The dungeon cannot summon creatures until they have died within its territory, this was explained to Alex. If they wanted to summon creatures and plant-life they hadn’t seen before, they had to unlock them using dungeon points after which they could freely summon them with mana. The stronger monsters needed souls in order to be summoned while the weaker ones and most of the undead and all constructs didn’t need souls… the more powerful it was though, the more mana and souls needed to summon them.

The problem here though was that there was nothing to do.

‘Where are all the monsteeeeers!’ Roxanne was in despair. It had already been a week and there was no sign of any life entering the cave, all they could do was absorb the traces of mana in the air… and they weren’t even close to leveling up.

Dungeon Name: (no name)

Titles: None

Rank:

1

Floors:

1

Mana:

28/100

Souls:

0

Dungeon Points:

0

Achievement Points: (locked)

N/A

Dungeon Abilities:

Absorption

Mana Abilities:

Mana Absorption

Soul Abilities:

Soul Absorption

Special Abilities:

Dungeon Map

Inhabitants

0

Creatures:

0

Named Creatures:

0

Boss Creatures:

0

Special Creatures:

0

Plantlife

0

Yes, in a week… all they had managed to absorb was 24 mana. The mana in the air wasn’t very thick and since there wasn’t anything else to do… they waited.

‘It’s so boriiiing!’ Roxanne was close to crying. There wasn’t even any insects, leaves or anything inside the cave. They hadn’t unlocked the ability to expand their territory or pretty much do anything so they were stuck just sitting and waiting.

‘Don’t worry, I’m sure something will come about soon!’ Alex, every the optimist, ‘Like a worm or an ant, maybe we’ll get lucky and get a beetle!’ Ah a sarcastic optimist.

Another week went by. Mana was up to 43/100.

Another week, mana was up to 57… was it slowly down?!

And then finally, finally, something happened. Unfortunately immediately it was something that was quite terrifying.

A pack of wolves had arrived and decided to use the cave as their home.

After 3 weeks of waiting, finally something had happened but… wolves! We had no monsters, no traps, nothing! If the wolves wanted to, they could probably swallow the dungeon crystal whole. It was a nervous time. However the wolves seemed to not care about the dungeon crystal at all, in fact they hardly seemed to notice the glowy pebble at the back of the cave, which was a good thing although a bit of blow to my ego.

The first week they were in the cave, I could take in some of the mana that they brought into the cave so my mana absorption almost doubled! In a week I was already at 81/100 mana! Almost leveling up! The annoying thing perhaps that due to the wolves there didn’t seem any chance of anything else coming into the cave and dying and perhaps unlocking stuff to summon or at the least provide souls and mana to use.

This changed a week later when one of the females gave birth to a litter of wolf pups. It was also around this time that I finally reached 100/100 mana needed to level up!

Requirements have been met to reach the next level.

Dungeon level has increased to level 2

To reach the next level 200 Mana and 10 souls are needed

The dungeon ability [Expand territory] has been unlocked

Expand Territory (Dungeon Ability) Lv1 Mastery 0%

Increases the area that the dungeon has influence over. Within the territory, the dungeon is able to use its skills and abilities and creatures without souls can roam freely.

Expand 1cm in one direction: cost 1 mana

Subsequent levels increase the rate of expansion

Mastery at level 10 allows the dungeon to expand in all directions at once

This was awesome! It took a month but we finally reached the next stage! Of course the next level up was difficult because the wolves obviously wouldn’t let anyone in their pack die.

So we were back at the waiting game, although this time there was something we could do, with the ability to expand, I started expanding y territory backwards into the wall of the cave, I didn’t absorb anything, thus expanded the territory. Half my mana was getting stored while the other was used to grow my territory. That didn’t change the fact that again it had become boring.

‘It’s so borriiiiing!’ Roxanne was lounging around inside the crystal space. She couldn’t go outside in case the wolves found her, the leader of the wolves seemed to have demonic blood in him, his eyes would flash red every so often and he seemed a lot more intelligent than the other wolves. Also the fact that he was half again as large as them and the huge spikes sticking out of his back was a big clue. The only entertainment that Rox had at the moment was watching the pups grow up. Probably due to the fact that they were living in the dungeon space, their rate of growth was fast. Within two weeks, they had started play fighting with each other and the older wolves had begun to teach them how to hunt.

That’s when things grew for the better for us, the older wolves, and especially the demon wolf started to actively train the new pups. By this I mean they started bringing in small animals for the wolf pups to practice and hunt. First they brought in some squirrels, the demon wolf had cripple the squirrels so they couldn’t escape, and the young pups would try hunting them. The first few days, the squirrels were able to escape and one of the squirrels even managed to scratch one of the pups, however it earned itself a swat from a parent wolf that broke its left arm as it hit the wall of the cave. That didn’t seem to dampen its spirit as it would try to defend the other squirrels by attacking the wolf pups. That proved to be in vain. 6 squirrels had been brought in, and soon only 2 were left. The brave squirrel and another smaller squirrel.

The animal ‘Squirrel’ has now been unlocked.

The pups by now were already half-grown, no matter how brave this squirrel was, it wasn’t a match. It was attacked by two wolf pups at once which launched it all the way to the back of the cave while the other wolf pups tore the last squirrel to pieces before eating it.

I should have been happy that I had unlocked an animal and now had 5 souls to play with but that squirrel… its brave performance was quite moving.

‘Rox, can we save this little guy? He tried so hard I feel bad letting him die in our dungeon…’

‘Actually there is a way! We can offer him sanctuary in the dungeon, you can make contracts right? Offer him a contract see what happens.’

This would be the first time in this new world I offered a contract, didn’t think it would be to a squirrel. Can it even accept? So I tried it.

