Slowly, one careful step after another, the hunter descends into the darkness. The sun is high in the sky, illuminating the upper part of the spiral stairwell and giving him a good view of the roots and dirt he can use as footholds to go down. He has to bend slightly so his head doesn’t hit anything but he continues downward undeterred.

When he is far enough in, he turns on a small flashlight strapped to his forehead and although small it is quite powerful. Emitting a wide beam of light that illuminates everything in the direction he looks at in various shades of red.

And if a hole in the middle of the forest with stairs leading down into it wasn’t weird enough, when he is almost at the bottom I turn on the bioluminescence of the mushrooms. Letting him know that this place is more than what it seems. That this place is magical.

“Or at least that's what I hope it looks like…”

The kid's reaction is making me doubt myself. I was certain the boy would be ecstatic at what I’ve created for him but his feedback has left me somewhat disappointed and apprehensive about my ideas. “So this time I’m pulling out all the stops!” I say to myself with resolve. The mushrooms flare up in brightness as if mimicking my mental state. “Or as much of it as I have prepared,” the mushrooms dim slightly, “I didn’t have enough mana to do much except for changing the layout of the floor.”

However, if the rugged beard and wrinkles around his eyes weren't enough than the {Appraisal} telling me he is 43 years old gives me the chance to try everything I have on him. “Well, almost everything. The Cow Killer is reserved for those that come close enough to threaten me.”

Eagerly, I wait for the man to continue. He stopped moving when the mushroom lit up and has been studying them since.

Unlike the kid, whose facial expressions and vocal exclamations were a clear indicator of his thoughts, the man is impossible to read. His face is stoic and he hasn’t uttered a word yet. Even when the mushrooms began to glow all he did was pause and look at them.

“Will you move already!” I mutter as my impatience grows, “What can you even think about for so long. They are mushrooms, they glow. There are many more for you to look at if you’d only start moving....”

Eventually, when I’m just about to give up and go back to my own business, he shifts. Moving forward as if he never stopped. Each step as careful and calculated as it was before the mushrooms.

This annoys me somewhat and I have half a mind to just send my monsters at him there and then. “But then I won’t see his reaction to the floor…”

Luckily I don’t have to control myself for long as the man turns the corner and steps out onto the platform overlooking the mushroom sea. I don’t know what I expected him to do, but it sure as hell wasn’t to furrow his brows and clench his teeth at the hundred meters long, five meters wide, multicolored cavern with a field of glowing mushrooms that resembles a rippling lake in a gentle breeze. With no more walls to separate it into rooms, the whole expanse is now visible with one glance.

I even sent out the fireflies and glittering butterflies to create a light show for him but he just scoffed at them and stepped closer to the edge of the platform. There, he lowered to one knee, unslung his rifle and just like the boy did, pushed it down between the mushrooms to see how deep they went. His longer arms and weapon managed to reach the bottom but he took his sweet time and probed around with the butt of the rifle.

Whatever was going through his mind it didn’t show on his face and I was tired of his calm and collected demeanor. It was time to ruffle his feathers. “It is time to test my creations.”

The first to act was the Arrowhead salamander, a monster variant of the Northwestern Salamander that stumbled into my dungeon and was eaten by Sally. Using the [Splicer] skill I took the slimy creature and made it as thin as I could, resulting in a monster 60cm long, 8cm tall and only 2cm wide. The head I shaped like an arrow, for which it is named, so that it can part the thin stalks of the mushrooms with ease and run around, agile and invisible under the mushroom sea.

Its tail wraps around the rifle and pulls, trying to wrestle the weapon out of the man's hands. He can’t see what is happening but when he feels the tug he rises, pulling the rifle and the monster attached to it into the air. With a stone face, he brings it closer to him to observe. The monster thrashes its sharp head in all directions, trying to hit something but to no avail.

While he is distracted two more Arrowheads lunge at his feet. One hits a thick boot, doing no damage and simply bouncing off to the side while the other reaches higher, hitting and leaving a shallow gash on his shin. It makes him jump back just in time to see two more climbing on too the platform.

