Peltas, Certain mountain range, a small and cozy cave

With a small pop, I appeared in the cave that thrice damned, lumpy piece of a troll’s ass called a God of Darkness, talked about. Upon arrival, my spinning stopped with the transfer, and I dropped in a crevice on the floor with a small clink. I tried to make myself feel better with some mental retching from my prolonged fall from the orbit, as my vision was able to re-orient itself again.

Damn that vindictive, cheating piece of a divinity. As soon as I reached a shadow near the ground, his “short time physical protection” warped me through them! He could have done that straight away, instead of playing with me. Well, at least I don’t have an entrance yet.

Gathering my bearings, I spreaded my awareness around me, noticing that he wasn’t wrong about the part of the cave being small. It was just an empty pocket within the ground, with a relatively smooth ground as the walls formed a teardrop shape. I was situated in a small crevice in the middle of the room. The teardrop area was around a five meters wide and seven long, with a ceiling three meters above me. As I was inspecting the room, I noticed that I can see everything in the pocket with crystal clear clarity, despite the darkness.

Huh, no blind spots. Would have been a neat ability to have when I still had a body made of flesh. And mentioning about body, I haven’t yet seen myself since turning to a dungeon core.

Controlling my point of view, I tried to move my vision outside of my core like before. IIt felt like I bumped to a wall, that kept pushing me back as much as I pushed against it. As kept pushing, I felt mana within me trying to join in the attempt. Intrigued, I stopped pushing and my mana settled down immediately. Sensing the amount I had, I was dismayed having such a miniscule amount of it compared to before, that I gave a mental sigh of resignation.

No wonder he mocked my attempts to do without adventurers. I haven’t had this little mana since I awakened my mana heart! But screw the normal methods, I’d rather continue doing it my own way!

I took control of half of my mana and forced it to push against the wall I felt along with my will. Results were surprising, as when my mana left my body, it pushed the wall back with an ease, and kept spreading evenly within the air. Soon the mana was spent and I somehow felt having a total control over the area my mana had saturated, almost covering the air within the cave. Spending half of the remaining mana I had left, I filled the rest of the pocket with my mana. Now I could move the mana I had spread with ease, sensing everything within it.

This time I tried to move my vision outside me again, not feeling any walls preventing me this time. Upon focusing on the air above me, my vision shifted instantly as my perception changed. I could now see my core below me, along the rest of the cave floor. I was located in a crevice in the floor, neatly lodged within. My core was a perfect sphere of deep purple color, with a thin veins color of an azure spreading from center. Intrigued, I focused closer, seeing that within the orb, the azure veins of grew from the middle to the outer layer. Veins were connected to a small, slightly deeper hue ball of purple right in middle of my core. Those purple veins were also formed from crystal, giving off a glow of their own as they seemed to slowly pulse with a peculiar rhythm. After admiring the beauty of my new body, I refocused my gaze to the rest of the cave.

Feeling around, I noticed how the area was slightly expanding. Looking around for the cause, I noticed how some of my mana seemed to seep within the surrounding stone. Inspecting the effects by focusing upon a small rock further away from me, I noticed how my mana slowly in the air slowly penetrated the rock. Quickly looking at the surfaces where my mana touches the stones, I noticed how this phenomenon happened everywhere. When my mana had fully filled the rock, I had an urge to scatter the mana fused with the rock. Doing so, the rock shattered as the mana broke it down, turning into a motes of mana tinged with a brown color. Looking upon these motes, I instinctively pulled them to my core.

Upon pulling the motes, they dissolved to a stream of energy flowing towards me, alongside with the tinge of brown mana. The energy flowed almost instantly to my core, turning to an azure mana as it went through the purple veins. Suddenly I just knew that the small rock had been a piece of granite, how it was formed and how I could make more with my mana.

This is amazing! Instant purification of mana and gaining knowledge from dissolving something with your mana! Oh the possibilities I can do with this! With a delighted glee I moved my mana according to the new knowledge and created a small sphere of granite, feeling a small drain in my remaining mana reserves. Ignoring this in my excitement, I started creating stones of various shapes, sizes and densities. Small pile of cubes, pyramids, cylinders and coins made out of stone formed on the floor as I blacked out.

Waking up, I felt the familiar effects of mana exhaustion. Nauseating feeling filled my groggy mind. Wonderful, again the feeling of nausea. After starting my experiment it has been only feeling besides pain and wrath against that void cursed prick of a hermaphrodite. Surprised as how mild the feeling of anger was compared to when I originally felt it, I tried to inspect how I actually felt now, as Trendal warned me about how lopsided my feeling have become.

