Chapter 8

“So, the first thing you need to do is summon your human skeleton.”

Before Erin finished speaking, Ryan already had his skeleton formed and walking around. It was getting much easier to call forth his mobs now that he had some practice.

They both watched the monster amble about, and Ryan couldn’t help but feel annoyed that it was missing an arm. Where were those blasted bones?

“All right. Now you have your skeleton, you can begin to make him your boss mob.”

Oh, more instructions. Time to listen.

“What do I do?”

“Well, if you’ll look, you have twenty points left on your triangle.” Ryan quickly called forth his level triangle, confirming the number was down to twenty. “Yup, at least we can both do math.”

Erin ignored his comment and continued. “Now, focus on the mob and push your mana into him, willing his point value to increase.”

He did so slowly, and dark tendrils crept up the skeleton, the monster looking down blankly at them. For a long moment, nothing else happened.

“Need a hand?” Erin started giggling.

Is now really the time for puns? Ryan pushed his attention back towards his mob, watching his triangle at the same time. The dark tendrils began to snake across the entire skeleton, and suddenly Ryan’s triangle dropped to nineteen. Then eighteen, more darkness; seventeen, it started to swirl through the air. Sixteen, it was filling the gaps around the bones.

This is taking too long. Ryan slammed all his mana into the mob.

The tendrils turned into a wave, and suddenly the skeleton was covered in a dark blob that completely hid its appearance. At the same time, Ryan saw the remaining numbers of his point total tick rapidly down until they hit zero.

“Is it finished?” His mana stopped flowing, but the cocoon of dark energy remained.

“I’m not sure. Let me go check.” Erin flew from the room, and Ryan watched the fairy go. Hopefully she would be okay.

A moment later, she appeared in the boss room, her golden light a stark contrast to the black mana that permeated from where his skeleton had stood. Cautiously, she flew up to it, inspecting it.

“Well, to be honest, Ryan, I don’t know what to do from here.” She continued inspecting it. “You’re my first dungeon. I’ve only been instructed as to what you should do, not what happens afterwar–”

She screamed and flew towards the ceiling as the dark energy started to crack.

“Oh, something’s happening.” Ryan ignored her panic, excitement filling him. His boss mob was hatching.

The dark energy continued to crack, and Ryan was able to make out a slight white glow coming from inside. All of his skeletons – everything he touched with his influence, in fact – held that slight glow. More and more cracks splintered across the cocoon, until finally, it shattered.

“What is that?” Erin’s voice was filled with a strange mixture of excitement and disgust as she stared at Ryan’s creation.

The skeleton had grown close to eight feet in height. His bones had thickened, and dark tendrils wrapped lazily around his body. The bones along his left arm had also developed sharp, blade-like edges, which Ryan imagined would make decent weapons. What was really unique, though, was the skeleton’s right arm.

Where before there had been an annoying lack of bones, now there floated a random assortment of them, pulled from throughout the skeleton’s body and suspended by dark mana. It looked disturbing to say the least, but Ryan wasn’t quite sure what they were for.

“Well, if I had to guess, I would say that’s our boss mob.” Ryan could barely hold in his excitement. His mind was racing as he wondered how his other mobs would react to the boss mob’s transformation.

“You don’t say.” Erin’s voice was filled with sarcasm as she flew above the skeleton, watching it warily.

“So, what now?” Ryan had definitely noticed his attention span decreasing since his awakening as a dungeon. He wanted to constantly be doing something, and now that his task of creating a dungeon filled with mobs was complete, he was already looking for something new and exciting to do.

“Well, now you’ve completed the basics of your dungeon, I would say it’s time we created an entrance for adventurers.”

Oh, yup, that sounds like the next new and exciting thing to do.

“Okay, one entrance, coming right up.” He turned his focus to his first room and, before Erin could protest, extended the full might of his influence towards the end of the room. The walls glowed a bright white as he focused on what he was doing.

In his mind, he saw a straight tunnel leading from the room at a slight incline until it reached the surface. His mana responded, and a beam of energy and influence ripped through dirt and rock. His dungeon shook from the violence of the blast, but Ryan didn’t care. He felt his influence hit the surface, blasting rock, soil, grass and trees aside as his dungeon created its opening.

“Ryan.” Judging from her tone, Ryan guessed he had ignored her as he worked on his opening.

“Ye-es?” He was only half listening as he devoured everything that touched his influence. He learned what oak trees were, and grass, and a strange set of various other plants he would investigate later. What he was really focused on was the fact that his influence wouldn’t spread past his new opening.

Even still, he found if he focused on his entrance, he could ‘see’ everything around him. Vast trees loomed, casting shadows even as sunlight filtered through their leaves. The force of his excavation had blasted a clearing of about ten feet around the entrance, though it was clean of debris thanks to Ryan’s quick absorption.

“You’re supposed to do that slowly. Now you’ve gone and just created a giant hole in the ground, haven’t you?” Erin was in lecture mode.

“Well, not quite.” Something had caught his attention. “Say, Erin…”

There was movement outside of his dungeon. Figures – humans – standing and dusting themselves off.

“What?” The fairy was annoyed at him, which he was used to by now. But her emotions suddenly leveled out as she registered his tone.

“What is it, Ryan?” She was worried because he was worried.

“I think we’re about to get our first adventurers.”

The group of four had regrouped and were eyeing his opening. If he had to guess, he had blasted them away. There was violent motioning, an argument of sorts, and then the largest man in the group, clad in a mass of armor, started walking towards his entrance. As the man drew closer, he pulled out a large silver sword, and motioned for the others to follow.

“Already?” Erin was resting on top of Ryan, looking down into his diamond core, which allowed her to see everything he could.

“Oh, they don’t look happy.” She looked down at him accusingly. “What did you do?”

“I, uh, I think I blew them up.”