When it(she?) first joined us, its mind was locked tighter than a vault but as soon as it felt our mana pool it threw the doors wide open to welcome us. Apparently, the dungeon core is a huge mana heart with a crystal wrapped around it as a focus/amplifier and all the dungeon’s abilities are mana based. With the added benefit of a slight boost in its defense, the crystal amplifies both the mana entering the mana heart as well as the mana leaving it. Now that I don’t mind altering the goblin troop, I find that they too have that crystal formation albeit smaller. Adventures call it a mana stone and is very sought-after magic item. The older the dungeon or dungeon monster the more the crystal adapts and grows denser with the mana hearts own growth. Providing a synergy effect that greatly increases the abilities of the monster or dungeon. Upon learning this I upgraded all my selves with this feature. With that alone it increased my total idle mana reservoir by 150% while the change in growth factor has yet to be seen. At this point I can cast low level attack magic permanently due to my mana regain being higher than its cost! Due to the mana nature of a dungeon it’s not wrong to say its mana pool is its lifeforce, so being able to tap my pool is like sweet honey for a dungeon.

The next thing I learned was how to convert that damnable rock! So, the planet itself as well as all-natural geological formations on it has idle mana infused with it to resist or even heal changes done to the terrain. The key is what is known as Mana Waves. When a magic fireball and a magic tsunami are cast at the same time and area the fireball won’t weaken the tsunami but rather the stronger tsunami magic will absorb the magic from the fireball, despite its opposing element, and grow stronger. Granted it only works when both magics don’t fully form yet as well as having some wasted mana that doesn’t get fully caught up. Just like a wave picking up the surrounding water, earth, and debris to cast it on shore, it still leaves some of the water behind. So, if you sweep the earth up in your mana as you push through it, the nearby land will be able to be absorbed. So, the answer again is mana. And the planet self-heals? What’s up with that? You mean in a few days the crater I made in my landing will disappear without anyone doing anything about it? It will even try to take back the absorbed land gradually so you either have to continue expanding in counter or remove the land from its location to let the earth heal the hole instead of taking back the absorbed land. This may be why most old and huge dungeons are tower types rather than underground.

But by far the greatest discovery is that dungeons can create life! Even from nothing but mana if needed though it is cheaper to use absorbed mass and biomass to supplement the creation. Just like water or rocks can be made for attack magic, dungeons make monsters or even inanimate objects like swords. They start with a small database of various items and monsters that they have a blueprint for. Anything beyond that they will have to absorb and study the object or monster in order to reproduce it.

This sounds a lot like a tiny mothership! With an expanding armory as more ships are researched. Now for the standard dungeon it can only create the monster and vaguely guide it to defend or explore or whatever. However, combined with me, every single created monster becomes an additional growing mana pool that we can fully control! It’s an army assembly line waiting to crank out any known unit.

Strangely there are restrictions such as it can’t produce highly intelligent races or artifacts above a certain grade. According to the dungeon (it really needs a name) the reason it has all goblins is due to them being the most cost-efficient creatures. Small intelligence and weak attack but cheap and easy to command. The goblinas are apparently from a rare creation of a goblin and somehow superior to their male counterparts in every way. Strange I've never heard of a race that one gender is far superior to the other or else the race would die out due to one gender being extinct. And what’s with one female being made for every ~10 males? With the dungeon’s own mana, it could only produce 10 goblins a day, so these female goblins are like winning the lottery. And the mage is apparently the rare of the rare since only one goblin it has made to date could use magic.

As I browsed the monster list the first to catch my eye is a weak slime type called a mimic. It can fully take the form of anything it has observed yet it has no eyes. Its only forms of attack while in slime form are engulf then drown/restrain or a jumping attack that leaves much to be desired. But what attracted me is the fact it was so expensive, worth about 3 goblins or 30 low level attack magics and that It could change its body into anything to lure prey. It even kept the properties of the object such being hard, sharp, or flexible. And best of all it had near invincibility so long as the core isn’t harmed. So, tapping my mana I summoned one hoping it could replace the now tattered clothes and leather armor that Chia was wearing.

