"Why won't it work?" Blixie groaned. "We know that when you make something it comes out as a young form. You made seeds when you tried to make the apples or a box." Blixie had a sudden thought. "If there were boxes and apples here and..." Blixie glanced over to the skeleton leaning against the wall, "other things, then there would be a good chance there was more here. Have you absorbed anything else?"

"I absorbed the sun stone." Garrett wiggled the little ball of light he held suspended near the center of the room. Blixie rolled her eyes at his antics. "I also found some coins and some crystals." He pulled out a copper coin, a silver coin, his only gold coin, and one of the quartz crystals out of his inventory and placed them on the ground.

"That will work." Blixie said, pleased with the items Garrett had put on the ground. "Now try making once each of the items using your mana."

Garrett focused on the copper coin first. As the ghostly image appeared before him a glint of light caught his eye. He looked over at the silver coin that reflected the light of the sun stone at him. A second ghostly image appeared before him, that of the silver coin. He stared at both of the translucent coins floating in his vision and wondered if he could summon more than just one thing at a time. That would save a lot of time Garrett thought.

He pictured the gold coin floating next to the others and a spectral image of it appeared. Elated he quickly imagined the crystal as well. Once all four images were floating in his mind he began to fill them with mana. It took a little longer for the images to fill compared to just summoning one but when they were all full he focused on a spot and summoned them.

After the flash of light dissipated Garrett and Blixie looked at the floor and saw small chunks, they could barely even be called crumbs, of metal. Flakes of copper, silver, and gold laid on the floor with a small speck of quartz crystal next to them.

"I thought there would be more." Garrett muttered as he looked at his mana points to see how much it took to create all four of the items. "That took almost all of my mana!" Garrett huffed. "Why? They are smaller than an apple seed."

"The higher the quality and the rarer the item you create the more mana it is going to take." Blixie said in her teaching voice. "Hmm. Since they came out as chunks of ore I can guess that any item you try to create is going to be a raw unprocessed version. How is that even going to work!?" She yelled and started to pace in the air.

"Well I don't think I have to worry too much about that since I am not thinking of making my dungeon out of metal."

"Ugh!" Blixie groaned angrily. "If you can't make items then what are your monsters going to drop when they are defeated so adventures are enticed to enter your dungeon?"

"I think I see what you mean. Maybe I can gain a skill that will allow me to create items instead of just their base materials like you said I can with monsters. I still have that skill point remember?"

"I forgot about that actually." Blixie said sheepishly. Blixie got a bit more excited after being reminded of that. "Let's use that skill point of yours and gain a new skill. Let's aim for a monster or item creation skill."

About a minute passed by in silence when Blixie spoke up. "Let me guess, you don't know how to spend your skill points?" Garrett bobbed up and down in confirmation. "Right. I forgot that you don't really know anything." Blixie sighed. "Just bring up your status and focus on your unspent skill point."

Garrett followed Blixie's instructions and brought up his status then focused on the unspent skill.

Skill points available: 1

Skills available : Fire Shaping, Water Shaping, Air Shaping, Darkness Shaping, Light Shaping

"Damn it." Blixie huffed. "I thought there would be at least one monster option. Even goblins or kobolds would have been fine."

"No use worrying about it now. Maybe at the next level we will get one." Garrett was a bit depressed about not getting an option for any monsters but he tried to sound positive. A brief and fuzzy memory of someone saying 'fake it till you make it' popped into his head, also a brief line from a song telling him to look on the bright side of death for some reason. "So which skill would you recommend?"

"Right." Blixie said. "I wouldn't go with Fire Shaping or Water Shaping since you don't have access to either a source of fire or water right now. Darkness Shaping is good for hiding monsters which you don't have. Light Shaping could be good to help you grow your apple and oak seeds but that would be all. so I would go with Air Shaping. It will let you circulate air through your dungeon so it won't go stagnant and become harmful without needing to make air vents. For some wierd reason adventurers like to breath." Blixie chuckled at her own joke while Garrett just floated there quietly.

"Was that sarcasm?" Garrett asked?

Blixie slapped her palm against her forehead. "Ugh." She groaned in frustration. "Why do you not know anything. No that wasn't sarcasm. Well, it was sarcasm but it was suppose to be a joke." Garrett floated silently in front of Blixie. "Anyway, let's just focus on what we can do. Which is expanding your influence and making traps. We'll see if we can kill some more rats. That last one couldn't have been the only one."

Garrett quickly focused on Air Shaping and received a message.

Skill acquired : Air Shaping lvl 1

Garrett started pushing his mana into his influence trying to grow it as quickly as possible to try and find some more rats. After pushing all of his mana into his influence he noticed it had only grown a few inches in diameter Garrett sighed in resignation. Except for the emptyness of the room they were in and the little bit in the hallway his influence was in, all he could feel throughout his influence was more and more stone. Garrett wished there was a way to grow faster but the amount of mana he had at his disposal was very limiting.

Suddenly Garrett remembered that he could 'limit' his influence and make it grow not just in a sphere but however he wanted to. With this in mind he waited for his mana to fill back up. A few minutes passed and his mana had filled to full so he pushed more mana into his influence while focusing on having it just expand around and through the tunnel. His influence ballooned out down the hallway several feet by the time his mana had run out.

"Now we're in business!" Garrett shouted.

Blixie looked at Garrett confused. "What is that suppose to mean?"

Garrett stopped and thought. "I'm not sure. It just kind of popped out. Although I guess if you think about it we are providing goods and services to people, or will be soon. So I guess we are a business or is it trader?"

"I don't understand you Garrett. You know weird words that dungeons wouldn't even care about and you are pretty quick to learn things, so far, but you have no common dungeon sense." With that said they started expanding Garretts dungeon down the corridor and into the start of the long adventure filled life of a dungeon.

********************************************

After a few weeks Garrett's influence stretched down the tunnel, past a couple of other rooms, and ended just a few feet shy of the final opening to the outside world. He made sure to extend his influence about ten feet past the walls, floors, and ceilings. When Garrett first arrived within sight of the opening it was night time. Garrett couldn't see anything outside though so he went back to working on everything else. Garrett got plenty of practice with his Earth Shaping and Air Shaping skills, with the help of Blixie's advice, while making his traps.

"I think we have a good start to your dungeon, even with not having any monsters." Blixie said rather proudly.

"Thanks. I feel like we got pretty creative thanks to you teaching me about levers and wheels." Garrett was feeling very proud of himself with the traps he thought of.

"I was surprised that I had to teach you about them." Blixie sighed. She lead Garrett down the tunnel toward the tunnel exit. "I think we are ready for the final push of your influence to the surface. Once that happens the adventurers guild will be able to detect your mana and start sending people to explore."

"I just hope nobody dies." Garrett said hesitantly as he pushed all his mana into his influence to push it out into the world.

Blixie just shook her head. "This is going to be a long assignment."