“They are in the walls? Let me see… Yep, I can see plenty of them.” Who knew there were so many bugs in the ground. Maybe because of my mana, there is a larger than normal amount of them?

“While you do that, you should also construct their nest, or at least design it, and find them a source of food other than your mana.” The imp said.

“Hm? Like what?” Don’t see anything to eat around here, unless he means them eating each other?

“Ah, I brought some other things for you.” He pulled out a small drawstring leather pouch, from his bag. “These are mushroom seeds. I got it as a gift from school. I also got the bug sucker and my pickaxe from them. The goats were from my parents. They thought it would be an appropriate gift for a new Heart.” He wore a proud expression on his face when he talked about his family and school.

“Oh, your parents? They ever met a Heart before?” For some reason, I doubt it.

“No, but they heard stories from when they were young, about how goat blood was every Heart’s favorite, or something.” So he said. Seems like I was correct. You shouldn’t trust everything you hear, you know.

“Right, so, what now?” He talked a lot, but never showed me how to do any of these things.

“Okay, the mushroom seeds. They grow underground, in the dark. Don’t need any sunlight. The most basic plant, but also one of the most important ones in a dungeon.” I hope their helmets are plump. Get it? Plump helmets? Eh, forget it.

“Oh, we can plant them here?”

“No, not right here." He shook his head. "This is, literally, the heart of the dungeon and the last room they, the enemy, should reach. We will fill it with decorations and traps and make it out of stone. Not some mushroom farm.”

I agree. I want white marble pillars, four of them, surrounding my crystal. The finest floor tiles, decorated with the faces of our enemies. A mural on the walls showing the progress, our history, of the dungeon. The ceiling painted with the faces of our heroes. Hm? What? We only got dirt? Oh, nevermind then.

“You are right. Don’t want a bug eating farm next to me. So how do I build a new room?” Really don't wanna have any bugs crawling all over me, so they have to go to another room.

“You should have a view from above, right?” The imp looked up in the ceiling. He normally acted like I was in the crystal. Or crystal heart, not sure what to call it. Guess I can use both terms. Anyway, technically, that’s where I am.

“Yep, can zoom and move the camera around.” I did so, to demonstrate, but, naturally, he could not see me doing it. Which made it pointless.

“Camera?” The imp looked confused.

“...Nevermind. Not sure what that is either. I meant my… vision.” Huh, how odd.

“Okay, Heart… Anyway, you should be able to select a block on the wall. It’s one cubic meter in size. I heard that Hearts have some kind of ability to help with the targeting, some kind of marker. Like an arrow, a hand, a cross, a sword or something like that? You create it with your mind, so the shape is up to you. I would recommend the hand, since it lets you pick up things. The price goes up the more advanced it is, but it’s worth it. Trust me. Our teacher repeated it many times.” Oh, your teacher told you? So, you actually have no idea?

Huh, like a cursor… What's a cursor? Nevermind. Something to help me with targeting? Hmm, a hand does sounds useful. Interesting. Picking up things, means I can interact with the dungeon, even though I have no body to speak of. Yes, a hand…

Slowly, a green, thin hand with long black claws, grew out from seemingly nothing. It hovered in the air, and after a few seconds, I managed to twitch slightly with a finger. Yes, this will work. Soon enough, I could start moving the hand around, and gained full control over the fingers.

“I did it! Haha, look at it. Hm? You see it, right?” I waved my new green hand in front of his face, but he had no reaction.

“No, only the Heart can see from that view, and therefore only you can see the hand. Maybe later you can figure out how to make it visible, but I don’t know how.”

“Ah, of course. But, can you feel THIS!” I slapped the imp as hard as I could with my hand.

*Slap! A loud sound echoed inside the room.

“Urgh!” From the impact, the imp flew two meters into the air. He smashed into the dirt wall and even sunk a few centimeters into the wall. The dirt slowly crumbled under his weight, and he fell out onto the ground again. “Why, why did you do that?” He said with tears in his eyes. Some black blood dripped from his mouth.

