"Level up!"

Level up process is about to start.

You are levelling up to your first level as a dungeon core.

As a dungeon core, you started out as a dull grey and inferior gem.

A perk from levelling up is a change in gem that your core is made from.

Please pick one of the following:

Gem: Description: Ruby: A deep red gem that increases the affinity towards the fire element of the dungeon and its core to 50%. Sapphire A dark blue gem that increases the affinity towards the water element of the dungeon and its core to 50 %. Emerald: A green gem that increases the affinity towards the earth element of the dungeon and its core to 50%. Citrine: A yellow gem that increases the affinity towards the air element of the dungeon and its core to 50%. Black star diopside: A black gem that increases the affinity towards the darkness element of the dungeon and its core to 50%. Beryl: A green gem that increases the affinity towards the light element of the dungeon and its core to 50% Bloodstone: A dark gem with blood red streaks that increases the affinity towards the blood element of the dungeon and its core to 50%. Jade: A pearly green gem that increases the affinity towards the nature element of the dungeon and its core to 50%. Diamond: A colourless gem that increases the affinity towards every element of the dungeon and its core to 20%.

Due to your otherworldly knowledge of physics and its use in compressing the mana needed for levelling up, you are granted an additional choice for gemstone as core:

Synthetic diamond: A colourless gem that has been artificially made by putting immense amounts of pressure on pure carbon and exposing it to extremely high temperatures.

This gem increases the affinity towards every element of the dungeon and its core to 18% and increases the success chance of creating things with otherworldly knowledge.

Reading through the options, the last choice catches my eye.

Even though it has a slightly lower percentage to the affinity with all the elements, the increased success chance for creating things with otherworldly knowledge is just too intriguing. After all, what they consider to be otherworldly knowledge is just basic chemistry and physics to me. Assuming the same knowledge is applied to biology as well, any real science will gain a bonus to its application in this world.

Proper science!

As an aspiring chemist in my previous life, this sounds like music to me.

Without any hesitation, I pick the synthetic diamond.

You chose the synthetic diamond.

Congratulation! You gained an achievement:

Become the first dungeon with an artificial diamond core.

Reward:

Title: Inventor

Inventor: A title granted to crazy mages (or in your case, crazy scientists) that push the boundaries of their craft. This title grants you an additional 5% increased chance to successfully create a working prototype, be it magically or scientifically created.

With your choice made, the process of levelling up will start now.

With a jolt, the condensed mana flares up. I can feel a massive amount of pressure being exerted upon me as well as a massive amount of heat. This goes on for a while until I can feel something changing. Slowly but surely, my core changes from dull grey and boring to white and see-through.

After a couple a hours, the conversion is finally done.

Congratulations! You have reached your first level.

You can now choose which type of monsters you want as your first dungeon monsters.

Please pick one of the following ones with a common rarity:

Races or species to choose from:

Additional info:

Slimes

(common) Near mindless blobs of ooze that only strive to devour and to multiply. Slimes are considered to be the lowest ranking monsters for they are easily defeated. They are only considered to be a threat by adventurers when they come in greater number.

Kobolds

(common) Humanoid lizards whose origin is unclear. Some say their blood has a draconic tint to it. Others say that kobolds are the failed experiments of dark mages which escaped at some point and multiplied like rats.

Kobolds are known to be vicious creatures that have a frail stature which they make up for with a rapid breeding cycle and rapid growth to maturity.

Animals

(common) Choosing this will grant you a few species to start with and an affinity towards learning the biology of any animal which dies in the dungeon and towards recreating it as a dungeon monster.

Undead

(common) Your average zombies and skeletons. Often seen as vile things that only the darkest of sorcerers use.

Hard to kill with regular means, unless they are attacked with fire or holy/light types of damage.

Their major flaw is their lack of intelligence and their total dependence on their master for commands. Since quantity has a quality of his own, undead are easy to raise and are quite fearsome in large numbers. Eventually, undead can be evolved to undead lords and even liches that can control undead armies.

Plant monsters

(uncommon) Various plant like monster, ranging from the actively carnivorous plants such as giant Venus flytraps with a taste for all flesh that comes in its reach to toxic mushrooms who feed on decaying flesh by absorbing its nutrients.