I watched as a light blue light gathered to form a ball of clear hazy gelatin the size of a Hiigaran beach ball with a magic stone the size of a pebble in the middle. Taking it over was surprisingly difficult as my weak contagion parasites were being digested before it reached the core. So, I added a slight armor layer on the exterior of the parasite only to find its mana pool try to resist me. Not that it really could resist me, but it was an annoying gesture of defiance despite the dungeon trying to order it to submit. That denotes intelligence despite the lack of brain. Interesting. Once the takeover was complete, I found more abilities than I bargained for. It seems it used tiny amounts of mana to alter the color while also using the same spell to harden or otherwise modify the gel body. However due to the miniscule amounts of mana used it was nearly undetectable. This will greatly enhance my disguise and defensive abilities! And as the second living being that had little more than a mana heart yet intelligent it makes me wonder what purpose the brain actually serves on this planet. I've also become able to shapeshift my selves marginally. Perhaps with more research I will be able to fully alter my forms as needed.

I have finished researching about resisting lightning so that at the very least it will never stop my biological functions again. With that improvement on my selves I feel far more comfortable should a storm come by again, so I shall start researching on that next. As limited as it was, I was able to add two small horns on Chia’s head and another on her tailbone for focuses of my other project. The collar me had grown enough that I took the shape of a thin helm with holes for the horns that seem like they are a part of the helm instead. This almost complete her demon look but what’s important it these horns are able it fire a weak particle beam at short range. It looks like a red lightning spell, but it carries contagion to the target.

Next I looked at the strange ‘rules’ that a dungeon must follow. First the steps between levels are required. Then the passages MUST be large enough for any of your current monsters to navigate easily and have no blockages from entrance to the core room. And finally, the dungeon master, if there is one, cannot fight anything within the dungeon…. HUH?? What do you mean the master of a location can’t fight within it? It seems that now that the dungeon recognizes me as its master, and Chia as me, that Chia is physically now incapable of causing harm within the walls of the dungeon…. What kinda stupid rule is this? So, I get to stand there and smile while someone breaks my dungeon core? No matter how much and hard I swung my sword at a goblin I felt no more pain as the goblin than if someone was tapping me with a blade of grass. I can however use contagion and block the path. But that’s it. If that’s the case this dungeon needs a major revamp of defenses!

I shrunk the halls of the maze to the exact height and width needed for goblins while replacing the tiny pitfalls with hidden mimic slimes while adding a tucked away hole to place its core safely. Then I added the same on the ceiling so that as someone walks through while crouched down and fighting the goblins the slimes will ambush from above. I let normal goblins guard the entrance while ones with my bio-armor were placed in hideaways to strike when the opponent is busy and overconfident. Hopefully any parts just think they are rare monsters since they are black instead of green. Next, I made several ‘safe’ rooms with lovely water fountains filled with contagion parasites mimicking mana parasites. Then I used my vast mana pool to make proper weapons for every goblin. They either had spears, dual short swords, short spears and a large shield, or bows and arrows. Then I made a goblin sized generator behind a wall in the boss room that sent the resulting electricity into the entire boss room. While the goblinas are now immune to such lower voltage shocks I imagine it would be very unpleasant for any parts to fight in. and since I was on a roll I added stalactites to the ceiling with hyper conductive cores inside so that any tall person becomes a tree in a thunderstorm. Then I made the door to the core room resistor that would always be so hot it would glow orange from the current flowing through it when the charge is on. So even if they can deal with the clearly hot door handle, they will find a nice electric jolt added to the mix.

I looked over my changes feeling quite proud of myself now I just need to come up with a name for the dungeon. I started thinking what a good name would be until I felt an emergency call from one of my rabbit selves. A hunter had decided it was a good target to hunt…. Then his arrow bounced off the rabbit…. Well crap, how do I salvage this? I had been so happy with my expansion I forgot there was bound to be a frontier fort or town close enough for Chia to resupply at somewhere close by. There’s no way someone would be more than a few days travel from a safe haven normally.