Nicholas did not like the 'suicidal' title. Even if its effects increased all potens by 10% in a life-threatening situation, it still implied that either he or Azotreh did something suicidal. Considering he was still deconstructing orc bodies, it definitely wasn't him.
Speaking of orc bodies, the first one was almost completely pulled apart by the black salamanders. Only a couple of pieces left and…
[You have gained the blueprint of the Nightshade Orc Subspecies through unconventional methods! +100DP]
There it was. Calling them a subspecies was weird, and made Nicholas wonder just how closely this system applied scientific terms from Earth to its magic, but the job was done. Nicholas popped his metaphorical knuckles and worked his mind hard to recreate the image of the orc.
But that quickly fell apart when he tried to alter the details. There were subtle differences between the faces of the orcs the salamander had found, but he couldn't replicate them on his mental image. He wanted the orc to look more like Errazorrus as both an experiment and for his own fun.
After he failed, he instead shaped the mental orc to be as close to the original as he could get. This time, the mental image remained stable long enough for the eye to transition into a mouth and spit out the massive body.
The orc stood at about seven feet tall, maybe a bit taller. It was bald and naked, though without anything down there. That was particularly odd to Nicholas, since there were no signs in other places of it having some way to reproduce.
Its skin was green and covered in tiny purple marks that shone just a little in the dark cave. Nicholas didn't have access to a status sheet for the monster, but was willing to bet that the orc had some kind of arcane ability related to those marks.
That wasn't what he was interested in, though; what he cared about was having it and the hands it brought him back.
After he brought forth the Nightshade Puma as well, he'd send it out on its own exploration. The stronger monster should be able to at least gather more information about where they were. They knew the location of the rabbit village and a general direction the orcs came from, but nothing else.
What was irritating was the lack of space. The orc wasn't a champion, so it couldn't enter the wider world. The plan was to wait until the salamander champion respawned and put it on the back of a puma to send them out.
He also remembered the deal he'd made with the rabbit-kin. He was supposed to report to them when the dungeon could be explored, but so far had made no progress in that either. It was still just the one room.
Nicholas assumed that there was some functionality to allow the dungeon to build its own rooms. After all, he had a layout for a basic 5x5x5 meter cube room within the nexus.
As he was speculating what to do, his eyes fell on the hatchet. It wasn't exactly the best tool for digging, but it was still better than nothing. It was also clearly made from some kind of dark metal. Likely iron, which was probably stronger than the local stone. Probably.
But it didn't hurt to try. After all, what else was a dungeon supposed to do with a random hatchet and two halves of armor? It wouldn't be a good reward for anyone, especially not a group of humanoids with their own tools. The rabbit village had houses with stones, so they clearly had their own tools.
So he pushed the item from his inventory, making it clatter on the floor of the room. After that was the next problem, possessing a random monster. He checked their counter and sighed. 312. Even so, he'd gotten 200 over the last hour, he could spend some to make this other monster a champion, right?
[Would you like to make Nightshade Orc into a Champion Monster? Costs 10DP]
He mentally said yes.
The orc was suddenly bathed in black light emerging from the eye of the core, and Nicholas felt the connection between the monster and the core strengthen, just as it did between the salamander and the core.
[You have created a second Champion Monster! +50DX]
[DX Threshold reached (240/200)! Dungeon Faction: Black Dragon has reached the third threshold! +10C to Mana and Mana Regeneration, +10DP, ERR:b1739999]
[Due to the removal of Dungeon System's Assistance, you have failed to gain Trap: Spit of the Black Dragon. You have been awarded 1 Perk Selection!]
[You have received title: Don't Blame The Devs (hidden)]
Nicholas was starting to like the infinite system more as time went on. While getting a trap called Spit of the Black Dragon sounded cool, the last time they'd gotten to select a perk, it was ultimately a disappointment, but a worthwhile one.
Better something very useful you can't use right now than something with one single use.
Either way, that didn't matter right now, since the orc had been advanced to a Champion, Nicholas now had the opportunity to enter its body and begin to use it.
