At Chesu’s instruction, Gem next focused on digging a hole. By concentrating on an already placed block, Gem could get a menu for actions to take with that particular block.

View Description

Put in Inventory

Move

Place

Destroy

Chesu smiled wide, but it wasn’t a particularly nice smile. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a live one. Asking questions instead of just following directions… Aren’t you clever?” The wisp laughed and shook his head. “Eh, don’t mind me. Let’s see here… Destroying a resource that is within your area of influence will give you the base components of that item, and restore mana.”

“All things have mana, kid. We just haven’t gotten to that part of your training yet.”

Gem waited a moment and then when Chesu didn’t continue, he mentally shrugged and selected the Move option from the list.

Like with the sapling, the block moved around independent of its surroundings. He could move it almost anywhere—he wasn’t able to place it floating in the sky or on top of the saplings he’d planted. The sky bit seemed a little counterintuitive, seeing as how the whole thing was floating in the sky, but Gem remembered Chesu mentioning something about the World Core ignoring physics. Perhaps that was why.

Under the block he lifted was another block.

“Three y-levels. Y represents vertical space, before you ask. But you don’t have blocks everywhere; this is all randomly generated. There should be 40 blocks of dirt total, however.”

Gem could count 25 on the surface, so that left 15 over 2 additional levels below him.

Chesu looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. Or, well, a first head.

“No,” the wisp said, drawing out the word. He shook his head as if clearing it. “No. You don’t need y-levels. They are just extra blocks that most sky Dungeon Cores ignore.”

Chesu tapped the tip of his nose. The wisp then motioned out to the island around them. “You’ve already placed saplings, so getting blocks under them will be difficult. Once you place a sapling, you can’t uproot it. However, you aren’t bound by the same laws of physics. Go ahead and look at the underside of your island.”

“Your vision doesn’t need to stay in your core. Despite your name, you aren’t just a gem. For two y-levels and two blocks on the x- and z-axis away from your area of influence, you can still manipulate things. To expand your area of influence, you just need to build more. Go ahead and put that block you’re floating around off the north end of the island.” The wisp motioned directly ahead of Gem.

The north end of the island jutted out farther away than all the rest. It was too far away for him to place from here.

At first he tried to move towards the area by imagining walking, but that got him exactly nowhere. He then thought of decoupling himself, like one would a belt, from his Gem, but that didn’t do anything either.

He sighed in frustration.

Chesu laughed. “You’re thinking way too hard about this, kid. I can practically smell the smoke from here. Relax. I mean, not too much because of imminent danger and what not, but just move your vision over there. You’re all of this.” Chesu waved his arms around. “Once you stop thinking of yourself as just a gem, you’ll do fine.”

Maybe you shouldn’t have named me that then, Gem thought, but kept the bitter comment to himself. He was grateful to have a name and one that sounded like a thing a person could be called. The wisp didn’t name him Core or Idiot or something.

Alright. I want to be over there. How do I get over there? As soon as he thought about it, his perspective shifted. It was like he teleported, but he could still see his gem sitting next to Chesu.

“Good job, kid!”

Gem found that he could move himself out two block widths off the north end of the island, just like Chesu told him. The block of dirt came with him. It floated close to his vision, like he was carrying it in outstretched arms, until he settled and returned to moving it separately.

There was only so far he could move the block of dirt away from his vision - around six block lengths. It wasn’t horribly restrictive, but it did mean he’d have to get used to being incorporeal more often than not when he wanted to build.

Gem placed the dirt block off the north end of the island, as instructed. He immediately felt his area of influence expand by one block in that direction. It was an odd sensation, and not one that he could adequately explain to anyone else. It was so unlike anything he’d experienced so far.

Gem asked, returning his vision to the inside of his core.

