001 Day 1
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Day 1

The first thing I saw after waking up was a strange blue panel with the simple text "Day 1" floating in front of me. Am I still dreaming? It doesn't feel like those dreams where I'm half awake... In the next moment, the panel faded as if it had never been there. And the room was in total darkness again. So I decided to check my smartphone for the time. Only to find that I can't move and that there is no smartphone. What the fuck?

Okay, you got this. Let's think about it. What was the last thing I did? Right, I went to bed late after reading web novels for too long again. And today was supposed to be Saturday. But it's way too dark. Even if it's winter, it shouldn't be that dark in my bedroom, and why can't I move at all? Wait a minute, that blue panel, don't tell me...

All this is absurd. But maybe a dream came true. I mean, nothing makes sense here anyway. Status! Having said this, or rather thinking it. It seems that I cannot speak. Instead, a new blue panel appears before me.

After a long moment of silence, I begin to check my status. It seems that I am now a [Dungeon Core], and I will not lie. That's awesome! Okay, health and shield are displayed in percent, which makes sense if it's not a game but a "realistic" world with a system. Mana is well, mana, and I guess biomass is a kind of relevant resource. The physical attributes are all zero because I'm a [Dungeon Core]; that's to be expected. If I assume the average is 10, would that mean that I'm somewhat knowledgeable? YAY!. Is it affected by my otherworldly knowledge? Well, at least my degree in mechatronics could be recognised.

Status
Name: None Race: Dungeon Core    
Health: 100% Shield: 100% Mana: 200/200 Biomass: 0
Strength: 0 Constitution: 0 Agility: 0 Dexterity: 0
Courage: 0 Wisdom: 14 Intuition: 8 Charisma: 0

Let me see what else I can do. Talents! Nope. Skills! Here we go.

Skills
Glow: 1 Claim Territory: 1 Mould: 1 Breed Monster: 1
Sense Mana: 1 Infuse Mana: 1    

[Glow]? What kind of skill is that? Maybe I can see something when I use this. Otherwise, it'll be hard to do anything else while it's so dark in here. Here goes nothing, [Glow]! Once I activate this skill, I can see a large blue crystal in the middle of a room standing on a podium, which started glowing in a soft blue. Okay, my vision feels a little strange. It's like I'm playing an RTS game with a VR headset. That means I can see the whole room from above. The rest of the room is nothing special, a dull square of about 5x5m. But after I activate [Glow], I feel that something is coming from this crystal, or should I say coming from me? I guess it's because of my [Sense Mana] ability, and that means I'll probably be able to tell if someone nearby is using magic, let's hope it happens in the distant future.

First things first: Since I am a Dungeon Core, I have to protect myself properly from harm. Let's see if I can add anything to defend myself. [Breeding Monster]! A new blue plaque appears with a rather disappointing message. "No blueprints found, unable to breed." This is bad. Whoever heard of a dungeon without a monster? And if someone finds me, it's probably going to be pretty dangerous.

Well, no monsters for me. So what else can a dungeon do to defend itself? Right, traps! But how do I build traps? According to my skill list, I have a skill called [Mould]. Maybe I can use this skill to remodel the environment? There's a single corridor leading out of my core room, maybe two meters wide. Let's focus. I want to start with a simple pit that's about 2 meters deep and long, to begin with.

As soon as I start to concentrate, the ground begins to sink slowly deeper and deeper in the designated area. At the same time, I feel my mana declining. It took me quite some time to create this simple pit, and according to my status I spent 40 mana on it, which means it takes 5 mana to remove one cubic meter of stone, good to know, I hope it doesn't take too much time to recharge it. As I spent 20 percent of my total mana on this simple pit.

Also, I will not be able to surprise anyone with a sudden change, as the necessary time is needed for this. Next, I will have to turn this simple hole into a deadly trap. I will use [Mould] to create sharp stone spikes in a nice grid on the ground. And anyone who falls into this pit will be impaled by these spikes. Next, I have to cover them. Otherwise, no one with eyes will fall into my trap. For this, I use a thin layer of, who would have thought it, stone! On it. The cover has no gap, so it should be hard to see, and the layer is a simple thin stone plate. That can' t even carry a child, that should do it.

"New Skill acquired! [Trap Creation] 1 added to the skill list. New Blueprints acquired! Pit, Pitfall, Covered Pit, Covered Pitfall added to [Trap Creation]." NICE, so it should be easy for me to add more traps in my corridors in the future. Now that I have a primary line of defence, it should be time to find out more about where I am. As everything around me is made of stone, is it probably inside a mountain? Maybe in a cave system? Since I can't see outside of my territory, I'll have to expand it.

This may sound simple, but the time it takes is no joke. It probably has something to do with the low skill rank, well, it's not that I have anything better to do, and it seems I can't get tired. But it's still a pretty monotonous task. However, after a few meters, I realised a new old problem. It is dark again.

Okay, there's got to be a simple solution to this problem. I mean, I'm a giant glowing crystal that can perform magic. Obviously, I'm capable of solving this. After looking around a little in my core room, I found a lovely pebble to experiment with. So I concentrate my magic and try to combine [Infuse Mana] with [Glow] on something other than myself. I can feel my mana slowly decreasing, but nothing seems to be happening. After a while. It feels like hours. My pebble gives off a faint glow, and I get a reward in the form of a new blue panel.

"New Skill acquired! [Interior Design] 1 added to the skill list. New Blueprint acquired! Stone of Light added to [Interior Design]."

There we go! Now I just need to use some of these Stones of Light to illuminate my corridor.

 

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