Hmmm… Not the blinding rage that took away my reason so much that Trendal suppressed my feelings. It seems to be more constant feeling now, simmering within me. I felt… vindictive? Looks like dungeons are prone to have a raging fit when pushed over the edge more easily, and cold hatred aimed for a revenge even if it takes a long time to achieve it. Not that I mind this change, I was planning on it anyways. Yet I have to keep a lid on my feelings when I get angry, wouldn’t want to lose control of myself during an episode like that.

Stopping my introspection, I noticed the feeling of nausea was slowly lessening as I regained a little more of my mana. But from where does it come from?

Focusing my attention to my domain, I noticed specks of slightly chaotic motes of mana slowly floating from below, before being slowly drawn to my core. As the motes entered within my core, chaotic flow abated, while motes turned to a mana and joined my reserves. Spreading my focus upon my domain, I noticed more of those motes of raw mana slowly floating towards me. I willed them to me, significantly fastening the process. So this is what he meant by dungeons purifying the raw mana. It is not instant like when draining the dissolved mana from earlier, maybe because it was already partially refined and not chaotic. I wonder what happens to the extra mana when my reserves are full.

As I kept most of my focus on regaining my mana, I willed my perspective to move again. Looking on the azure veins more closely, the motes of raw mana entered me from where those veins reached the surface, before flowing to the center, where my mana reserves were located.

Looks like those veins of mine have the ability to purify the mana I draw in. I wonder if I can inspect the insides of me with more detail. Deciding to wait until I had filled my mana so I could use my full focus, I sank into meditation for a while to hasten the process even more.

When I awoke while brimming with mana, I tried to shrink my vision within myself. Feeling the familiar shift in my perception, I focused upon the center of my core. Magnifying within my vision, I saw a beautiful orb of purple with streaks of azure, shimmering from mana within. Mesmerized with how it seemed to constantly pulse with power, I kept observing it rapt attention for any changes, as I kept stuffing the already full reserves with even more mana.

At first I didn’t notice anything, but as I kept looking for any changes, I felt full. Still keeping my focus upon drawing mana, I felt a slight strain within me and purple part of my center seemed to vibrate slightly. As it did the strain lessened, while the center shifted ever so slightly I’d never notice it without focusing on any changes that might happen. Shift was so minuscule it might as well not happened, yet the center grew. I was instantly exultant upon the discovery, as this meant I could grow my reserves easily. I decided to spend most of my time drawing mana while waiting for Trendal to finish rest of our deal, as well experiment with what I could do with my mana as a dungeon core.

* * *

Unknown time later, within the small, cozy pocket

I was already growing impatient with that slacking excuse of a god. I didn’t have any sense of time in the darkness, as I could fully sink into a “feeding mode” with meditation, cutting my perception off from surroundings. I had expanded my cave to a twenty meter wide and ten high circular dome, crafted myself a granite pedestal, where I was grasped within a claw-like extension formed from five curved spikes, with some room for me to grow larger. I had also created an arching doorway towards the original pointy end of the original teardrop shape. I was still a size of an eyeball, yet my originally miniscule center within my core, had grown to fill me halfway. I suspected that I wouldn’t grow in size until I was fully converted to the new shade of purple that my center had.

Main discoveries I made during this time was that I could extend my domain through solid materials by seeping my mana in them. This method was slower, but I could also modify the stone within the sphere of my influence. I had smoothed the floor and walls, while reinforcing them by compressing them with my mana. I now had a half a meter thick barrier made out of condensed stone that’s infused with my mana. I also noticed that I could easily create detailed shapes according to my imagination when I was converting my mana. Although my mana reserves were still so small that I have to spend half of it, if I created cubic meter of stone instantly or break down five cubic meters of stone. I could also withdraw my domain of influence if I wished to do so, and it didn’t have to be spherical in a shape.

Out of boredom I had been extending my doorway to a small hallway with a same dimensions of two meters wide, four in height for a ten meters or so. My domain had only reached fifty meters because I spent most of my mana to experiment with my new powers. As I again got the urge to expand again when I was full with mana, I suspected these being the instincts of a dungeon core at work. While debating with myself whether to follow these instincts for now or keep growing my center, I heard a familiar voice sounding within my mind.

