Dorzath woke up.

The moonlight hit him in the face. It was so blindingly bright that he could feel himself wincing, but why hadn’t he closed his eyes? He could feel his body wasn’t responding in the way he was used to.

Ah.

He remembered now.

Dorzath the core looked around once more at his surroundings with his new set of senses, while being very conscious of the fact that he was close to his entrance.

In the small time that he’d been unconscious those wonderful machines had already hollowed out the beginnings of a corridor. He was aware that this must have happened but he realised that he couldn’t see anything that was outside of his area of influence.

He didn’t have time to check his skill list so he just reached out on instinct, activating the skill mana sense, using it to sense in which direction the tunnel had been dug, before proceeding to shakily float up off of the ground and slowly hover in the direction of the tunnel.

Dorzath was more than a little wary right now, he was a newly formed, level one Dungeon core, an angry human could kill him right now if they wanted to. Around him he could see that there was empty space, before there walls of blue some distance away, which was how he could perceive walls of earth he didn’t own, using Mana Sight.

He moved at a small insect’s pace, but eventually, a wall of shifting blue appeared in front of him, as he’d caught up to the machines who were still digging through the earth. Dorzath took a deep imaginary breath. He’d known he would be powerless but it was another thing entirely being completely separated from his runes and equipment. Those thoughts were useless though and a familiar twinge from his persistent self-made contract to stop being so lazy helped shake him out of them.

He swiftly activated a new skill he’d just received, Essence absorption, which allowed him to lay claim to ‘mildly’ unclaimed sections of land. The surrounding blurry walls of blue mana were slowly replaced by their true appearance, dirt walls, as he took control of them from the weak grasp that the world had.

The process was slow, but Dorzath had levels in the tier 2 skill Mana Control which improved his efficiency, as well as his rate of improvement immensely. Before the night was over he’d reached the end of the initial 150m long corridor that he’d planned out. He’d also claimed the entirety of it as well as a core room that had been created for him at the end of the corridor. He could see that the moonlight which was entering his entrance had faded, a sign that the world outside was approaching morning.

It was going to be morning soon and he had yet to create any minions!

Quickly his training took over, reminding him that there was an order in which he was supposed to do things.

He pulled up his status screen for a reminder of what options he had available to him with regards to skills.

Name

Dorzath

Race

Demon

Tier

4

Job

Dungeon Owner

Level

1

Skills

Rune Weaving (3)

Language Mastery (2)

Rune Comprehension (2)

Lower Rune Control (1)

Material Shaping (1)

Detect Danger (1)

Oppression (1)

Mana Control (2)

Rune spell: Binding Ethereal Chains (2)

Ward Equipment (1)

Intensive Memorisation (1)

Mana Sensing (1) (NEW)

Terrain Manipulation (1) (NEW)

Create Monster (1) (NEW)

Essence Absorption (1) (NEW)

Dungeon System (/) (NEW

Higher Runes

Change - Deific

Gravity Sink - High

He had a wide array of new skills that were now available to him, but the one he was mainly interested in was the only skill on there that had no tier.

Dungeon System. It gave Dorzath access to a new section of the System. Just as the production, ruling and combat jobs all had their own minorly differing aspects and advantages of the portion of the System that they could access, so did the Dungeon jobs.

The reason why it was displayed as its own skill, and using up vital skill energy in the process was partly due to the massive benefits received from the one skill. The System would be remiss in not balancing itself when such a clear advantage from one job was shown.

Dungeon System.

The skill gave access to the Dungeon Shop, as well as a unique interface for interaction with a DMs own Dungeon, much like the one a production class might use, but much broader in scope and use. The skill had so many features and subskills built-in that it was worth the massive amount of starting skill energy used several times over, but it was also the one way that a Dungeon could survive without any prior experience or preparation like what Dorzath had done.

He tapped on the skill in his interface, using non-existent hands, as he was now a core for the foreseeable future. It brought up a separate interface, one with options leading to Dungeon Management, Dungeon Rewards, and the Dungeon Shop.

