Lilly laughed at my question. I didn’t see why. I thought it was a very valid question. It was about my survival. My life is very important, at least to myself.

“Why would anyone care to enough to kill you now? Right now you’re barely increasing the mana density around yourself that I can barely feel it and I’m right next to you and very sensitive to mana. Once you have a second floor your dungeon will begin to attract wildlife. Not stong animals but the small ones easily killed by your starting creatures. Even if something or someone were to wander in here while you’re busy expanding your floor I’m here to guard you. I certainly won’t let anything happen to you. You’re the key to all my future fun after all.”

“Can’t I at least pick my starting race of creatures and summon a few? It would make me feel safer.”

“No, that would ruin my... I mean our plans. But if you insist, we can at least select your starting race of creatures but I won’t let you summon any yet. Ok?”

“Really? You'll let me do anything besides expanding my floor. I feel... excited.”

“No, no, no, no. If our future plan will work you can’t pick just anything. You have to pick Fairies as your starting monsters. It all starts with them. Now be a good Core and pull up the initial combat race screen in your ‘Life’ menu and select them. Remember that I see whatever you see so don’t try to pick anything else or I’ll leave and then you’ll never get any more help from me. I can’t stand being tricked, even if a little glowing stone does it.”

“Fine, but why Fairies? Are they strong? Why them and not one of the others?”

“They’re not really strong. But most sentient races treat the free-born fairies as just another sentient race and that’s the key for our epic adventure to work. Trust me.”

Helpless to argue with Lilly, I don’t want her to leave me all alone, I call up the page with all the combat races I can pick from and reluctantly pick Fairies. Some of the others looked nice, it would have been nice if Lilly had at least told me the reason why we didn’t select any of the others rather than just telling me to trust her and that it was all part of the plan.”

Initial combat race selected as: Fairies

You can now summon 'Young Fairy' for 25 mana/individual in the 'Life' section of the Menu.

Good luck young Dungeon Core. May you grow ever stronger.

“There, I selected Fairies. I guess I didn’t really have to argue with you. One of them are already more than I can afford at the moment.”

“I will take that as an apology. Yes, they are quite costly compared to some of the other options but that doesn’t matter right now. By the way, do you know any names suitable for fairies?”

I think about it for a while before giving up. I guess I’m no good with names.

“No, I don’t know. I haven’t even seen a fairy. I have no idea what a name for them would be suitable.”

“Well you know at least one name. Mine.

“You’re a fairy? I had no idea.”

“If I didn’t know you were a newborn I would be offended. I’m a rather nice-looking fairy if I say so myself, for my age at least. You should have seen me 100 years ago. I had all the men in my village wrapped around my finger. Sadly, time spares no one and these days I’m merely considered attractive for my age. But getting back on topic. Yes, I’m what fairies look like. Small human looking with wings on my back and green skin. Oh, and pointy ears. I do so love my ears. They’re my best feature. Don’t let people convince you elves have the best pointed ears. They’re wrong. Elf ears are far too big.”

I haven’t known Lilly very long but I’m starting to suspect that she likes to talk, a lot. So, before she continues talking about how beautiful she is I decide to cut her off before she started talking more.

“I’m sure you’re right. Now why ask me about fairy names?”

“Well, the third Dungeon Core I helped let me know an interesting thing. You see, in his previous life he had grown up near several big goblin settlements and learned much about them as he grew up so he decided to start his new life with goblins as his starting race. Once he was old enough to get his first chance to upgrade, he found that he now had the option of summoning goblins that had names right from the moment they were summoned. Normally dungeons name monsters as a way to make them stronger. For example, if you summoned two young fairies and gave one of them a name the named one would be stronger then the unnamed one. There are a limited number of mobs you can name on each floor so you can’t abuse it to make all your monsters stronger. It’s usually used to make floor bosses and wandering mini-bosses on floors. So instead of ‘Goblin brute’ they would have a name in addition to being a goblin brute.

“So, did that upgrade cause all his goblins to became named monsters? That sounds powerful”

“Yes and no. Yes, all the goblins he summoned after getting the upgrade all had names but no, they were no stronger than any other goblins he had already summoned. He was very disappointed and read the upgrade again. It turns out he got that upgrade since he knew so many goblin names already but that it would never affect their combat prowess. If he wanted them to become as strong as normal named monsters, he would have to bless the goblin he wanted stronger with one the limited spots he had for normal named monsters. He considered that upgrade utterly useless and a mistake. But for us that’s just the thing we will need.

“How so?”

“Well, how else can we create a story if none of our actors have names for adventurers to remember? I dare say that is one of the most important upgrades we will need. Our problem now is that you don’t know any fairy names so the system will never give you the naming option as an available upgrade.”

“I’m sure you have a way around that though. You don’t look upset at my lack of knowledge.”

“Of course I do my little pebble. While you expand your floor, I’ll simply recite all the fairy names I know to you. We should have enough time to let you hear enough names by the time you’re a day old so the system will give you the option.”

“A day old? Why are you sure I’ll get an upgrade when I’m a day old?

“Oh, I forget how much you still don’t know but so quickly summarize. Dungeon Cores are presented upgrade options periodically, so that as they grow older and stronger, they can do more and more and eventually create works of wonder and terror. A dungeon filled with 35 floors of nothing but tier 1 goblins is no one's idea of a fun time. Not even the gods are that bored or mean. All Dungeon Cores get their first upgrade when they reach one full day of life. That's 24 hours by the way. Then after that it start to diverge between dungeons. Some might get the next upgrade at day three and others at day seven. It’s influenced by how much mana you have and how many things from outside your dungeon dies inside you.”

“What else does the system offer to upgrade for you, aside from that naming option?”

“All sorts of things my dear pebble. It’s needed to access lower floors, add ‘themes’ to floors, unlock higher tiers of your starting creatures, unlock more races to populate your dungeon with and many other things. You needn’t worry about it now though. You might have wanted to select another race other than fairies but given time, I’m sure you’ll get to play with all of them.”

My mood becomes better when I hear I’ll eventually unlock them all. There was some that locked interesting and I didn’t like being forced to pick one.

“Well, little pebble. Enough chatting, you need to start working again. Start building your first room.”

“How? I don’t have enough mana for even a fairy at the moment I doubt I have enough for a whole room.”

Lilly smiles and touches me again. I feel something rushing into me in a large wave from her palm. It’s mana. So much of it. Merely a moment and I feel myself filled with it. I quickly check my status.

"Status"

Name Unknown Age 5 hours Race Dungeon Core Health 1 health Mana 110 mana Size 1 floor Combat races Fairies Number of tier 1 creatures 0 Fame Unknown - Newborn dungeon undiscovered by any sentient race

I’m mildly chocked when I see my mana. It’s bigger than what it used to be. Lilly must have given me some of hers. I can even see that my status has updated with the race I selected. Even if I don’t have any summoned right now it’s still nice to know I can summon them now.