Where It All Began

Mana: 100/100

"Heh, well now you know what happens when you cross the Church of Purity", these were the last words Carl could remember before everything went black. Before Carl died.

In this blackness, I could neither see nor feel anything.

nothing...

I remembered my name was Carl, but nothing much other than that.

I reflected on the single memory I knew.

"Who were the Church of Purity?"

"Who was the person that had just killed him?"

"Was he supposed to live out the rest of eternity in this black room, waiting for the sweet relief of his mind fading away into a husk, as he slowly goes insane from solitude?"

But most of all...

"Why did it smell like decaying feet in here?"

Upon this final thought, a semi-transparent blue screen appears in the middle of the darkness.

I leered at the screen, wary that it was the source of the horrible smell.

Timidly, I willed screen to come closer so I could see what it said up close, and to my surprise, it worked.

The screen instantly disappeared from the middle of the 'room', reappearing in the center of my vision.

On the screen was text written in a language that felt vaguely familiar, and unexpectedly, I was able to read it.

SYSTEM MESSAGE:

[Congratulations, new host, 'Carl', your soul has been deemed fit to inhabit a DUNGEON CORE, and thus, your soul has been whisked away upon the brink of your death, and has been merged with a Dungeon Core.

As a Dungeon Core, you are expected to kill off the inhabitants of this world, and lower the population to a more manageable number, as well as providing a means for said inhabitants to gain power, and 'loot', in order for them to grow stronger.

'We' have provided you with a guide in order to help you manage your new dungeon, as well as to 'show you the ropes'. Along with the guide, 'We' have also provided you with an interface, that will help to point you in the right direction.

'We' hope you can successfully grow into a powerful dungeon, and act as an ecosystem for the population of this world.

'We' apologise for any inconveniences.

-Sincerely, G.D.]

…

Looking on blankly, Carl just felt confused.

"What in the Underw-"

I didn't get to finish the thought, as the pitch black room that I had been in, started to shift.

The ever present darkness turning into streaks of blue and white light.

Letting out a girlish shriek, I attempted to move, but couldn't.

Silently screaming, my vision began to clear, and I gazed upon the entirety of the room at once, I was able to 'see' everything within the room from every angle, it felt somewhat disorienting, but I started to get used to the change.

Inside the room, I saw a few things.

For the rooms layout, it was just a stone box, with no discerning features, the texturing of the stone made it seem like it was underground.

The white light I had noticed earlier was coming from a glowing white orb that was floating in the middle of the room, but if that wasn't strange enough, standing next to the glowing orb...

was a goat.

And inside the goat's mouth was a glowing blue cube.

When I saw the cube, I instantly knew that it was me, I felt a sort of spiritual connection to the cube, and 'I' was currently being munched on by a slobbering goat, and to make matters worse, the goats munching had started to form cracks in my 'body', and it was starting to hurt... alot.

...

I had been cursing the goat, and yelling at it to "stop eating me!" for around 5 minutes now, and the goat wasn't letting up.

Some of the slurs I had been throwing out seemed to have even impress the goat in how 'creative' they were.

In that moment, a voice had come from the glowing white orb, which I had forgotten about in my pained yelling at the goat.

"ahem, what in the underworld do you think you're doing, screaming at 'Goaty' like that!?", yelled a petite, childish voice.

Stepping out of my enraged torrent of slurs directed at 'Goaty', I yelled back "Hey kid, if this goat belongs to you, then tell him to put me the frick down, before he eats the rock that is somehow hurting me!"

"KID!" the voice scoffed, sounding extremely enraged by my words, "I'll have you know I am an established princess of the Purgatoric fairies Royal family, and I am over 400 years old, and if you refer to me as a kid again, I will order Goaty to shatter your core, even if I have to face mothers wrath!"

Although I had no idea what was happening, I knew that being shattered by a goat not even ten minutes after what seemed to be my 'rebirth', at least according to the system message I read earlier, would not be the best idea.

Somehow, I took a deep breath, which I instantly regretted, as the rotten feet smell from earlier had somehow gotten even worse.

Heaving, I replied to the 'fairy?' "okay, okay, I am sorry for calling you a kid, now can you please tell your goat to let me go." I conceded.

The girl huffed before saying "apology accepted, Goaty, drop it."

The goat didn't respond.

Silence...

After about 10 seconds, the cracks covering my body spread more, hitting me with another round of gut wrenching pain.

"Ahh!" I yelled.

The fairy now said in a somewhat panicked tone "Goaty, drop it!", again with no affect.