Dungeon Rewards was the Systems way of balancing out the fact that a Dungeon would have terrible odds of making it to tier 5, and the fact that in order to become a Dungeon you needed to be at the limit of tier 3 unless you were created a Dungeon in which case you had even worse chances of making it tier 5 as you were hunted as a resource by the higher factions.

Tier 3 was also a limit that most species had trouble surpassing. For such a great sacrifice in immediate strength, the System always had a way of partially balancing itself out. The Reward section was very limited however so it would require a miracle to become a capable Dungeon without any backing.

Dorzath brought up that section of the interface and looked over what he was presented with. He’d only accomplished one thing as a Dungeon so far, creating himself, and so there was only one reward available for activation.

Reward Available: 1 Random Base tier monster blueprint

When Dorzath mentally selected the option, a spinning wheel was presented to him, with different black outlines of monsters present.

He held his imaginary breath as it started to spin, the problem with this type of reward, is that he’d have to always have at least one summoned, as although DMs had largely absolute freedom in deciding how their Dungeon would be managed, this reward was supposed to be a way to shape unaware Dungeons growth in a helpful way.

Unfortunately, it did just end up being something of a hindrance to the aware ones in some cases, and if the monster he received was a low-tier dragon or something similar, then he would have high-tier angelic forces send down a beam of light in no time to destroy him. He would prefer to have just brought a basic monster with him, but the number of times he would need to break down a monster in order to get its blueprint was ridiculous unless he created them himself.

Gradually, the multicoloured blur of the wheel slowed down, revealing individual colours, the attribute of the monster that he would be given. He was hoping for a nice and weak grey attribute monster, so he was disappointed when the wheel stopped on a red tile. Maybe it could still be a Salamander, which was arguably just a very fat lizard, and considered so weak that a base tier human child could end one.

/Monster Chosen/

/Base Tier blueprint of an ‘Imp’ has been awarded/

Fuckkkkkk.

#

Keizane was startled out of her sleep by a massive impact. She nearly fell out of her perch from the shockwave and heat which was released, but her tails as always balanced and caught her so she corrected herself. Her toes curled around the smoldering plank she used as a bed as she looked down at the brightly lit up hole in the ground in the middle of her home.

Her four tails were splayed out behind her as she tried to sense if that was a monster that had landed in her home. There were some minor mana fluctuations but nothing major and her head cocked to the side as she considered whether that meant there were precious stones down there. She liked precious stones.

Before she could make a decision however, a blinding light lit up the sky and a horrible scream like a dying treant being burnt alive echoed in her ears. Her ears pressed flat against her head as she whined in distress from the disturbing fluctuations coming from that hole.

She toughed it out though and after what felt like hours the noise and the light stopped. She remained frozen in place however as even while she was in her daze she was able to tell that she was sensing a tier 3’s aura, and quite a powerful one too. It was gone now, but that just meant that the tier 3 had control of themself again.

She was unsure what to do, she really didn’t want to leave this place as it had been her home for over a year now, and she’d had a lot of fun playing with the humans from the village. But on the other hand, a tier 3, even a wounded and in pain one like what she’d heard coming from that hole wasn’t something she could fight off.

Keizane knew this but she remained in place anyway. This was her home, she wouldn’t let anyone chase her away, not again. Not ever again.

She stealthily approached the hole, body flat to the ground as she reduced her noise and presence, casting ‘Minor Illusion’ using one of her tails.

Keizane poked her head over the rim, hoping desperately that the tier 3 didn’t have anything which let them see through illusions. She was greeted with a bare hole, uniformly made of packed brown earth. She could see there was a tunnel stretching away in a direction away from her home but she didn’t care, she was just glad that whatever had made that terrible noise earlier was gone. Keizane rejoiced, dancing and yelping in happiness. The tier 3 was gone! She didn’t have to leave!

She made herself think rationally after just a few more minutes of jumping around.

There was a tunnel, but the tier 3 could still come back, so she should cover the hole with something. This was a good plan.