“How is my favorite dungeon core faring today? I hope you’ve been busy with whatever you’ve been up to for the past twenty days?”, sounded an upbeat greeting of Trendal. “Mind granting me a permission to visit your domain and summon the candidates?”, he then proceeded to ask and I felt a tendril of his soul touching the edge of my influence, giving a feeling of temporary nature. I’d wager I can rescind this permission whenever I wish, yet I also felt someone observing my paltry dungeon from outside my domain. This must the part of our deal where he can observe my domain as he wishes. As I granted permission, I noticed a tendrils of darkness gathering to form a cocoon in front of the doorway, disappearing in a puff of smoke as Trendal made his appearance.

Spreading his arms wide with a flourish while wearing a shit-eating grin on his face, the God Darkness promptly asked, “So how was your arrival, I hope it went smoothly?”. I responded immediately summoning a piece of art I had been practicing since I had enough mana for it, spending half of my reserves on it. Trendal ended up staring a large arm growing from my pedestal, sporting an universal sign for all humanoids. A very detailed serving of “fuck you” in a form of a towering middle finger.

He broke down in a laugher, eventually wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I see you’ve been practicing. However, I come bearing gifts, as I have located a few entities with corporeal forms, that have their fair share experience with dungeons, and are receptive to contracting one.”. This immediately gained my attention and I responded by removing the arm, leaving me a little under half of my mana reserves after my pointed stating of my opinion.

“Now, they won’t be able to see or hear me as I summon them here, nor will they have clear image of how they got here. I’ll introduce them to you one by one with a short introduction of their species, while I let you handle the the meetings with them. If you end up declining them, I will return them and seal their memories of this little event.”. Trendal had proceeded to summon an armchair made from shadows to the side, that I couldn’t perceive with my domain, and promptly slumped on it.

, I inquired from him.

“Don’t worry about that, they will think they came here on their own volition to make them reveal original purpose, without any previous preparations. I will slightly twist their perception of how they got in here, and to reveal their desires more easily. And before we start, I think it is a time for you to choose a brand new name for yourself. A part of becoming a Divinity, even partially, is forgetting your old identity to remove any attachments to it. Though it would be amusing to watch if you end up being named to a shiny marble or something similar.”, Trendal said with an amused smile as he pulled a bottle and a goblet from a small ball of shadows that appeared next to him.

I snorted in my mind, as he was obviously just looking for an amusement by probing at me.

As soon as I mentioned my name, I felt something shift within my soul, as my new name was deeply branded to it.

“Precisely so Faran. A fitting name indeed, with the dual meaning of a gambler and a pathseeker. If you did not have a name when forming a soul contract with your partner spirit, they would have been able to name you. Even I avoided asking your name upon our meeting, so you wouldn’t accidentally give me your old name before you understood your situation. Now, remember that incoming entities don’t know that you already have an ego, or are able to speak coherently. Also, do take a note for the future, that you can speak directly to their minds because of their inherently weaker soul fields. Beings with a normal soul fields are unable to hear you without a proper medium. They won’t be able to perceive my existence or voice either. As such, their react to you like to any newborn dungeon they just happened to stumble upon.”, Trendal finished and proceeded to pour a drink of whatever he had to himself.

“Now that we’re ready for the show, let us get started!”. With a snap of his fingers, shadows twisted at the doorway and with a pop a small winged creature appeared. While it tried to get its bearings, Trendal gave short introduction of it.

“This fellow is commonly known as an imp, they tend to be found across different dimension as summoners don’t care about them enough to send them back. Quite mischievous ones.”. Trendal sipped his drink and watched with interest about how the meeting will proceed.

I focused upon the imp, noticing how it affected my domain, distorting my control over my mana within one meter from it. Doesn’t seem like the soul field is too strong with spiritual beings, I thought to myself with interest. Focusing on the features of it, I immediately thought a fitting phrase to describe it. Ugly son-of-a-bitch. Stunted red body with stubby short arms and legs, sharp talons and a pot-belly. Its head was bald with a large, pointed ears flopping to the sides. It had a large, pointy nose, squinty eyes, sharp jaw and a mouth full of crooked yellow teeths. And it was obviously a male as it didn’t seem to deign to wear anything to cover it. As it screeched in surprise and flapped bat-like wings attached to its back, I winced mentally from the annoying sound.

As the imp cleared his confusion and focused its gaze upon me, it gave a high-pitched laugh and flew to my pedestal, starting a tirade of high-speed talk.

“Hi-shiny-core-my-name-is-Ezratelmathus. I-help-to-make-you-strong-and-powerful. You-need-to-protect-me-and-give-me-mana-and-I-can-teach-you-all-about-dungeons. Let’s-make-a-deal-oh-Shiny-Sparky?”. Imp finished saying all that under a three seconds, and I felt somewhat neutral tendril with a tinge of slimy feel to touch my core. I promptly declined deal with this flying, discolored miniature swindling goblin. As I sent a wave of annoyance towards smirking Trendal, he snapped his fingers and the imp disappeared in a puff of smoke.

