After many ruminations on various factors at play, I look outside my core, at the room I have found myself in, it is a small chamber, no bigger than a beach ball, it is only now that I realize, that deep down, there is an urge to dig, to open a path, a path to breath.

I excitedly used my newfound [Dig] skill, going on instinct making a path at a 45 degree angle. After what feels like days, I make a breach. It was like holding my breath under water, and frantically swimming up, then finally hitting the surface. It was so wonderful, sunlight streaking in and reflecting off my core. That is when another type of panic hits me. It is like the feeling of being naked in the middle of a shopping mall, and everyone is staring.

About 100 meters from the surface, I frantically build a room about the size of a basketball court, and fill it with 5 earth golems. The panic fades, but is still present, an omnipresent warning, but one that is no longer blaring like tornado sirens, more like a reminder on an event calendar. I take a mental breather, and notice that my [Dig] skill went up a few levels, as did my conjuration from making the golems.

I notice in my frantic digging, I do not realize where the dirt has gone. Then I realize, that my body automatically absorbed the loose dirt into my core, like one would a spatial bag. I can still use it, as doing that would not require me to use mana on the [Create] skill. On the note of that skill, I can only make things that I have absorbed in the past. How do I know that? It is another kind of instinct.

Another thing I noticed is my 'Domain' It allows me to omnipresently observe my entire dungeon, or just focus on minor points. the former is just general information, while the latter allows me to know everything about it. Something else that intrigues me, is the part of my domain at the surface, I can look outside of it, reminiscent as how I did when I was human, but is blurry, as if I need glasses.

In that blurry sight of landscape, I make out a huge oddity, I appear to be in a basin that is massive in size, surrounded by mountains, with what looks like a river cutting through it. I appear to br on a mountain side, about 200 meters above the river level. There is a forest of trees covering the basin, and they appear to be tens of meters tall, densely packed. I cannot make out any clearings that would denote humanoid habitation, but I cannot rule out treehouses.

The slope leading up to my cave seems passable by humans, the largest intelligent humanoid population. Most dungeons seem tailored towards the majority of their entrants, something I never truly thought about until now, Oh how I wish I became a dungeon researcher, but I may have never become one if I had in the first place. I ponder about my next course of actions.

I debate on becoming a pseudo field dungeon, field dungeons usually are above ground with no underground networks, but they are usually destroyed because of how difficult they are to contain, but there are some that exist. I think about some people who discovered dungeons in the past, and bought up the land that contained them from neighboring kingdoms, making tons of money in the process.

I remember a certain rune from my early days of learning runic inscriptions, it is said to detect nearby monsters, and would always go off upon entering dungeons, no indication was ever found out, except for some speculations that dungeons were large monsters, and entering them would be equivalent to entering a beast's stomach.

After some time, which was probably hours, because of the light of the sun was getting dimmer now, coming close to sunset. I decided, no matter what, I must own this basin, either as the dungeon itself, or as a 'Dungeon Noble' as those who owned dungeons were called. With that decided, I start pushing my domain out of the cave and into the forest below.

After a few hours of slowly expanding my influence, I hit my first snag. A den of rabbits. Whenever I pushed my domain towards them, it would get close, then slowly rebound, pushing it back, but when they entered my domain, it was not disturbed, and I actually got little trickles of experience from them. I am curious as to why similar things did not happen when I crossed trees and insects and the like.

It was not until I came across a Hawk nest, that an idea was formed, it was the levels of the creatures. Most trees and insects, do not have any levels at all, not even level 1. It was only when I came across something with levels, like the rabbits, that I was rebounded. Another thing that I noticed, was that my domain can only spread about 10 meters below the ground, before it feels like I reached a limit, something similar happens when I try to go up in the air. So sadly I cannot expand into the atmosphere and look at the surroundings.

As I was expanding towards the 'Half-Way' mark that is the river, I feel a burst of experience, not the trickle the small animals in my domain give me, but a burst, it happened fast, then did not come again, I frantically search for the cause, when I notice a hawk, feasting upon an unfortunate rabbit. Death, The fastest way to gain experience, to do so by killing. If it were not the fact that you could not gain experience from similar species, there would be endless killing.

The reason for the classification of 'Intelligent Humanoid Creatures' is that any included upon that list, will not gain experience from each other on that list. The likes of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, and other such races are upon that list, so while there are still wars for resources, it is not as intense as it could be.

I snap out of my unpleasant thoughts as I have finally reached the river, and have encountered another problem once again. Whenever I try to spread my domain into the river water, it gives me the feeling of being 'Washed Away' and my domain dissipates. I cannot go directly into the water, nor can my domain stretch across the river that is tens of meters across.

I quickly think up a simple solution to a probably complicated question. I use the stone that I gathered within me, and made a vertical 'Bridge' tens of meters tall, then fell it like a tree, making a platform bridge across the river, from beach to beach, slowly spreading my domain across, once it reaches the other side, going 10 meters down into the earth on that side, I absorb the bridge to see what happens.

Nothing, the connect does not collapse, and I take a mental sigh I did not know I was holding. while I say that the basin was cut in half, I am on the smaller half, with the other side being three times bigger. I still cannot directly enter the river with my domain, but since it is only around 8 meters deep, I surround it with my domain.

I continue my spreading of my domain, passing many animal dens, and claiming them when they leave, gaining experience from them even when they sleep. After what seems like many days (Judging from the Day/Night Cycle) I finally enclose the whole basin, curiously, there is no presence of shelters being built in the basin, but there are scraps of civilization left upon the beaches.

I guess that this is not a major waterway, yet. I turn towards my dungeon source to enact my next two plans.