She noticed that one of the few remaining pillars still standing had been obliterated while another had been toppled over as the tier 3 came in through the wall of her home. Keizane cast ‘Weak Gravity Manipulation’ and lifted one of the now much lighter pillars over to the hole and dropped it in. It fit almost perfectly, and unless the tier 3 was a pure strength type, which was unlikely considering she could tell from the fluctuations that the thing was humanoid, it wasn’t coming out through that hole.

Keizane went back up to her plank bed and flopped down, falling asleep easily now that she knew the problem had been taken care of.

#

Dorzath groaned inwardly, this was not going to plan. Even a death-attribute skeleton would be better than what he’d just been given. He forced himself to calm down as he was just getting freaked out, so he slowed down as he went down the list of advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages, like Dorzath an imp was a member of a higher race, it had high growth potential as well as a higher base magic affinity than almost any other base tier monster. He’d also been around them for much of his short life so far and so knew practically everything there was to know about them, including their evolutions and patterns of skill gainage. Demons, in general, had a high magic affinity, but imps picked up affinities quickly, a product of not having collected enough energy to be baptized into a demon, the gap left them open to absorb other types of energies relatively easily. On the other hand, they would struggle immensely were they to attempt complex magic like runework, most of the magic they used was highly instinctual.

Disadvantages, he knew from his studies that imps were highly disloyal even to the Dungeon Master that created them and needed a Contract to make them do practically anything. Even when placed under a Contract they would scheme to find any possible loophole they could, unlike a demon who would simply accept their new life of servitude with grace. They were also ugly, and annoying, and would complain about literally everything.

Also, they were an extremely bad first monster to have as they would straight-up attempt to kill the Dungeon that created them almost immediately as they had no other monsters to protect them. And even if that could be controlled (which was a big if), and this was the most important point, if he was trying not to look like a Dungeon that was owned by a demon, then maybe it wasn’t a good idea to fill his Dungeon with FUCKING DEMONS!

Dorzath took deep imaginary breaths in an attempt to calm himself down, trying to mimic the feeling of breathing with his thoughts and memories.

First things first, the imp would quickly be created nearby to his core. This was dangerous, and he would have to use the limited authority he had over the imp to order it to stay in place, while he could manipulate the ground around it to form a prison before the creature realised what was going on. He also had a few life-saving treasures if that didn’t work, in the bag where he had dropped it when his body disintegrated.

/Summoning free copy of base blueprint/

The notification came through, startling Dorzath as he activated a shield type artifact. A summoning circle was lit up in front of his core, fractals widening from nothing as the circle burned bright with magefire as the imp was summoned forcefully from nothing, bypassing the normal creation process of an imp. Thankfully this lengthy process allowed Dorzath to begin using his new skill ‘Terrain Manipulation’ to begin making a hardened rock prison around the summoning circle, he’d finished the bars and was making a frantic start on the roof of the cage when the fire of the circle built up into a crescendo, and the imp was formed with a bang.

It looked around curiously, slowly turning as the cage was finished in front of it. Eventually, its fiery eyes alighted on Dorzath the core with interest. It walked forward, as if in a trance and frowned when it saw the rock cage in front of it. Dorzath was worried that he hadn’t made the bars thick enough as it clawed at them, but his fears were dissuaded when he realised the claws had all the same impact as a housecat.

As if confused, it stroked its smooth grey chin, before snapping its fingers and producing a fireball, which it hurled at the bars. The fireball detonated lightly in a small radius of a few centimetres as it reached the bars.

Dorzath panicked, he hadn’t planned for that, normally he would just ward the cage against fire, but he hadn’t yet discovered how to use runes without hands yet if he even could, it was likely he'd have to wait until he had a body. If so, he would have to wait until he reached his tenth floor and grew a body before he could use his runes again. The rock was fine though, it was Dungeon hardened rock able to resist a tier 0 fireball with ease.

Just to be safe though, Dorzath poured more and more mana into the cage, sealing up the gaps in the cage and hardening the rock several more times. He was then confident that only a tier 3 would be able to crack the stone cube he had made. Dorzath would open up the cube once he had a more powerful monster, however, and have them kill the imp for him.

He’d finally relaxed, ready to get to the business of building his Dungeon, when a feeling of wrongness came over him like his skin was inside out like he was about to explode from something building up inside of him. The answer to what was going on was quickly screamed into his head by his subconscious.

