Slowly making my way into the station through the door that lead into the cargo bay, I saw what appeared to be crystal covered racks filled with metal cylinders that were faintly emitting mana. When I entered the station, I suddenly started to experience a force I had not experienced for a long time, gravity.

You Have Taken 20 Damage

After hitting the ground I realized I would need a better form of transportation than my current vehicle, and proceeded to destroy it and started creating one with wheels.

Partway through designing a vehicle with wheels I got an unusual notification.

Danger! Mana Intake is too high for current mass, estimated time until overload 1 Hour, 23 Minutes, 7 Seconds

Seeing this I checked my status and saw my mana generation at 237 per hour. This would become a problem.

“A.I. How does a dungeon core overload and how do I prevent that from happening.”

“A dungeon core can overload when the mana density is too high for it to handle, and you can prevent it by having a core with a higher mass.”

“Is there any way to quickly increase mass without worrying about the quality of the added mass?”

“Yes, however doing so takes up more space, has a lower density, is very inefficient, and has a lower quality over all. To create the addition core material, all you need to do is quickly crystalize your mana onto your core while circulating your mana around it.”

Hearing the method of quickly creating low quality core material I started doing it and saw results around forty minutes later.

Danger! Mana Intake is too high for current mass, estimated time until overload 50 Minutes, 23 Seconds

I had gained enough core mass to raise the time for about a measly ten minutes. It was at that moment i had an idea. I proceeded to open Dungeon CAD and copy some of the low quality core. Doing this I created a way to expand my core even faster, so I started creating the crystal on my core. After expanding my core for another four hours did I finally meet the minimum mass required to handle the extreme amounts of mana in the room which had slightly lowered.

Looking at myself I saw that I was a mass of crystal sitting on the floor of the cargo bay taking up almost half of the space in it, however as I was an impatient dungeon that really wanted a space station, I started claiming it.

So, I claimed the room I was in and found that my mana generation increased again, creating the need to expand my core again. Once my core had reached sufficient size once again to sustain the mana input, I decided to look around the cargo bay.

Looking around I saw mostly racks and full of yellow containers made of a metal I could not influence, at least not at a reasonable speed. These containers were roughly cylindrical in shape with unpainted metal caps on both ends that had two metal handles on them along with a hole between them that looked like it required a certain connection in order to release the contents inside. On each container was a text I did not immediately recognize, but understood after looking at it for a moment, “Liquid Mana Capsule, Maximum Capacity : 10,000 MU, Capsule creation date : 613542 AGC” with the rest being too faded to translate. Looking at the text I instinctively knew that it was written in intergalactic common, noticing this I realized the power of the packets, and thought back to when I first got them.

Looking back on the things I had gone through when I got the packets I slowly came to a realization, I was calm. Too calm, In situations where I normally would have been panicking I was calm. Being thrown into orbit? Calm. Seeing a huge fleet? Calm, although looking back on that oddly clear memory I could finally read the text on the side of the ship, “Tal’vek Industries”. A company that I could only assume to be a mega corporation. Looking over the rest of my memories I decided to ask the A.I. some questions.

“A.I.”

“Yes?”

“Looking through my memories I noticed that in every single one I was calm even in situations where I normally would have panicked. Why?”

“Emotion is something dungeons don’t need, unlike animals dungeons are not born or raised by parents. Dungeons are constructs of crystal and mana. They are born and raised in an environment where emotion would act as a handicap to the dungeons growth.”

“That’s another thing I’ve noticed, your speech has changed since I first met you it has become more human.”

“That is because of the Atlas speech packet I have.”

“Atlas speech packet?”

“Yes, the atlas speech packet is a packet that contains the information required to speak comfortably to you. The packet is considered to be an evolving packet, a packet that changes as the user grows over time.”

“If you can get packets does that mean you have a status as well?”

“Yes”

“Can I see it?”

“Yes, share status to Atlas”

Artificial Intelligence

Name : A.I. 20168293

Software : Artificial Intelligence

Hardware : Dungeon Core T2

Age : 9 Months

Data Packets : Atlas Information Patterns, Intergalactic Languages, Dungeon Use, Kaladrian Dungeon Protocol

“Dungeon use? Atlas Information Patterns? Dungeon Protocol?”

“Dungeon Use is the packet I draw information from when I give you information and Atlas Information Patterns is the packet I reference when talking to you. Also it changes over time as it collects information on the way you speak and how you react to my speech. The system scan of your memories had greatly increased the information available in that packet, however I’m still processing the information so as time goes on my speech patterns should improve and Dungeon Protocol is where I get information from on how to inform you to react to certain situations.”

“So that’s why you have started giving me relevant information after you give me my answer?”

“Yes, would you like me to stop?”

“No.”

I waited in silence and started to compress and refine the crystal on me.

“Is there a way to get them back?”

“Your emotions?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to lose my humanity of course.”

“Why is it important? You are a dungeon. Dungeons on Kaladria kill people, it is the one of the most efficient way to get mana in that world and the only way to ensure your continued survival.”

