Chapter 4.

As a mana control node coming back to awareness was not like opening one's eyes. One second, I was nowhere; the next, my full sense of self and my dungeon influence snapped into focus. I increased my frame rate to almost the maximum I could, the world outside of my mind slowing. How long was I out? What had happened? What had made a home in the entry cave to my dungeon?

Time: Years: 0. Months: 4. Weeks: 20. Days: 140. 03:10:01.

One week had passed since I blacked out. I sent a question into my deep mind, wondering if I could get a response. I asked why I had blacked out and for so long? With that done, I shifted my attention to the entry cave.

A pack of wolves had made it their den, and not just wolves as I began to measure them. Dire wolves, or at least that's what I would have called them back on earth. The large male was speckled gray and white. It walked on four legs, and from the ground to its shoulder, it was 250 centimeters, about eight feet in height, and 490 centimeters long (16feet). They were big, like really big, and moved with preternatural grace.

There were three pairs of dire wolves; the largest male was gray and white, with his female counterpart being only slightly smaller than him and a white-blue in color. The next pair's male was a deep gray and was about half the size of the large male, and his mate was a dark forest brown rust color, about his same size. The final pair was about three-quarters the size of the large wolf; the male was a dark black and rich brown, with the female being brown with spots of dark green. Each of the females had a litter of four pups that looked to have been born in the last day or two.

The females of the group lay on their side recovering, pups nuzzling close to their teats. The males guarded the cave front and stripped the meat off from a large kill, bringing it to their mates. I would say the kill was a deer, but it was the size of a moose and had a fan of horns jutting out from both sides of its head, not antlers. The white horns jutted back over the head, the bottom pair curling around the ear and down, while the middle set jutted out to the side like a bulls would.

I absorbed a small amount of all the genetic material in the entry cave. Not all of the blood, viscera, and skin cells, as I did not want to startle the dire wolves. There was also sticker weed plant seed pods that the wolves had tracked in. With that done, I returned my frame rate to normal.

The heads of the wolves all snapped up, and they all looked to the back of the cave. The large wolf let out a deep growl; it wasn't menacing but had a more reassuring vibe to it. After a few seconds of this, the rest of the pack went back to what they were doing, and the leader sat back on its haunches.

It was at this moment that answers and information bubbled up from my deep mind. I could now make both the male and female dire wolves, having collected samples from all of them, including the pups. I could make the plant the seed pods had come from and a male of the weird deer species.

As for what had happened to me, the answer bubbled up and integrated just like the creation information. I just knew. My mind had begun to warp from too much pure Mana. It was like if you breathed into a plastic bag over and over, the CO2 would build-up, and you would die. In much the same way, I had been recycling my Mana over and over, and it began to destabilize my mind.

The largest wolf sent a thread of Mana out from its head and began projecting thoughts, feelings, and sensations into my dungeon influence. I was able to understand them easily, and they even took on a tone of voice as the sensations resolved themselves into words.

In a deep ancient rumble of a voice, the head wolf spoke, "I am Graystep, prime breeder, father, of this pack family. Great thinking heart power, Mana, I, we all greet you. May we den our cubs within your blood power till we move in bright light and soft light once more?" There was a deep sense of respect and fear in the words he spoke. A longing hope resounded throughout the whole of his statement. Seeking shelter for their young from the cold?

I felt outside; sure enough, it was winter or late fall. A light dusting of snow blew in from the gray void beyond my sight.

Now, how to talk back? I portioned off another part of my subconscious mind, this time giving it a full 10% to create translations of different languages. I then formed a small thread of Mana directing the end of it at Graystep and spoke. "You may shelter your pack here."

A few seconds passed, and I thought I had failed for a moment; then Graystep responded, "Gratitude, thinking heart power. We bring outside of the cave in for you, what things shall we give in Gratefulness offerings."

The tone of his voice was more reverent, as if he was speaking to a god or something. I guessed to his mind I might as well be one. He was offering to bring things from the outside in, so I could consume them. "Offer me parts of different plants, Offer me part of the blood from food hunts."

"The pack shall do this thing." Graystep nodded his head respectfully.

