Here is chapter 3 hope you all enjoy it!

Sage focused his thoughts on monsters like Alice had instructed him to and suddenly a list appeared before him.

Goblin (100 Mana) - Small green skinned humanoid creatures that live together in packs. They are very weak individually so they always moves in small groups. Can be a threat when a leader is born among them as this causes much larger and more organized goblin raid groups.

Slimes (50 Mana) - A slime creature formed from mana. Due to its body structure it is resistant to physical attack while weak to magic. The mana core is its biggest weakness as without it the slime will die. Slime are very adaptive creatures so will change to many different forms.

Elementary White Ti... *ADSFEGJLKHGERRORFHJYFBO(XZ*

A flash of violent red appeared again and Sage lost sight of everything for a brief second.

Sage thought “What’s this! That is the second time already. There is something out there interfering with me and I have to be careful. Have to see if I can set some restriction down to protect myself. But that monster that was about to appear seem like it was going to be Elementary White Tiger.” When he could see again the full list appeared.

Slimes (50 Mana) - A slime creature formed from mana. Due to its jelly like body structure it is resistant to physical attack while weak to magic. The mana core is its biggest weakness as without it the slime will die. Slimes are very adaptive creatures so will change to many different forms.

Goblin (100 Mana) - Small green skinned humanoid creatures that live together in packs. They are very weak individually so they always moves in small groups. Can be a threat when a leader is born among them as this cause much larger and more organized goblin raid groups.

Kobold (200 Mana) - Small lizard-like humanoid creatures that are skilled in building traps and ambushes. They are aggressive in nature and don’t get along well with other creatures. Due to their lizard heritage some believe they might be related to Dragons but this is unconfirmed.

Skeleton (250 Mana) - Very common undead creatures and can come in a great varities. Skeletons made from dead beings will inherit characteristics of that being and are generally more powerful and more intelligent than skeletons summoned by mana.

HellHounds (500 Mana) - Demonic dogs that has some control over fire. Rumor has it that once they grew powerful enough they will grow larger and gain extra heads.

Dungeon Pixies (1000 Mana) - Unlike their friendlier counterpart Fairies they love playing pranks on people. Although not very deadly they are nightmares for the unprepared.

Sage listed off the creatures as he read the list “Goblins, Slimes, Kobolds, Skeletons, HellHounds, and Dungeon Pixies?” Sage looked at Alice with questioningly.

Alice quickly responded, “I almost forgot about this but beside the two special type of dungeons that are targeted for extermination there is one more that’s part of the normal group but depending on the local population can be quite dangerous as well. That type of dungeon is the undead dungeon. They operate same as the other normal dungeons but due to the creatures that live inside there are certain groups that aren’t very happy with their existence.”

Sage nodded in agreement, “That does make sense, the undead has always made people uneasy.”

Alice was shocked for a moment and said, “Wow, I didn’t think you would understand that. Sage you really are a weird dungeon core. Maybe that’s why you have HellHounds as an opinion, normally only demonic dungeons can summon demonic creatures but consider how much of an outlier you are this isn’t that surprising. But as I said before demonic dungeons are targeted so it is best not to summon any.”

Sage nodded again and asked, “So are these dungeon pixies? They do seem quite useless for the purpose of a dungeon.”

“While Dungeon Pixies aren’t very useful when it comes to fighting they do still have their uses.” Alice thought for a moment then continued “Pixies, much like us fairies, are creatures that are good at gathering mana. The excess mana gathered by pixies is call pixie dust which has a lot of uses in Alchemy. The best part is that because pixies need to be alive to keep producing them people generally don’t kill pixies and let them go once the dust is collected. Also since it requires a lot of mana for Pixies to produce pixie dust dungeons are the best place to keep them, as a result they aren’t captured either. In the end their main purpose is to simply attract more people.”

“Hmmm, so how do we feed these monsters exactly? I don’t see an opinion to summon normal animals and if the dungeon was large with a lot of monsters how would they all survive?” Sage asked after processing all the information.

Alice replied “Dungeon monster don’t really need to eat as they are created from mana they will feed on the mana inside the dungeon. Once the dungeon gets larger and has more floors the lower floors will have a higher mana density which mean stronger monsters will be able to sustain themselves. This is why powerful monsters are always on the lower floor and don’t come up to the upper floor very often. But if you will it they will move to where you wish but remember if they go to area with too low mana density then they will get hungry and need to eat. This also is true when you sent monsters outside of your dungeon.”

“I can send monsters outside of the dungeon!” Sage cried, shocked at the news.

From what he assumed since the monsters are created from mana they won’t be able to leave this area.

“Yes you can send them out of the dungeon…” Alice hesitated for a bit before continuing “but I would highly recommend against that. Once the monsters leave the dungeon they are outside the range of your influence so you won’t be able to order them anymore. And if it is found that monsters are leaving the dungeon and causing problems for the people living nearby then they might decide to destroy you because you’re a threat to them.”

Sage silently pondered the new information.

“So let’s summon your first monsters!” Alice said after an awkward pause .