, I sent to Trendal with a stronger wave of annoyance, as I had learned to shield and project my thoughts and feelings during my time of waiting him. Basically I was unconsciously yelling all the time when I met him the first time, allowing him to easily read all of my thoughts flashing in my mind back then.

“You could call it a comedic opening act. From my point of view, your reaction to the poor imp was amusing to say the least.”, he chuckled to himself to my reactions as he sensed my dismay.

“Now, the next one is the most common variety of dungeon helpers. They tend to share the knowledge of how dungeons work and want to help them grow quite earnestly, as they need mana-rich environment for reproduction. They are commonly known as Dungeon Fairies.”. This time Trendal summoned new candidate with flourish of his hand. As the puff of shadows vanished, I saw a busty woman size of a hand wearing a tight fitting dress seemingly made from leaves. She had a blue hair as long as she was tall, and a four wings like a dragonfly on her back. As she blinked rapidly to clear confusion from her big, purple eyes, she proceeded to rub her pretty face with her hands when she saw me. Blinking rapidly once again, she covered her eyes with her small hands for a moment, before peeking through her fingers at me. Gasping, she swinged her arms to the side, before flying to me with a gleeful laughter sounding like small bells tinkling in the wind.

“Wow, what a pretty dungeon core! Much better than mommy’s murky brown partner!”, exclaimed the fairy while observing me with her eyes wide open.

“Your core has so pretty colors! Just like my eyes and hair!”, she giggled as she kept flying around my core. “If you protect me and let other fairies visit, I teach all you need to know about being a dungeon! I’ll help you to grow big and strong, and help you anyway I can! Oh this is going to be great, none of the other fairies has such a pretty dungeon core as their partner! I give you a name of Bob, as in Best-of-Buddies! Let us make a deal!”, I felt the now familiar tendril reaching me, filled with comfortable warmth, showing how beneficial the deal is. Yet somehow the fairy irked me.

“I already have a name, thank you very much.” As soon I projected my thoughts to the fairy, her wide eyes grew even wider and her jaw dropped. Then she started squealing in joy while flying rapidly around me. “Oh-my-god, oh-my-god! This is amazing! Newborn dungeon with a personality! This is great! We’re gonna get so strong easily! What’s your name?! Hey, let us make a deal already, I know everything mommy taught me in her dungeon! Pleaaaaase?!”, She floated in front of me staring my core with her her big, glistening eyes while pouting cutely.

“No.” As the thought was projected, fairy stiffened in shock with a mouth wide open, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

“What was wrong with a dungeon fairy? There’s a good reason so many dungeons have them as they give one of the most beneficial contracts.”, Trendal asked with genuine interest while cocking his head to the side.

I projected with a shudder while he clicked his tongue in annoyance from my reaction.

Thinking about my answer for a moment, I replied,

Trendal just cocked his eyebrow, while rubbing the stubble on his jaw in thought. As he started tapping the side of his nose with a finger, he suddenly started grinning. I immediately grew wary as last time he had that same shit-eating grin, Trendal threw me from the orbit and summoned the imp.

Trendal must have noticed my feeling of wariness as he hurried to explain, “No no no, I wasn’t grinning about you, I just thought a perfect candidate among those left. He should fit your needs perfectly, with extensive, if rather unique, knowledge about dungeons among the helpers.”. Yet the grin on his face still didn’t fade in the slightest.

“This fellow is a rare halfling of two races, a shade wisp and a fairy. God knows how he came to be, at least some other god than me, and his work history might be both amusing and ironic to you.”. This time Trendal took the his time, as he swapped the goblet with a full bottle of beverage and placed a bowl of variety of snacks upon his lap. Then with a wink at me, he summoned the third candidate.

This time the smoke didn’t fully disappear, as I saw something that was a size of a fairy, vaguely humanoid shaped mass of shadows floating there. It didn’t move, or need to reorient itself, so I just kept observing the floating mass of shadows as it did the same. This went on for a couple of minutes before I grew impatient, and the reason certainly wasn’t because of some god snickering at me from the sidelines.

, I projected to the shadow and saw it twitch. Soon it coalescent to a shape of a man in his 40’s, black hair tied to a short ponytail with a touch of grey at temples. He had slightly hawkish look in his black eyes, with a refined facial features, slightly hooked nose with a trimmed moustache underneath it. He also sported an equally trimmed goatee on his strong jaw. Mostly I was surprised how he wore a black jacket, pants and shoes as he stood ramrod straight with his hands clasped behind his back as he stared at me.

