Chapter 15 - Haha you get both b*tch!

F**K, F**K, F**K, WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K. THAT TASTE IS STILL THERE! IT'S NOT F**KING DISAPPEARING!

Its existence is a very insult to the concept of food. Its taste would make even people with their tongues literally ripped out vomit in sheer revulsion. It's disgusting to the point that calling it disgusting should actually be considered a compliment. It's a taste that is revolting beyond human comprehension!

I feel this taste contaminating my very being, it's a feeling that is clawing at the edges of my sanity. I don't even know how I am tasting anything at all! Afterall how does a glorified rock taste anything?

Wait unless...

I hurriedly moved my view back to my core. And about 4% of it has turned into a black purple color.

I see now, hehe, I understand, hehe...

Muahahaha. UAHAHA. BUWAHAHAHA!

I execute the classic villain three step laugh.

SO WHAT IF YOUR AN ELDRITCH HORROR LEVEL BEAST! YOU ARE MANA!! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN CONTEND AGAINST A DUNGEON CORE WHO'S MADE TO PURIFY YOU!!

I focus my skill, instead of letting it mindlessly wonder, I focus all of it into the darkening parts of my core.

BE PURIFIED!

YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD!!

(Goblin's Perspective)

"Hey, hey, where are you!?" (Goblin)

After I fed him the mushrooms there was a bit of screaming and now complete silence.

I can still feel the bit of mana flowing through me so I know he's still alive. If I had to guess he's working away at the mana in the mushrooms.

Afterall some of these mushrooms ain't the most pleasant stuff.

Diarrhea Hell is a more common one, being a simple poisonous mushroom with little mana in it. Color Mushrooms are also just a normal hallucinogenic mushrooms which affected how you saw color for a while. I picked them on the way back.

Being a dungeon, Diarrhea Hell and Color Mushrooms basically have no effect on him, the little amount of mana in those should only make him feel uncomfortable at best. It's the other mushrooms that should give him hell. The mushrooms like Death's Kiss, Gutrot, and Shroom of Corrosion innately possess mana which is harmful to life. Which are death, rot, and corrosion respectively.

They were all very difficult to obtain and were taken directly from a stache I've been amassing for quite a few years, though I say that it isn't really that impressive since herbs tend to rot after a while. These three shrooms make up the majority of the stache. Or at least they used to.

Death's Kiss was the more common of the three, you just need to find locations where necromancy is often practiced, though leaving alive is another thing. Gutrot and Shroom of Corrosion were both picked from the decaying corpses of beings that were killed by such elements. Given the fact that these shrooms carried mana which is the opposite of life, the fact that they even grew is a small miracle in itself. Just one of these mushrooms should be able to easily kill most people.

I've been gathering these mushrooms to breakthrough and advance from an apprentice to a fully fledged apothecary. But if this dungeon absorbs it, then it can make hundreds more.

They shouldn't be near enough to kill a dungeon, even a young one. Since it has no organic organs to be corrupted and especially since the mana in them has significantly decreased since I harvested them.

I hope at least.

If this guy survives, I can quickly level my apothecary class and become strong. If he doesn't, well I'll just join another tribe.

Before I was just satisfied with becoming a goblin chief, but now that that idea has gone down the drain, this guy is my best chance at a long life.

So I do hope he's alright.

(Back to our MC's perspective)

The feeling of having a part of yourself physically turn into something as disgusting as this is difficult. Before the mana I absorbed had such low concentrations of elemental particles I practically didn't feel anything.

It was almost like rice in the way that it did not have flavor.

However whatever I just absorbed is something that not even the Devil would use as a torture device, it is the antithesis of food, the incurable... (Omitting several paragraphs worth of descriptions and insults, I mean you guys get the point by now)

When I absorbed those mushrooms, I converted them into basic mana and information, which allowed me to get them unlocked however it gave me a seizure, and for a moment I saw the afterlife beckoning for me.

After-afterlife? I don't know if this life counts as the afterlife but sure.

However, right now there's a more pressing matter.

IT'S F**KING SPREADING!

The black mana is actually spreading across my core. Before it was just concentrated in one place but it's diluting itself into the rest my mana. My core is gradually darkening in color.

It's happening faster than I can consciously purify it. Sure I don't suffer much harm and the fact that it's diluting itself means it won't feel as intense as before. Which are great arguments except,

One, this is akin to asking do you want only one part of you to be dipped in sh*t or your whole body to be covered in slightly cleaner sh*t? The answer is neither and go get a bath.

And two, the mana I worked so hard to purify is actually decreasing. Yes, you heard that right I'm actually losing usable mana here.

I noticed this when I saw the formerly clear parts of my core gradually turn darker, checking my Status, I've already lost 4 points from the old 16 leaving me with 12 points of usable mana.

I converted it into DP leaving me with only 2 mana, whoops only 1 mana. The other one just got hit by the unspeakable horror.

Right now I need to burn this thing with fire until dead.

My control over my purification was still a bit weak, but if I think of a spot in my core hard enough I can concentrate it in areas allowing it to clean a bit quicker. However, it was just barely quicker, from 1 point every 10 minutes to 1.1 per 10 minutes. But this is better than nothing!

(Over an hour later)

I breathe a sigh of relief as I feel the last bit of it leave me. It took longer than I thought it would because as I was cleaning myself up, more mana was getting absorbed, which continuously diluted the dark mana. To be honest, after 30 minutes it was diluted to the point that I could barely feel it, however, at that point, I was about three-quarters done, I was almost finished and couldn't stop myself.

--~=~--

Congratulations for advancing to Bronze Rank

Please select 2 rewards

1 New Race Selection

1 New Dungeon Ability Selection

1 Lottery Ticket

--~=~--

"Huh?"

