"So, mind telling me a little about what I'm supposed to do?" asked the floating crystal.

"Your purpose, as I understand it, is to offer resources' and challenge to the sentient races," answered Starlid

"Why?" the floating crystal questioned.

The elemental tapped his chin. "I suppose it reduces the strain on the world. With dungeons that can make resources out of mana and vitae, the strain on the world's resources is lessened. With challenges given to the sentients, they have less reason to fight amongst themselves. Although that doesn't really change much, they still fight all the time." The elemental mumbled under his breath. "Dungeons also enrich the mana in the world. As a consequence, it offers a place for sentients to better themselves, allowing them to fight the many monsters that live in this world with greater success."

"Really? Then why do we kill them?"

"You take their lives, and in exchange, you give them combat experience, the ability to improve their skills, and a place with high mana concentrations. It doesn't hurt that they can also gather valuable resources and ingredients. I'd say that's fair. You didn't give your services for free when you were a human, did you?"

"No. It just feels strange to be paid in the death of my former peers."

"I suppose that may be strange, but all creatures must do something to survive. Just look at it as if you're a predator. You have to eat to survive, so you eat those that come into your territory. Does that help?"

"…no, I don't like the idea of eating people. That makes it worse, actually. But I understand your point; we do what we must to survive. That's the way of the world. After all, they aren't forced to enter my dungeon. It's their choice."

"Exactly. Oh, I nearly forgot, I've told you my name, what's yours?" the elemental said with a tinge of excitement in its voice.

"Ah, yes, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Corvis Mortus, of the Mortus family. Well, I was from the Mortus family anyways. Now that introductions are over and I know my purpose, do you mind telling me how to get started? A beginners guide? A rundown of what we need to do first?"

"Naturally," answered the star-filled figure, "The first thing you need to do is learn to absorb. As you can see, we are in a hollowed chamber underground. Your body did this a long time ago naturally, but you'll need to tunnel out. To do that, you must spread your mana, or influence, through this room and into the walls. This will let you eat away at the walls and head toward the surface. You can also saturate materials with your mana, transforming and strengthening them, but that's for later. After you learn to absorb, you can learn to create. Generally, you could recreate things you have absorbed fairly easily, but you'll probably have a difficult time. You'll have to learn from scratch how to shape mana into your chosen objects. Creatures come next. You need to learn how to create creatures to protect yourself and kill adventurers. Those are the basics. If you need information on specifics, don't be afraid to ask. We're partners, after all." finished the elemental casually.

Hmm, though, Corvis. "Oh wait, I forgot to ask: What is the green energy inside my body?" He asked before quickly adding, "Also, what if I run out of mana?"

"Ah, yes. The green energy is Vitae. It's a power similar to mana, and it's basically life force. For example, warriors who become more resilient and powerful use vitae. It's not a conscious effort, mind you, but it slowly builds their bodies into more than what is possible without. It is present in all things, so you'll need to learn to manipulate it in order to create creatures. And to answer your second question, you absorb some from the air around you and generate your own. That's the slow but steady way. You also gain mana and vitae when things die in your dungeon or when one of your creatures capable of leaving the dungeon kills something. You gain no vitae and less mana depending on the distance."

"Good to know. How do I make monsters that can leave the dungeon?"

"You need to make them capable of eating food to sustain themselves as well as being able to handle a less mana-rich environment. Normal monsters rely solely on absorbing the concentrated mana in your dungeon."

"Thank you. Now, give me a minute to try and absorb some things, as you said."

"Before you do that, I have a question for you. You seem rather calm for someone who died and became something else. Why is that?"

"Well, I was prepared to come back as something other than human, though I tried to make the spell bring me back as one. I was an old man. I only had a few years left. That's why I made that spell. But more than that, I had what felt like an eternity to dwell on the fact that I was no longer human. After all, I didn't expect to wake up and find myself human. At least, not for long."

After their short conversation, Corvis started to expand his influence until it hit a wall. After that, he slowly pushed it into the stone wall about three feet in. Preparing himself, he slowly let his mana seep from his crystal and moved it through his influence until it hit a small section of the stone wall. Instead of engulfing and devouring the stone, it seeped into the rock, like water into a sponge. As the stone drank away his mana, it began to darken. Small spots on it brightened like stars in the sky.

