Panting the adventurer ran as fast as his legs would carry him through the underbrush. He had known this had been a bad idea but why was there a giant lizard chasing him around? He had just wanted to kill a few bunnies and maybe a squirrel or two to get enough experience to evolve to tier two. He didn’t even like fighting that much, to begin with, why had he thought being an adventurer was a good idea.

There was an earth-shattering roar behind him as a scaled head rammed its way through the underbrush. The adventurer squealed in a very undignified way and squeezed out just a bit more speed that he didn’t know he was capable of. However he had paid less than stellar attention to where he was going, a treacherous tree root stuck out at just the right angle and he felt the air whoosh out of his lungs as he fell flat.

He had never really been very religious but now the adventurer prayed up and down to any gods there were. Please get me out of this. I promise to never go into a dungeon ever again, I’ll even open that bakery I’ve always dreamed of just please get me out of here. Sharp teeth closed on his leg, and he sprang away with a yelp, sprinting once again. Fortunately, the bite wasn’t that deep and his body was tougher than normal thanks to his chi class.

Rounding a tree he almost sobbed in relief as he saw real daylight up ahead, not the artificial light that filled the dungeon. Forcing his protesting legs to go just a bit faster, his head pounded and lights were starting to flicker at the edges of his vision. He needed to get out of this deathtrap before he passed out, if he did he would probably never wake up.

Finally, he staggered his way out of the dungeon and collapsed to his knees right outside the guardhouse. “You there stop. You need to register your dive.” He chuckled weakly to himself; you couldn’t get him to keep moving right now even if you tried. The ground felt so comfortable right now, nice hard-packed earth felt like a feathery pillow under his head. “You alright over there?” He tried to respond, but he just didn’t have the strength. The last thing he saw before passing out was freshly made rolls dancing around his head.

You sure this is how we should be doing this Magnus. It seems like it would be easier just to kill off all of the upper-floor adventurers. It would get him and Sora more levels too. The lizard boss had managed to reach level 68 already and hunting down additional humans would only speed her progression.

Yes, I’m sure Valens. The drake yawned widely and made himself more comfortable on top of the pile of feathers the core had made for him. If you kill them all they might just think your dungeon is too dangerous and stop sending people in for a while. If you kill some and chase others out they’ll hopefully start wondering what they did to make you angry.

Do they know about me specifically? You know that dungeons have a consciousness controlling everything?

Magnus shook his head. Not exactly. It's not common knowledge on this continent at least, that dungeons are sentient, but there is a pervading understanding that there is some sort of understanding behind the dungeons. However, most people around here think that it's a more primal intelligence operating mostly on instinct.

Well, that is less than flattering. Do they think making all of these monsters, plants, and ecosystems is easy? Magnus shrugged at that, he wasn’t sure how exactly humans thought and he had been around them for ages. Anyway, I guess it's for the best they don’t know I can think. Less chance of unreasonable requests or requests at all from invaders.

Another reason that it's widely believed that dungeons aren’t all that smart is that your kind has such a hard time communicating with invaders. You’d have to have at least tier five intelligent creatures to speak on your behalf. Also, dungeons aren’t all that smart for a very long time. You got to skip most of the dumb stage thanks to me, you’re welcome.

Anyway, do you think this is going to work like we think? It seems like trying to influence invaders in specific ways could backfire. He still wasn’t sold on the whole not killing them all premise.

Pretty sure at least. This should be relatively straightforward and if they don’t get it at first then we can drive them out with Sora a few more times until they get the picture. Hopefully, they’ll just stop allowing so many low-level groups into the dungeon at once. That combined with the new instructions you gave your creatures should hopefully help.

Alright, fair enough. He had ordered all of his tier-one creatures to run when they felt a tier-two human coming. Most of his monster casualties on his upper floors were coming from those higher-level humans as they slaughtered their way down to his lower floors. Only a few groups had managed to make it past Aspen who had also grown to a respectable level 51. Humans really did make for great experience and the core probably should be getting back to work soon. He had been giving himself a break from creating floors, but he was itching to get to his next bottleneck.

Floor twenty was coming up and he couldn’t wait to get another boss and he already had a new environment that he wanted to try out for floor 21. It was going to be interesting to see how the adventurers handled those floors when they finally made it down there. Valens’ mood soured slightly at that, none of the humans had made it down to the ice floors yet, they were still stuck on the swamp floors. At least it was entertaining to watch them run from crocodiles and giant snakes, he’d like some fish though, all that water on the floors 11 through 15 felt rather empty without them.

Do you have any fish, Magnus?

Why in the world would I have a fish, Valens?

I don’t know, why would you have a sunstone? It seems like wherever I need something you have a solution. The core was a little disappointed now when the drake didn’t have something, well fish weren't that important. He was still a little disappointed though.

