The rare resource given to the dungeon to kill Kaeden was actually a catalyst. It was my luck Kaeden was such a decisive person if he waited few more days the dungeon would have processed the catalyst and the most I could hope was getting lesser affinity the other dungeon chose. I spend next day trying to analyse and decide which affinity to choose. It was anything but simple so I decided to call the popup once again and go over all my choices.

Please choose your first divine affinity.

+

-

∞

∅

Celestial

Infernal

Transcendental

Abyssal

Order

Chaos

Nature

Void

Creation

Destruction

Infinity

Nothingness

Life

Death

Eternity

Oblivion

I had the feeling there were other divine affinities but had no idea if I was unable to choose them because I was not suited to them or because the catalyst was unsuitable for other affinities. I was leaning towards the second choice as even the placing of affinities seemed to matter. To simplify it the first column were positive affinities, second were negative ones. Third took me a while to figure out but seemed to be both while the last was neither.

It would have taken me much longer if I haven’t accidentally focused on Nature affinity which seemed to not fit with the others and that gave me the taste of its power. It contained both orderly and chaotic power. It turned out if I focused on any affinities I would get a sample of its might.

That alone was priceless as it increased my knowledge significantly and even that bit would aid me when creating new mobs, evolving them or trying to make new variants. I also found that each row had a theme.

Most people assumed that celestial and infernal were good and evil respectively and they had some point, there was a strong tendency with those powers for that. Yet it was more like celestial was focused on others when infernal concentrated on self. If you ever saw a fanatic you knew celestial could produce tyrants who in their self-righteousness caused enough evil to rival the worst of internals.

Infernal was capable of good, if your desires were to be admired or to be better than everyone else then there was a high chance of doing good deeds. It stemmed from selfishness but was good nevertheless. Strong conscience in infernal aligned creature could also make them a champion of good.

All those were just layers of those affinities, at the core of every single one lied emotions. When you used Celestial powers it produced euphoria and contentment both in the user and the target. It changed your body to be stronger, more resistant and to be able to channel more celestial power which in turn intensified positive emotion experienced. A skilled celestial user could even use the positive emotions around him to enhance his skills, it was no wonder it was associated with good.

The infernal affinity seemed to be the exact opposite as the every use of the power would bring pain and misery. The body was changed in a way that would allow it to withstand more suffering and the power could be augmented by the suffering of the others. With time infernal users learned to transfer all the pain associated with the skill to the target. I guess it was to be expected considering selfish nature of the humans and other races. While celestial accessing good emotions would diminish them, infernal using negative emotion would intensify them. This allowed any infernal to become much more powerful than any celestial could, provided they were able to bear the pain. The association with evil seemed obvious.

Transcendental affinity was much more interesting as it used both positive and negative emotions. It would be wrong to think about it as a mixture of celestial and infernal as embracing both aspects of emotion transformed the power into something completely new and unique. It was also the strongest when harmony was maintained if you lowered or increased one element the overall power would drop. Despite that, it offered flexibility as positive aspect could help things grow while negative had the enormous capability for destruction. However; even when using the purest positive emotions transcendental wouldn’t be able to exclude the negative ones, there always would be the smallest seed of opposite force present as transcendental power couldn’t exist without both.

Abyssal was the most alien and obscure. It was associated with Outsiders, strange and mysterious creatures from beyond. In its essence, it rejected all emotions and followed the pure logic. You couldn’t call it rational as it was based on a totally different set of rules that this world logic. Neither was wrong just incompatible if this world followed 2+2=4 then abyssal would be six squares make up the cube.

I almost skipped the next four affinities as I didn’t found them that interesting but even by not choosing them I was getting important insights and I was truly amazed. People of this world seemed to have an only basic grasp of the divine affinities. Yes, Order was the Law and Structure but it was so much more. It was extreme control over every single element within the system, it was a singular path to greatness that disallowed any non-adherence. If left unchecked it could be stifling, unaccepting of creativity and variations.

The chaos was in fact randomness, anarchy and disorder. It also was change, freedom and flexibility. It was driving force behind inspiration and revolution. Without proper attentiveness, it quickly becomes uncontrollable. From that, there was just a step to becoming a slave of chaos forever beholden to its whims, unable to affect or direct the change.

