Dungeon Core Chat Room.

Dungeons have Specializations and alignments similar to most creatures however they do not seem as locked in by race as others. All other races appear to have elements they are good at- Dwarves: Earth and fire, Elves: Nature, Nyads: water and mind, Humans...humans have none but you get the idea. Each Dungeon has elements they prefer and self consistently favour however when changing Dungeon to Dungeon those preferred elements change. It is theorized that each core is a different species and only loosely resembles each other. All we can prove is that older cores with more levels and wisdom add increasingly more complex elements and there has been at least one documented case of a dungeon that primarily used fire monsters switching completely to Void and ice flavoured monsters even on its easiest floor.

-An Excerpt from “A study of dungeons VOLUME 3”

Giving up on trying to find an explanation for "size" and "exp", Indecisive Earth tried to make a fire slime in his new experimental hall. Following all the steps perfectly he noticed it used slightly less mana than when he was level 1. Watching his experience bar carefully... nothing happened. Leaving the slime to roam around he made a second water slime. This too didn’t change his experience, but he waited and watched the two slimes naturally cross paths in case something else did. In the tiny area, they were bound to meet quickly and as soon as they did, they burst into a fit of cartoonishly enraged violence. "How dare you be so wet...you cur" "Ahh my mortal foe I'm going to make you wish you never crossed my path" "ack" "ouchie" "bonk" "Blub my light...it...fades." Indecisive Earth laughed narrating their struggles.

This time rather than mutual destruction the water slime managed to pull itself together after smothering the flames, though its body had heated up quite a bit in response. Sighing as the spark returned, he reviewed the process. No experience was gained from either monster when they were created or destroyed, nor when they fought.

Okay, So. I've definitely gained experience from monsters somehow but I'm not sure exactly how right now. I'll put it on the backburner. Next experiment!

Thinking back to all the mana materials he had made so far, he tried combining all 4 elements one by one with Iron from his inventory. Letting them form small cylinders while pushing mana into them, he made sure to check every single combination. Air gave the metal a rough form. Taking to it much easier than the Silicon had, it still made a weird, unnatural-looking material.

"Sponge-like", this material had pockets of air of various sizes that broke through the metal and the whole material ended up much lighter than it should have been.

When dropping it to the cave floor it made a gush of dust fly away from the point it had fallen. And sure enough, his experience ticked up by one. He had used several materials when creating his monsters just now, but nothing had made it go up. Because I’d already made that monster before? Enlightened he tried making a version each for Fire, Water and Earth.

Fire made the metal glow slightly and give off heat while dropping it had made a spark and flash of flames appear. Similar to how his fire slime had reacted when it was made but sharper somehow.

Water turned the iron into a viscous liquid and while Earth didn’t make any obvious changes, he could tell it had taken to it – the strongest both with how easy the manipulation had been but also with how quickly it had filled up. There was also the fact that it had given him 2 points of experience while the other versions had given him 1.

Continuing to work, he made a version of each with every single metal he had. Titanium didn’t give experience for the materials he had already tried, and on his last and most scarce metal – Manganese – only earth and water gave experience.

I'm being rewarded for experimentation!

Lining up each material in a matrix he noted that all the versions had similar effects. All 4 Fire metals glowed and gave off heat – although Iron and Titanium were slightly more intense than Manganese and Aluminum.

All 4 Earth ones similarly gave off a sense of being stronger and sturdier although Iron was the most affected.

Air and Water gave opposing results to Fire and Earth - both affecting Iron the least.

Noting down the differences he decided to start storing the changes. Setting up a new tab beside the monster one he started letting it record each material he made. Keeping the strongest and most useful in terms of how accessible it was he spent some time filling it out with the last few nearly filling automatically – the system almost learning what he was doing and adjusting itself to fit the role, needing only a small push from him to start it off.

Turning next to his sole gas – Oxygen – he stopped, and, as if as an afterthought, started trying to add some of the air in his cave to his inventory instead.

Unlike the stone, his mind found it hard to grasp the area. Parts were pulled from varying spots in his focus, and with less of a visual effect, he could feel a bunch of the room enter his inventory. Checking the tab, he saw it fill quickly with Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Argon... along with a nearly non-existent stream of Hydrogen. His Other tab had also gained 0.0001g of Carbon and he could feel there was more in the air that just hadn’t been grabbed. Staring at his new and improved list of gasses he started the process of combining them with each magical element.

Despite Air being the hardest for him to make, it seemed to bind to each one quickly enough – the added difficulty was nearly cancelled out. Each time he infused Air mana with one of the elements, it held together for a moment and then swirled away into nothing, joining the rest of the cave. His experience bar continued ticking up with each combination however, so he kept at it before having an idea.