"Oh celestials, I can't fail the first big mission I've been assigned, I'll be a laughing stock" the fairy monologued.

"Umm... not to rush you or anything, but could you please try to hurry up a little bit, I don't know what will happen if my Core thing breaks, but judging from this pain, I doubt it's anything good..." I interrupted.

She looked over towards me, looking very apathetic. After a moment, an evil smile shone onto her face.

She floated over to me, and I focused on the glowing ball of white, I could now make out a tiny winged human under the bright light of the glow.

I felt a shiver go down my gem-like crust when I saw the fairy reach out a hand and started gently rubbing the goat's nose.

Goaty stopped at this, and wiggled his nose, after a few seconds, the wiggling of the goat's snout became ravenous, and it prepared to sneeze.

After another second, it did just that, launching me across the room causing me to hit against one of the stone walls, another spike of pain jolted through me upon impact, widening the cracks on my almost broken core.

"If you didn't refer to me as a child, this wouldn't have happened", I heard the fairy mutter under her breath.

"Can you FREAKING tell me what in the underworlds is going on here!", I shouted.

Her lust for revenge being thoroughly quenched, she replied "Well, as you've no doubt figured out, you're a dungeon core... yay, good job" she said sarcastically, and with no enthusiasm "My name is Princess Celestia Aldruid, your most beautiful, and elegant guide, but you may just refer to me as Princess Celestia, am here to teach you what to do as a dungeon core, Dungeon Building 101 if you do."

I just sat there and listened, I figured this would be the best way to gain information about my current predicament.

"As a dungeon core, your job is to grow by assimilating the area around you, you can do this by filling a location with your aura, because this room is filled with your aura, that means you can look around, and control things within this area to a degree, we'll get to that in a moment."

"Aside from the inside of the room, you are also able to control about 10 metres worth of area outside of your aura, such as the walls, floor, etc."

The princess then told me, that in order to expand, I must 'eat' away the stone around me in order to grow, I must then fill those spaces with aura. After that, she said that at my current strength, I could only mine out and fill 1 cubic metre worth of space per day.

Celestia, or Celes that I had taken to calling her, under her begrudging agreement, said that that in order to gain strength, things would need to die within my dungeon, and that upon death, I would gain access to the creatures' 'mana', and items.

I would be able to create creatures using my mana once a creature died, and I absorbed it, she also said that I would eventually be able to 'mix-and-match' monsters and make custom ones.

Celes said that the sentient races, like humans, elves, and dwarves were the best source of mana, and have the best loot, which I can then recreate and supply back to them in turn for killing my monsters.

Although I didn't know how I felt about killing other sentient creatures, I realized that I was in a kill or be killed environment, I had learnt that the hard way, with my battle against Goaty, so I figured I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.

I was excited to start mining straight away, so I asked Celes how, and she just told me to focus on a space and will the stone to move.

I did just that, and it worked! Although I may have done it a bit close to Goaty, shaving off a bit of scruff on the top of his head.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION:

[This material can be reproduced if sufficient mana is given.

Item Name: Goat's Hair

Item Rarity: Common

Item Type: Crafting Material

Description: Goaty the goat's head hair, this material can refined to create a variety of wool based products. Goat hair is often used in the creation of armour to make it warmer, and more comfortable. Due to the effects of the system, any product made using this wool will be 20% warmer, and add +1 to piercing resistance.

NOTE: These effects are dungeon specific, and can not be replicated using normal Goat hair.]

I was surprised, it seemed like my system enhance the abilities of the wool, "this is so cool!" I thought.

Celes was giving me a death glare, as she patted Goaty's new bald patch on the top of his head.

But when I told her my revelation, she gave an audible huff, before shrugged her shoulders and saying, "Some dungeons do start off with a unique trait, I've heard of some that can control any water based creature as long as it was in their dungeon, even if it didn't create it.

And others that could turn adventurers torches into fire elementals, that swiftly took care of the adventuring party if they weren't prepared. Never heard of yours though, but that isn't too surprising, after all, there are still plenty of unknowns even the fairy races don't know." She said before going back to doting on the goat.

Although my ability didn't seem as cool as the others in terms of killing prowess, I did see some potential in the long run.

I wanted to see the effects of my abilities on other things as well, and to do that I would need to see the world, but for now, I was content to just leave this drab stone box I was stuck in.

With a goal in mind, and an abundance of time on my metaphorical hands, I set off and started mining away, I wanted to grow bigger...

I guess this is where it all begins, I thought looking back to Celes, and the depressed looking Goat.