“From the lips of Yamash, The Word was spoken unto the world. For behold, The Word governs and defines all things. And in balance was it given, for even as The Word grants order and makes manifest the system of the world, so to in chaos shall all things be permitted to grow. For few things are holier than that a man shall progress in the levels of the world, and bring a greater piece of it under their dominion.”

-From the Holy Text of Higrath

I was quite excited at the thought of finally gaining a level. I could imagine the progress that it might bring to me. Despite this, Tam continued his preparations at a glacial pace. Admittedly, I was not showing my excitement, and I had absolutely no desire for him to know about it. If I did demonstrate it to him, then it would show Tam I understood what he was doing. And my dungeon half, annoying and persistent as it was, seemed to lack the cognitive function necessary to translate the separate concepts together. There was a certain leap required to go from seeing the mice as food or mana, then understanding the exact amount of mana from each, adding it up, and then realizing that I could level up.

While my musing continued, Tam measured the borders of my aura with more spells. I thought so anyway. At the moment I was just glad I had not expanded to cover all the walls completely. It was good for Tam to underestimate me. I was going to make sure I kept my aura growth well away from him.

Even as Tam made his preparations, I also made mine. The status screen opened with a thought and so did the AP purchase menu. If leveling up was truly about to happen, it would allow me to conceal the purchase of a skill at the exact same moment. Hopefully Tam would think that it was simply the result of the new level and not me getting better with deliberate intention.

Based on my observations, I was fairly sure that Tam had a single weakness, maybe two. He was impatient. So far the only change I had made was getting better at absorbing mana. Tam wanted me to do more and improve in some way. He checked and monitored me constantly. However, even if he monitored, and made precautions, he was making me more powerful. And now he planned on pushing me forward deliberately. All that needed to happen for me to escape was for Tam to underestimate me. And as long as he didn’t know that I was intelligent, that possibility was far more likely. The more skills I gathered, and the better I got with them, the more options I would have available.

Tam may have enjoyed studying me, but I was enjoying being an experimental subject just a bit less. As much fun as it might seem, I wanted to opt out of this research study. I didn’t really need that ten bucks anyway.

And I had no idea how long this could go. How long did dungeons live? No idea. However, considering that my body was crystal, it could be forever as long as nothing killed me. I wondered if I counted as a silicon based lifeform. And I had no idea how long Tam wanted to continue the experiment. For all I knew he was immortal. My mind had spun any number of terrible scenarios. Tam could introduce his experiment to others. I could potentially be stuck as a research subject for centuries.

And that discounted the uses that someone could have for a dungeon. I didn’t really understand exactly what I could do, but I already knew that is was possible for me to summon monsters, animals, and plants. I could be used to farm, or worse, as a weapon of war.

No, the risks were just too much.

What were other dungeons like? Based on my other half they were not all that bright. It was not like we had conversations. I just felt its basic knee jerk reactions. I translated them into thought because that was simply how I thought.

Should I name my other half? Ha. I could just imagine telling a therapist that I had named the voice in my head that wanted me to kill people. Somehow, I had the feeling that would be considered a ‘Bad Idea.’ Eh, it probably won’t make anything worse. After all, there actually was something other in my head.

Well, my other half is essentially a blood-thirsty brute. So what name says that? Blood, blood… I know the Latin word for that right? Ugh, it is on the tip of my tongue. Sanguine, that's right. An in, exsanguinate, to remove all the blood from a body. Hmm, shorten that and it actually sounds like a name. Exsan. Okay, its official, I dub thee Exsan.

Tam’s preparations were continuing ad nauseam, and despite my impatience I found it hard to blame him. If Exsan was the typical example of what a dungeon was like… that caution was more than fully justified. I wanted to escape to get my freedom. Exsan wanted to murder and control everything nearby and make a lair.

