"If He exists the creator has an inordinate fondness for beetles."

-J.B.S. Haldane, distinguished British biologist (possibly apocryphal)

For all that I had intended to start with all the life around me, I got distracted gathering samples of everything new that I could find. Crunchy crackling obsidian, grainy basalt, dusty and semi-organic tasting limestone, a thousand flavors just from all the variations in the stone. I even found traces of crystal that seemed to have broken off my core in the waters beneath me. Nothing special happened when I absorbed them, so I moved on.

The water was rich with the flavors of life, making an organic soup for me to consume in an ever changing mixture.

Tiny organisms, so small I wouldn’t even know they existed without absorbing them, were everywhere. The most interesting ones were definitely in the sulfurous waters found far below. Water and mud, both boiling, teemed with life. And the hot moist caves created by the steam hosted even more.

One cave had a grey moss that grew on the ceiling where the steam from various vents gathered together. A tiny insect groomed the moss, trimming and eating tiny pieces that were brown and withered from extending too far outside the life giving steam. And below that an entire ecosystem of a dozen insects thrived off the leavings of the insects, bits of fallen moss, and the occasional fallen groomer.

As on Earth, the most common insect type among all the caves seemed to be beetles. I was guessing it was just an efficient shape. A relatively fat body that was covered in armor.

I was no entomologist, so the odds were that many of these insects were not actually beetles. Actually, most of what I was seeing probably didn’t qualify as insects either. However, they looked like insects and that was good enough for me. And among them were many legged arthropods like the millipede and centipede. And then more insects were in the water, living along with tiny transparent fish.

That was actually a fairly common trait. Many of the various creatures were transparent. It was both beautiful and eerie.

And among all the more common varieties that I wouldn’t have noted as anything special on Earth, were the reminders that I was on a more fantastical world now.

Next to a long elongated tunnel filled with steaming streams of water was an insect that vaguely reminded me of a cricket. Mainly because it had large legs it used to jump. However, after it jumped it would craft temporary translucent wings from mana and use them to ride the thermals of the stream as their back legs clicked together with ultrasonic speed. I saw them use it to escape predators, and after they had finished eating to look for more food. When they landed the wings would be reabsorbed back into the cricket with no apparent waste.

Another insect was more subtle. It was long and thin and ate into the stone to make a burrow for itself. It extended tiny strands of mana out of the entrance. When a thread was disturbed it would spring out and attack, retreating immediately afterwards with either prey or to escape an annoyed predator.

The caves were rich with mana. And I could finally answer a question I had wondered about Tam. Life produced mana. There was far greater concentrations of mana welling up from far below, but the caves that sustained life had denser quantities of mana than their surroundings.

Eventually I finished absorbing all the life I could get to. I had been far more careful here than I had in the sewer, making surgical destruction to catalog the species. I assumed my new skill was making it easier to learn everything, but I had only used it in the sewer before, so it was hard to tell.

Now it was time to answer some other questions. With that in mind I started extending my aura upwards toward the surface and simultaneously toward the depths following the richer mana.

Extending out my aura actually answered another question for me quite quickly.

Nothing was different about extending out the aura itself, but shortly afterward I saw it slowly grow denser and turn into dungeon aura. It was considerably slower than making aura, and only extended outward slowly from existing dungeon territory. I didn’t feel any additional cost from this, so it was probably just a natural process intended to extend my dungeon.

Well this changed my plans slightly. Since it was fairly slow I didn’t want to waste time that my dungeon could be expanding. So I started expanding my aura very slowly in all directions. No need to be swift, I was still outpacing the transformation handily.

And with the amount of mana in the caves due to all the life, the geothermal mana wells, and my own regeneration, I was producing mana slightly faster than I was spending it. I was still producing it slower than I liked, but that might always be the case.

I continued to extend out my aura toward the surface and the depths, but it was going to be a little while still. Time for other tests then.

Very carefully I brought stone up to support my crystal where in hung suspended in midair. I created a small cradle with arms of stone extending out from it. Now if my crystal fell from my testing it would be caught immediately.

With a small moment of focus I willed my crystal to move. And it did. It lifted into the air neatly above the cradle. I moved my core from side to side, carefully keeping my cradle just below it. My precautions appeared unnecessary, however. Here in my dungeon it appeared that I could move my crystal, even through the air, at will.

My natural curiosity got the better of me. One of my mental perspectives tried to see what was happening. And as a pleasant surprise, that answer seemed to be fairly simple.

Parts of my aura were taut with the pressure of holding me up, while others were bowed outward below me producing a push upward. I moved and I could see thousands of different strands flexing and the pressures changing to make it happen.

This actually reminded me of when I had tried to move stone before just using my aura. I had managed to embed the hooks of my aura into stone before. It looked like I had had the correct idea before, because I could see hooks holding the stone and then letting go as I moved.

I hadn’t had any luck before, but maybe now?

I hooked a piece of dust. Nothing. It even dragged my aura around. Oh well, I was not really expecting that to work right away. I would need to try and practice that again later. The only reason it worked for my core was probably the scale. There were countless threads that tied into it and all of them were working together to let me move. I went to go check my mana, but instead a tiny mana icon appeared in my vision and showed my mana levels.

