Do you want to name Elder Ash Dryad Melia?

Yes / No

If you accept, Elder Ash Dryad will become your first boss.

Gorm concentrated back on the dryad and asked ‘Do you like the name?’

The dryad nodded, so he accepted.

After waving away a congratulatory message, with a notification that he got five additional DPs. He concentrated on the Melia, who was standing closed eyed, to catch any changes.

Two minutes later, nothing had happened yet, so Gorm focused on a new screen that had popped up.

Melia:

As a young Elder Ash dryad her physical development is very slow, in return her magical potential is huge.

Due to becoming a boss, all her abilities get a 50% boost.

Due to becoming a boss she will mature 100% faster.

Due to becoming a boss in a dungeon with a major nature affinity, her wood affinity will be upgraded into a nature affinity.

This upgrade will take time.

Time till finished: 299y:11m:30d:23h:57min:24sec

Gorm felt a bit sad that Melia would be asleep for 300 years. He had just met her and he didn’t even know her yet.

‘If I had known that, I...’ his thoughts got could when Melia opened her eyes and her voice sounded in his head. ‘Did something happen? Did I fall asleep again? Why does this always happen to me? At least I have a name now. I hope the nice dungeon man isn’t mad at me.’

‘I’m not mad at you Melia, you only slept for five minutes. Do you feel any different? And my name is Gorm, not dungeon man.’ Gorm laughed at her.

The small dryad became red ‘Oh, you heard that? Yes, I feel stronger, but I can’t grasp it. But more importantly, I grew at least three centimeters! My mum was right, getting a name from a dungeon is great!’

Gorm thought that it was quite funny to watch Melia trying to behave all grown up. ‘Now that you mention it you seem taller.’ he acknowledged.

He continued to talk with her for a while, he discovered that besides sleeping Melia's favorite activity was training small animals to do tricks. She told him that it was quite difficult to have any accomplishments in training when you’re only a disembodied voice.

After asking her if she wanted to try it again, now that she could leave her tree, Melia decided that she wanted start immediately. Gorm warned her to stay in the surroundings of her tree, he was going to investigate the second anomaly next and he didn’t want her to get in danger.

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Gorm watched Melias taming attempts for a bit before he finally shifted his concentration to the second anomaly.

Reexamining it, he discovered that the area of the anomaly had shrunken considerately. It almost seemed like it had detected his earlier probing and was trying to conceal itself even more.

Thinking about his options, Gorm made the decision to use a similar approach to when he first approached Melia. If he was lucky the intruder wouldn’t consider him an enemy. Only this time he would guard himself while doing it.

After making the plan Gorm immediately started to act after it. He approached the anomaly with his consciousness until he found himself in front of a bubble again. The bubble made a weak impression, but Gorm could feel strength hidden underneath it. So he decided not to push, but to only touch the bubble. If nothing unexpected happened, he would try to communicate with whatever was hiding there.

He carefully extended a bit of his consciousness to the bubble. When he touched it he stopped pushing and tried sending his intention to talk to the bubble. Gorm observed that when his intention reached the bubble, it changed for an instant.

After waiting for a few minutes, the effect that kept him from seeing what was happening in the vicinity of the intruder started to fade. Another few minutes later he could finally see what exactly had intruded into his dungeon.

At first, Gorm thought it was some kind of specter and he started to regret to be so nice to it. Specters were known to be of negative sentiments compressed by great magic power. They could not occur naturally and where often used by people and organizations with less than savory intentions. They were easy to distinguish from other ghost beings because unlike natural occurring ones, specters where completely see-through. But unlike when Gorm had encountered real specters, it didn’t feel unnatural.

Before he could investigate deeper into the issue, the ghost form started to talk. Although the voice also sounded in his mind as well, different to Melia's voice it didn’t feel as close to him.

‘For a dungeon so old, you know surprisingly little about your abilities. If you want to know what I am, scan me with the help of the system’ said an old, slightly arrogant sounding voice.

Gorm tried it immediately, he even felt a little dumb that he didn’t have this idea himself.

Death Elemental Spirit:

Elemental Spirits are rare primal beings. They are responsible for keeping the mana balance and purity, but can’t actively influence it.

The Death Elemental Spirit is a higher spirit.

It is currently in a weakened state.

‘Are you really a death spirit? I thought you were only legends. How did you get here? How come that you are so weak?’ Gorm was noticeably excited, it was probably every person’s goal to one day meet a rare elemental spirit and he met an even rarer higher spirit. But, besides his excitement, he also had a lot of questions.

‘To answer your first two questions, yes I really am a death spirit and no I am very real.’ he made a pause, ‘I’m not really sure if I should tell you the answers to last two. But if you want to help me there is a way.’

‘What way is that?’ Gorm was exited, if the legends were true, then he would gain something by helping it.

‘You could make a bond with me. If you decide to do so, I can be your advisor and answer some of your questions. But don’t expect me to fight for you like some common monster.’ The Spirit answered.

‘How do I make a bond with you? I could use an advisor; I still don’t get all this dungeon stuff.’

‘You are a dungeon; you only have to use the system to concentrate on me. After I have the intention to make a bond with you a new option should pop up.’ The spirit made a pause. ‘Oh, and you need my name, I’m called Seker, but call me Sek.’

Gorm did as instructed and a new option really did pop up. He confirmed his intention.

For a few seconds, nothing happened. But then he felt like a strand of his soul got pulled out and intertwined with something foreign, he couldn’t quite describe the feeling. He felt a weak, dark but warm power flowing into his soul. At the same time, some of his power was seeping into the foreign entity. He was in a trance.

The voice of Sek in his head woke him from his stupor. ‘Wow, what a strong nature affinity! I don’t think you profited much from this bond.’

‘Ah, so the power that flowed into my soul was death affinity. Can you now tell me what happened to you?’

‘Ok, the form you see now is not my real form, I got injured and had to escape. That was the main reason I allowed you to make a bond with me, I can heal and regain my power fast with the help of a dungeon.’

Gorm wanted to know what exactly happened, so Sek retold his experiences of the last few years. He had been bonded to an uncorrupted undead dungeon, a rarity, for over 2000 years when he discovered that a group of magicians was preparing to take down his dungeons core. Dungeon cores were used in rituals to expand the mana pools of magicians. But as that was an unnatural process, only few used it.

Sek didn’t want to lose his bonded dungeon. Historically dungeons where the greatest allies for the Elemental spirits in their fight to uphold the mana balance and purity in the world. So he tried to warn it of the danger it was in, but he got ignored.

When the time came that the magicians finally attacked, the dungeon saw its error, but it was too late to rectify it. As a form of apology, it released Sek of their bond. Somehow the group of magicians was able to sense that and split into two groups, one to get the core and the other to catch or kill the elemental spirit. It was then when it dawned on Sek that these weren’t normal magicians but followers of a cult that tried to destroy the mana balance.

He tried to flee, but only after a long fight could he finally escape their immediate influence. After being on the run for over a year he sensed a weak fluctuation of pure mana and followed it to its origin. This was how he discovered Gorm. But because he couldn’t find an entrance he had to use his last strength to teleport into an open room in the dungeon. He then concealed himself for the next two years to not implicate the dungeon with his pursuers and heal from his injuries.