The cavern is silent except for the occasional distant flutter of bat wings. My awareness stretches through the stone, sensing the endless mineral veins and the thin pulse of mana that runs like blood beneath my crystalline core. This place is my new body—a prison, a fortress, and a raw canvas.
"How do I modify things? I know I can do it; the instincts are gnawing at me. This would probably be simple if I didn't have the mind of a human or had wielded mana before," I ponder. My thoughts reach out, focusing on the rough, jagged walls of the cave system. My tendrils line the walls right below their surface.
I will a tiny vibration, a ripple in the rock. At first, nothing happens. Then, slowly, a small section of stone trembles. The sensation is odd—like trying to flex a limb that doesn't exist.
"Okay… one step at a time," I think. If this is my body, I have to learn to control it like any muscle. But stone isn't flesh, and mana isn't blood... Not that I ever could control blood, but that's beside the point! This shit is hard."
I focus on a jagged stalagmite nearby, willing it to shift, just a little. The surface groans imperceptibly, grain by grain, inch by inch. My core pulses, channeling mana like a river diverting its course.
I can feel the structure, the density… the flow.
Gradually, the tip of the stalagmite bends sideways—a slow, deliberate twist. My mind leaps with a mix of excitement and frustration.
It's not much, but it's progress.
I try again. This time, focusing on a larger cluster of stone. The resistance is immense. The rock's weight presses down on my will like an anchor. The mana surges, then falters. I feel a sharp internal pulse—exhaustion, or maybe strain.
This is harder than I thought.
Hours pass—or maybe days, time is a fluid concept here. My consciousness sinks deeper into the cave's veins, probing and pulling at the stone with tiny, precise movements. Sometimes the rock resists; sometimes it crumbles too quickly.
Too fragile. Too brittle. Too thin.
I experiment with shaping edges, smoothing surfaces, and forcing new growths. A jagged shard becomes a curved spike. A lump of rock flattens into a slab. But these are small gestures—primitive at best.
Still, I learn. I develop a rhythm, a pulse of effort followed by rest. Gradually, my control improves. I can mold the stone subtly, but not yet shape it into anything complex.
Patience.
One night, as darkness swallows the entrance, the cavern fills with a familiar sound—the fluttering of wings as swarms of bats stir from their roosts, preparing to hunt.
I sense the creatures' flight paths and the faint warmth of their bodies. An idea flickers.
Maybe… I can defend myself without creating monsters...
I focus sharply on the ceiling above the swarm and force a section of stalactites to loosen. Slowly, the jagged rocks begin to fall in a silent, deadly rain.
The bats scream and scatter in a flurry of panic, many struck by the falling stone. Others dart just out of reach.
I watch the scene unfold in detached fascination.
Is this wrong?
A pang of guilt flickers deep in my consciousness.
These are living creatures, just trying to survive. What am I doing? I loved animals all my life on Earth…
But the instinct to protect my core, to secure my growing domain, is strong.
This is how I survive here. I will have to kill to live. I might not have done it in my past life, but for each of my meals, something had to have died. I just wasn't the one pulling the trigger at the time.
I promise myself silently: No unnecessary killing. Only what I must.
Days turn into nights, and as days pass, my efforts to control the stone grow more deliberate and refined. I practice adding texture to walls, refining them to appear as brick walls. Eventually, I refine my craft to draw out intricate pictures, memories of my past life.
I'm certain at least a month must have passed, but I'm strangely unbothered by it.
"I expected to feel some kind of isolation… Maybe it's linked to the instincts and mentality I've gained as a dungeon core," I muse.
As I ponder this topic, I begin to notice something strange about myself.
Peering at the more recent dead bats littering the cavern floor, I feel no revulsion. No squeamishness at the sight of blood or broken bodies.
Why don't I feel sick? This would have revolted me previously. Hell, I hated the SAW series strictly because of all the gore.
I turn my mind inward.
"I remember pain, sorrow, and joy from my past life. But here… I'm… different. More apathetic. Detached. Granted, I was relatively apathetic in my past life, but not like this. This is something else, hard to describe. It's like I have some aspects of a sociopath and a psychopath now. Not as bad as either of those two in their true definition, as I still have empathy, I still care, I don't want to murder, and there is no pleasure… I just feel… cold? How strange…"
Some emotions seem muted—fear, disgust—while others, like curiosity and focus, feel sharper than ever.
Is this the influence of having a dungeon core as a body?
I'm grateful to still have memories and fragments of my old self, but the core has changed me..
This balance is fragile, and I know I have to hold on to what makes me human, even if it means fighting the creeping apathy that feels so natural.
"While it doesn't seem like I have changed or degraded mentally over the past month, I could have in ways I'm not aware. I really need to find something to ground me, maybe a pet or a garden," I muse.
My survival depends on feeding—absorbing mana from the organic matter in my domain. The corpses of fallen bats become nourishment as I begin to absorb them, energy flowing from their broken forms into my crystalline veins.
With each absorption, I feel stronger, my influence extending faster and deeper into the cave's twisting tunnels.
Grow. Expand. Protect.
I push my will outward, sensing the cave's boundaries and probing for weaker spots in the stone.
Bats, however, trouble me.
They reproduce rapidly—much like rats on Earth in litters of 4 to 8. Their swarms are relentless, a constant presence in my life.
I realize that killing them wholesale is inefficient.
Better to let them die naturally, drifting down to the floor, than to block their flight paths with collapsing ceilings.
The destruction of stalactites is a blunt tool; the bats will just keep coming back in waves if I leave them alone.
Thinking deeper, I begin reshaping the floor itself instead.
I craft hundreds of thousands of tiny, sharp stone "nails"—jagged protrusions that will pierce and slow any creature that lands too heavily on the cave's ground.
The bat guano is now gone as well—all absorbed for mana—so I no longer need to worry about the messy waste blocking the nails. Hopefully with the lack of stench some other creatures might venture in, it would be interesting to see something not also on Earth.
With the cavern floor now as a trap, an invisible minefield beneath the creatures' flight paths, impaling any unfortunate bat that may slip from the ceiling perch.
My thoughts turn to efficiency.
My mind, like a vast computer, can partition tasks. I realize I can now also delegate minor processes, automating repetitive work without active focus if I will it.
I imagine tiny threads of mana—like subroutines—running independently, carrying out specific tasks over and over.
I can automate absorbing dead organic matter.
These mana threads will seek out corpses, break them down, and feed my core without needing constant attention.
I can automate expansion and excavation.
Other threads will tunnel through the stone, hollowing out new chambers, condensing and reinforcing walls, or creating traps—all while I rest or focus on higher-level strategies.
This division of labor is revolutionary I say!
I'm not just a dungeon core; I'm a system.
I have to test this new ability cautiously though. I don't want to expend more mana than I'm generating.
Sending forth a small mana thread to follow a trail of bat remains, it returns with a trickle of energy.
Another thread pushes into a fragile stone wall, carefully carving a new passage.
My core hums with power and purpose.
I feel hope and ambition for the first time since awakening as an immobile crystal.
Yet, beneath the surface, questions gnaw at me.
How far can I push this power?
What will I become if I keep growing?
How long will I live?
Will I remain the man I was mentally? Or only as the dungeon core?
What is the extent of utilizing mana?
Are there humans in this world too?
Are there other sentient races?
The questions would be endless, but so are the answers.
Knowledge is power..