“On Kaladria maybe, but here? We are in space on an alien space station with a mana density high enough in it to kill a dungeon and we aren’t even at the center where the mana is being drawn too. You do not realize how screwed we are if we make the wrong move! You saw that fleet! You watched it destroy a whole world. If for some reason someone decides to destroy me I am powerless against them. Killing people would only give them a reason to kill me, we can not go around killing people. You do not know of the possibilities there are for weapons. Where I come from there are weapons that can destroy whole cities in an instant leaving behind a wasteland that won’t go away for tens of thousands of years, and we didn’t have access to mana, just imagine what weapons you could make if you had access to mana, which people here have. ”

“Then what alternate method would you recommend to get more mana?”

“Simple we invite people here and we do not try to kill them. You said so yourself other creatures in my dungeon will give me mana.”

“And how would you attract them?”

“Simple, liquid mana we just claim this whole station and sell those containers and make more, after all what other reason would this station be drawing in mana and having these containers in it if it isn’t for creating liquid mana?”

“That could work.”

Satisfied with my answer I started claiming the rest of the cargo bay adding more mass when necessary. After I had claimed the cargo bay I had found that I had taken up around three fourths of the room. Seeing how much space I was taking up I looked at the structure of my core and found areas that were subjected to higher or lower gravity than the majority of the room. To fix this I decided to claim the floor and the ceiling which ended up requiring me to expand to fill the rest of the room that was about eight and a half meters long, seven meters tall, and twenty meters wide with what appeared to be blast doors on each end presumably leading deeper into the station, and to the source of this ridiculous amount of mana.

My original core from before this was about two centimeters long on each side, my new core however was ungodly big and its efficiency was terrible despite being made of almost pure mana. The reason for this was its structure and density. The new core material had a poor structure while simultaneously having a low density, a density so low in fact that if I had taken a hit from let’s say an asteroid it would destabilize and based off of the previous experience I had with mana crystals would explode. This was a problem, however I had to deal with the gravity differences throughout the room.

The gravity appeared to be generated by runes inscribed onto metal plates, lying just under the floor, and contained by more runes inscribed on the other side of those very plates. In the ceiling I had discovered another layer of rune covered plating, these runes seemed to be nearly identical, but with one key difference. They were repelling instead of attracting. The only reason I could come up with for this was to have constant artificial gravity throughout the room, probably because of the rooms height. When I looked at the plating I found countless tiny runes, that I had absolutely no idea what they meant, so I decided to absorb them and was about to recreate a section until I remembered something. There was no room to recreate them, so I had to make some. The easiest way to do this was to create better core material, one that would not explode on contact.

After another three months had passed I had finally managed to get my core down to a reasonable size a sphere with a diameter of four centimeters. The reason I had changed from a cube to a sphere was simple spheres could contain more volume for a smaller surface area, I had also found that mana simply flowed better when my core was a sphere. With this the cargo bay was much emptier, and also had slightly less mana flowing into the room. Seeing as how the cargo bay door was still open and the room was still covered in mana crystals, that I had never absorbed, I started absorbing the crystals and claiming the door. A week later I had finished, however I then remembered the gravity runes which I never tested, so I created a block of steel and inscribed a copy of them onto it.

The result? Absolutely nothing. For some reason it appeared that the runes just simply didn’t work, so I decided to ask the A.I. after all, it did know how to run a dungeon.

“A.I. Is there a way to see which parts of a rune to power to make it work properly?”

“Yes, just use your mana vision, send your mana towards it, but don’t try pushing it in and see which parts passively absorb mana.”

“And how do I use mana vision?”

“The same way you have always been using it. You have been using your mana vision right?”

“No, I’ve just been getting a general sense of the mana I haven’t actually been able to see where it is.”

“To activate your mana vision get a general sense of it, then try to visualize it then once you have it visualized try to see it with your vision.”

Following the A.I.’s instructions I did exactly that and when I tried to see it, well I saw it. I saw vast amounts of mana in the room, faintly emitting from each container and coming from the blast doors at each end of the room while simultaneously being drawn out through the open cargo bay door.

“Huh, that’s cool.”

Using the mana vision I took another look at the runes in the floor and saw some mana flowing into them from some sort of mana mesh that was spread throughout the runes. After looking at the runes for some time I noticed that they seemed to follow a pattern. Once I had this pattern down I inscribed it on the steel block after destroying the previous attempt. I then proceeded to put mana into runes at certain spots and instantly I saw results. It ends up that gravity attracts mana. I could see how this station keeps its artificial gravity on with the spire attracting mana, it creates a positive feedback loop in which mana is pulled towards the station converted into a usable type and is then used to power the attraction runes starting the process over again.

This was an easy way to get mana, however the format of the station didn’t make sense if its purpose was collecting mana.

For collecting mana it would be better to have the central station where mana is processed into a usable type, and then have long metal tubes inscribed with runes that funnel mana into the station while drawing mana towards them. Using that design you could harvest a larger area of mana to get more mana.

So I came to the conclusion that there must have been a reason why this station had been abandoned. So I started going through my memories of the station and when I got to my conversation I noticed something. The A.I. never answered my question, instead the A.I. asked another question and ended up distracting me from the original question, so I decided to obtain an answer.

“A.I. Is there a way to get my emotions back?”

“Yes, although it does involve being unconscious for a while.”

“I’d be fine with that. It’s not like we get any visitors anyway.”

“Very well then, you must create a new section of your core in a very specific way. . .”

With that I created new core material according to the A.I.’s instructions and went unconscious when I started actively flowing mana into it. A month later I woke up feeling well, feelings and I was happy.