that came my way along with whatever food might be hidden in it.

[Tunneling] followed the rules of how a skill should work perfectly. I spent something to gain something, and it was well-behaved, unlike a certain other troublemaker. Looking at you, [Appraisal].

My phantom tendrils reached out, burrowing deep into the soil as I pulled it into myself. I found that there weren’t as many of the fine little roots as I broke further into the ground, which clued me in that I was digging deeper beneath the surface somehow. That was a little weird to me since I wasn’t angling my new tunnel downward. Was the ground above me getting taller somehow? It should have been level, right? Unless the ground was somehow at an angle, rising up? Did that even make any sense? Then again, it wasn’t as if I had ever been above ground, so I could only imagine what it might look like up there. I only had the smallest little window to peek out of, after all.

I had seen that the ceiling was very light and pale blue when the sun was out and that it got as black as the inside of my tunnels when the sun had gone away. I had also seen grass, which I could assume covered the floor of the world above. Was it something like a dungeon then, since the ceilings were somewhat similar? Then again, if the world outside were a dungeon, what did that make the tunnels that I dug?

Fortunately, I came across something to distract me before I could get lost in trying to figure out how it would work to have a dungeon within a dungeon. A thick root snaked its way through the wall, much thicker than any I had come across so far. There was no way I would be able to eat something like this. Would it be possible to dig around it? I slowed down the speed at which I dug, gently tracing the shape of the root and eating the dirt that came away as I examined it.

There was more than one root, in fact, there were several, and as I ate the dirt out from between them to see if I would be forced to change directions I came across a tasty snack. I recognized the flavour instantly as belonging to the squirmy white things that looked like shorter, fatter, worms. What was it doing this far beneath the surface? I wish I knew, but sadly I had managed to eat it all in one go, unlike when I accidentally bisected the worm earlier. It was pretty interesting that I had found it tangled up in some thicker roots, though. Maybe they liked to hang out in roots?

Oh well. I would just have to hope I saw more of them later, that way I could use [Appraisal] on them. Even if learning what worms were had left me feeling a bit weird about eating them, I preferred knowing what it was I ate. That and the fact I didn’t like knowing them only as “squiggly white things”. It made me feel even dumber than I probably really was, and I had my strong suspicions that I was pretty dumb as far as Dungeon Cores went.

With my little snack giving me more fuel, and with the roots keeping me from digging in the direction I had wanted, I turned before I continued eating my way through the dirt. As I ate, I took a moment to try to gauge how far I had tunneled. While most of my tendrils were focused on the act of digging and pulling the soil into myself, I stretched a few out along to try to judge distance. By my best estimations, I had tunneled almost as far away from where I had been, trapped in the root cage, as the badgers had gone from the entrance before adding on their own room.

Did that mean I was in a good place to begin? Maybe! I could only hope so! If I used up too much more MP I might not have enough to play around with.

My core itself was still fairly far away from the end of the tunnel, but I could worry about dragging myself along later. Despite it happening sooner than I had liked, my plan had always been to turn the tunnel a bit and then work on adding the room afterward, that way it wouldn’t be a straight shot from the badgers to me.

If they broke through the wall and found where my core was currently? I would be much too vulnerable. I felt like I might be safer if they couldn’t see me right away, that way I would have more time to try to hide. The more time I had to hide before they spotted me, the better I would feel.

Did I have the MP left to pull off what I wanted to? If I had been tracking things properly then I should. Why had I closed [Appraisal] earlier instead of just leaving it up? At least the absolutely broken skill didn’t cost me anything to use. If it did then I probably would have completely given up on it by now.

Nameless [Dungeon Core] Lvl: 1

Title: None

Size: 71.06494

Points: 21

HP: 10/10

MP: 23/91

Skills:

[Mana Absorption] [Devour] [Tunneling] lvl.1 [Appraisal] lvl.1 [Room Building] lvl.1

Wow! My MP limit was really up there now! I could store so much of it! The number was so high, and yet my current mana wasn’t even a third of the way there. It would take me way too long before I got anywhere near enough mana to fill it up all the way! I would have to do nothing for days before I ever saw the number get close to full!