Sage began to plan in his mind “Skeletons and HellHounds are out the question it seems, that’s too bad because I knew some cultivation methods that would have fit them perfectly. Pixies can’t fight so I’ll leave them for later. I honestly have no idea what this slime thing even this, it’s like a living pile of goo. Can I even teach it a cultivation technique? Or better yet does it even have enough intelligence for me to teach it… That basically leaves the Goblins and Kobold. Kobold seem much smarter than Goblins and possibly have ancient heritage I can exploit, I do remember a few cultivation that can awaken the heritage of a dragon. That’s a good long term plan but there are too many variables right now to depend on that. I have no idea what kind of body or talent they will have and how well they can even learn. I guess I’ll need to experiment with these creatures to see what suit them the best.”

Finally Sage said “Let’s start with a Goblin!” With that he focused on the monster list again and targeted his focus on Goblin. Quickly he felt mana drain away from him as they move away from his crystal body to the area before him. The mana moved intricately and woven together into the shape of a Goblin with a magic core forming inside its head. This process happened very fast and to anyone else all they would see is a flash of white light as the Goblin appears. However to Sage, who has been a cultivator, he could clearly see the way mana moved to create the Goblin. Sage carefully remember this process for future study.

The goblin was small creature that was only about 4 feet tall and is holding a very simple spear.

“A goblin!” Alice excitedly shouted “Good choice for the first monster. Although we are going to need quite a few more for this to be at least on the level of a beginner dungeon. How many can you summon right now Sage?”

Sage replied “After this one I can summon 9 more.”

“WHAT!” Alice shouted “How much mana do you have already?”

“When I reached level 10 my mana capacity suddenly spiked up to 1000 instead of the normal 50 gain per level.” Sage pondered for a bit then continued, “And the strange thing is even when I max out at 1000/1000 mana I didn’t level up anymore.”

“You really are a genius at gathering mana!” Alice let out a loud cheer and then said “Level 1 to 10 is considered a preparation phase for dungeon cores. Normally a dungeon core will slowly make their dungeon larger so they absorb more mana to level up. After they reach level 8 they would spawn monsters to fill up the dungeon and by level 10 they are ready to connect their dungeon to the outside world. You also stop being able to level up past level 10 from just passively gathering mana, at this point you’re forced to allow people to come in if you wish to continue to grow. The growing requirements for you will now be mana you gather from intruders to your dungeon. A lot of different factors come to play for this but the longer the intruders are inside and the stronger they are the faster you will be able to level up. Of course if they were to die that would be even better! However your growth is completely different from the norm so even though you are at level 10 already we are not ready to open up to the outside world unless you want to make the shortest dungeon in the world!”

Sage nodded and proceed to summon 6 more goblins and 1 kobold making a total of 7 goblins and 1 kobold. Good thing they are dungeon monsters so they don’t attack fellow dungeon monsters or else if it was outside a fight would have already broken out. Sage then thought for a bit and asked, “Can they help in expanding the dungeon?”

Alice replied, “If you give them tools I suppose they can but it would be very slow in comparison to you just digging with your mana. Normally it would help decrease mana cost but with your mana recovery it doesn’t seem to matter too much.”

Sage suddenly asked, “How would I give them tools?”

“Just like how you summoned creatures you can summon items as well. You will need to summon these items as reward to lure more people to come into your dungeon!” Alice excitedly replied “And as you get stronger you will be able to create better items. Also items people dropped here can be picked up and replicated by you. Of course if it is some very powerful item the amount of mana required to make a copy will match suit. Since we already talked about monsters and items I might as well talk about the last thing and that is your dungeon environment. Much like how you summon monsters and items you can also change the environment of your dungeon. You can add plants, ores deposits, or even LAVA! This also allows you to summon normal animals as well and depending on the environment some of them might even evolve into new monsters!” Alice seemed to be overly excited again and went into another fit.

Sage seemed used to it already and proceeded to expand the dungeon. He figured out that because the entire dungeon is like part of his body he could easily expand at any part of it without his main crystal body having to move there. So while he controlled his mana to automatically expand the dungeon he turned toward his monsters. These monsters are going to be his lifeline until he finds a way to protect himself.

He immediately decided to scan them and after checking out the goblin and kobold’s body structure he couldn’t help but frown. Simply put they’re not only weak but have a horrible body for cultivation. Their blood flow is horrible, meridians aren’t connected, and body is weak. They would need a lot of work to be able to cultivate at all.

“Guess things aren’t going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. Well I was considered one of the greatest teachers and even named a sage. If I can teach geniuses and those above me how bad can this really be?” Sage thought this and soon he regretted those words.

Not only were these monsters not fit for cultivation they weren’t very smart either, especially the goblins. The kobold seemed to be at least a bit smarter but this hardly mattered considering the competition. He tried giving them lectures like how he would with disciples, explaining the meaning behind the fundamentals of cultivation but all he got back were blank stares.

“Ok that might have been a bit too advanced so let’s move to some simple Qi control instead.” Said Sage.

However the result was the same, blank stares. Then something finally hit Sage as he shouted “Right this world’s energy is call mana so need to teach them how to gather mana inside their body then use that to cultivate!” And thus Sage went back to teaching.

As for Alice she finally got tired and asked Sage to make her a room connected to his secret chamber. After getting Sage to spawn her a bedroom set she went to sleep while Sage worked on training his monsters.

Hours flew by,

“Why is none of this working…”

Edited by: mossclaw64

Edited by: The super secret and mysterious masked editor... from space!