Through the same soul bond connecting this champion to the core, Nicholas entered the champion and took control of its body. Just like the salamander, it seemed that its own soul was half-formed, incomplete. Even its avatar, looking much like the orc outside, was weirdly half-created. Kind of misty from the waist down.
But it gave over the controls easily. It had no reason to deny direct interference from its sole creator, master, and everything in between. These thoughts suddenly entered Nicholas' head as he took control and sent a shiver down his metaphorical spine. That kind of devotion was dangerous, even from an entity that seemingly existed only for the will of its creator. It even gave over its own soul willingly. Nicholas never wanted to end up like this.
Even so, he took control of the monster orc. Even if the methods were kind of creepy, they were still ways to achieve goals, which was the ultimate goal.
Nicholas entered the orc's senses, seeing through its eyes and smelling through its nose. The sound of rushing water suddenly filled his ears from the waterfall outside, along with the small splashes of the salamanders moving about in the cave.
The scent of rotting orc meat wasn't even gross to his nostrils. It smelled… nice? But orc rotting meat of any kind shouldn't smell nice. He also didn't feel any hunger at seeing the bodies, like one would when seeing food. So this wasn't the body of a scavenger given a fresh meal. This body just seemed to relish the scent of rot and decay.
He reached down with ease, but miscalculated the size of his new body and bumped his head against the cave wall. It didn't hurt. Why didn't it hurt?
He reached up and touched the top of his head. No blood either. Either this orc's body was strangely resilient on the top of the head, or he was missing something.
The second time, he sank too low and lost balance, landing flat on his butt. But using the cave wall, he managed to stagger back to his feet and grab the hatchet.
Finally, with hatchet in hand, he stood straight and lifted the crude weapon. Not high, since his hands could scrape the ceiling, but enough to give a bit of leverage before he brought the thick weapon down. It slammed into the rock with a sharp cracking sound. A small amount of rock fell to the ground, which one of the salamanders instinctively grabbed and brought up to the core.
He tried to stop it, not knowing what would happen when a dungeon core absorbed a piece of inanimate matter, but the slimy little reptile slid through his fingers like a struggling fish. It eventually deposited the small amount of rock into the mouth of the core, and nothing happened.
The core just accepted it like the small pieces of orc flesh, but nothing happened. No words appeared in the air, no pain, no surprises. Just rock in the mouth, followed by rock absence.
Nicholas sighed in relief before raising the hatchet and swinging it down again. Another chip, another piece of rock, and another chunk deposited in the mouth of the core.
Again and again, Nicholas kept picking at the wall. It wasn't particularly tough, but Nicholas was not skilled at digging. Not even a little. Even so, he finally felt something shift in his aura.
[Skills Acquired: Meditative Mining (A-1), Hatchet Digging (A-1)]
[For gaining 25 skills, you have gained Title: Skilled V]
[WARNI- rrerorr]
Horrifically, this shift in their aura, unlike the ones experienced by Azotreh mere moments ago, was accompanied by pain.
Their vision was suddenly flooded with error messages, all flashing bright red. Accompanied by hundreds of bright warnings. Their vision was blinded.
Nicholas collapsed, but remained in the orc's body. He still had goals to complete, and wouldn't let whatever this was hurt them. He didn't know what the warning was, but assuming it was caused by gaining skills, he settled down. If he couldn't gain skills, he'd just work on the ones he already had.
Azotreh was about to speak and ask something of Atu when their eyes rolled back in their head. They trembled as they fell over, with Atu barely catching them. It didn't help much, since they quickly began to melt into the slimy puddle that was the true form of the Cerulean Slime.
She tried to grab on and pull them inside, but before she could do anything of the sort, she felt a will encompass the clearing. A powerful will, much stronger than that of Chief Asergia.
It filled her with a primal terror she'd only felt a couple of times. On the rare occasions that a being she had rarely encountered had visited her father. That being now appeared before her. A lich, one far beyond the means of mortals. Large mushroom caps occupied its eyes as it gazed down at the melting puddle of slime.
