Dakota Krout - Dungeon Born (The Divine Dungeon Book 1)

This was very unlike her, she usually was encouraging more fighting, and got after me sometimes when I didn’t take an opportunity to finish off an opponent.

It turned out that she had a very good reason though. “People may get, hmm, upset? When they are unable to find monsters to kill and loot, that is. Since your attention will be focused inward, Mobs won’t respawn if killed. Adventurers may look for... other ways... to get money, or find a new source of energy to cultivate from.”

Waiting for evening was torture when I was this excited, but I was able to gain more energy from cultivators by pulling refined Chi from them, as well as when a lucky shot from a thorn staggered a man and a Basher crushed his skull. When the sun disappeared behind the mountain range, a soft grinding of stone could be heard if one were close and paying attention.

Before attempting my breakthrough, I etched in the enchantment for protection and durability I had gained from a shield after a lucky kill some time ago. At the activation portion of the Rune, where I would normally deposit Essence into, instead I placed the corrupted Core, which was full of earth, and created a shunt that sent its energy into the Rune. The energy oozed into the pattern, slowly filling it to completion, until with a dull flash and an awkward flatulence-esk noise, it successfully activated the Rune!

I loved being the first to discover something, it made me feel smart and pretty.

“Great! Hopefully, it’ll hold until you are ready for people to come back in.” She congratulated me while reminding me that the clock was ticking.

Door now in place, I got down to the serious business of breaking into the D rank. I tried starting the process where the Essence was churning on the outer rim of my gem, but it interrupted the flow of Essence entering from outside. If I tried at the end, where it was being pulled and processed by the Chi spiral, it blocked the flow.

I broke through my pride and finally asked for assistance.

Obviously, she had been waiting for me to ask. “You need to find the smallest part, which doesn’t affect the rest, and begin there. It should pull Essence from the rest of the Chi spiral as a thread that is the same comparative size as the thread coming from the Essence into the Chi spiral.”

Mentally moving deeper into my Chi spiral, I reached the exact center where the Essence was no longer processing, only spinning. Holding that miniscule amount of energy with my mind, more of an idea than an energy source, I began rotating it the reverse of the remainder of the accumulated Chi. My mind almost broke in pain as my very being was twisted counter to the rest of my soul. Somehow, I was able to stabilize the first position in its new rotation before forcing myself to continue. I should note, all the Chi I contained was a single thread from the center to the outer edge, if I stopped working, I would need to begin again with this first bit. Spinning it in the opposite direction did not break this thread, but instead stretched it further, making it even thinner and well refined.

From that point in time, I needed to do two sequential areas along the thread simultaneously. Obviously harder and more painful than just one point, it was required in order for the energy flow to properly continue. This continued, one spot along the thread, then two. One, then two. Each distinct position along the line was slightly larger than the one previous, and I needed to take frequent breaks to ensure all the preceding spirals were turning at the same rate. I have no idea how a flesh and blood body would be able to survive this process, I was in intense pain and my body did not actually have nerves. Maybe pain of the soul was the same no matter what type of being you were?

In a constant state of breaking down the Essence, I held each pattern time and again until I was certain I would be able to do so naturally with minimal concentration before I moved to the next. Eventually, I came to the end of the Chi. I was very excited at the prospect of completion until Dani sent me a sleepy reminder that I would need to do this with my Essence spiral as well, the outer edge that stored and drew in loose Essence.

Forcing the changes onto the swirl was easier now that I had figured out how to properly mold it, requiring less concentration to achieve the result I wanted. Still focusing intently on not making mistakes, I reached out, and along the spinning Essence I made tiny vortexes that hungrily pulled power from the one previous; until finally I came to the start of the spiral. The start of the spiral pulled loose Essence from the world around me. Luckily for my sanity, the pain of this process was far less than working on the Chi spiral had been, being so far from the center of my soul.

Until I was able to subconsciously hold this pattern at all times, allowing it to become a natural process for me, I would need to manually spin every single vortex, at the same rate, along the whole thread. Holding the pattern in shape was using an exorbitant amount of Essence, allowing me to see why this particular breakthrough was so difficult. When I asked Dani how I was doing time-wise, she let me know that I had been focusing for four days, still faster than she expected.

I complained, projecting an image of a brain turning into ooze.

“You don’t have a brain.” She reminded me somewhat insensitively.

I quickly scanned my area to see if there were any obvious problems.

“Good, people tried breaking in a few times, but I think they are now just waiting.” She seemed smug about our door being un-breachable.

I checked my Essence levels, which, though depleted, I found that I still had plenty to work with.

“Excellent! By the way, congratulations on your new D-ranking!” She cheered me enthusiastically.

If I could blush…

“Pretty much. D-rank six and above require greater knowledge, but I think at this rate you will get there soon.” Dani glowed warmly, showing her approval.

Reaching out to the Essence contained in the Cores around me, I slowly and carefully pulled it in, rejoicing at the greater amount of Essence that I was able to take into myself. Still being careful as I did not want to disrupt the new energy pattern I had spent days creating, I collected every single drop of Essence they contained. One by one the dancing lights in them went dark, their accumulated Essence flowing into me. I quickly felt bloated, each of the Cores had held nearly half the amount of energy I had been able to contain while I was in the F-ranks.

When they were empty, I still had not increased in rank, but was now energized enough to move a large portion of the area I held influence over. Daily, I had slowly extended downward, but had never taken the time needed to move the stone in the area, simply extending myself. The area I could now open up would – slightly – more than double my size horizontally, and allow me to have another entire floor added vertically.

Now ready to begin, I followed Dani’s instructions and began ‘correctly’ moving the stone while absorbing the vibrations, so as to not cause deadly destruction I would not be able to capitalize on. Luckily the process was not quite as slow as I had originally worried about, creating a buffer zone was simply a matter of willpower, so within a day or two I was able to add three more rooms on the first floor, and a total of eight on the new second floor.

I increased the amount of tunnels as well, obviously the old layout was not working at the best efficiency for slowing adventurers. Instead of just one tunnel connecting all the rooms, I now had many tunnels that connected to either each other, nothing but traps, or a room that didn’t allow for access deeper into the dungeon. You would never know if a room connected without first exploring it, because each of the tunnels connected at opposite ends of the room, having a sharp turn that you could not see around. Some of those turns did indeed allow people to venture deeper in, but the majority were eventually dead ends.