A contract has been offered to ‘Brave Squirrel’.

Then, the squirrel started glowing… and I could see… the memories of the squirrel. It was the leader of a nest of squirrels about 80 individuals or so spread out widely in the nearby forest. It had been caught by the wolves while it was trying to find some of the fallen nuts around the tree and brought along with the 5 others. There had been 15 or so but the rest had been killed and eaten.

I could feel the brief stirrings of hatred as well as fear. As it stayed trapped in the cave, the anger grew and fear shrank, and then its thoughts started to become clearer, quicker, and stronger. It fought with the spawn of his kin’s killers yet couldn’t bridge the gap that was the difference between prey and predator. Then the merciless hunting and toying began. To these cubs, the squirrels were just toys, to the older wolves, teaching tools. To the squirrels, it was a game of life and death. They did alright at first, the brave squirrel was able to fend off the wolf cubs and prevent them from killing his kin. Then one day he saw an opportunity to strike and took it, he scratched at the eye of a careless wolf cub who reeled back with a cry. Unfortunately its parent didn’t like it and struck him, throwing him against the cave wall. There was a snap when his arm broke and the memory of pain was very sharp. After that, it became much harder to defend, every time the wolves came to play, one of the squirrels would end up dying. Then it was just the two. The last squirrel, besides the brave squirrel was a young one, barely reaching adulthood. There were two wolf cubs, now half grown in size tackled him head on. Trying to escape the jaws of one, the other managed to hit him with full force. Then he was flying, and while flying he could hear the sounds of one of his kin being torn apart. It landed in the back near a glowing crystal the size of a small pebble which asked it a question. He said yes

A Contract has been formed

‘Brave Squirrel’ has been added as a Lv1 Contracted

The power of the contract flows between contractor and contracted

Brave Squirrel has unlocked the Skill ‘Soul of the Brave’

Brave Squirrel’s intelligence has increased by 3 points, strength by 2 points, agility by 2 points, vitality by 1 point and magic power by 1 point

The power of the contract flows between contracted and contractor

Contract Summoner Alexander has unlock the skill ‘Aura’

Contract Summoner Alexander’s agility has increased by 1

The power of Dungeon Contract has been invoked

The creature summon ‘Brave Squirrel’ has been unlocked. All future squirrel creatures will now be ‘Brave Squirrels’

Your first Achievement as a dungeon master!

A soul that cried out for help has accepted you as his master.

Gained 5 achievement points, achievement points unlocked

Gained 5 dungeon points, dungeon store unlocked

Gained 10 mana

Gained 10 souls

Requirements have been met to reach the next level.

Dungeon level has increased to level 3

To reach the next level 300 Mana and 20 souls are needed

The dungeon ability [Create Room] has been unlocked

The dungeon mana ability [Create Animal] has been unlocked

The dungeon mana ability [Create Monster] has been unlocked

The dungeon mana ability [Create Undead] has been unlocked

The dungeon mana ability [Create Plantlife] has been unlocked

The dungeon soul ability [Enhance Creature] has been unlocked

Excess mana was used to improve the healing of your body

The healing of your body has reached 20%

The magic formation that allowed the use of the skill [Observe] has been repaired

The skill [Observe] has been unsealed

Observe (Rank D, Active) Lv7 Mastery 12.3%

The power of analysis and observation, this allows information to be shown about a subject.

If special prerequisites are met, this skill can evolve

(Necessary requirements mastery Lv10 – Max, ???)

Generates information about a subject

Intelligent beings will have name, title, job and rank displayed.

Non-intelligent beings will have a brief description along with relevant information

Higher levels of mastery allow success against higher levels of subjects

Currently can observe people with intelligence and magic power 7 points above own

That one act changed so much. The body of the squirrel evaporated into light and he appeared in the space of my dungeon crystal. He didn’t look like he was doing well so I got Roxanne to start treating him.

Thus life continued. The wolves came to try and find the squirrel but gave up after they couldn’t find him for a day. The demon wolf was especially terrifying as he stood there staring for a long while before it moved away. If it had a human face it would probably have been one of suspicion.

The little squirrel was quite interesting, I mean anything would be interesting if you basically had nothing to entertain yourself at first. A few things were weird though, the contract between squirrel guy and Alex seemed different than normal, for one, squirrel guy seemed to have become stronger due to the contract, and more importantly, more intelligent. I mean, he could talk to us. A talking animal! This was a first. Although he couldn’t speak very well, mostly single words. His intelligence was still growing though, what a wonder.

Anyways, while the squirrel was healing itself up inside the dungeon crystal those awful wolves had gone out and got more critters to torment. This time they grabbed a group of giant rats, they were about half the size of the half grown pups and not much weaker than them. I guess the demon wolf had gotten impatient and wanted to get improve their strength faster. This backfired on them though as the rats were too much for the wolf pups to handle and a group of 5 ran to the back of the cave. They then used their teeth to gnaw into the wall creating a hole where they were safe from the wolves. The demon wolf was furious to say the least.

The animal ‘Giant Rat’ has now been unlocked.

‘Hahahaha! Look at those stupid wolves! Outsmarted by a rat! Hahaha,’ I couldn’t keep from gloating since it was hilarious!

‘Hahaha, I know right? The demon wolf, he’s probably embarrassed like hell!’ I’m glad Alex and I share a similar sense of humour.

There wasn’t much change after that. The rats would sometimes be caught and eaten thus we had a steady stream of mana and souls coming in. Of course we were still lacking in many parts.

Then we had a visitor. It was the first human both of us had ever seen… and she was strong. We first noticed her when with a flash of light, one of the wolves had its head slashed open and its body flung to the side of the cave.

The animal ‘Wolf’ has now been unlocked.