It sighed heavily as it spoke in the Nightshade Common Tongue, the language it supposedly created by itself, "What a mess."
She felt herself, Azotreh, and Ruby all suddenly move within her home in a flash of silver energy. Azotreh was lifted upon a force disk while Ruby stood over their body with her hackles on end. The body was moved into their room and placed on the floor as dozens of skeletal hands began to cut into her floor. They left a powerful array in their wake, one of a complexity she couldn't understand; even the basics of the array were far beyond her limited knowledge.
Atu wasn't a mage, though she knew some spellcraft fundamentals through her conceptions of body and power; she only knew those fundamentals. The array used concepts she'd never encountered to weave a spell of unmatched complexity.
The lich then began to pull materials from thin air. Spatial Quintessence, Ruby Rank Alchemic Coins, and about a dozen monster cores were suddenly pulled and placed strategically around the array. The lich sighed once it was done and turned to her. She felt a shiver run down her spine as his figure of pale bone and stringy mycelium observed her.
"The candidate will require focused time within that array and will not leave this house until I say otherwise. Am I understood?"
His voice was like that of a thousand screaming souls, and made it clear that he left no room for argument. She gulped as she looked at him, but nodded. After getting her confirmation, the lich spun on his heel and vanished from her home.
A lonesome orc sat meditating as Azotreh's soul returned to the core. Their avatar was incapable of doing any more than remaining immobile. They were on the verge of collapsing, even without knowing what had happened.
But Nicholas refused to let that disturb him. He had felt the pain lessen just a little as his meditation began, and while he kept being snapped out at the slightest movement, he felt his mental state deepening over time.
He stood on a calm lake of rainbow colors. Behind him were the golden walls of the soul, and before him stood a mountain. A mountain that reached up to touch the heavens.
To their left, a realm of pink. To their right, one of oceanic blue. Beyond the mountain was one of crimson, while above sat a starless night that seemed to spiral around a central point. One at the very top of the mountain. A point he could never climb to, not if he spent a millennium doing nothing else. It was a mountain of unimaginable heights and felt as if it held the very world on its shoulders.
The rainbow lights below him were gorgeous as they drifted like mixing currents. He began to walk around, his footsteps soft against the still water, even as it seemed to churn, no movement reached its surface.
He felt drawn to the blue realm to his right. He walked, and walked. It never seemed to come closer, even once he began to run. He started to sprint, instinctively knowing that he couldn't run out of energy in this place. It wasn't fully real, but not fully imaginary. Physics and chemistry didn't make sense, but still wove a perfect tapestry of existence.
He ran, and he ran, but the wall refused to get closer. The blue never brightened, and the distance between himself and gold never lengthened. He pushed and pushed.
He felt something break a little in his mind as he pushed forward. He got a single step closer to the blue wall and saw a small crack in its surface. He tried to take another step, but before he could, he awoke.
The body of the orc shouldn't sweat, he knew that instinctively. Monsters don't sweat, even the wild ones. The Dungeon Nexus told him that, but he was still drenched in sweat within the orc's body.
[You have witnessed damage to your core. Damage: 1.44%]
[Your Skill: Meditation has reached Apprentice 7]
[You have gained skill: Inner Visualization (A-1)]
[Core Damage increased. 1.44% → 2.31%]
[You have overcome your limits and accessed the F-Grade. Not all potens have reached the F-Grade threshold]
[Gathering Poten has broken through early, and has begun to rise within the F-Grade]
[Mana Poten has broken through early, and has begun to rise within the F-Grade]
[Perception Poten has broken through early, and has begun to rise within the F-Grade]
[All Body, Mind, Soul, and Core Potens have reached the F-Grade threshold]
[Progress to F-Grade: 89.42%]
And another aspect was damaged now. Great. He still didn't know what that meant, but the soul one had afflicted them with the Astral Infection. He didn't want to know what the core one would do, but knew he had to find out.