‘There’s something blocking the entrance to your Dungeon!’

Instinctively, Dorzath activated Essence Absorption and he could feel the building up sensation slowly deplete as whatever was blocking his entrance was gradually absorbed by him. He only let himself relax however when the notifications about him having absorbed the material came into his vision. Whatever it was, it was made of holy stone, so probably one of the columns he knocked over in his entrance to the church. It also gave him a considerable amount of life energy.

/Life Energy 12-42/

With that unexpected series of messes taken care of, Dorzath began the process of building his Dungeon. He would have liked to have the machines make him some rooms branching off of the long corridor which his Dungeon was currently in the form of, but he’d learned in his studies that the System wouldn’t recognise them as Rooms if he hadn’t made them himself, and he couldn’t apply any rules to them.

However, he now didn’t have anything to populate them with, having sealed up his base tier monster. He had prepared contingencies for this, however, in the case that the base monster he received was unsuited for his environment or was too strong or noticeable, or even too weak, as it was possible to receive an ant as your base tier monster.

Therefore, he accessed the Dungeon Shop using his interface, putting one of his ready-made disposable pieces of low-tier enchanted equipment up for sale, asking for a base tier blueprint of a common no attribute monster. One of the things most Dungeons struggled with was providing large enough incentives for people or creatures to enter their dungeon, and keep returning. One way of doing this was to provide pieces of equipment or weapons as rewards for defeating the various monsters or obstacles located within.

Dorzath didn’t have the option to reward his challengers in that way yet as he was still level one, but other DMs weren’t and gaining a piece of enchanted equipment to use as a template to reward challengers was an enticing trade for a common base-tier monster. Dorzath received several offers, with DMs seeking to outbid each other by offering more and more powerful monsters, which made him grit his non-existent teeth in annoyance.

Eventually, Dorzath chose an offer that also offered a wide selection of materials, as well as a template for a no attribute wolf cub. Dorzath also received offers for higher tier monster blueprints if he had any other pieces of equipment. It only required an intimate knowledge of a monster to acquire a blueprint of it, but some of the higher tier ones had some strange conditions to unlock them, but copies could be shared at a low cost. Dorzath was willing to make some of the trades, but he could only make a trade once a month due to being a Tier 4 Dungeon Owner and not a Tier 5 Dungeon Master.

/Trade accepted/

/Blueprint received/

/Cobalt received - Cobalt unlocked as a material/

/Iron received - Iron unlocked as a material/

/Grass seeds received - Grass unlocked/

/Apple seeds received - Apples unlocked/

/Blood moss received - Moss unlocked, Blood Moss unlocked/

/Silver coin received - Silver unlocked/

/Life Energy 42 - 193/

Dorzath was happy with the resources he’d been given, but he decided to create his first monster as he could see from the sunlight pouring in through his entrance, that it was daylight outside. If someone did come to investigate why there was smoke coming from the abandoned church, he wanted them to be able to tell that he was a Dungeon, and also allow challengers to come quickly.

He was feeling much more distressed about not having a body than he thought he would, it was already getting on his nerves and it hadn’t even been a day since he’d lost his body. He got on with the business of creating his Dungeon.

Creating a monster was a strange thing.

Before he gained the skill even if he gained the blueprint for the wolf it would be like a bunch of random information, zeroes, and ones, graphs displaying adaptation characteristics as well as brain maps displaying neuron paths, all being downloaded into his brain, and only with the skill Create Monster could he understand the information and how to use it.

Dorzath now had all of the fundamental knowledge on how to create a wolf cub, he knew that all he had to do was keep that knowledge in his head while moving his mana into that shape. The process of it being created was fascinating as flesh, blood, and bone were created out of nothing and slowly pushed into the shape he desired. He could also alter the structure in small ways to make the creature stronger or smarter but that would lead to him gaining a skill for it if he pursued that path, and Dorzath had no desire to be involved in that kind of micromanagement now or in the future, so he just let the spell/skill do its thing.

