by Dakota Krout
“It is a natural evolution.” Dani informed me. When all I gave in return for this information was confusion, she decided to explain herself.
“As you get stronger, you can make creatures evolve by supplying them with the energy to do so, or they can absorb items or different elements to change themselves naturally.” Dani explained, looking at the splattered remains from a careful distance. “Usually, the Essence you supply would direct the changes, but since yours seems to be so pure, it must have allowed for it to become what it would have after decades of cultivating, or a ‘natural evolution’. You keep throwing me for a loop.”
At least the cultivation stuff made sense.
“It is a figure of speech. Not a literal statement. Stay with me here, this opens up a slew of options for us that I hadn’t considered.” Dani was getting excited again. Should I be nervous? “We’ll get to that, but first try to recreate the Mob. And before you attack my verbiage, my choice of words that is, a ‘Mob’ is a short way to say ‘dungeon monster’.”
“It just… It just isn’t.” Dani sputtered, seemingly exasperated.
I looked at where the shroomish had originally been, and was startled to see the body was melting directly into the floor, it was mostly goo at this point. Must be an effect of my influence. I tried to pay attention to what Dani was telling me to do, so I began listening carefully. Dani explained that to create a Mob, all I had to do was make a ‘seed’ of energy infused with the pattern of the creature I wanted to make. Apparently this would even work if I wanted to make creatures that weren’t normally made from actual seeds, all the way up to the largest beasts in existence, although those big creatures would obviously take longer to mature. Or lots of Essence.
I focused and made the needed pattern on an Essence ‘seed’ and watched as it absorbed the ambient energy in the room to quickly grow to full size. I would never know the difference between the original and the current one, if it weren’t for the fact that I could feel a link to the creature in my mind. I imprinted on it that it should not attack Dani, but anything else was fair game. I could feel its assent as it ate a smaller mushroom right next to it, then moved into a near hibernating state, waiting for any inattentive prey.
Finally done with the Mob creation, I returned to infusing an area with enough Essence to quickly grow plants, and properly made the remaining regular mushrooms put spores out onto the Essence-rich stone. Following this, I resumed passively absorbing Essence and trying to increase my area of influence. After roughly ten days I was able to fill the entire cave with a light coating of Essence, and had reached the entrance of the cave.
~Three~
“Good work!” congratulated a very bored Dani. The poor girl hadn’t been able to order me around for days, I think it was wearing on her. “What you need to do now is work on concentrating the Essence as densely as possible in this room, and we will expand our work from there.”
“If you focus hard there first, you can direct your will to cause the air to be too dense for less concentrated Essence to leak out, like a bubble.” Dani distractedly stated.
I considered this for a moment.
“HA! What? That took me by surprise.” She chuckled. “Try it out.”
I worked on this for a few days as the Essence in the room became denser. The mushrooms and other flora I had discovered in the room flourished. Before I knew it, the room had filled with many varieties of moss, fungus and other low level plants. Grass tickled my senses. The regular mushrooms were the same size as the shroomish, which had also multiplied as the original had put out spores. Because I had created the original shroomish I still had a connection to all of the others, known as ‘dungeon born’ creatures. The monsters were well hidden in the patches, and growing stronger by the day.
Dani explained to me that being dungeon born means that I did not directly create the creature, but it was given life through me. This gives the creature the ability to function autonomously, with the downside of not allowing me to take direct control of its mind. I can “ride along” in a Dungeon born creatures mind from any distance and experience what it does; I also may be able to influence the creature if it remains of a lower cultivation rank than myself. When I am able to create creatures that are actually intelligent, I would use them as scouts outside of my dungeon. That way they can bring back things for me to study, or attack other things away from me.
Eventually I would need to have plenty of the Dungeon born Mobs if I wanted to see beyond my boundaries. If I were to directly create every Mob, I would be able to control them much better, but the downside would be that they could not ever leave my depths without dying from lack of Essence. They simply cannot survive in the wild without my help.
“I think that the Essence has been concentrated enough for us to start to expand. We need to have you make a tunnel, which we will build another room at the end of.” Dani started babbling excitedly.
Another room to grow things in?!
