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

“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 already had the basic shape I wanted in mind, but sooner than I wanted, the air had become less dense. The concentrated Essence in the room had decreased through this forced osmosis, until I had to push very hard to continue to move it forward. Finally, the Essence had reached an equilibrium that I could not continue bringing pressure to bear upon. Nearly drained, I stopped, and began to sip on the power released by my lush garden. Since I had created them, even the shroomish gladly put forth their energy for me to use. Feeling myself stabilize a bit more, I looked at the patch on the wall that glowed to my senses.

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. Although 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.”

I wanted to fly. That sounded amazing.

“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.”

I started to get a bit heated. Was I just a way to divert attention? I don’t want to be used like that!

“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.