Chapter Five: A Pre-Emptive Strike

The earth quivered, the floor of the cave began warp and melt slowly becoming smooth. Origins core sat firmly stationed atop a plain stone pillar near the rear of the rapidly expanding room, the air seeming to practically swell with mana before everything began to still. The sound of shattering stone could still be heard from deeper within the newly formed tunnel as the spell that had just been cast moments before continued to bore its' way towards the surface. Elena watched the scene unfold before reaching out and pressing a button on her interface, a sudden sense of glee filling her body as she waited for the next notification to appear.

CONGRATULATIONS! - [Dungeon Founded] You have founded the [Natures Origin Dungeon], Ambient mana levels have set dungeon’s base level to Level 2.

You now have access to the [Dungeon map], [Monster Menu], [Trap Menu], [Treasure Menu] and [Dungeon Statistics].

Ha...

Ha!

Ha, haaa haaaa!

A crooked laugh resounded through the dark, dancing across the hard-packed walls of volcanic stone. Elena leaned back into her seat regarding the System’s latest message. Honestly the dungeons level wasn't quite as high as she had hoped, but it was cause for celebration none the less. It had been roughly half a year since she had been assigned to her post and her hard work was finally beginning to pay dividends. She had seen the dungeon core's abilities grow at an alarming speed, its' rate of cognitive development truly astounding. She honestly felt sad for those unfortunate souls doomed to be assigned to mediocre dungeon cores. Origin had surpassed all of her expectations, not only had the core taken to cultivating qi but was an adept at channelling mana. These two resources were a dungeons life blood, the power to create monsters and shape the earth.

Her preliminary examination of the cave system she had found herself in after her summoning had placed her in the Pourya mountains, oxygen levels and mana concentration suggested a high altitude while the volcanic rock placed her at the heart of what had once been an active volcano. The mana density was comparatively low for the area, only measuring at level five, however now that a new dungeon had been established it would begin rise not just within the cave system but the mountains beyond. Having the dungeons starting level dropped by three levels to level two was a serious blow, she wasn’t going to lie about that, it would limit their initial progress, but it was something which could be overcome in time. Under any other circumstances establishing the dungeon so early would have been a fatal error, the kind any reasonably trained individual would have avoided at all costs; however things in this cave had not been normal for quite some time.

Elena turned her attention to the source of her more recent frustration; her eyes focusing upon the intermittent flashes of light coming from the far corner of the newly founded dungeon.

She had no information about where dungeon cores actually came from, no one did, the village’s records had been suspiciously empty on that front, but now at least she had some insight. Roughly two months ago her dungeon core had undergone a change: a small black growth had begun to form on its’ surface. Her records held no accountant of any similar event having ever taken place before, she had assumed that her dungeon core was in possession of some abnormal defect and with no other alternative she made the decision to turn to a higher power for aid.

Her summary request to the System for additional information had been denied leaving her scrambling in the dark, both literally and metaphorically. Not that it bothered her overmuch, dungeon fairies all possessed a single trait [Systematic Insight], which provided a limited form of night vision among other more... salient benefits.

In the end she had been powerless, unable to do any more than wait and watch. Slowly the dark growth had expanded forming a pure black crystal which after several weeks of growth had simply tumbled to the floor landing atop a large patch of moss. At first, she had assumed the strange new crystal was just another rock, a lump of stone that had somehow found its' way into the dungeon core when it formed and had just been excised via a natural process to banal to include in any official records, but then it had started to glow. A closer inspection revealed the crystal was in actuality drawing in an infinitesimally small stream of mana, marking the stone as at least magic in its' origin; not surprising seeing as it had literally popped out of a dungeon core. It was shen she noticed the thin layer of qi surrounding the stone that Elena had begun to grow concerned. The stone’s physical construction was identical to that of a dungeon core, the infinitely complex lattice coursing with natural veins allowing for the intake, storage and output of various different energies, an orb of solidified mana and qi resting at its’ centre allowing it to generate more of both products. There were plenty of magical stones out there in existence, highly prized for the tools and weapons they could be used to create, but only dungeon cores could generate qi, in that feature they were unique. A dungeon was more than just a collection of stone hallways, more than just traps and monsters and loot; they were alive. Even now she had no clue what the meaning of this warped dungeon core just popping out of the literal stonework was meant to be; but the system had to be involved in this one way or another. Perhaps this was a new experiment to increase the number of viable dungeons, in any case it was an unknwon variable in her plans and that made it a threat.