Nature was not the power to make plants grow quicker, it was the power to create entire ecosystems even words, to create laws governing them and allowing enough chaos in to make evolution possible. Every variant was meaningful, every evolution exciting even if, in the end, it turned out to be lacking. Either species would adapt or be replaced by another. The change and randomness were strictly limited by intricate rules introducing order. It was the endless pursuit of perfection that promoted success and mercilessly discarded failures.

The void was a complete negation of both chaos and order. It was static, unchanging emptiness. If there was nothing, no structure then there would be no order, no potential for change. Its unique properties could nullify other powers and create powerful barriers, even separate dimensions. Yet those dimensions would be empty and inhospitable. It would take enormous power and focus to preserve anything there and it ultimately would prove futile. Its truest expression would void all existence.

The power of creation allowed to bring forth infinite wonders, endless possibilities that with a thought would come true. It allowed recreating, combining and changing elements. It was knowledge and ingenuity. Yet it lacked practical aspects to it, it urged you to create endlessly just for creation sake without regards to usefulness or danger of things you made. The act itself was glorified and then the product would be discarded offering nothing new to explore. It was forever pushing forward in unattainable goal to create every possibility forever abandoning your creations.

Destruction was unmaking, dismantling and ending existing things. It wasn’t disintegration as the process would always end with the object attaining new form. It may be ashes, unusable debris or raw materials ready to be shaped again. In some form, it was a final mercy to flawed or aged creations yet it appetite was insatiable and it would gladly eradicate any form or being regardless of right or wrong.

Infinity was a sum of all that was, is and will be or even could be. It united creation and destruction into an endless cycle of reshaping. In its attempt to contain every possibility it collected unique forms with insignificant differences. It could attempt to create thousands of copies of the same item in every possible and impossible shade of red. Then it would do the same for every other colour. After that was done it would repeat the entire process for the exact same thing just slightly bigger, smaller or its mirror image. Then it would try to mix different colours in endless and frivolous attempt to make every variant, option and alternative.

Nothingness was the power to unmake things yet compared to destruction it left nothing behind. It was endless hunger that strived to reduce all possibilities, all infinite options to one, to nothingness. It was simplicity in purest form with only nothingness existing or rather non-existing. It could affect all possibilities reducing them to one.

Life was boundless vitality, youthfulness, flourishing and more. It was a struggle, competition and selfishness. It was growth and proliferation. It didn’t discriminate and empowered all being leading to strife and conflict over limited resources. It was a constant activity, the pursuit of one excitement after another.

Death was decay and entropy, weakness and infirmity. It was release, absolution and peacefulness. It gave meaning to the life and at the same time couldn’t exist without it. It was merciless and uncaring, yet it made space and room for growth of new generations. It offered stillness and reflection, made struggle the life was worthwhile.

Eternity was the impact of life and death on others. It was memory and effect preserved indefinitely. It was consequences of actions reaching through ages. In its ultimate, it was release from the cycle of life and death, immortality. To be eternal was to be free of death but at the same time, it was abandoning life. Not living or dying just existing. Changing into a concept, idea or a truth.

Oblivion was the loss of meaning, fading through time into obscurity. If everything was forgotten was there any true existence? At the same time as every divine affinity, it served a purpose. It destroyed any preconceptions, animosities and assumptions. It allowed to tread the same path and arrive at a different outcome. While it erased the good it also get rid of the bad, leaving a black slate ready to be rewritten again, and again. At its height, it offered power to reject the reality.

Sixteen options and I could pick only one. They all had both advantages and disadvantages, all required tight control or consequences would be dire. They all offered possibilities and the danger to become mindless executor of their will. I was excited and terrified, you couldn’t reach divine-rank without divine affinity so gaining one was enormous luck and yet it may be my downfall. It was extremely unwise to get one as a common-ranked yet to pass such opportunity would be even a bigger shame.

I needed to operate under the assumption that picking one of the group made acquiring others impossible. I found that unlikely but in this case, I felt it was better to be safe than sorry. I went through them again and decided to first cross out those I knew I wouldn’t choose.

The celestial affinity had a danger of making me too sure of myself. If after every decision I enforced it with celestial power the euphoria connected to it could make me convinced of my infallibility. In my current situation that was a danger I couldn’t risk. Infernal would either require causing or experiencing pain, despair and hate. I wasn’t sadist nor self-sacrificing type so that was out even before adding the Church to the mix.