He swings his rifle as if it was a golf club and connects with one of the rushing salamanders, smashing the poor thing and sending it flying back to where it came from together with the one that was attached to his makeshift club. Not bothering to look at the flying pair of mangled bodies he flips the rifle and presses it to his shoulder, attempting to aim at Sally who is using the giant mushroom path to close the distance quickly. Unfortunately for him, part of the slimy salamanders tail is still attached to his stock and it sends his aim off. The sound from the gunshot echoes in the cavern, sending all its inhabitants into a frenzy and allowing Sally to slip into the mushroom sea for cover.

He can still see where she is as her body parts the stalks, giving away her location while she moves. It doesn’t matter though as the sound causes all manner of bugs to fly into the air, forming a cloud that buzzes away from him and effectively covering Sally's approach for now and preventing him from aiming at her. Not that he could allow himself to focus on her with the salamanders jumping at his legs and reptiles falling on his head.

The simple Garter snakes were modified by me to be able to climb the mushrooms growing from the wall and ceiling. There they feed on various insects, sometimes entering the mushroom sea below to hunt for mice and running away from any Arrowheads.

Averaging at half a meter in length they are not as impressive as my salamanders but when half a dozen of them suddenly fall on his head, the man's poker face finally breaks, showing for just a moment an expression of fear and surprise. An expression that was soon replaced with cold focus as he unsheathed his knife and cut two of the falling snakes in half.

However, the combined assault and the quickly approaching Sally were enough to make him retreat back up the staircase.

I considered following him but decided to cut my loses. Unless I got lucky my chances of taking him down were slim. My monsters, as great as they were, simply were no match in size or weapons to the hunter. “Something I’ll have to correct once I have enough mana.” As such, the early retreat is a welcome action from his side. It will give me time to prepare for him better. To make sure that in the next battle my side won’t be so helpless.

“Although all things considered, it didn’t go that bad. Did it?” Sure, I lost a few monsters but he didn’t even step down from the platform. If he did then the ability to attack unseen might have changed the outcome greatly.

“There are two more monsters I still need to add to it, but the floor is mostly complete for now.” After all, this is only the first floor. I can’t make it too challenging otherwise the next floors will never be visited. “The question is what do I do now? Finish the first floor? Start working on the second? Or level up a few times?” The constantly growing ecosystem is providing me with quite the increase in mana regen and with the mana I got from the dead monsters I should be able to level up by the end of the day. Not too long of a wait, “But the fight got me all excited now and I really want to start preparing for the next one…”

__________________

“A fighter.”

“No,” Jason said to his friend Ben over the phone.

“A Fighter?”

“Better, but still no. I know they sound similar but one is just a word while the other is like a proclamation to the world. I’m not just a fighter, I’m a [Fighter]!”

“I don’t know dude. I hear ya but I really don’t get it. What you’re telling me sounds exactly like a dungeon and there's no way those are real.”

“Dude, tomorrow you come with me and see for yourself. Kapish?”

“I don’t know man. Sounds dangerous. Maybe you should tell someone about it?”

“No! Not yet. If any adults find out they’ll go ballistic over it and I’ll never get a chance to go there again. If its a dungeon, like you think it is, than doesn’t that mean that in the end of it there should be t..”

“Treasure!” Ben interrupts, “I’m in. When and where?”

“Dude… how can money excite you more than superpowers?”

“Dude, money is a superpower.”

“Whatever…” Jason sighs, “We’re not going there again. Tomorrow after my appointment I’ll ask dad to pick you up and we can go. Be ready. Armor, snacks, the whole shabang.”

“Ughh…”

“Didn’t you say you wanted to get a Switch?”

“Argh… fuck it. Yeah. Adventure and treasure and shit. I gotta go, see ya tomorrow.”

“See ya,” he said but the line was already cut.

Jason put the phone back in its place, made himself a sandwich and grabbed a can of Pringles before going to his room and crashed into his bed.

