Dungeons are controlled spaces of adventure and yes death for all those too foolish to measure their own strength. However, despite the high fatality rate Dungeons are wildly looked upon favourably by nearly every Sapient race. They grow underground keeping away from claiming the surface where most races live, and while that would put them as contesting land from the dwarves, they tend to immediately stop expanding upon reaching their settlements. Occasionally even providing gifts such as endlessly refilling mines as an almost sheepish apology, Dungeon Cores are anything if not consistent in not terrorizing their surroundings.

Another point in their favor is they have been known to clean up mana wells when they come across them briefly breaking their taboo to spread up onto the surface and collect all the dangerously mana-polluted items and lowering natural mana back to comfortable levels before retreating leaving them in the good graces of elves-Those who have little greed and no reason to delve a Dungeon's depths. Even the most widely-killed of the Sapient races, Orcs, like Dungeon Cores. They see every warrior's death as an honourable end in battle and continue to throw themselves at the challenge Dungeons provide- distracting them from waging war on anything and everything that moves. (And by anything we must note at least one documented Orc Tribe has declared war against a mountain after an avalanche crushed part of their camp in 1380 AS...and waged war for nearly 2 years before having decided the mountain had learned its lesson)

-An Excerpt from “A study of dungeons VOLUME 3”

Indecisive Earth got more and more uncomfortable as he felt stretched and... weird. Going through the list of possible outcomes he landed on the idea that he was forming multiple floors already.

Damn, but couldn't someone have mentioned it being this awful? Quickly thinking back to his description of what to do, he frantically looked around his dungeon for most mana-dense items.

Some shells and scraps littered the floors from all the monsters that died, and he quickly started pulling them down to the first experiment room beside his core – the one still half covered in crystals.

He also tried commanding his strongest monsters to come down closer to him. The “Earthen Core Golem” immediately stopped what it was doing – attempting to roll up a portion of the wall and failing – then started working its way down. His jumping death machines didn't so much as twitch however, no matter how many times he called for them.

A faint split was forming in his consciousness, but it was still forming much too slowly. I can't do anything while this is happening. It's too distracting and feels much too distressing.

Searching valiantly for more to distribute he started peering at all the walls looking for dense materials. A corridor near where he had made his Golem had a thin layer of much more magical stone covering the whole surface of it – not nearly as much as the scraps from his monsters but still a significant amount.

Trying to store some of it in his inventory he was annoyed when it pulled out the raw rock and left most of the mana floating in the air and rebinding to the stone around it. He didn't have any monsters that could help so slicing off small tiles 10cm x 10cm x 1cm and floating them down to his depths was all he could think of doing.

A dozen tiles later and that corridor seemed no different than its surroundings. He left all the tiles in a neat little pile in his core room and then searched for something else to move. He frantically looked around for something else to sort but he had exhausted all the low-hanging fruit.

Each action he had taken to hasten the process along had definitely helped – he was splitting much much more quickly than before, but it was still too slow for him. *OH* I can make a boundary he remembered. Roughly splitting his area of influence in 2 he found a hallway that worked enough for his purposes and directed the split to fall just inside it. Slowly his vague sense of being broken and twisted centred on a section of the hallway partway down, and as it did, a faint line in the floor started to form. Invisible unless he focused into that special mana sight the line was a sharper and sharper gradient of mana density.

There didn't appear to be any real movement yet, but the line grew more and more defined as mana was slowly funnelled from the half he was designating his low-density zone to his high-density zone. Willing the process to go faster didn't seem to help, but as he didn't have much else to do, he pretended he was dragging the environmental mana from above and pulling it towards his core.

After what felt like days but was closer to an hour his floors pulsed and with a silent crack, he found he had formed his second floor.

He felt different. Almost as if with the release of pressure from forming a floor, his mind was also changed. As he pondered what was different, he absentmindedly started tidying up all the scraps of various dead critters and pushing them into a pit he was slowly digging at the same time. It took him way too long to realize it, but with a snap, he realized he could split his focus on two different tasks with the same sort of concentration he was managing before on one.