“Build your Essence up on that wall, and convince the wall to open small holes and absorb your influence. Fill a tunnel about six feet tall by four feet wide. When you reach a point where you want to build another room, use your power to compact the stone to either side. The stone will be much stronger than the original, and will serve to guide adventurers where you want them to go. It’ll also likely glow with the accumulated Essence you put into it, which will look fairly spectacular if I say so myself.” Dani directed, stopping only because she ran out of breath. Truly impressive as she did not have lungs.
I focused on the wall and made the stone become porous. Without a ‘bubble’ like the entrance had, the dense Essence in the cave poured into the wall like water through a sieve.
“Make sure to put curves, or sharp turns in that are hard to see past.” Dani suggested.
I hadn’t been able to move the stone, but nearly one hundred and fifty feet of rock was now under my influence, my direct control. My mind easily followed the path, and I found some very interesting things I had ignored in my haste. I found a material that revealed itself as polycrystalline tungsten. It is an intrinsically brittle and hard material, and extraordinarily dense. Farther along I found an iron ore vein, and even anthracite! Anthracite is a rare form of coal that burns hotter and longer than normal coal, and is a beautiful black color with a high sheen. I told Dani about these, and she got very excited about the possibility of having metal to tempt adventurers and miners with when they started showing up.
This is also when Dani told how I could create more than just monsters. With the same process as creating them, I could create seeds of other materials, like metals and stone. This way, I could inhibit mining to a small section of myself so people didn’t poke around where I didn’t want them. Apparently when people were mining it could really grate on my nerves. She suggested that when we made a place for the mining, we stick to low grade materials, especially at first.
“We don’t want to bring in people that are too strong, too soon. A
lthough dungeon Cores are supposed to be a well-kept secret, high ranked groups may know about you. You are a needed component in some of the highest powered spells, so if they find you they will want to take you. If you leave the dungeon, your body, it will die. Even if you somehow escape, you will need to rebuild from scratch.” Dani warned, “Which is also why you cannot cut yourself off from your body, you can’t just burrow down and cover yourself in stone to hide, unless you have no other option.”
I reluctantly acknowledged her logic.
She seemed happy that I was listening to her. “Now, why didn’t you move any of the stone? Was it really hard for you to let your Essence flow into the stone?”
I thought about my answer.
“Oh.” She flushed a bit, “Well, there was a lot of Essence in here, how far did you get?”
I tried to calculate the exact distance, I had just thought about it a moment ago, how long was it?
“Well considering it took you a few weeks to run low on Essence when you were pushing it, I’d be surprised if you didn’t make it a really long way. I’m trying hard not to be surprised by you anymore.” She glowed cheerfully.
“You will get faster with practice.” She responded flippantly. “I remember Kantor could change the entire layout of himself in a single night if he tried really hard. And he is a flying island so you know that has to be difficult.”
“Well, over time a lot of really powerful dungeon divers died or lost gear that had strong enchantments, and he learned how to make them. He made huge Mana accumulator stones that he can fill, or they fill themselves maybe? Anyway, those stones power the enchantments, and he flies with that magic!” Dani elaborated, excited to have his full attention. “He also is always trying to help new dungeons grow so he can relax every once in a while. So long as you aren’t a black or white stone, of course.”
“Remember how he asked you what color you were? If you were a black or white stone, he probably would have killed you. Before you ask, that means that they can only absorb energy from celestial or infernal energy. He doesn’t dislike them, but they have no way to ever grow without horrible things being done around them.” Dani stopped my attempted interruption, going into full lecturing mode.
“They both, celestial and infernal Cores that is, have ways to influence sentient beings to get them food, but what usually ends up happening is a war where Demons are summoned and Angels are counter-summoned to fight them. The stone can get really powerful with thousands of people dying around them, jumping from G rank to A in just a few days if it is smart, but usually crusades are declared to destroy them. It is really a lot of bother for everyone, so Kantor usually just kills them.” She explained.
“It’s really just floating, he has to go where the wind takes him.” She attempted to dissuade me, noticing my interest in the idea.
“That’s a really long way away, let’s focus on building your body up shall we? The dungeon that is. I am going to go look for plants outside that help to increase Essence, or really any plants with a lot of different properties.”