“Uwah! I’m sorry! I didn’t think it would work!” Oh shit!

“Of course it works, you are the Heart and can punish your minions when you want. The hand is the best tool for that.” He slowly got up and rubbed his sore body. He spat out a mouthful of blood, but seemed fine otherwise. No visible injuries, at least. If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist right? Right?

“But, but, you said it was only in my mind?” He did right? I’m not the one in the wrong here, am I?

“No, I said only you could see it. The hand is very real and can even be used to move around your minions and transport other things when things needs to get done quickly. I was going to tell you about that part later, didn’t expect you to hit me ten seconds after you created it…” He looked a little bit angry. Oh well, call it revenge for wasting my time earlier.

“Eh, I said I was sorry. Now, continue with the story. How do I create a new room?” Hehe, it was quite funny. Maybe poking him and knocking things down on him will be just as funny? It will create a legend about ‘The Haunted Dungeon’, where items falls down randomly and moves around with no one near them, and when you sleep, if feels like something is touching you. Or maybe not.

“Right. Simply mark the blocks you want removed and I will do it for you.” He spoke in a monotonous tone. I may have injured his teaching enthusiasm.

“Can’t I just simply tell you to do it?” Seems like a needless step to take.

“You can, but since I can’t see from your view, the result might differ from your expectations. Besides, don’t wanna listen to ‘little bit to the right, no, more to the left, just a little higher.’ when I’m working.”

Huh, makes sense, I guess. Need to learn this anyway. Might be fine when I only got one minion, but when I need to order a hundred?

“If you want to try, we can do it the 'easy' way. First, let’s start with something simple. Order me to dig out that part of the wall.” He said and pointed behind him with the thumb over the shoulder.

“...What are you talking about?” Seeing the smiling and patient look on the odd creature I sighed inwardly and said: “Go and dig that wall.”

Shaking the head while laughing, the imp said: “What wall? There are many walls.”

“The one you were talking about? You were the one that brought it up!” I slashed the wall with my hand, making a large cut in it, causing the dirt to fly all over the small room. “That one!”

The imp nodded and took out his pick from the bag and dug out the wall. He created a small cubic meter sized hole. “Now what?” He said with a smiling face.

Hmm, I see. I would need to order him at every step. Guess I need to learn it.

*Tap tap

I poked and touched the wall. Leaving my imprints on it, but nothing else seemed to have happened. Ah, right, the mana. Need to infuse the mana like always.

“Okay, done. Get to work!” I did it. The wall parts were glowing in a faint yellow color, indicating that I had succeeded in trying to order the walls to get dug out.

“Eh, but you didn’t send me the blueprint or layout yet.” He said, while doing an exaggerated shrug.

“Dammit, you always leave things out.”

“Hey, I’m just teaching you in steps. Don’t blame me.” The imp said with a lofty smile. He seemed to enjoy watching my struggles. Well, soon I will be fully learned, and he won’t have any more opportunities to teach me the things he spent ten thousand years to learn. Guess I can tolerate his ‘games’. For now.

“Hm, I’m guessing to send a stream of mana into your mind while thinking about the new base layout?” I did so and he flinched and nodded.

“Got it. Good job.” His pick sliced through the soft dirt walls and formed a hallway, just like my design. It was one meter wide and two meter high and twenty meter long. However, I soon discovered a problem. The upper dirt block was still there!

“Oi, you missed a spot…”

“Eh? Oh, well, can’t reach that high.” He laughed. “You know how it is.” The imp was half a meter tall and didn’t have any wings to fly any higher. Therefore, he couldn’t reach it. Great, I'm starting to understand why his school stressed the importance of being able to fly.

“Sigh, leave it for now. We will deal with that later.” Nothing I could do about it anyway. I started to design the new room. I made it quite small, only three by four meters. Can always make it larger later or make another farm somewhere else.