While at first glance it seemed as if my MP hadn’t dropped much, I could only assume that it was still as high as it was because of the thin little roots I had gotten when I first started digging, plus the surprise snack that I had found. Speaking of surprises, my points hadn’t changed at all despite the fact I had eaten things. Did that mean my points really weren’t affected by what I ate? Or did I need to eat a lot of things to gain points? I hated the idea, but it was really starting to seem like I would need to wait and see if I would gain points over time.

I knew that I could buy skills thanks to the fact I had purchased [Appraisal], but I still wasn’t really sure how I was supposed to go about doing that, or what skills I could actually even buy.

Hey, did you hear that inner voice? I’m wanting to know how I’m supposed to use these points and what I can use them on!

There was nothing but silence from the not-me, so it seemed as if now weren’t the time for me to find out the answer to that question. It wasn’t like it mattered too much at the moment, I supposed, either way I would probably be reluctant to actually spend my points on anything until I knew how I even earned them. For now, I would just keep saving up points until the time my inner voice decided to begin talking to me again. It couldn’t take too much longer, right?

This time I kept [Appraisal] open, with my stats listed right in front of me, that way I would be able to watch the numbers carefully as I continued to use [Tunneling]. I wasn’t really planning on digging far enough to drop my MP by too much, but I still wanted to be careful. I was trying to keep a certain amount on me to play around with, so I didn’t want it to drop below that.

The soil began to get thicker somehow as I ate through it, though the amount of mana it was costing me to use [Tunneling] hadn’t changed at all. Was it a different kind of dirt, then? There was really only one way to find out, but I was reluctant to go using [Appraisal] on that yet. Maybe once I had gotten to where I wanted to be I would give it a look, but until then I would just have to deal with the itchy knowledge of having no idea what the difference was between this dirt and the kind I had been eating earlier.

Mana Threshold reached. Dungeon Core now recovers more MP per hour.

Just as I saw the second number on MP tick up to hit one hundred, the flat voice of the me that wasn’t me suddenly spoke up, startling me so much that I stopped digging on the spot.

What was that you just said, inner voice? I’ll get mana faster? Is that really what you just said? Hey, I’m talking to you! Repeat yourself already so I can be sure I really just heard you say that!

Mana Threshold reached. Dungeon Core now gains more MP per hour.

In the exact same tone as before, though somehow slightly slower, the inner voice repeated what it had said, and thus confirmed my hopes. This was fantastic! I wouldn’t have to spend as long waiting to get my mana back up now! The less time I needed to spend idle before I could work, the happier I would be in the long run! I was a hard-working Dungeon Core, after all!

If I had the mana capacity to roll myself along the ground in a display of happiness I would have done just that, but instead I forced myself to stay perfectly still. I had a fair amount of MP to my name, or rather my lack of name, but I didn’t want to waste a single bit of it on any sorts of displays. Not when it took me much too long to earn it. Unlike Mama and Papa Badger, I couldn’t just leave the dungeon to go eat as much as I wanted.

To begin with, I actually was the dungeon so it would be pretty difficult to leave myself, but there was also the fact that I didn’t really see the appeal of leaving to begin with. If the world outside was basically just a slightly more colourful version of myself, then what was the point? I was sure I could build a dungeon that would be way better than the outside world was! I would become a dungeon so wonderful that the badgers would never want to leave the tunnels again!

Of course, it wasn’t like I wanted Mama and Papa Badger to stick around forever. I just wanted to be the best dungeon that I could be, that was all.

How could I be better than the outside if I didn’t know what I was competing against, though? If only I had a way of going outside to scope the place out… I could gather extra food while I was at it, too, and then put all that tasty mana into making the dungeon even better. It would be a win-win!

Things would be perfect if I could just go outside…

Purchase Starting Monster Mob?

Dammit, Inner Voice! You can’t just speak out of nowhere without warning like that when I’m thinking! And hey, how come you’re always piping up when I’m not talking to you, but you never have anything to say when I’m specifically trying to get your attention, huh? No, wait, never mind, don’t answer that. Just explain what you mean by a Starting Monster Mob!

Inner Voice was, of course, completely silent. What else did I expect? It looked like I would have to rely on [Appraisal] once again, though knowing [Appraisal] it would probably say something like “A monster mob you start with” and I would learn absolutely nothing.

[Appraisal] has gained sufficient proficiency. [Appraisal] is now level two.

[Appraisal] has done what now?