It wasn't long after the new dungeon core arrived before things had begun to take a stranger turn. Not only did its' dungeon fairy fail to greet her, violating the impromptu regulations to which all dungeon fairies agreed, but it seemed to be actively hiding its’ presence. Certainly, that was the wisest decision given the circumstances; when dungeon cores interacted things were bound to start going south, still she found it mildly irritating. Decent conversation was one of the things she actually missed from her time in the village. Origin was a newly formed dungeon it’s sense of self wasn’t yet developed enough to sustain a proper conversation; it was barely able to summon up mental images of even the most simplistic ideas which given its' age was still rather impressive. Of course, what it lacked in intelligence this particular dungeon core made up for with its’ trait [Natural Inclination].

Even more so than in most creatures' traits were essential to a dungeons growth and this one was a masterpiece; the trait not only formed a connection to the nature element but also provided the dungeon core with a mild prophetic understanding of whether a course of action would be beneficial or not. Its' predictive powers were not perfect, Elena would have to drill that fact into the dungeon cores mind as soon as it was ready to accept the concept, but for now it remained a useful tool in getting the unruly core to obey her instructions. Of course, this didn’t improve the dungeons actual intelligence, just its’ ability make helpful decisions. She had been mentally grappling with recent events and she would have loved to just blame them on the dungeons trait however that seemed presumptuous in the extreme. Still she couldn't understand just where had the dungeon's name come fron.

Dungeons did not name themselves, that was a fundamental fact of the system; it was the right of whoever first discovered a dungeon to name it. So when she had performed her routine check on her dungeon core’s stats the day of the new core's arrival it had taken several seconds for her to process the name printed at the top of the notification. She had responded almost immediately scanning the surrounding area for any signs of sentient life that could have come into contact with the core. She found none - not so much as a goblin in this cave or any one of its' neighbours.

It was at that point she had made the decision to expend a portion of her personal mana to use the [inspect] skill on the faux dungeon core that had invaded her cave and take a quick peek at its' stats. She had not been impressed.

Not only was its’ name ridiculous, its’ stats were abysmal. Ignoring the fact that it had literally pointless physical stats for whatever reason, it’s concentration and intelligence were low even in comparison to the other denizens of the cave, a [Scorched Sunless Rat] would have an average intelligence of at least five, and none of those little vermin grew higher than level four. Although she supposed its’ decreased stats were only natural, this was a dungeon core variant a litteral a knock-off of the original, the only improvement she could recognise in the new core was the second trait it had been born with. She couldn’t read the cores traits without expending more mana than she was willing to waste.

Besides in a few minutes it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Now that the dungeon had ben founded things would start to take a more drastic turn in reconditioning the surrounding environments. Elena sighed, the wait was somehow exhilerating though her gaze never strayed far from the variant core huddled in the corner, ocasionally flashing with intermittent light. It was so clear that it had yet to start cultivating qi, she had to wonder what its' dungeon fairy had been planning forgetting to instill such basic discipline. She shook her head. Even unable to cultivate qi Gimble had proved too great a threat.

WARNING! - [A Dungeon has been Established Nearby]

The [Natures Origin Dungeon] has been established nearby, all lifeforms in the immediate vicinity will now be assimilated into the dungeon core as raw resources.

[10]…

[9]...

Quite frankly she had given up on understanding the strange dungeon core placing all of its’ bizarre abilities under the bracket of it being a unique variant. Not only was the core capable of casting spells, one of which had already decimated a good portion of the cave’s population summarily reducing the areas ambient mana level contributing to the loss of potential levels in the newly formed dungeon, but the knock-off core had already been able to produce a monster. It was an empirical fact, a law of the system; without access to the monster menu that was only available once you founded a dungeon you could not create monsters. If the dungeon fairy puppeting this strange core decided to take aggressive action there was nothing Elena could do. She had been backed into a corner here, this was not a threat she could ignore, whatever bonds of fealty she owed the rest of her race aside. This would likely kill the dungeon fairy in charge of the variant as well but she had no choice; this was a pre-emptive strike.