Taking a look around his core room he realized he hadn't made a single change to it since he'd started expanding. At this point, he had more experience and a faint sense of vanity over how shabby the cave looked. Moving to the ground he dug with pinpoint precision working his way across the whole floor levelling it and vaporizing any rubble into his inventory.

Next, floating the tiles over from the previous room he started laying them down trying to cover the ground in square cobblestones. There wasn't enough to cover the whole floor, so he staggered them into a checkered pattern and splurged a bit by using some of the titanium that was piling up in his inventory to make a dozen more tiles and fill in the empty holes.

Floor done, he smoothed out the walls turning the arch into straight sheer 90-degree walls and widened the ceiling to match the ground. Finishing his makeover, he glanced around approvingly. I should make my dungeon look cool if I'm going to show it off later. Turning next to his hole of scraps he tried once again to see if he could do anything with them. The raw physical materials could be reclaimed but doing so took a lot of effort which could have better been used on digging out the stone instead. Additionally, after he was finished making the monster, he was frozen out of editing it. The mana released was no longer his personal mana and nearly equivalent to the environmental mana that still infused his surroundings.

He had a thought to try and recycle parts into new monsters to see if he could. Shifting around he found several rings from the few worms that had died and pulled them up to examine. Tossing the few that were damaged he managed to gather 4 rings that met his quality specifications. Next quickly creating the rest of the rings and filling out a worm with a speed that can only come from practice he let out a spark and quickly observed the finished result. For the most part, this specimen awoke in much the same way as its predecessors had done, but after slithering to life it suddenly froze for a solid second. Coiling up and uncoiling a few times and uncoiling as if confused it finished its examination then turned and slithered off to join its brethren.

Examining the trundling along worm for another few minutes, then satisfied that nothing seemed to be wrong, he thought about what he had learned.

I can recycle parts by using them on identical monsters... it's not as easy as just making new monsters because I can't edit them as easily but it's a way of getting rid of some scraps and I guess it does save a small bit of mana. I don't think I can break the golem without breaking the core but If that did happen, I'd want to reuse that core...it took quite a bit of time to make after all.

He really wanted to make another golem but the amount of effort for just one monster didn't seem worth it at the moment. I don't want to make a habit of creating a monster that uses more mana than my cap... waiting for mana to regenerate part way through a monster is a real pain and locks me up as I hold everything in place.

Indecisive Earth checked his mana pool – 30/90.

Should be enough to make one of "his" monsters and finally get him to stop asking.

A side effect of being made from solid crystal without fleshy parts was heightened memory, so he reviewed the instructions Abe had given days ago.

First, he set up a stasis field and worked to empty it of any impurities. Then he started making a simple shell out of Crystal mana and Silicon. Pretty positive Abe can’t use Crystal mana but hey...I’m liking this combo. Next, he quickly dumped some Fire mana bonded to oxygen into the hole and sealed the shell before trying to compress it afterwards. This feels weird. Normally I make the inside first and cover it after growing it, but I’ll follow his steps for now. Realizing Abe had never fully explained how he made the outside of the slug he shrugged and followed the fire slime template. A whole bunch of fire and gas surrounded by nice thick skin.

As soon as he added a spark the slime shivered and stilled. Unlike the fire slime, it didn’t start moving around choosing to simply sit there. Checking his bestiary there was a new monster listed as Blast Slug Variant O* with a fanciful description of them being kicked by adventurers and detonating.

Okay, I guess I've made an exploding slime. Might as well test it out.

Searching around for one of his oldest (and thus slightly irritating due to not being as perfect as his newest monster) worms he found one close to his new experiment room. First attempting to command it...then giving up and picking it up, he dragged the monster up the hall and deposited it near the entrance. Catching sight of the trapped slime the worm immediately knew what to do. FOR HONOR AND GLORY. The worm had already killed several fire slimes and knew exactly how to kill them.