Starting Monster Mob. The first Monster Mob that the Dungeon Core can summon. The Starting Monster Mob is normally the weakest monster that the Dungeon Core can choose from. The Starting Monster Mob costs no points to purchase, though additional mobs will require the usage of points to purchase. The first monster summoned from the Starting Monster Mob is free.

[Appraisal], are you okay? You actually sounded useful! Like you knew what you were talking about! I learned something there! And this is level two? What are you going to be like on level three? Or four? Just how much smarter are you going to get? Huh… Maybe I’m not a complete and total idiot after all if I made the choice to purchase a skill like this…

If they were free then the smartest thing to do would be to go ahead and purchase one, right? Though was it really purchasing if they were free? It didn’t really matter, the point was that yes, I did want to purchase the Starting Monster Mob.

Purchase complete. Generating a list of Starting Monster Mobs to choose from based on the current environment. Dungeon Core has the choice of Slimes, Kobolds, and Myconid Spores to summon as the Monster Mob.

Those sure were some names… It looked like it was time for the new and improved [Appraisal] to get to work. Okay, [Appraisal]! Tell me about those Slimes!

Slime. An exceptionally weak monster that resembles a gelatinous orb. It’s debatable whether slimes are even alive.

Oh gross, no way. Not in a million years, thank you very much. They’re super weak and they’re like little balls of jelly? I felt a shudder go through my core at the mere thought alone. That sticky and wobbly texture sliding around inside my tunnels? No way. Not happening. Next, please!

Kobold. Though weak they work well in teams and are known for being clever and mischievous. They are bipedal.

Clever sounded good, but mischievous? I didn’t really like the sound of that. I was trying to share my dungeon with Mama and Papa Badger after all, and it sounded like a kobold would just make trouble for them in the long run. They weren’t entirely written off, but they certainly weren’t my first choice. Next!

Myconid Spore. The baby form of a Myconid. These bipedal mushrooms have the potential to grow powerful, though they are quite slow.

A baby? But it can get powerful? A baby didn’t sound like it would scare the badgers off, and if it got more powerful later then that sounded like a bonus to me. Plus, if I were entirely honest with myself, the moment I had heard they were slow I imagined a round little shape with thick pudgy legs waddling about. It sounded cute… Like, crazy levels of adorably cute. I wanted to see one really badly.

I absolutely wasn’t picking it just because it sounded cute, of course! That was just a bonus! No, wait, I didn’t care about cute things at all! Of course not! Shut up and stop judging me already! Inner Voice, I pick the Myconid Spore! Make one already!

Error. Dungeon does not meet the size requirements to summon a Myconid Spore.

Excuse me? What was that? Isn’t this supposed to be a baby? How can I not meet the size requirements?! My size is massive! How big do I need to be to summon a baby?!

The current height of the dungeon is roughly 33.1 cm at its highest point, whereas the average height of a Myconid Spore is 152.4 cm.

Oh… That was a really big difference… A huge difference, actually. Did that mean I was tiny? That was pretty embarrassing. I hadn’t thought to make myself much bigger than the badgers were, mostly because I didn’t know things got bigger than the badgers… So was it really my fault that I was so small when I was measuring myself off of how big a badger was? I shouldn’t feel ashamed of being tiny, right? It wasn’t my fault at all!

How much dirt would I have to eat in order to make any of my tunnels big enough to fit a Myconid Spore? Way too much, that was how much… So I could either wait and keep digging and tunneling, or I could purchase a different monster. I wanted to wait, I should probably wait really, but did the pros of the Myconid Spore outweigh the cons?

I could wait who knew how long, digging my tunnels out to be bigger, spending tons of MP to do so when I wasn’t sure how much time that would take, all for a baby monster that would potentially get stronger later… Or I could go ahead and purchase a monster that would be able to leave the dungeon and help me get more food so I could grow faster.

I hated to say it, but I would need to just go ahead and go for the kobold. Now I had to hope that they wouldn’t be even taller than the Myconid Spore. Hey, Inner Voice! How tall are kobolds?

Kobolds range in height between 60.9cm and 91.5cm.

Ugh… That was still taller than my tunnels were, but those numbers seemed like they would be much easier to achieve. I would just have to make the room taller when I built it, that was all, and then after that I could work on expanding the size of my current tunnels. If [Room Building] used up MP the same way that [Tunneling] did then I had just enough to build a space large enough to summon the kobold.

Alright, [Room Building], you’re up! Don’t let me down!