Well for your information I don’t like fish at all. I think they taste disgusting, but if you really want the template you should be able to get it eventually. Corinth, the city that all the adventurers are coming from is a port city. People should eventually die with fish rations in their pockets, that’s enough for you to get the pattern eventually right? The drake tapped his claws nervously on the core room floor, flipping through his book while trying not to look over at Valens.

Hmmm, I think so at least? He had gotten a few fruit patterns from dried fruit, but not many people had been carrying around meat for some reason. Come to think of it, most of the adventurers didn’t really pack a huge amount of supplies, they just hunted his monsters to use as meat. I haven’t seen any adventurers with any fish on them yet though.

It’ll happen eventually, like I said there’s a port city right near us, I’m sure you’ll get sick of all the fish eventually. The drake gave a small shudder of distaste at the thought. Anything else for the benevolent core while I’m awake and paying attention?

Yes actually. Do you have any way for me to create water in the dungeon? Valens was hoping that if he watered his plants they would grow faster.

Besides the obvious that you can literally create water out of thin air? Magnus looked skeptically at the core unsure of where this request was going.

Yes, something to water my plants. They usually need water to survive right? So if I water them regularly I’m hoping that they’ll grow faster.

The drake nodded his head in understanding. That makes sense, it worked with sunlight after all. Let's see I might actually have something that could work. Magnus’ claw disappeared into thin air and fished out a rather ordinary-looking ring. Valens watched in fascination as several random odds and ends clattered onto the core room floor including the drake beloved book. Here it is. I knew I had it somewhere.

Magnus proudly held up a white tuft of moss? Magnus, what’s going on with the moss? In the core’s experience, moss wasn’t usually the most useful of plants, but maybe this one would be different, moss was also usually green too right?

This my dear core is called cloud moss. The drake flourished the moss and began to pour mana into the plant. When enough mana is absorbed by the moss it’ll produce a small amount of water. Sure enough, small amounts of water streamed down the drake's claws as he continued to infuse the plant with more mana.

Yep, that’s pretty much exactly what I need. Valens would just need to make sure not to plant too much of the moss. By the way, I’m not complaining or anything, but why do you have this? It seems a little too convenient for what I need.

Magnus tapped his chin thoughtfully examining the cloud moss in his claws. Well, I have been studying it for a while now, I didn’t think much of it until you mentioned needing a water source. Anyway, here you go. With a quick motion, the drake tossed the moss to the other side of the core room. It swiftly vanished as Valens absorbed the new template, it was a rather curious thing, far more complicated than most plants he had seen before. The core supposed that was just because it needed to be a little more sophisticated to create water out of mana.

So what were you studying with this moss Magnus? Other than the water it makes it seems pretty ordinary.

The drake scratched his head looking thoughtful. You see most mana constructs will fade once they run out of mana. Like if I created a ball of water out of my mana it would fade into nothing after it ran out of mana. However this plant is different, the water it creates is permanent and I was trying to figure out if I could do the same thing. I haven’t been successful so far and I’ve been trying for quite some time now.

That sounds an awful lot like what I do, creating things from thin air and such. Would that really be that helpful to you as a mage though? It doesn’t seem like it would be that practical in a fight.

You might be right that it might not be the most practical thing in the world for combat. Some mages dedicate themselves to a single element and manage to get a class that allows them to permanently create that element. For most elements this isn’t very interesting or useful, there’s fire, water, air, and earth practically everywhere and you could just manipulate what's already there. Its other elements like space that I would be more interested in creating. Dungeons are also the only known beings able to create basically whatever you want, frankly what you do on a daily basis is far more advanced than simply making a spell permanent.

Wait, go back to the space creation, how do you know that’s possible? From what he knew about magic currently, it seemed a little far-fetched to the core.

The reason I know that space creation is possible is that I’ve seen the proof myself. There’s an Empire west of the kingdoms over the sea, there are buildings there that are far larger on the inside than on the outside. Fields that look like they should be tiny when I flew over them but stretched for miles when I descended. It was quite impressive. Most of the applications for permanent spell creation would be more utility-based, but I still think it would be worth it. If I can ever figure it out that is. The drake commented sourly, still peeved at his repeated failures to understand that facet of magic.

In any case thanks for the moss, I’m sure it’ll be very helpful on all of my floors.

Magnus settled his head down and closed his eyes. No problem I’m just going to take a quick rest here for a bit then I’ll go back to playing with new mana types.

The core suppressed a chuckle at the lazy drake’s antics. Sleep well, Magnus. It was time for him to get back to work anyway, new floors weren’t going to build themselves, and he couldn’t wait to get to tier three.