Rushing forwards without a single mote of hesitation it pounced. The rounded tip of its head sunk down into the "slime" before with sudden force the worm was flung up at the roof, crumpling with the impact and landing dead back near the entrance to the room. The explosion was both more and less exciting than he had expected. The amount of force used to fling his worm was sizable – although single-use – and came with an accompanying boom for added sound effects. For some reason packing the Fire mana really had given a small explosion...I didn't add nearly as much mana and did compress it, but something doesn't add up.

Indecisive Earth had already made an earthen core and although he had added plenty of mana and it was made out of solid materials his result hadn't exploded. If what I was told is true...mana makes matter and that should have also exploded due to the force...I can't imagine Fire mana making much matter in comparison to earth so why has it exploded with less effort? Although maybe it's because the Fire mana that had pulsed seemed slightly different. It's probably similar to my earth-turned Crystal mana...I didn't purposefully create it, but neither was I attempting to create Crystal mana at the time.

The biggest problem was when creating the living crystal he was given an "end result" that he could study, and his earth control had increased his proficiency in studying said mana to a point where he could copy it on a whim and directly use it in materials.

The Explosion mana however had been hidden in its shell and only appeared for a microsecond before dissipating. It would take countless explosions and studying to give him any chance of copying it for his own use or making it in a non-roundabout manner. As strong as it was I... can’t bring myself to care. Leave it to Abe to figure out.

Indecisive Earth: Hey Abe I got around to making your dumb slug. Variant O* if that means anything. Why’s it called a slug and not a slime?

Abe: AHH Bro, Well done Well Done. Variant O is the “Old” Version or maybe the Original idk I didn’t name them. I get a star every time it's slightly different from what I can only assume is the first one made. Like using anything other than Silicon skin on nitrogen fire ectoplasm and a Silicon nitrogen bomb. Idk maybe they are close enough for the system to declare them the same it's not important- All the cool variants are much better. You'll see I’ve got a whole list of unlocks. First off if you want them to make Variant A (add some Armor plating to the top of it and make sure you stretch it out enough). Variant M happens when you stuff 2-3 bombs into it and Variant S is a beautiful version that works by suspending lots and lots of slivers of stuff in the ectoplasm so they scatter when it explodes. Do not make those near your core room gotta say.

Indecisive Earth: Ait, Ait, I’ll keep it in mind.

SPEED: Why is it that no matter what I do these worthless monsters keep being slow.

Indecisive Earth: Hey Speed good to see you again I never managed to catch what your affinity is.

SPEED: What's it to you huh. I thought Water and air were the best. Cause they can actually move. But the stupid system wouldn’t give me that so I went for water and fire. Worthless. Can’t even make anything fast like this and twos obviously better than 1. Would have picked all if it weren't for that dodgy warning.

Indecisive Earth: Well now, Water and Fire is a fine combination.

Abe: No it's not. Bloody dampening liquid has no place with the glory of fire.

Indecisive Earth: The fastest monster I’ve made so far uses that combination (kinda) want any tips?

SPEED: Don’t just tease me, if you’re giving information give it already otherwise kindly screw off.

Indecisive Earth felt more and more exasperated with the role he was given. It's not like it even matters really why am I helping out abrasive cores for free. At least I’m getting information from the rest of them...what have the noobies contributed yet. He finally continued feeling like he had committed but mentally grumbling the whole time.

Indecisive Earth: If you make a section of fire elements and then isolate it from the Water mana they interact by explosively expanding. You have to figure out how to direct it. I've set up a proof of concept with a cylinder surrounded by Earth mana and filled with liquid metal. I’m sure you can come up with something.

SPEED: uh is the earth part important.

Indecisive Earth: Yes actually it's the only way to calm the mobs down. Shove a whole bunch of Earth mana at it until it outweighs the fire and water.

SPEED: Damn...I hate working with the stuff it just doesn’t work goes all over the place and is too much effort.

Indecisive Earth thought back to the stacking weaknesses of having a dual elemental core and shuddered. Yeah Air was hard and he kinda just didn’t want to use it due to the added difficulty but during a pinch, he could set something up. He couldn’t imagine it being even worse than how much control he had. Yep, Single Specialization is for the best after all.