Wait, what the hell? Wait, customized interfaced. That notification had mentioned those. That was actually very convenient. I thought about my level requirements and that popped up for a moment and then faded away as I stopped focusing on it. I experimented with other items from my status screen and they each popped up and then faded away with my attention.

Nice! Huh, this system actually did really good customization.

That was probably the reason for some of the strange messages I had gotten from the titles too.

I started thinking about the system. It was really quite a strange thing. I had no real idea what to make of it.

Did the whole universe just run this way here?

Honestly, it wasn’t impossible. If there were truly an infinite number of possible universes then almost none of them would anything like where I was from. Still an infinite number, but a much lesser infinity. I had thought about this periodically ever since I had been brought here, but I still had no answers.

For a moment I considered. Well it is worth a try. I cast out my thoughts toward the cosmos:

Admin?… System administrator? … End Program … Log In … Root … Game Options … Difficulty Mode … Language Settings … Settings …

I tried a litany of commands. I tried everything that I could remotely think of as being related to computers, games, and even started calling on the names of all the deities I remembered.

Nothing.

Well it was worth a shot anyway. I lost nothing but a tiny amount of time, and even that was marginal, because I had only been focusing on this with a single perspective. Whatever rules governed my new existence responded to a few things, such as spending AP, leveling up, etc… but it mostly seemed to just respond to what I did. Honestly it felt pretty automatic. If there was some over-mind running all of this, I doubted it cared much about me.

A little after my attempt to hack the universe, I felt something odd. I was taking a moment to note the temperature differentials in the volcanic basalt as my aura rose up through them when I felt myself shiver.

I had a hard time understanding what exactly was happening, and it was over just as quickly as it began. It happened again just a little later, and then again. Each time was too brief for me to tell what was going on. Eventually it happened again, but this time it was more drawn out, and I could finally see what was actually happening.

The entire dungeon flexed as the stone moved and then it went back to normal, and then it happened again very quickly in successive waves. If I didn’t cover such a large area I doubt I would have even noticed. It took me a moment to realized what it was, but when I did I felt like an idiot.

They were earthquakes!

With all the geothermal features, cooled lava, and lava tubes I should have expected them. Volcanoes often had dozens of tiny earthquakes around them every single day. It wasn’t something that was really noticeable without modern seismic technology, or… apparently, if your body was a truly massive hunk of stone that flexed when the rest of the stone moved. Once I realized what was going on I moved on. I made a note to reinforce the whole dungeon against earthquakes, but that was for the future.

I could feel that my thoughts were a bit scattered. It had been a few days since the last time I meditated and, while I hated to waste any time, I knew that meditation was important. Ultimately I would probably lose more time due to being distracted and making mistakes than the time it took to meditate. And I would still be forced to do it later anyway.

So, meditation it was.

It felt different to meditate now. I wasn’t sure if I should attribute that to jumping up to Meditation II, the denser aura of the dungeon, my larger area, or not being connected with Exsan in the same way. Some of all these things no doubt. Regardless, I felt different, but I needed to put that feeling aside with all the rest of my thoughts.

Let the mana enter. Halt. Let the mana enter. Halt. Repeat.

It took me longer than usual, but eventually I could feel myself fading into the quiet darkness within. I was aware, but mindful of nothing in particular. Every thought that came was acknowledged and then set aside.

A flicker of something else inside the deep stillness drew my attention. And then I was out of meditation.

I sighed. Right, start again.

I resumed meditation until I felt something again and my awareness pushed me out of meditation. This happened several times until I managed to be aware of the presence without focusing on it.

Resisting that focus was insanely difficult.

As I continued in my meditation the flicker of something became more solid and present. It was gradually drawing closer and becoming more detailed. Despite my best efforts a tiny part of my awareness kept focusing on it, which kicked me out of my meditative state several more times as I grew closer and closer to it. I tried to resist even guessing what it was, but my curiosity was probably responsible for pushing me out of my trance more times than anything else.

Eventually I found the right balance. I suspected that without the improvement to my meditation skill I would not have managed it. The presence gradually resolved until I could see some kind of object. I could only see the barest details, and as I continued it grew larger and larger before me.

What I could see of the outside was a diaphanous mix of layers that seemed to be constantly shifting. It had a distinctly organic feeling to it. Momentary fractals, curls, tendrils, and roots appeared and disappeared. The longer I was next to it the more familiar it felt. I grew increasingly certain that I ought to know what it was. Finally, when it had grown so large that it seemed like a wall stretched out to infinity in all directions it finally touched me.

The sudden awareness was enough to jar me out of meditation once again.

I knew exactly what it was. It was myself.

I was going to try meditating again, but I saw the tiny flashing light of a notification. With a thought it opened.

Your skill Meditation II has changed and improved through your efforts. It is now:

Soul Meditation II

You are aware of your own soul and can meditate to gain a greater understanding of your true self and strengthen your soul. Enhances mana regeneration while you focus inwards. Leads to greater awareness of the soul.