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

Father Richard looked at Hans furiously, then Dale, and admitted. “Well, the church was a bit… bigger than I had planned at first.”

“How much bigger?” Dale questioned him, features hardening.

“It’s only… three lots.” Richard mumbled.

Dale looked at him oddly, the way he said those words was so quiet yet perfectly clear. “Three lots?” Dale barked incredulously. “What the heck?! I didn’t approve that!”

Father Richard rubbed his forehead. “We couldn’t dig. That was the issue. Everything had to be on one level, because if we went down, we would affect the dungeon. So the place became more… ranch style than monastery style.”

He turned his head to Dale, “I’m sorry we didn’t ask first, but we will happily pay the difference in price that those lots would cover.”

Dale was undecided on his feelings in this matter, but concluded that being angry at the man who was about to alter his innards was not a good plan. “It’s fine, Father. Please just ask permission next time, there are a lot of people that want to live here.”

“Thank you, and sorry again. Maybe you would like to have one of the rooms for a while? I have no acolytes here yet, and I’m sure a bed would be preferable to the cot you have been sleeping on.”

“Throw in a room for each of my team, then we’ll call it good.” Dale grunted after catching Hans’ pleading look. Sometimes it was easy to forget Hans was in his sixties, the cot would have been murder on his back without the reinforcement that cultivating provided.

“Done!” Richard beamed, “At least until I have students who need them.”

Dale nodded, “That’s fair, they are who the rooms were intended for anyway. Where are we going?”

As they continued at a brisk pace through the winding corridor, Father Richard told them, “The practice room. It was made especially thick and enchanted to hold in spells and block outside influences. It blocks sound and holds in heat to a set temperature. Also, it has a very strong lock. We won’t be disturbed there, which is of the utmost importance. Once this process starts, if we end early you may die.”

“This is sounding more and more fun.” Dale deadpanned.

The three men arrived at a glowing stone door. “Here we go,” beamed Father Richard, “After you!” He swept the door open, showing a circular room roughly twenty feet in diameter.

They all walked to the center, where Father Richard and Dale sat while Hans flopped onto the ground in a prone position.

“Are you ready to begin?” Father Richard intoned in a ritualistic manner.

Dale nodded, too nervous to respond.

“Good. Now, go into your center. Sink into it as deeply as possible.” Father Richard commanded, waiting as Dale followed the order. “Excellent. Now this is going to be hard to do, I want you to listen to my voice, very carefully following all of my directions. Take my hands. Now, feel the meridians along your hands, and extend your Essence outward, allowing it to flow into me.”

“This will feel like you are giving up Essence. You are. This will allow me access to your center, following through to your own source of power. If I were an unscrupulous person, I would be able to take your entire cultivation base and keep it as my own.” Father Richard told him, making Dale rather nervous.

Dale followed the command; with a feeling like an artery being severed, Essence began to pour out of him like blood from a mortal wound. In seconds, He had been reduced a rank, dropping to F-rank five - which terrified him.

Father Richard’s calm voice sounded, “Prepare your mind Dale, I am going to speak a True Name, the name that allowed me to gain my status as a Mage. Linked as we are, you will understand it, if your mind is weak, or unprepared, it may break you.”

He leaned toward Dale, and spoke a word. Hans heard it as sonder , while Dale’s eyes went wide, then blank. Blood began to erupt from the ear that had been spoken into, though the flow quickly stopped. Dale’s mouth worked, but no sound came out and goosebumps rippled across his skin.

In Dale’s mind, the effect was far more intense. He was suddenly able to understand a basic truth of life that he had never really considered before, he found that each person was unique. Every being in existence was living a life as vivid and complex as his own in its own way. They had their own ambitions, friends, enemies, hopes and dreams. The life of each individual was an amazing, epic storyline that continues – grandly and invisibly - to interact with everything else that lives.

There were tens of millions of these interactions that shaped the universe, millions of lives that he had never before considered, which suddenly sang to him, bombarding him with information and ideas that threatened to strip his individuality. One voice stood out among the rest, guiding him to return to his own mind, filling him with power and control.

“There we go, Dale. Good lad. Welcome back, now.” Father Richard was saying. “Good, now you have access to my Mana, yet I can still shape your center. Focus inward, watch what I am doing.”

Dale still stunned by the outpouring of others, found it hard to focus on himself. He finally managed, and watched incredulously as his Chi spiral become more dense, brighter; without his input. It was a mesmerizing effect, well and truly hypnotic. The Essence he contained was exceedingly pure; the Essence pouring into him from Father Richard matched his exactly.

“This may hurt, Dale.” Father Richard murmured. “Shattering your Chi and Essence spiral is a process that takes between days and weeks naturally. I can easily handle the amount of Essence you have, so I am going to do it all at once. Look closely. You are now at the peak of the F-series; this is currently what your Chi spiral looks like. Your center is full of energy, which is too dense for you to really contain anymore.”

“This,” Father Richard was now straining, sweating profusely, “is D-series zero, where your spiral becomes…. a... fractal .” He pushed with his mind, forcing Dale’s Essence to shatter into billions of shards. Father Richard had certainly been correct earlier; Dale vomited, directly onto Father Richard’s body and face.

Father Richard tried not to gag as he continued his work, “Please turn your head to the side if that happens again.” He managed to say through gritted teeth.

Dale nodded and blushed, returning his attention to his center. He was weaker at this moment than he had ever been in his life; only the energy moving through him kept him upright, his muscles locked in place as though lightning had struck him.

Father Richard kept muttering, directing Dale’s energy as he wanted. He smoothed the shards into place, a nucleus of power forming in the direct center. That nucleus formed into an infinitesimally small spiral, directing the resulting power throughout Dale’s body into his life-force. Other spirals began to form, draining their Essence downward to be further refined by the next spiral in the series. The process continued for an immeasurable time, for them anyway, as they watched the progression as closely as possible.

As the danger of dying from lack of Essence began to wane, the process picked up speed. The spirals grew, moving further and further away from the origin, soon straining the boundary of his center. Father Richard gleefully exhaled as he released a final burst of Essence, affixing an enchantment he had prepared to the terminus of the spiral. This enchantment would keep Dale’s Essence in this fractal formation until Dale was able to hold the pattern for himself.