Demons

(uncommon) Creatures summoned straight from the various rings of hell. These creatures are the sworn enemies of the holy churches. Many crusades have been sent out because of just the rumour of a demon-infested location.

Fey

(rare) The fabled smallfolk like pixies, leprechauns, will-o-wisps, fairies, unicorns, etc….

Most of the smallfolk have access to spirit magic.

The fey are most commonly known for their mischief.

Constructs

(rare) Constructs in various shapes and sizes, powered by either magic or by mechanical forces such as clockworks.

Highly adaptable seeing as a construct can be tailored to any given situation. Dwarfs and gnomes are known to be true masters of the automata.

Elementals

(epic) Beings made of pure mana combined with an element. They are often found near places with a high influence of elemental forces like volcanoes, mountaintops, caverns deep underground, etc….

These elementals come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from playful tricksters to mighty elemental lords.

Draconics

(epic) Descendants of dragons, or at least beings which have some traces of draconic blood. The draconics come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from small, fire-breathing lizards, to drakes and wyverns. Or even full-grown dragons, but this is not recommended seeing as that dragons are proudful beings and bow to no one.

Seeing this list, I'm absolutely stunned. So many choices. And so many cool ones as well, especially the ones with a higher rarity. But as far as the first four common ones go, it should be an easy choice.

From what SHE said, churches are a thing here, it even says so in the description of the demons. I'm pretty sure that a church that hates demons also loathes undead in any form, so they are already a big no-no.

Then there are the slimes. Slimes are just dumb things and as the description said. Their only instinct is to devour and to multiply. They are a write off as well.

Both leftover choices show some potential. The animals as a choice have a broader adaptability while the kobolds have an advantage in numbers. A high rate of maturity will also help with naturally evolving them to a stronger and better species. Although, the same can be done with animals if I make use of my synthetic core trait. The initial frailty of kobolds in the early stages is concerning.

In the end, seeing as I should be more familiar with animal anatomy than with kobold anatomy, my choice is made.

With a slight flex of the mind, I choose animals as my first dungeon monster type.

Congratulations on your choice.

Because you chose animals, you will be granted 10 different kinds of animals.

Because of where your dungeon is (Dragon Mountains/above the permanent snow line), one of you animal types will be ideally suited for your location, the rest will be of a more generic type.

The animal species gain are:

Common forest wolfs, trapdoor spiders, mosquitos, ravens, fire beetles, boa constrictors, zebras, rats and moray eels.

Your animal species that is specially adapted to your environment is:

Snow leopards

You are also granted two basic trap designs and another trap design that is tailored to your environment.

basic:

Pitfall trap: a deep hole in the floor that can be lined with spikes or other sharp objects. The walls can be smoothed to make climbing out on your own impossible thru regular means.

Rockfall trap: a hole in the ceiling or in the walls that is filled with rubble. The rubble is held in place with a cover which will fall away when a simple tripwire is triggered.

Environmentally tailored trap:

A sheet of ice made from crystal clear water, making the ice indistinguishable from the surface it lies on.

Some of the animal species I gained were just amazing, especially the snow leopards. The wolves and spiders are not too shabby either. Others will be useful in specific situations I guess, like the moray eels will be quite dangerous in a water environment. But what would I ever do with mosquitos, fire beetles and ZEBRAS!!!!!! Freaking zebras, they are tropical animals and my dungeon is located in some part of a frozen wasteland it seems.

Now that I finally have monsters available to me, I check their cost.

Species: mana requirement: Common forest wolf 300 mana Trapdoor spider 120 mana Mosquito 4 mana Raven 80 mana Fire beetle 30 mana Boa constrictor 120 mana Zebra 280 mana Moray eel 150 mana Rat 50 mana Snow leopard 500 mana

Since I want something to defend myself with, I really want to create a snow leopard.

Since my passive mana accumulation had paused while my core was changing, I'm still a bit short on mana and so I'm currently not able yet to spawn one.

The traps leave a lot to be desired though. The only saving grace is that there seems to be a good synergy with the ice patch and the pitfall.

With my level gained, it is time to start expanding again and to at least finish my corridor towards the mountainside.

When that's done, I will have enough mana to start creating monsters and traps to defend myself with.