What the hell this is too sudden! There was literally no warning or buildup to this, how did I even advance anyway!

Can I select 1 reward twice? Wait I'm going off topic I need to figure out how I advanced in the first place!

Wait I'll just ask someone else!

Plant Dungeon: Is anyone online?

Demon Town Dungeon: I'm on, do you need anything?

Plant Dungeon: Yes, I just advanced to Bronze Rank but I have no idea how I got here.

Demon Town Dungeon: Oh that's easy, anyone can advance to Bronze Rank if they have sufficient levels and have decent control over their racial skills.

Demon Town Dungeon: For a dungeon, you just need to consciously absorb and purify mana, create a basic dungeon, summon some stuff and you get it.

Is that it? Damn it, for a second I thought my cheat was awakening. What are the other advancement conditions?

Plant Dungeon: I understand, thanks, senior. By the way, what are the other advancement requirements?

Demon Town Dungeon: If you want to advance to Silver Rank, you just need to build a proper dungeon. Bronze Rank is often called Bronze Body because in this rank the whole point is to optimise your body, creating a stable foundation and what not.

Demon Town Dungeon: Since your body is your dungeon, you just need to create about 5 floors with a decent difficulty and you should reach Silver. Be prepared though because at that point you'll naturally generate an aura which makes you easily detectable.

Plant Dungeon: What about Gold and Master Rank?

Demon Town Dungeon: At that point, you just need to specialize.

Plant Dungeon: That's a bit vague...

Demon Town Dungeon: Specialization is about as simple as I can put it since there are so many different factors to it.

Plant Dungeon: Ok thank you.

Well, those ranks are pretty far off so I don't need to worry about it now.

Demon Town Dungeon: Oh yeah before you were asking about Pixies right?

Oh yeah, that damned Library and slow typing Fae Dungeon have left a deep impression on me.

Plant Dungeon: Yes I would like to know about it.

Demon Town Dungeon: Pixies are used to telepathically connect to every dungeon, they're used so every dungeon can communicate with each other. And they come with a database of Dungeon Abilities and Races

I understand the second bit, but the first ability sounds kind of useless.

Plant Dungeon: Don't we have forums in place of telepathy?

Demon Town Dungeon: True, but their purpose is mostly symbolic.

Plant Dungeon: Symbolic?

Demon Town Dungeon: Yeah, a few thousand years ago, humanity started taking dungeons as slaves.

Demon Town Dungeon: The only dungeons that were spared were the high ranking ones that have yet to be conquered. However, most of us realized that it was just a matter of time till people came knocking on our door. So we decided to strike back first.

Demon Town Dungeon: However, because of the fact that only high ranking dungeons were left, it ended up as a stupid power spiral. When Gold Rank Dungeons came out, Master Rank people came to deal with them, then Legend Rank Dungeons came out to save the Gold Dungeons. And so on and so on till eventually humanity felt threatened enough that they began summoning Gods to deal with us.

What the hell!? I was just asking about Pixies how did it end up as Gods coming down to exterminate us!!

Plant Dungeon: Then why aren't dungeons extinct or completely enslaved?

Demon Town Dungeon: Because God Rank Dungeons existed.

Huh? I was kind of suspecting this but why did I have to get it confirmed in a glorified Reddit? Regardless of my feelings, Demon Town just continued.

Demon Town Dungeon: The name is pretty self-explanatory.There were three God Rank Dungeons at that time. You've already seen Void God hanging around the forums.

Void God? I've seen that guy in the forums, but he said so little I almost forgot about him.

Plant Dungeon: What about the other two?

Demon Town Dungeon: Oh they're dead.

Huh? These are dungeons that take Gods to finish them right? And he's just nonchalantly saying they're dead?

Demon Town Dungeon: The Tower that surpassed Heaven, Oracle's Tower a God Rank Dungeon was completely destroyed after he got ganged up by multiple Gods. The other one, Atlantis the Continent Sized Dungeon, died after killing the Sea and Storm Gods of that time.

Demon Town Dungeon: Oh yeah, Plant, don't make a field dungeon. Atlantis is the perfect example. He was originally a small island however because he recklessly expanded into the sea. He made enemies with the Sea God and Fishman Tribes since he was weakening the Sea Gods jurisdiction and taking living space from the Fishman. He ended up being the first God Rank Dungeon to fall in many millennia.

Plant Dungeon: Thanks for the advice senior!

Demon Town Dungeon: No problem.

Demon Town Dungeon: After that war, we got a tradition of getting every dungeon having a pixie. They can record the happenings inside a dungeon and when a dungeon dies we can check the recordings to see if there are any threats to be worried about.

Demon Town Dungeon: Not only that, they help young dungeons develop with their database. It's mostly to show that we care about each other and our juniors.

Plant Dungeon: I see, are there any threats to be worried about?

Demon Town Dungeon: Not really. We just hope to prevent another such war since the losses are very high for both sides.

I see. In the end, war is what seems to be we return to.

Oh well, philosophy aside I need to choose my rewards. There is a few new stuff I need to worry about though.

Race Selection (Choose 1) Goblins Kobolds Slime Skeletons Golems Elemental Spirits Dire Beast Combat Bug Dryads Lesser Ent Mushroom People -- Dungeon Ability (Choose 1) Automatic Repair Spawn Timer Increase Evolution Chance Dungeon Instance Naming Increase Stats of Selected Race Trap Knowledge Material Knowledge Herbal Knowledge Architectural Knowledge Bosses --

There are a few new things which I have no idea what it was. What the hell is with this knowledge series? Well, there's no reason for me to fret about this myself!

Plant Dungeon: Senior I need some help choosing my rewards.