Taking care to not leave a gap he made small empty pockets in the stone inside his influence and filled each of them with a small infusion of each Air mana+gas combination. In the contained area each pocket filled up quickly and then started to spin in various combinations as the mana tried to escape its captive bubble.

Trying to do the reverse and make a combination of gasses and Earth mana made varied and weird fragile films of clear material. In a way these were harder to make than the Air mana had been – despite Earth being his specialization and he felt they were functionally useless – a feeling that seemed to be shared by the system as none of his combinations gave a single point of experience.

Water and gases each formed easily enough with each forming in a similar way to when he had started the slimes, however as soon as he let go each quickly broke apart without a shell of firmer material to contain it.

His final foray was the “Other” category. Working his way down the list first with Earth, each element reacted slightly differently to his attempt at meshing them with his mana. They all made a solid material but the way they formed, looked and felt was vastly different.

Silicon made a silvery grey block that felt like stone despite being vastly different than the basalt surrounding them. Magnesium crystallized into a randomly faceted ball – while Sodium, Potassium and Calcium made differently patterned "spikey messes" of interlocking wires.

Finally taking the small amount of Carbon he had picked up he pushed as much mana as he could into the speck of the element – he wanted to make it count. A tiny crystal formed in the air and, while nothing seemed to be happening while it sat there, as soon as he dropped it in the center of the room it seemed to explode outwards. Growing taller and taller and digging down into the floor of his room it kept popping out of the stone as if sprouting from the ground or breaking out of the inside of flesh.

After reaching 10x the size it had been in less than a second it started to slow down – continuing to grow and sprout on the ground around it but with less and less force. Staring at his floor in shock he saw the crystals had nearly stopped expanding when they reached the full meter length of his testing cave.

Feeling it out he pushed a spark of life into the center crystal on a whim. The spark stuck easily enough to the original crystal in the center and all the surrounding crystals started shaking slightly, a slight humming filling the air as they made a final burst of expansion before they settled down again.

Waiting to see if there was any other change, he stared...but other than a faint movement or shake the new addition to his dungeon didn't seem to have anything else to show him.

Okayyy...

Starting to add it to his materials tab the whole panel suddenly pulsed and, as if it were clicking into place, all the previous elements were given a new name – his newest addition sliding into place at the bottom and splitting into a separate section being listed as Living Crystal.

His layout was rearranged forcefully with new information being added- new connections forming and a faint weight being put onto his consciousness before it finally stopped. That action alone had given him plenty of experience – enough to push him to a few points till level 3. Looking at his newfound panel he saw it was full of descriptions and sorted. Only a small amount of his information had been lost but much had been gained.

Tier 1 Materials

Name Base Mana Description

Low Mana Iron Metal (Iron) Earth A favorite of crafters. This metal forms naturally deep beneath the earth. Stronger than Steel- but easier to work with whole cities have been built around readily accessible sources of this material

Wispsteel Metal (Aluminum) Air A rare material found only in high concentration areas, this lightweight material has metal's strength while being nearly weightless. The only thing preventing it from being more sought after is how hard it is to work with.

Weapon Core Metal Fire Used in the process of creating advanced weapons, this metallic material is embedded in stronger coatings to create truly powerful weapons.

Liquid Metal Metal Water An oddity. This material is harvested from certain monsters but has not been found as useful in anything other than rare alchemy.

MAT1_021-030 Gas Air *********************************

MAT1_031-040 Gas Water *********************************

MAT1_041-050 Gas Fire *********************************

Ectoplasm Gas Pure Harvested from slimes, this ooze makes for an excellent base in many potions

Fool's Silk Silicon Pure Found in various weak monsters, this weak material makes a fine luxury material due to how smooth it is. However, due to the material also being transparent and pathetically weak, few functional garments are made from it.

MAT1_007 Silicon Earth *********************************

Crunchpop Alkaline/Alkali Metals Earth Named for the sound they make when stepped on in wild areas this is a relatively common but relatively useless oddity.

Tier 2 Materials

Name Base Mana Description

Living Crystal Carbon Crystal A truly magical material which forms the base of many rare and powerful artifacts.

The first thing he noticed was a few of the options had...a slightly different naming scheme and an incomprehensible description. All of them however seemed either hard to spot (the weird not stone) or broke apart if they were not contained (most of the gases).

The second was that the mana used when he made his living crystal was not listed as earth but Crystal. It was also the only Tier 2 material he had made so far.