Transcendental had me really intrigued but once again I would be severely limited in using it. On upper floors, I would need to channel positive aspect to make sure things weren’t deadly. On lower ones, I would probably lean towards negative aspects. Both aspects if pure enough could be confused with celestial or infernal and when used in equal proportions could confuse the Church. Neither option seemed something I would like, especially now that I managed to convince guilds to work with me. Adding another player would upset the balance even if it was someone more open to compromises. The unyielding Church was the last faction I wanted near me.

Abyssal was out of the question as I lost everything I was but a name. I adapted and enjoyed being the dungeon but to willingly lose another aspect of myself was out of the question. Sure my rashness and my emotions resulted in bad decisions but they were part of me, for better or worse. I also need to understand human logic and they needed to understand mine. Appearing as unpredictable would get me no favours.

The order was out as I didn’t want to limit my creativity and chaos would take too much effort to keep in line. I didn’t want to see Areth changing into giant spider one day or worse. Additionally, both guaranteed the Church’s involvement. The void would be great if I tried to take on the empire and that was not going to happen, I would like to stay alive for now.

Creation would definitely aid me and that seemed perfectly aligned with my personality. That was why I couldn’t choose it as I needed to make sure all my creations were useful and had a clear purpose. I already was likely to be lost in possibilities and only after creating things trying to desperately find them a proper place in the dungeon.

Destruction offered interesting options but I could always kill the experiment and get back part of materials and mana used to create it. I wanted something that would have a bigger impact. I had no idea who would even consider nothingness with those options present. I guess making the only possibility for something to fail would prove useful at times yet limiting oneself just to one option was sheer insanity.

Life and Death seemed incomplete without each other. With my soul affinity associated with necromancy, death would make people jumpy. Life would make stronger mobs but their purpose was to ultimately die to make adventurers happy and me stronger. I only cared for grootslangs and them, being ageless, would do without it. Eternity was too abstract and I understood it the least, yet I had instinctively feared it limitations.

It left me with three choices; the Nature affinity, the Infinity affinity and the Oblivion affinity. Infinity offered the most options and at the same time, its drawbacks were the most severe. If I was likely to create a being and only then consider its usefulness I would be prone to making endless copies with meaningless differences. I was taking huge risk picking divine affinity as a B-ranked core so I couldn’t choose one with such pronounced disadvantages.

Oblivion would allow me to create several blank slate monsters and erasing all assumptions from my mind. After thousands of attempts, I would eventually be able to find small differences in their evolutions leading to improvement of the species or even to new evolutionary paths. It also had a vague promise of rejecting the reality. If I understood it correctly I could remove any effect and any consequence that happened in my dungeon by pouring mana at it. If I was successful it would be as it has never happened.

Nature would produce similar effects when it came to monster evolutions as oblivion just be different means. If I put a species into different ecosystems they would diverge at some point creating different evolutions. The difference was I would have less control over the changes in exchange of the process being easier to carry out and demanding less knowledge from me. I believed some evolutions would be unlocked only by either Oblivion or Nature with the majority being possible through both.

The choice boiled to two things. First, how much I wanted that Oblivion ability to affect reality. The second was the option of easy and somewhat automated but random evolution discovery or painstaking, time-consuming but allowing direct and precise control process.

I regretted not being able to choose freely as I would love to choose Infinity or Transcendental or even Creation. I didn’t exist in a vacuum and had to consider consequences of my actions as well as my circumstances. I allowed myself to consider alternatives, to imagine myself wielding different powers I knew I could never choose. I even allowed myself time to feel regret, anger and loss. Then I steeled myself and made the choice.

Congratulations!

As the divine power of Nature courses through your body, your mind expands.

All your skills increased in efficiency.

All your stats were enhanced.

You are able to infuse divine affinity into all your actions and creatures.

As you advance through ranks power of Nature will further strengthen and change your body.

Congratulations!

You have gained new title: Divine-Touched

You have reached exceptional integration with the divine power. You are now one with the divine and it is impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends.

Your mana will be infused with the divine increasing its potency and granting additional benefits.

The divine power will now be forever present in your dungeon.

Congratulations!

You have gained new title: Harmonious with the Divine

You integrated with the Divine at low rank increasing your compatibility.

You will be able to use divine powers with ease and any drawbacks or flaws will be significantly reduced.

Congratulations!

Connecting to the Divine elevated your rank.