"As well, tell me of the world outside." I wanted to know if there were humans or any other creatures close to me, as well, if I could get a feel for the landscape before I pushed my dungeon influence out any further.

"The den is at the base of the great mountain, in the large safe hunting forest. Groups of two-legged hunters come from the far side of the mountain sometimes, but they must cross the great river to reach the side with the den. The great river is five days travel for the pack, but we do not cross it. We hunt the safe forest with our pups until they are strong, then we hunt the small mountains and unending forest on the other side of the small mountains." The deep voice of the head wolf answered.

"Thank you, bring me what you can."

"Yes, great thinking heart power."

I watched as Graystep began speaking to the others of his pack. "Mate Moonlight, I go to hunt for the heart power spirit. Grayshadow and Nightsky, stay and guard the pups; I will hunt."

With bows of their heads, Graystep left the cave and the area of my influence. I turned my attention back to my dungeon and checked the large grow room.

The eighteen mushrooms I had left spawned hundreds of small mushrooms that were beginning to grow in the back right corner of the room. The plant I had absorbed was just a weed grass and had no magical value or anything else I could detect. So, I skipped making any of it for my dungeon. I did make one giant mushroom that was connected to me through a thread of Mana.

I shifted my vision to the creature testing room; it was time to make a larger spider. I created the 6cm spider I had made previously, pushing Mana into the imaginary form I held in perfect clarity in my mind. My deep mind had shown me how to better focus my Mana on specific gene selectors and transcription factors that had to do with the size of the spider. I began to push Mana through the bond, focusing it on these transcription factors, with the clear intent to enlarge the spider. 10 mana then 20, the spider grew and grew.

The raw Mana in the room was pulled into the spider along with my directed Mana, keeping it alive as it grew. 7cm, 10cm, 20cm, 30cm, all the way up to the point it was one meter in size, about three feet long. Its oily black carapace glistened in my sight, fangs, and legs sized to its body. I had only spent 500 mana to get it to this point. When I stopped, the spider shook and began roaming around the room. I let it have a few moments of life before I reabsorbed it through the mana bond we shared.

My mana count went up to a thousand, not recouping all I had spent but most of it. I also had the blueprint for the spider and knew everything about it. Its paralytic venom had increased in potency along with its size, and its web had strengthened as well. The dog-sized spider would come up to the knees of a full-grown man; it was female as well. I had my first true mob.

When I had finished, I was contemplating what I was going to do next when Graystep returned. He dropped what looked like a fox on the floor of my dungeon along with a squirrel. He sent me an affirmation with Mana as he turned and headed back out of the cave. I absorbed the new animals quickly, still leaving the deer thing by the cave entrance.

I needed traps and not just the simple pitfalls that every dungeon has. I needed instant kill, one hundred percent fatal ones. So far, there had been no rules governing me, no gods or goddesses, or a system. It was solely up to me, and with the confirmation that there were humans in the area around me, I knew it would only be a matter of time until they came adventuring or to kill me.

I began by making the hallways that were 60cm into full hallways. 200cm wide and 300 cm high, about 6and a half feet wide and 10 feet tall. Past the three caves, I made an adventurer would need to go through eight rooms before reaching the boss room. Above each of the hallways into the room, I made stone drop doors. Four-foot (1.2 meters) sections would fall into place if I removed the stone supporting them. Each room and hall could now be sealed off. There was a small alcove above each door where I could materialize air if I had to using air pressure to close them quickly.

Creating only the paralytic venom was possible, but that had to enter the bloodstream to be effective. Aerosolizing it would not work, so that meant I needed to inflict a wound. The first hallway got a pit trap with a thin ledge on one side to walk across. That ledge could be dropped as well. I smoothed the dungeon granite wall to near perfection, ensuring almost nothing could climb out once it fell. At the bottom of the 10 meters (32 feet) fall, I coated the floor in spikes and venom.

In the first room, I would make a chest that would unlock once you defeated the mob in the room. Making a fair challenge for anyone who wants it. What was unfair was the small perforations I put in the ceiling that connected to a giant pressurized vat of venom that I could release at a moment's notice to cover the entire room.