This panel was only given when I added a Tier 2 material...does that mean I've surpassed my current rank? Checking his advancement conditions, they all remained the same. Either way, I feel like I skipped some steps.

Reading through the descriptions he found them interesting as an oddity in terms of explaining their place in the world but not necessarily useful. None of them explained how they could be used as a material in making monsters and they cluttered up his screen so – focusing – he set them all to only expand on focus.

After the panel had rearranged initially it was back to being customizable, so he finished setting it up in a way that he liked and returned to his new crystals. Trying to pull one into his inventory was met with the same resistance as before. He didn’t seem to be able to store the magical properties, but this time the crystal's mana was absorbed by its siblings and his inventory filled with carbon...quite a bit more carbon, in fact, than he had put into the first crystal.

I was told mana makes matter. I guess they were right...although this is quite a bit more pronounced than anything I've seen so far.

Staring at the remaining crystals curiously he peered deeper and deeper until he was touching the core of what they were. Earth Mana filled each one, but it was altered slightly. Instead of random lines crisscrossing the crystal, there were ordered and repeated perfectly symmetrical lines that formed larger and larger triangles. Each line had also changed colours slightly, a hint of purple tinting their grey.

He carefully observed how they interacted then pulled out and attempted to recreate the effect or flavour of the mana on his own. Pulsing in the air attributeless mana changed to earth in a second. Then a long pause later the haze flipped to purplish-grey and seemed to grow even denser.

Excited by this discovery he tried systematically mixing the new mana with everything he could think of. Pulling off a piece he mixed it with a strip of metal forming, a sharp ordered yet still metallic surface. Trying it with Silicon made a solid sheet of strong and sharp material. Each combination he made populated his material store although all of them ended up as a Tier 1 material and most had a MAT1 designation...he was beginning to think they were named by a dungeon as all the other materials had descriptions relating to sapient creatures on the surface. If they were made by a dungeon, why not give better descriptions?

After exhausting the options, he immediately wanted to try making a monster using his discovery. It was less the crystals themselves and more the novelty of it that made him stop his cataloging. His starting information had given him concepts and he understood what each of the 4 elements were, but anything more than that was a mystery. Just a word in his consciousness with just a vague description. It was the unknown and for the first time since he was born the idea of the unknown filled him with curiosity and excitement.

First, the spark he had given to the living crystal was still in them. They were classed as a monster or something because he couldn't directly edit them anymore (or at least had some sort of life...calling the motionless crystals a monster might be pushing it) but they did not move, and they hadn't appeared in his monsters tab. Maybe they were a plant. All his initial experiments with Earth mana had given poor results and creatures that did not move seemed useless, but something told him he was going about the whole process wrong...

I should be able to make a creature out of nothing but earth I have no clue why I'm having troubles.

Turning to the task at hand he made a long shape and filled it with liquid metal. The mana and material flowing directly out nearly already formed by the time they appeared. Next he tried making several circular rings out of the crystal silicon and let them surround the viscus core. Not satisfied with the result he sewed each ring to the next, with stretchy strands of the "Pure mana + Silicon" material his first slimes were made of.

Letting it go only after granting it life the new creation gave him quite a bit of experience.

10 points just for a single monster, the experience was enough to push him over to Level 3 and a good boost of the way in. 8/52 exp to next level.

As if as a bonus the wriggling creature figured out how to move and when it came upon the water slime he had forgotten in a corner it quickly killed the mob just by attempting to push overtop of it giving him a single point more of experience and letting him learn about the experiences of the water slime.

It was odd. The spark came back as more than he had ever experienced from a monster so far. A life that began in confusion and quickly achieved a level of calm and (perceived) control. No sight graced the life, but it had slowly learned how to feel out its surroundings by the vibrations that echoed through the ground. At one point it had slaughtered a vile burning mess of a creature and the incident had filled it with pride. Wounded, it had spent time gathering its strength before a blissful humming had resonated throughout the slime's whole being. Sitting there in enlightenment its life had only ended when something much faster than the slime had thought anything could move had ground it into the floor.

Indecisive Earth felt there was something different about this creature that had just died. He had gained experience from its existence when the fire slime had not given anything. Maybe it was because of how old the monster had become, or maybe it was because it had killed another monster and lived, but Indecisive Earth felt like he should let all of his creations have a taste of both just in case.

Conflict and time had given him experience but when the spark had returned, he had actually felt the change like the soul that returned to him had grown and now that it had returned his own soul was stronger.

...did the monster level up outside of me and I'm gaining the experience it gained? That made the most sense to the Core so he shelved it as his current theory until he had a better way of explaining it or it was disproved.