Tam was finally finishing up. Tam cast a last spell on me and shook the cage with the mice-bugs slightly. I obliged and focused on it. Tam’s vision unfocused and he cast a ball of fire towards the cage. Little bits of the metal started to drip with heat, but I was more focused on the mana bursting out of it and flowing into me. I ended up with even more than I had expected because the fireball had contributed a few mana. I had slightly more than eighteen mana. With a flick of mental effort my level grew and I purchased a new skill.

Your status has changed!

Status

Name: N/A / Exsan

Type: Dungeon Core – Soul Hybrid

Level: 2

Crystal Status: 100% – Undamaged

Status Effects: Mana Drain

Available Mana: 3/50

Passive Mana Generation: 20/Day

Next level: 30 Mana Cost

Subsections Available: 1

Ability Points: 850

Skills:

Directed Mana Absorption I,

Limited Omniscience (Dungeon)

Soul Mana I

Dungeon Aura Expansion I

Manipulate Earth I

Learning I

Titles:

Reborn Soul

First of its Kind

Skill Evolution

Right, that part about Exsan being named is probably a bad thing. At least it wasn’t the entire name. Right, deal with that later.

I pulled up my two new skills.

Manipulate Earth I

Move, loosen, condense, generate, or destroy earth and stone within your aura using available mana.

Learning I

All other skills are slightly easier to acquire and or learn. Slightly lowers the AP cost of all non-summon skills (5%)

The Learning skill had cost 200 AP and it was everything I was hoping for. It would provide easier access to learning other skills, forever. I would also make everything I purchased cheaper, except for summons of course. It was a tiny bonus, but it could easily add up over time. Plus a number of the AP skills were already very expensive. That 200 would pay for itself with just one skill over 4000 AP. And it was a skill with a level, presumably that meant it could and would level up over time. Presumably as I learned information or used my skills. And these were things I was planning to do already anyway.

I was also happy to get the ability to finally alter the world around me with Manipulate Earth. This type of skill was something that I had been expecting to get. I had been worried for a while that my only ability to dig would have come through summoning monsters. I was relieved that it appeared to be an ability that I controlled myself, however.

I brought the AP menu back up and looked at the other learning type skill I had seen. It was for summoning creatures, plants, etc… I debated buying it for a moment, but summons had no place in my current escape plan. Not to mention Tam might have already noted all the differences. He was careful enough about me already.

There was still mana remaining, so it was time to test out my new ability. If I could manipulate stone well enough then I could grab my core and run. Admittedly my mana regen was still not very high, but it was double what it had been before.

Commanding the stone to move turned out just like expanding my aura. It was instinctual and easy. Everything that I needed to do was just sitting there in my head waiting for me. Well, I didn’t have a head, but the idea remained the same. A tiny tendril extended a few fractions of an inch from a wall before the runes embedded into the wall burst into action. The entire array lit up with light. From the center a beam of light emerged and disintegrated the stone tendril.

I stopped for a moment.

This, this had the potential to make things difficult.

Tests were in order.

I extended a new bit of stone elsewhere in the room even as I concentrated on destroying a section of stone hidden well behind the wall. I had to hide where the mana was being lost, after all.

By the time the mana ran out there was no change as far as the room showed, but I had made an empty sphere about three feet across deep in the wall. And that sphere was filled with air somehow.

I could understand if I had destroyed the stone into nothing. Perhaps if I had converted it to mana or something. Nope. I changed a three foot radius of stone into air. And I could sense that air. It wasn’t under immense pressure, like it should have been if I had somehow reconfigured the elemental nature of stone into a gas. Nope. Mass just disappeared. And I had made solid stone out of a relatively small amount of mana. Exactly how energy dense was this shit anyway? Or was it just magic and therefore breaking all the rules. Not like conservation of mass and energy were important laws or anything, nope, not at all.

While I took my time commiserating with myself about physics and utterly ridiculous magic busy giving physics the middle finger, Tam looked overjoyed. He seemed both utterly unsurprised and dismissive when the bean of light came and destroyed the stone. Not surprising, guess he was expecting me to get this ability. Tam simply smiled for a few minutes and then proceeded to dismiss the spells in order. With the dismissal of the last one, a small amount of mana was available again.