You have advanced to rank ε lvl 1/150.

You have recovered all HP and Mana.

Your maximum HP and Mana increased.

All your skills increased in efficiency.

All your stats were enhanced.

Congratulations!

Your Affinity (Nature) gave you new skill: Divine Barrier (Initiate) Lvl: 1/1500

You are able to create divine barriers with the help of divine power.

Such barriers are highly resistant to any mana based powers and take additional damage from attack containing opposite affinity.

Congratulations!

Your Affinity (Nature) gave you new skill: Ecosystem Creation (Saint) Lvl: 1/1500

Instead of creating monsters individually you are able to create whole ecosystems.

You must first devise schematic containing at least 10 different species, specific environment and laws governing species behaviours and evolution.

You are able to input additional data and restrictions.

You are able to create virtual simulations based on schematics. The mana cost varies depending on complexity, time dilation and desired duration of the experiment.

Congratulations!

Your Affinity (Nature) gave you new skill: Ecosystem Understanding (Passive) (Saint) Lvl: Max

Your understanding of Ecosystems is deepened. You are able to notice regularities quicker and inferring information based on previous knowledge is easier.

Name

Arnar

Rank:

ε

Level

1/150

HP

100 000/100 000

Mana

500 000/500 000

Floors

1

Rooms

77

Titles:

8

Skills

17

Traits:

3

Affinities

5

Affinities

Absolute Affinities

Nature (Divine)

Superior Affinities

-

Greater Affinities

Soul, Mind

Strong Affinities

-

Standard Affinities

-

Lesser Affinities

Water

Weak Affinities

Earth

With the addition of the negotiation skill, I gained when bargaining with Maisoon, I now had 17 skills. For an epic-rank that was low but considering I awoke less than a month ago, I was happy with my progress. My new tiles made me regret not picking Oblivion affinity but I wouldn’t be able to use it to the fullest for quite a long time anyway. Not to mention that I had no guarantees the skill I wanted would be granted as soon as I picked it or if it actually did what I assumed it did. Even if I get it I was pretty sure such heaven-defying skill would need ungodly amounts of mana.

It was also entirely possible I was still alive and sane only because I picked the Nature power as it was the gentlest of all. Sure it had the potential for violence and destruction but I was not ready to bring it out yet and in its natural state it was easiest to absorb. I risked the guess I was part of nature innately when other powers seemed more like outside forces.

The divine touched offered both new dangers and new possibilities. I should have been used to that by now. I had no way of hiding my divine affiliation now but the nature power in my dungeon would make all my creations stronger. It would even benefit adventurers. I had no idea what effect would have the Oblivion power had but I was sure Nature would offer fewer complications inside and outside of the dungeon.

I was unsure of the ranks of my new skills but Areth as always come through sending me a useful resource.

Common Ranks

H, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, AA, AAA, S, SS, SSS

Epic Ranks

ε, δ, γ, β, α, ω

Legendary Ranks

Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum

Mythic Ranks

Amethyst, Onyx, Jade, Opal, Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond

Divine Ranks

Initiate, Adept, Enlightened, Saint, Demigod, Minor Deity, Major Deity, Lesser God, God, High God

Sovereign Ranks

Squire, Knight, Grand Cross, Baron, Count, Duke, King, Emperor, High Sovereign

I guessed divine affinity granting divine skills shouldn’t be surprising yet I was Epic-Ranked and got skills three tiers above me. If not for me being the dungeon with insane mana pool I wouldn’t be able to even dream about activating any of them. I would have to ask queens to stop limiting their passive mana emission or sustaining ecosystem simulations would be an issue.

I was also expecting to get divine power stat similar to mana but I discovered I couldn’t store divine power, only channel it from its source. The source seemed to be both unlimited and abstract located both everywhere and nowhere. I had no idea if it remained the case when I reached divine rank or not.

I asked my Azure Queen to contact Maisoon telepathically and ask him for an urgent meeting. I believed he deserved to know as soon possible about the situation and he would have found anyway so I hope it would make him more amiable if he believed I was as forthcoming as possible. I even revealed the existence of Azure Queen to convince him to my openness. He didn’t ask about other queens but he saw golden grootslang and was quite clever so I assumed he found out.

He brought with him some plants and basic monster bodies so I had new material to work with. I guess it was high time to take that environmental simulation for a spin.