"Oh, great, you know how to change substances with your mana. If I'm correct, if you keep going, you'll make a starstone. If you find a crystal, you may even be able to make Nightstar crystals. "

After listening to the elementals lecture, he set back to it. His next attempt was to smash the mana against the rock with as much force as possible. As the mana slammed into the rock, a massive sound wrung out in the small cave as stone burst from the wall, showering the room. Damn, what do I need to do? Trying again, this time, he slowly chipped away at the wall with small spikes of condensed mana. Little bits of stone slowly fell to the floor. He quickly reached the end of his influence. He looked at the small pebbles on the ground. As he examined them, something came to mind. He started to try and break it down as acids do. Nothing appeared to happen until slowly, the stone began to disappear. As the stone disappeared, he felt mana enter him, this taking a different form, feeling like touching a rough rock. Feeling something strange enter him, he looked into himself and saw his spell matrix expanding.

A large branch came off the end of one part of the matrix and quickly expanded to the edge of his crystal, filling the empty space. A tiny twig came off of this main branch. When he "read" the information on it, it was the information on the stone he had absorbed. As he put in a conscious effort, the relative information quickly entered his mind. As the information flooded into Corvis's mind, it converted into the format that could be seen in a bestiary or alchemical journal. Each page had a header with a prominent name over a short description of the absorbed substance. Strangely enough, the info seemed to be in his handwriting.

Effectively, he had an empty tome, ready to be filled with information on the things he absorbed residing in his spell matrix. "Starlid, what is this? My spell matrix expanded with a large branch and two small ones. The small ones, when I focus on them, look like some old tome with pages that have short descriptions of the materials I absorbed."

"You mind letting me see?" the small elemental moved forward and peered into his surface.

"No. It's fine by me." responded the crystal. Corvis suddenly felt something examining his insides. It felt strange, to be sure, but eventually, the feeling dissipated, and the elemental pulled back.

"It seems that since you didn't have the absorbing ability and codex in your spell matrix when you did the action, the matrix repaired itself. While you knew the function, the part that would allow you to complete the function, absorbing and store the information, wasn't in your matrix. Therefore your matrix repaired itself upon the action being performed. As for the book you described, I didn't see it. Information just popped into my head. Which means it likely happened so that you could, I don't know, read over it instead of just having the knowledge? Perhaps a way to lessen the strain on your human mind instead of having all the information crammed inside? Or maybe it's your human desire for order? I'm not sure, but it's only from your perspective that it's happening. As I said, the information simply goes into my mind."

Corvis, armed with this information, began to think. "You mentioned star stone. What is that?"

"Starstone is a stone that has absorbed an influx of star mana. The process can happen to almost any stone, with any type of mana. However, this " The elemental motioned to the wall "is the ideal stone to change into Starstone as it originated from a star mana rich environment, that being outside of your planet. In your words, the sky."

"Interesting… Is it useful?"

"It doesn't have many uses other than storing tiny amounts of star mana and giving off minuscule amounts of light. Unless an area is filled with star stone, It won't be enough to make a difference. The mana also strengthens the stone, making it more resilient."

Looking at the darkened stone, Corvis began to fill it with more mana. Quickly, the stone became a dark grey, the lights on the stone brightening. Other than the pinpricks of light, the stone produced a negligible amount of light, not enough to light more than a few centimeters from the rock.

The floating crystal then proceeded to absorb the rock, this time going relatively smoothly.

Reading through his latest entry, Corvis had some ideas for this stone.

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After several hours of nothing but eating away at the stone, he had expanded his space to a circular room with a diameter of about 20 feet. With a relieved sigh, he decided to take a break. Taking a mental break, he decided to simply float there in silence. He pondered his situation, how he had died and been brought back as a dungeon core. He had many regrets, but many opportunities had opened up to him. Even after living a long life of hard work, constant study, and continuous research, his accomplishments were minimal. His ability to use biomancy was limited, even if his knowledge was excellent. Corvis also realized that this was a great opportunity. He could create creatures from mana and vitae, meaning he would be doing something very similar to biomancy. This was his chance to advance himself even further beyond what was possible when he was a mere man. He could fulfill the dreams that he reached for since his childhood.

His mind swirled with possibility, only to darken as his thoughts went to his apprentice. The young man had talent far more extraordinary than some of the best Biomancers of his time, much less Corvis himself. A feeling of regret welled inside. He would miss the young man, and he was sad he couldn't see him succeed. He just hoped that he would blossom like Corvis knew he would.

Perhaps someday they would meet again, but he had much to learn and even more work for now. Composing himself, he set to eating a hole out into the outside world.