Without looking he searched for his backpack on the floor and pulled it closer to the bed with his leg. There was a water bottle and the other half of his Twix bar inside. Now, with everything he needed at arms reach he rested, eating before trying to fall asleep quickly so he can hear the voice again. A voice that will hopefully tell him he leveled up.

A few hours later he wakes up from his afternoon nap, disappointed he didn’t level or at least got a skill, he gets up to take a shower. His father should be home in a few hours with dinner. Enough time for him to search online everything he needs.

He plans to read a little about mushrooms as they clearly play a big role in the dungeon. A few videos on climbing and swinging, specifically tips on how to use his legs properly in both. Some cave exploration for beginners and if he has some time maybe look up gear he can use. “A sturdy pair of gloves that won’t limit movement will be great,” he says to himself while wincing from the burning the soap brought to the multitude of cuts and scrapes on his limbs.

The worst one is still the monster bite but its healing much faster than expected, “Must be [Basic Constitution] doing its thing,” he smiled as he applied a new bandage to the bite mark. If it keeps healing at this rate, in a day or two only a scar will be left.

_______________________

Restraining myself wasn’t an easy thing to do, but the promise of future rewards, specifically the access to more mana for playing around with, gave me the power to delay immediate satisfaction. The first floor will have to wait for now as increasing my mana pool and protecting my heart come first. Luckily both can be achieved by creating a second floor.

Since the growing ecosystem of my dungeon provides me with an ever increasing mana regeneration rate, I decide that taking it to the next level is my best option.

“And since I conveniently have a forest over me, I’m gonna work smart instead of hard.”

Moving earth costs less mana than shaping it, so what I do is take an entire area of forest around my previously dead tree, in a radius of three meters, and simply lower all of it to a depth of sixty meters. As I move it down I shape the earth to create an empty space around the small grove. The result is a cylinder, 40 meters high with a 30 meters squared base.

This way I get everything I need in one expenditure of mana.

A huge variety of flora without doing any work or spending a single dungeon point. An empty space around my main tree for it to expand to, and a new floor to play around with. “Not a bad deal for only a few minutes of work,” I pat myself on the back as I look at the result.

My next order of business is to populate the second floor with something bigger than bugs, mice or lizards. “And why spend anything on it when I can get it for free as well?” I ask rhetorically and send mice to locate a target, which they find an hour or two later. A red-fox, smaller than the one that tried to eat my mouse a while back, is moving through my territory on its hunt. It looks dangerously cute and fluffy too boot, a fine first addition to my second floor. So I concentrate and lower the earth beneath him. The sly fox doesn’t fall though. He somehow senses what I am about to do a few seconds before the ground disappears under his paws, giving himself enough time to jump away.

Undeterred, I attempt the same method with a bigger and bigger chunk of ground each time, eventually realizing that this method is not going to work. Somewhat disappointed things weren’t as easy as I hoped they would be I reconsider my options and send my monsters to hunt outside.

My territory has grown considerably since I first stepped outside and even if I send all my monsters out at the same time they will have more than enough space to run around. However, since I can’t leave my dungeon undefended that isn’t happening. What I do instead is send about thirty of them to hunt together.

They will work in large groups and using mice as bait they will attack the target, all at the same time, while it is busy eating the bait. Once the animal is immobilized I can drag it down into my dungeon and kill it there. Thus easily adding it to my bestiary.

“It’s unfortunate I can’t use this trick outside my dungeons territory, but thankfully my monster worm already increased my territory by a considerable size.” The spiral originating from the tree over my dungeon as its center is steadily expanding outwards, at a rate the normal earthworms are struggling to keep up with and from time to time I have to help with making small connecting tunnels between the spiral loops and the outside.

The monster worm has also grown considerably over the past few days. Some of it naturally but mostly due to me pumping leftover mana into it. Rarely more than one or two points at a time, but over time it accumulated enough to almost double the worm's length. Not only did it gain a nice increase in digging speed, but also gained an ability to eat through tree roots. This was a great boon for the expansion of my territory as now the monster worm no longer needs to dig around the neverending number of tree roots it encountered.