“Well this is a surprise. First time I see a rank one dungeon with a fully formed ego that is not decades old at the least.”, shade-fairy said with a surprisingly deep voice while cocking his eyebrow at me. He then proceeded with a slight bow while holding his right hand upon his heart, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Elan, a half-blood born of a shade wisp and a fairy. May I dare to ask why and how I came here?”.

At this point I checked the now shocked god, seeing him a mouth open while his hand with a cupcake from his bowl of snacks had frozen midway to his mouth. Pleasantly surprised from his reaction, I turned my attention to Elan.

“This could be called a job interview, for a contractee to a dungeon core. You are the first one that has noticed how unnaturally you just suddenly appeared here. Can you explain what tipped you off?”, I continued with increasing interest towards him.

Elan gave a curt nod and proceeded with equally curt explanation. “I was in captivity, waiting for a new contractor amongst the magi. Also the way of summoning through shadows was… peculiar to say the least, as it completely ignored the constraints I was held in.” Seeing as I gave no further explanation, he stood there and waited for me to continue.

“What experiences you have with dungeons? Would you be willing to contract yourself to one?”

Elan gave a slight smile before proceeding. “I had been contracted to a dungeon for a mere couple of decades, before I was captured and the core was promptly destroyed by a church. That dungeon had started creating undead beings, that those fanatics following the God of Light hate with a burning passion.”, at this point a frown formed on his face as he continued. “After my capture, I was sold to a local branch of adventurers guild to serve a magi. He then proceeded to force me into a master-servant contract, where I began my new job for the last two centuries. I was used to communicate with matured dungeons during negotiations. Mostly they tried to use me to try cheat the dungeons for favorable contracts, or benefits. As for contracting myself to a dungeon, depends on the dungeon itself and contents of the contract, as I don’t wish to repeat my previous experiences.”.

, as I continued my questioning, I also noticed Trendal following the discussion with a rapt attention, while speedily munching his snacks.

Elan snorted disdainfully as he began explaining, “Of course they reacted violently. Usually outright trying to kill the contract holder if possible, as contract with a dungeon becomes void if the other side dies. If the holder escapes the dungeon alive, older dungeons used every loophole in the contract to kill or harass adventurers, or outright denying any possible rewards as long as the contract was effective. Usually that resulted influential people losing quite a lot of money, wanting them to make their sudden cause to the loss of income to “disappear”. That is how I changed masters multiple times as they tended to survive only a few decades upon contracting me, before succumbing to pressure or greed, and trying to cheat a dungeon with a contract. Unfortunately they had constrained me so I couldn’t escape even if my contractor died.”

, I inquired from Elan.

“I have seen multiple dungeons ranging between rank two to four. Many of them were classic examples of caves filled with goblins, animals, plants, or other common monsters at the early levels. More older dungeons could reach a rank three monsters, one even had a rank four named monster guarding the core room. Their layouts were more sophisticated, filled with an advanced monsters of certain type. For example, one dungeon was specialized in kobolds and gigantic lizard like monsters with various environments.”, he replied in a stoic manner to my question.

While Elan had been explaining his experiences, I grew increasingly excited about the prospects of contracting him, as he held superior experiences of how adventurers dealt with the dungeons, and how they expanded themselves. Calming myself down so my excitement would not show up in my voice, I continued.

Upon hearing the question, Elan’s pupils shrank for a moment as he proceeded to stare at me without an answer. After a moment of silence, he answered. “Partners, with no control over the other. Rights to give commands to dungeon creatures. Protection against harm, and a sanctuary to my soul upon death, with promise for reincarnation at a later date. In return I provide you all of my knowledge and help.”

I chuckled to myself, indeed experienced negotiator. Elan’s contract was good, yet left some loopholes for him to exploit if I don’t add my own terms.

Elan was seemingly taken aback for a moment, before smiling widely. “I see you’re not an idiot that leaves loopholes to the contracts after all. Very well, contract is more than fair, and will be null if I try to cause harm to you. I agree.”.

When the agreement left his lips, soul contract took effect and I could suddenly sense his location through our connection. His soul field also stopped interfering with my domain as I said with a glee.

All the while certain annoyance had been whooping at the side since the contract took hold. Meanwhile Elan gave a proper bow with a smile, as opposed to the earlier shallow one upon our initial meeting. “Glad to be of service, partner.”.