Eventually, the structure finished its work, but the wolf cub just stood on the floor, not moving, its eyes dull. The skill prompted him to act, and Dorzath added in the final piece of the puzzle, a small shred of life energy, which through its natural growth would keep the monster alive. Life energy if left alone would grow higher and higher, even without intervention, and it was through this energy that a life was maintained, and it was how his monsters were maintained. As his monsters were made and not born they were actually more efficient at using life energy and so didn’t require food or rest.

Once inserted, the wolf cub was animated, its eyes darting around, its tongue-wagging, its chest moving and it barked once, as acknowledgment or thanks for being created Dorzath wasn’t sure, the cub hadn’t developed enough to the point where it could begin to speak a dialect of Feral, so it was just a bark.

He communicated mentally to it that its orders were to patrol the section of the first third of the corridor. He then created two more cubs to patrol the other two-thirds of the corridor, with orders to remain there even if their brothers were attacked.

/Life Energy 193 - 178/

He wanted to just complete 4 rooms branching off from the main corridor, which was the maximum number of rooms he planned to put on his first floor, but knew that it was suspicious for a new dungeon to have 4 rooms immediately after arriving. He could probably just burrow down to his 3rd floor right now with the mana he had at his disposal from being a tier 3, but a tier 1 naturally made Dungeon wouldn’t have nearly as much mana, so he had to take things slow. It would be a couple of months before he could reach the 3rd floor.

He’d known this beforehand, had planned around it, but it was still frustrating to be so weak and frail. He started on his first room, closest to his core room of the four planned rooms.

The room was simple, three by three metres with a low ceiling which would cause a human entering it to crouch. It wasn’t meant for them, however. Dorzath covered all available surfaces in moss, leaving a small circle in the centre though. He broadcasted his intention, that the wolf cubs would be remade here when killed, and that they were to travel to any one of the three unguarded regions and patrol there.

When he did so several options popped up in response.

/Choose from the options displayed below/

Rule

Cost

Rename room to the Moss room. (Gives bonuses to moss cultivation and speed of moss growth within the room)

5 LE

Set respawn point of existing wolf cubs to the Moss Room.

10 LE

Cubs spawned in the Moss Room will patrol one of the unguarded sections of the Main Corridor of the First Floor.

1 LE

Reduce the cost of Cubs spawned in the Moss Room.

10 LE

Removes ‘Playfulness’ from Cubs spawned in the Moss Room

20 LE

Dorzath was surprised by the depth of the Interface, half of the things on there weren’t his intention at all when he had originally designed the room, but they were very useful. He was also curious about what this ‘Playfulness’ was and brought up the blueprint of the Cubs to inspect it.

Name

-

Race

Wolf

Tier

Tier -1

Job

Child

Level

1

Skills

Playfulness

Bite

Dorzath was curious why the tier showed -1 before he remembered that most creatures couldn’t even get their first real Job before becoming a pre-adult, while this one was still a Cub. The skill ‘Playfulness’ was revealed to be a skill that evolved when they reached maturity. It caused the wielder to have trouble listening to commands, and would frequently cause them to get bored and wander off as well as cause them to have lacking killing intent.

Overall, a quite useful skill for a real wolf cub as it caused them to have high curiosity and so they experienced varied skill growth, but for a wolf cub in his dungeon, it was very annoying. Already he could see that two of the cubs he’d created were rolling around together, while the other one was just asleep on its side. The skill looked like it was already having a significant effect.

So Dorzath selected all of the options available, mana hadn’t even been listed as a resource needing to be consumed as the System knew he had so much of it, and he barely felt it leave him, but he did notice his life energy leave him like gravity and the shine on his core diminished slightly.

/Life Energy 178 - 132/

The circle in the Moss Room had a paw imprint into the dirt floor, and the moss all throughout the room grew much more vibrant and thick. What he did feel was the mana cost of having named the room and he estimated that a twentieth of his mana had been used in the process. Dorzath was seriously considering building another room as he’d quite enjoyed making that one, even though a newly formed dungeon shouldn’t really have any rooms, and he was pushing it with one when he felt something drop down into his Dungeon.