“I wonder what large game I’ll meet once my territory gets big enough.” A forest makes me think of bears and wolves but it will all depend on the location. “Not like I can take down something that big with my current force, if the fight with the hunter was any indication. For that, I’ll be using the monster versions of whatever mammals I manage to hunt. But not today…”

The sun set and I recalled my monsters back to safety. I’ll try again tomorrow but for now I have a nice surprise waiting for me. Something small that woke up once it was nighttime outside. A small, currently panicking, squirrel.

It was adorable. Large eyes and a bushy tail, it climbed up and down the tree it lived in. Scared and shivering because of the impenetrable darkness of the underground.

I took pity on the poor thing and quickly grew a huge flat mushroom on the ceiling of the second floor. As I poured mana into the growing mushroom I concentrated on the aspect of brightness, willing the mushroom to glow brighter than any other mushroom in my dungeon so far. The image of the bright sun, high in the sky, illuminating every nook and cranny and leaving no shadows was what I tried to imbue it with. The [Conscious Growth] skill kicked in and the image solidified in my awareness, shaping the mana that flowed from me into the mushroom. It was a slow process, my mana pool regenerating almost as quickly as it was being emptied.

I had to stop only due to space restraints, easily continuing to encourage the growth of the mushroom if it didn’t already occupy the whole ceiling area. A monstrous thirty meter squared, flat-capped mushroom that was rapidly increasing in brightness. Glowing bright in a color that kept alternating between bright yellow and light green, it made the floor look like it was in the late hours of a cloud cast day or a very early winter morning. The green that dominated from time to time added an eerie alien mood to the floor.

“It is a far cry from the sun I imagined it to be and it barely radiates any heat, but the small squirrel seems to be somewhat okay with it so it’s all good.”

A doubt passes through my mind on how exactly will the trees and plants survive without any sunlight but after feeling around and already finding a weak mana connection to all of them, the doubt goes away and my attention jumps to the no longer dead tree that marks the entrance to the dungeon. The connection between us has grown significantly and is now strong enough for me to actively push mana into.

The tree has come back to life from its passive feeding on the ambient mana of my dungeon and I think it's time we made our relationship official. “But first, some new friends,” I rub my metaphysical hands as I send my monsters outside again. Apparently, while I was busy with the second floors light source, nighttime was over and the sun was appearing over the horizon.

___________________

“Sorry for that,” said Jason's father as he returned to the doctor's office after answering a call.

“No worries Mr.Hunt, Jason and I were just catching up,” Dr.Najeeb said with a smile, “He says he never felt better and I have to agree with him. His lungs sound great but I’ve taken some blood to check his IgE levels and we’ll do a spirometry just in case. For now though I don’t see any reason to stop him from playing sports. Congratulation on making the team again, Jason.”

“Thank you. And you said that”

“Mind stepping outside for a moment Jason?” his father orders, saying nothing more and simply looking at Jason until he stepped out of the office.

“Arghh,” he kicks the wall in anger. He wonders what will happen if he uses his skill to do that and his imagination makes him smile. This makes him relax and he sits down on one of the chairs to wait for his father to finish with another attempt at stopping him from playing on the team.

“Doesn’t matter though. It didn’t work with the coach and it won’t work now,” he continues to grin.

The medical check up went great. Dr.Najeeb told him that almost half of those with childhood-onset asthma eventually ‘outgrow’ the disease and that hopefully, Jason was one of those lucky people. But Jason knew the real reason and that made the whole appointment more sufferable than normal.

He was busy attempting the obstacle course in his mind, replaying his attempt over and over. His leg was restless, jumping up and down on the floor as his anticipation kept growing. Thanks to Google and Youtube he now felt much more prepared for his next dungeon run.

What he wasn’t prepared for were his father's words after they said farewell to the doctor.

“Sam, I mean Mr.Locklear called,” he said, as a matter of fact, causing Jason’s heart to skip a beat and his palms to start sweating. “Said he met you in the forest and wants to invite us for celebration.”