For the moment I played with my new ability in the test sphere I had made. I turned dirt, sand, and stone into one another with no trouble and a small amount of mana. Condensing stone into a denser and harder substance was possible, but more mana intensive. Making stone from nothing was the most costly. At this point there was a positive and a negative. I had plenty of stone to work with, but my mana ran out almost immediately.

Tam had left while I worked. After running out I returned to my usual practice of mana absorption and keeping mana still. As always it was slow but I made steady progress. Night came over my room as the lights dimmed to faint glimmers without me seeing Tam again for the day. My practice continued through the night and I contemplated what I should do if I received more mana from Tam on purpose.

Obviously my level was top priority. With more mana I could grow my aura and manipulate more stone. The problem was that I didn’t want Tam to think about my aura at all. It extended far beyond what he was aware of. If I found a cavern, I could extend into it. And if it had life I could gain mana from the deaths of the creatures there. So far, however, the most I had seen was some tiny geodes.

For now, I could show Tam that I was “learning.” Tam was sure to expect something, but I didn’t think he really knew what to expect. By making stone in different areas I could show him I was trying different strategies, but hopefully the randomness of it would not show any kind of actual intelligence. Hopefully my learning skill would also help cover up any accidental signs of real intelligence I might give him.

I could actually think of a few things to try with my abilities that I could show him. I could make the walls smoother. This would also let me test if I could dig into the walls, or if I would get the same response from that obnoxious rune array on the wall. If I could, I would make statues. Nothing original, just copies of what I saw. And while Tam saw what I was doing, more would happen behind the scenes. I wanted to study my own earth manipulation skill and see if it was understandable. The same with the beams from the array. Calling this new world magic and leaving it at that was not an acceptable excuse. Science had always been a passion of mine, and understanding was the true reason why. I loved knowing how things happened. Even if it took a while, by hell or high water, I would understand this new world too.

My determination notwithstanding, very little progress had been made by the time that morning announced itself with an increase of light. Tam entered shortly after and cast a diagnostic spell on me. Another similar spell was directed at the disintegration array. Shortly after, the dregs of the spell on me was absorbed and I focused as much as possible while the stone moved at my command. I could see nothing more, but it simply went on my list of things to do. It actually entered my list of things to do as much as possible. When I practiced holding mana in place, watch, when I moved stone, watch, when I made aura, watch.

There was simply no way to accept that that these things happened without some kind of outside force acting on them. Things needed to be acted upon in order for them to undergo change. If that was no longer true… then figuring out the new rules might actually be impossible. It was completely possible that the forces were acting at scales I simply couldn't observe, too. However, without proof, there was no point giving up.

Tam interacted with me less, as he was gone for the rest of the day and didn’t appear at all the next. I had a small amount of fear of just being left alone as an abandoned experiment, even if that didn’t seem likely. I was fairly sure I could learn to escape, but it wasn’t a certain thing. I could just imagine being left alone in a dim room for years, or longer. Forgotten and abandoned for millennia. Gah. Yeah, that way lies madness. Probably literally. I couldn’t imagine my mind surviving through it. And if my new form forced me to stay sane… it would just be torture.

I threw myself into practicing as a distraction. I was no closer to seeing what was happening, at least as far as I could tell. Holding mana in place was getting easier, and the speed and narrowness of my focus had been improving. That night I received another screen popping up in front of me.

Your skill Directed Mana Absorption has increased from level I to level II

The skill’s description remained unchanged, but experimentation proved it to be improved substantially. Focusing allowed a slightly smaller area to be used, and the speed of absorption was twice as fast as it had been originally. Attempting to hold mana had no difference at all.

I had been continuously trying to up my speed, and it had improved, but the largest difference came when the level went up. However, since the mana stability had not changed, that meant it was a different skill entirely, or at least another modification that could be made to it. Slowly the world was beginning to make more sense to me, though it was insane by my old standards. As I gained more skills I would be able to make more conclusions.