“Well it is almost noon, so I should be nearly invisible in the sunlight. Thank you for being concerned about me, cutie.” Dani flirtatiously flew a few spirals around me. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right back.” After ensuring I wouldn’t be too nervous, she flew out and away.
~Four~
Alone for the first time in months, my cave was totally silent. Well, I could hear the plants slowly growing, but that was pretty quiet, if annoying. I figured that I may as well try and cultivate some Essence, so I gently connected to all of my plants and let their energy flow to me, and connected to my newly energized tunnel and started pulling, then pushing hard. I quickly realized several things, firstly the tungsten and iron had much more Essence to give me than regular rocks, and secondly that anthracite had a colossal amount of Essence to give, but crumbled as soon as it gave it away.
Receiving the pattern as I absorbed its Essence showed me why the anthracite fell apart: coal was made from decomposed organic matter! It was made from compressed plant Essence, and didn’t really have its own form. When I pulled the energy, there was nowhere for it to regain the lost Essence and it would fall apart. On the positive side, it was absolutely stuffed with Essence and I was soon draining the anthracite exclusively. I had found what I assume was a relatively small vein of the dark material, but by the time I finished off the last bit of it I was ninety percent full, something that would have taken months to achieve with just my trivial garden.
Knowing that Dani had wanted me to make more rooms, I decided to surprise her when she got back, and began compressing the stone in my influence to either side. With so much energy available to me, I was quickly able to open the passage. Now, I should say that this was not a quiet process. If you have ever ground two stones against each other, you will have a quiet and soothing version of what was transpiring at my location. Unbeknownst to me, this was usually a process that took many months at a time, in an attempt to remain hidden as long as possible. The vibrations caused by my expedited work caused problems around the mountain, as landslides, rock falls, and a distant avalanche were triggered.
Just as I finished my fourth room Dani zipped in at full speed, “Cal! Are you ok? There is an earthquake happening!!”
“Oh Cal no.” Dani whimpered. “We need to get ready. People are going to want to know what is going on.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Cal. Just a little... too fast for the moment. Usually you would want to create an influence around the area you are going to move, and force it to absorb the vibrations of the work you are doing. That way, you remain hidden. The next time you want to grow, make sure I am around and I’ll show you how to do it. For now, how about... You show me what you made?” Dani released a short sigh, trying to remain positive about the situation they were sure to find themselves in.
Flying through the new open space, she ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘ahh-ed’ at the work I had done, the smooth tunnel walls and the new caves full of stalactites and stalagmites that I had included for visual effect.
“You made three more rooms? I didn’t realize you reached all the way back here! I’m so impressed!!” There was the praise I wanted. Aw yisss.
I pretended to be embarrassed,
“No, I am serious! You are growing so well! And your knowledge must be growing too, after all the work you put in, I’m seeing you as an F-rank zero dungeon! You are almost dangerous!” She half praised, half teased.
Hey! This was a moment of shining triumph! No teasing!
“Well,” she considered for a moment, “the average human toddler is about F-rank z
ero, but they don’t have biting mushrooms sprouting from their feet. A human adult that has never done more than just normal farm work, and has no weapons, is usually around an F-rank four adventurer. At that level, they are derisively called ‘fishies’ by people that have spent time adventuring.”
She nodded, noting my self-control, “A fish is an animal that lives in water, which people collect to feed themselves. Usually very weak, hence the nickname ‘fishies’ for new adventurers.”
I paused, considering.
If she had a mouth she would be grinning, I just know it. “We can start by making more shroomish, and you can try to evolve them or some of the others into stronger monsters. Next, we will make a few traps, like pitfalls, spike traps, or poison cloud spewers. Finally, we need to make a dungeon Boss.”
“No, actually, when you get bigger, your dungeon Boss might actually become just an average Mob. It is just that you need to put a large amount of your power into your Boss so that it is stronger than the normal ones, because it is going to be in your room to protect you and me. Also, you can’t make a monster of your level or higher. So, since you are an F-rank zero, your best creature can only be of G-rank nine, and you only have the power to control one of them.” Dani clarified.