I decided I needed to test my dungeon granite to see how strong it was. Creating a 4cm thick, 30cm tall and wide portion of it, I began testing in my material testing room. This comprised of me finding inventive ways of trying to destroy it. Dropping it, dropping a huge block of steel narrowed to a blade on it. No, I did not make the edge a single atom thick, though I could have come close, and then the block of steel would have most likely sliced down through the earth till it became molten slag when it reached the heat of the core of the planet. I shot steel balls at it with a varying amount of intensity, tried to break it in half, heated it till it melted, and supercooled it to see when it broke. By the end of my test, my dungeon granite was about as strong as mild steel, with less elasticity. However, every centimeter was equal to about 2.5cm of plain steel.

With that figured out, I went on to figure out automating my traps. That was simple, to crumble the stone above the pit trap; all that had to happen was portion off a part of my subconscious mind with the task.

The hallway connecting rooms 1 and 2 got impaling spikes. I formed the spikes from the strongest steel I could make at this point. This was high carbon steel, extremely tuff and hard. The spikes were placed in holes along the walls, ceiling, and floor. When extended, they would almost touch their opposite side, providing a complete impaling experience for any adventurer.

How to move them, well once more, Mana solved this problem. I could have come up with a mechanical method, but with what I had right now, I was not reasonably sure mechanical methods would survive. So, my sub mind would create bursts of pressurized air that would shoot the spikes out and then absorb the air to retract them; if they got bent or would not retract, my sub mind was authorized to use up to 10mana to fix the problem. On normal mode, a pattern would be followed that most adventurers could figure out. On kill them now, now, now mode, the spikes would target anything in the hallway and try and impale it as many times as possible.

Roome two got the same spikes and a chest. I would have to work on a mob.

Graystep returned, bringing an assortment of plants. Some of them were dead from winter; that did not matter as I absorbed them and got a whole lot more to work with. And so, the pattern continued; I would work on traps as Graystep brought me animals and plants.

My hallways filled with spinning blades with venom coatings, ceilings that would fall and be accelerated with air pressure to smush, steel cannonball projectors, vines that constricted, growing along the walls, copper plates that shot electric arcs between them, and flame throwers. The passageways were death traps for any who intended me harm or challenges for any who wished to try.

For the boss room at the end, I made an exit tunnel 5m by 5m and had the ceiling cast a pleasant light. This long hallway 400 plus meters long would eventually connect to the outside world. Graystep had kept his promise and had brought me dozens of plant samples and ten animal samples.

When he could find no more or would have to go too far, he projected to me, "I have found all I can within two lights and two darks from the cave. I can go no further for fear of leaving my pups."

"What you have brought me is enough, Graystep. Thank you for your offerings." It had been a few weeks of work, and the pups had grown fast, their bodies feeding on their mother's milk and the Mana in the air.

During this time, I also began the dig upwards, figuring that was the safest direction to go first. From the first of the back rooms behind the materials testing room, I started digging the 60cm-by-60cm tunnel straight up from the center of the room. As I went, I spread my dungeon influence through the stone and improved it into the dungeon granite, keeping to the 30cm thickness and bonding the inside of the tunnel with steel. Every 100 meters, I would turn a direction horizontally for 10 meters before going upwards again, and after another 100meters would turn back the same way. Keeping the opening of the tunnel directly above my dig room, but not in a straight line.

This went on and on until finally, after 5 kilometers about 3 miles up, I finally broke the surface. My dungeon influence spilled out, covering the outcropping of rock I had dug up too. Now, when I spread my influence in the open air, it drifts away slowly, but definitely. The next thing I did was an experiment with my Mana. So far, everything had been very instinctual when it came to Mana, and I figured this was a part of being a sentient mana manipulation node. I wanted to make eyes.

Turns out it's easy; just focus on the spot you want Mana to collect light from. Filter out the IR and UV light if you want, and presto magic eyes. Well, more like cameras where you have to flip the image around a few times in your brain till it's right. But I had a form of vision; I could see the sky, the clouds, the sun, the moons, the large flying creatures that were head right for me.

I caped the top of the tunnel off quickly. Turning the whole top into dungeon granite more than a few meters thick. I reinforced the tunnel more all the way back down. If there were big flying things in the sky, I had a feeling there would be large monsters below as well.