The imp got to work and quickly finished it. It had a low ceiling like everything else, but perhaps the mushrooms won’t mind? I hope they are not giant mushrooms. The only room with high a ceiling is my own chamber, where it’s five meters high. Perhaps that is the standard height for a dungeon? Flying or gigantic creatures would not like my current dungeon.

“Okay, done.” The imp put back his pick into the bag and took out the small seed bag again. The bag seemed to work with magic. He simply reached back with his hand, and the item would come out from the back on its own. Same thing when putting the pick back. He merely pushed the pick against the bag opening and the bag would take over from there.

“Now, I simply plant the seeds, like this.” He put a seed every ten centimeters, the rows thirty centimeters apart. “Now, add mana to grow them faster. Tell the bugs you captured to stay in this room. They can eat the mushrooms instead of your mana.” The imp brushed off the dirt from his hands.

“Why does it matter? If I feed the mushrooms my mana and the bugs then eat them? Is it not the same thing?” If I give the bugs, say, a hundred mana or if I give the mushrooms a hundred mana. I still lose a hundred mana. Actually, because I still pay the bugs, since they don’t have any mushrooms to eat yet, I’m losing twice as much.

“You won’t be feeding the mushrooms forever. You might not notice it yet, but as we, the dungeon, grow, you will feel the mana drain a lot more and it will limit you.” The imp no longer stood in front of my crystal heart, so he had nothing to look at as he spoke. Therefore, he simply acted like I was inside his head and didn’t look at anything particular when we spoke. My voice is inside his head, so it was quite fitting, I guess.

“Limit me? How?” I can guess more mana = more options, but I still want to hear the details.

“Well, in the book they used this example: ‘Imagine feeding five minions. Now it’s not so bad, but add another five and you will feel it. Imagine at fifty! You will have a hard time to focus on anything, like mind powers. But if you have some proper food for them, they can eat that instead of your mana, and you can have hundreds of minions instead.’” He talked like he was reading it straight from the book.

“Oh, you know your stuff.” I’m impressed.

He laughed and rubbed his nose. Seems he does that whenever I praise him. “It was the thing I focused the most on. After all, it would affect me if I don’t have any mana to feed on, right?”

“...R-right.” He only thought about himself! “So, will you eat the bugs now?” Might save me a lot of mana. Now that he has taught me the benefits of being frugal, I’m going to take every chance I can get. Well, not like there were ever any doubt about the benefits of not wasting your resources.

“Hah! No, I’m your Prime imp. I won’t live on bugs. Only the finest, straight from the source, mana for me.” And that was that.

“Uh huh, I see. Now what? We got some mushrooms sprouting up soon and the bugs are on their way.” I really have no idea on how to progress from here on.

“I, I was thinking about taking a nap by your crystal. You can continue with the bug domination. Just keep doing it until you can’t find anymore.” He yawned and stretched his arms up.

“... A nap? I thought we were running low on time?” What is he talking about now?

“Yeah, but I’m still tired. I normally nap at this point in the day.” He smacked with his lips and blinked several times. Seems he is not joking around, he actually looks tired.

“So, what should I do? Hunting bugs feels like second nature for me now. We already got plenty too.”

“Hmm, well, try to search the nearby area for anything bigger. Don’t know, tired now.” He laid down on the stone stairs leading up to my crystal heart. Right, my crystal heart was two meter up, thanks to the large platform it sat on and had stairs to get up there.

“Hey, wait!” I shouted at him.

“...What? I just dug out a massive amount of dirt. I’m tired. Talk later…” He mumbled.

*Zzz... Zzzz...

He, he actually fell asleep? On the stairs up to my heart too. Tsk, should I smack him? Snoring sounds so quickly? Seems a little fishy, but I don’t know enough about the imp race to know how quickly they fall asleep. I guess he can sleep, sigh. Better try to search the nearby areas, like he said. Maybe there is something besides bugs hidden in the dirt.