Chesu grinned at him, nodding. “You’ve got that right, kid. We might be floating in the sky to flee from endlessly respawning nightmare monsters, but some rules remain intact.” Something in the wisp’s eye glistened mischievously. “We’ll go over block generation soon. I’ve got a few more things on my list of introductory mechanics. Making something like blocks is a bit more intermediate than I think you’re ready for.”

Gem sent Chesu an image of a gem with an exaggerated frowning face.

“Humor me, baby dungeon. I promise I’ll get to it very soon.”

Gem wished he had a body so he could click his tongue or sigh. Something to exaggerate how frustrated he felt.

If Chesu noticed his frustration, he didn’t let on. “Moving isn’t just along the X and Y axis, by the way. You’re a consciousness contained in a physical manifestation of a core.” The wisp waved a hand through the air. “And you aren’t bound to that two-block limit either. That’s just for building.”

Gem looked out towards the horizon, where the pink why was growing ever closer to darker.

“Of course! You’re free to move as much as you want in your area of influence and then past that it’s based on your rank.”

“Excellent question. And… not one I can really adequately explain. It’s a part of you. Like your inventory. But you can view it whenever you want, not just when you think about it.” Chesu made a frustrated noise. “Like… like if you had test answers written on the insides of your eyelids.”

Gem sent him another image of a gem with an exaggerated frown.

“Yeah, well, you try telling a disembodied representation of a dungeon how to look inside themselves. There isn’t exactly a manual for this stuff.”

“And how would that work?” Chesu’s voice grew to a fevered pitch. “There’s glitches! Mutations! The…” The wisp fell quiet before shaking his head. “Nope. We’re not going down that rabbit hole. Let’s just say… Let’s just say there’s a lot of things happening that would make a manual incomplete the second it was written.”

Gem wanted to ask. But Chesu waved a hand and prompted Gem to continue exploring how to view his rank.

Eventually he figured it out. It was less like looking inside his non-existent eyelids and more like viewing the underneath of his gem. Like if he could somehow turn himself inside out to see the parts no one else could see.

Name: [ERROR - NOT FOUND]

Tier: Tin

Rank: One

Mana: 1 / 50

Regeneration: 10 / Hour

Command: 0 / 0 (cap 50)

Complete quest A Roof Over Your Head to access remaining system options.

Chesu made a noise deep in his throat. “It’s not important. I’m sure someone will fix that soon, Gem.” He said the name with force, not like a shout but still with volume. “Let’s just keep this train moving. So. You see your rank and tier, right?”

“Great! So that means you have 50 mana and 50 command.” Chesu held up a hand as if to stop Gem’s arguments before he could begin. “Yes, you don’t have it yet. You’re a brand new core. They don’t just give you things for free.”

Gem watched the wisp for a moment. When it was clear that Chesu wasn’t going to continue, he ventured to find out.

“Mana controls your abilities to do things: create pylons, cast spells, craft mob hearts, or make mobs to use those hearts. Command is what tells you how many mobs you can have in your dungeon at a time. You need the first to get the second.”

“Nope. Well, not yet. You’ll kind of, well, get used to making it passive. Like breathing, as a mortal. Your body, or, well, core, will do it automatically. But for now…” Chesu shrugged. “You draw in the mana. From the world. Everything’s got it. The sky, the trees, the dirt. Mana’s everywhere and you are a conduit in need of it.”

“Nah. You’ll take so little in at a time that you’ll be fine. If you go on a hungry spree then that’s a problem. But the little bit you’ll take and then process every hour isn’t enough to hurt anything.”

Gem focused on absorbing mana. He first tried viewing it, which was near impossible. No menus popped up when he tried to examine things, and there was no visible sign if something had mana or not. But he could feel something, tickling the edges of his senses, like it was just out of view.

Eventually he decided to stop looking for it and start drawing it in. He focused on that tickling sensation and started pulling it towards himself. Nothing happened at first, and Gem grew frustrated. But after some eager and encouraging prodding from Chesu, Gem finally drew in his first bit of mana.

It was everything he could have ever wanted and more.