“Now, where do I start?” Hank said to himself as he sat there on his stone pedestal in deep contemplation while examining the cavernous space that extended sinuously out before him again. 

Now that he has absorbed all the crystals within the underground cave and saved the others within his inventory, the already dimly cave has become even darker. 

Nonetheless, that didn't bother Hank in the slightest nor impeded his sight. It was all the same to him whether it was dark or bright. 

Back to the topic at hand, Hank had already made up his mind about the layout of the first floor of his dungeon. He already had the big picture in mind.

For the first floor, he intended to create a giant and complex maze before his dungeon door was opened to the world. It wasn't something he had decided on a whim but after some long and hard critical thinking. 

Truth be told, he hated maze with a passion as he didn't have a good sense of orientation. He didn't like anything that had to do with mazes or labyrinths.

He knew how frustrating and mentally drained trying to clear or being trapped inside a maze could be which was why he intended to create one as his first layer of protection. 

He didn't know what kinda people and creatures inhabited this world or how powerful they were. As such, he needed to be very careful and prepared. 

He believed that creating a giant complex maze filled with traps and monsters was the best way to protect his core while gathering information about the kinda people he was dealing with. 

Even though he wasn't a dungeon fanatic like his friend back on Earth, he knew of one fundamental truth about dungeons. 

At their core, dungeons were mazes. Twisty passages lead to dead ends or loop back on themselves. The way to a dungeon's center was never a straightforward path. 

The mazes have always been there, whether one noticed them or not. Hence, technically, he wasn't going to do something new or crazy. He was just going to modernize it and made it a little more complicated, but not too deadly. 

He didn't plan on creating a maze of death. He still needed the adventures to venture into his dungeon to collect mana from them if he wanted to continue growing stronger. 

This was kinda silly, the relationship between dungeons and invaders or adventurers. The dungeon kind of needed the invaders to show up and ventured into its dungeon even though it doesn't want them.

Just like mazes were confusing and hard to navigate, they were also notoriously difficult to make. However, Hank was very confident in himself. 

He believed that he could create a maze powerful and complicated enough to give the inhabitants of this world a run for their money.

“Why don't I start by cleaning the cave first by getting rid of those stalagmites and stalactites that littered the cave,” Hank said to himself.

These stalagmites and stalactites were his first obstacles in creating his ideal maze. As such, they had to go. 

Having made his decision, Hank imbued his consciousness with mana and spread it throughout the whole cave within his influence. He seeped his consciousness into the walls and grounds of the underground cave.

As soon as he did that, he felt the mana in the walls and ground shift slightly, and suddenly he wasn't just a shiny gemstone lying on a stone pedestal. 

He was the sand, the ground, and also the walls that formed every stratum of the underground cave. 

Hank could feel that his mind and consciousness still resided within the gemstone which was his core, but the rest of the cave was like his body. In a simple term, It was as if the core was his brain the cave was his body.

Time for some testing.

In the next second, Hank willed one of the stalagmites to move, and then it moved. It then willed it to be detached from his body, then it fell to the ground. 

“Interesting.” 

Hank found out that every time, he willed something to happen, the mana that was imbued within his consciousness which covered the entire cave rushed like a stream towards the designated target and made it move. 

However, when he willed one of the stalagmites to be detached from the ceiling, the mana seemed to have transformed into a knife and cleanly cut the designated stalagmite on the ceiling. 

Just like mana absorption, this was another skill that Hank inherently knew how to use which was known as Earth Manipulation. This skill allowed a dungeon core to move, loosen, condense, generate, or even destroy walls and stones within one's area of influence using mana. 

Hank wasn't too surprised about possessing such a skill, he had assumed he would get a skill like this at some point. Dungeons were generally depicted as large labyrinths in the earth, they had to make tunnels and such somehow. 

At first, he was a little worried that he would only be able to clean the stalagmites and stalactites and even expand his domain by buying monsters and tools to dig and clean the cave, but now it seemed like his worries were groundless. 

He was very glad to see he had an inherent ability that could help him take care of these things by himself without the need to spend his mana buying monsters and tools. With his slow recovering rate, he didn't want to waste his mana that easily. 

Even though he still used mana to activate the Earth Manipulation skill to make these things happen, he could still get his mana back by absorbing them back into his core. 

In contrast, if he were to buy monsters and tools from the system shop, he could only kiss this mana goodbye. There was no way to get them back from the system. 

“Alright, time to get back to work. I need to make this cave spotless as soon as possible.” Said Hank enthusiastically. From his tone, one could tell that he was having fun.