I opened my bedroom door quietly and slipped downstairs, not wanting Mum to see me and ask questions. It was unnecessary. More time had passed than I realized. The house was empty. She must have either headed in to work a bit early or gone shopping before starting.

I went out into the backyard and sat in the middle, stretching my legs out and enjoying the afternoon sunlight shining down. I looked around the yard, confirming how much space I had to work with. It was about 15 meters from the house to the back fence, and 10 meters from side fence to side fence.

The tall fences and large trees growing along them made it so the neighbors couldn’t see in, so there was no risk of being discovered. That privacy was what had let me strip naked and hose myself down just last night. It was the perfect spot to experiment in.

Looking around at where I was, though, I suddenly had second thoughts about building a dungeon here. What if it caused the ground to become unstable and it gave way, bringing down our house?

“What do you think, Cax?” I asked my resident expert. “Would it be better to go to the forest and build a dungeon there?” That would remove the risk of property damage, but since I had no idea what the process would entail, I was hesitant to do so. What if there were flashing lights and loud noises? Someone might be on a hike and be drawn in by the commotion, and then my secret would be discovered.

“There is no need to worry about the ground sinking in. The magic that runs through dungeons makes them incredibly strong and practically unbreakable. This magic also reaches a certain distance beyond the dungeon, extending its influence and stabilizing the surrounding earth. This area will actually be better off for having a dungeon here.

Also, with that unknown energy in the forest, it’s probably not a good idea to try this there. There’s no way to know how that would react with the magic.”

I put his last comment out of my mind. Nothing had changed. Without knowing what that energy was, there was nothing I could do about it. The plan to get stronger was the best one I had, and now that Cax had validated my decision to build the dungeon here, there was no reason to delay.

I got into a better position, crossing my legs and leaning forward on my hands. While any contact with the ground was probably sufficient, for some reason I felt more comfortable focusing magic through my hands.

I willed my interface to appear, and then mentally selected my sole profession. Several options were listed.

Dungeon Construction

Defenders

Miscellaneous

Rooms

Traps

I focused on the Rooms option, and a single choice came up. It simply said Standard Room. I quickly selected it, and a final prompt appeared.

You have selected [Standard Room].

Compatible ability detected: [Create]

Construction requirements will be calculated based on this ability.

Do you wish to proceed?

Mentally thinking yes, a 3D wire outline of a room appeared on the ground in front of me, the far end disappearing through the fence. It was huge! It was currently red, which I assumed meant I couldn’t construct it here.

Some text had appeared with the outline in the top right of my vision. I sucked at math, so I was glad to see it all laid out for me clearly. No need to strain my brain.

The text showed me that the room was 20 meters long and 15 meters wide, with a height of 6 meters. The walls were 1 meter thick. The text also said it would require 18,000 mana to construct, with an approximate time of 100 hours based on my current amount of total mana and mana regeneration. I wasn’t even sure what my mana regeneration rate was, but my interface was up to speed.

This was a standard room?! It would take more than four days to make!

“That is actually relatively fast. The same room would have taken me half again as long to construct when I was first starting out and didn’t have much mana.” I sensed a bit of wonder in Cax’s tone. “The efficiency that professions provide is quite remarkable.”

Relatively fast was not fast enough for me. There was no way I was going to spend four days making a single room. What would I even do with one that big?

“Let’s see if we can adjust this and save on some mana and time,” I said.

With some mental commands, I was able to shrink the room down until it was closer to the size of my bedroom. The text told me it was now 4 meters by 4 meters. I tried to reduce the thickness of the walls too, but nothing happened. I guess that wasn’t open for customization.

I moved on and adjusted the ceiling’s height to 4 meters too, liking the balance of having it all the same. I idly wondered why the standard ceiling was so high anyway.

“If you adjust the lighting, it is easy to hide traps and creatures up there,” Cax advised me enthusiastically. “I would often make it even higher for that very reason. Also, there are some very big adventurers.”

“Fair enough,” I simply said, not sure how to respond to his casual mention of his attempts to kill people. “But since I don’t have any need for traps, this size is good enough for me.”

Moving my attention to the floating text, I saw it had updated to 640 mana required with a time of about only 4 hours.

Much better, I thought happily. The outline of the room was still red, and I sat there just looking at it for a few seconds, not sure what to do next.

“Umm, I’m finished,” I announced hesitantly.

Design confirmed.

Do you wish to keep and name this design for future use?

I considered for a second. Could be useful, I thought. Confirming it, another prompt appeared asking me for the name. I couldn’t see myself ever spending four days making a room, so I replaced the original Standard Room design with this one. Once that was confirmed, my interface directed me to move the room into the desired location for construction.

I stood up and mentally moved the outline over to the back-left corner, right up against the fence. I trusted Cax, but still, better safe than sorry. We’d already found some differences in how some abilities worked for me and how they had worked for him. If this did cause any instability, being away from our house and the neighbors’ houses would hopefully mitigate the damage. Also, if I put it in the corner and there were no issues, I’d be able to put a few more same-size rooms under the backyard and the house.

I followed the outline as it shifted, happy to see I was able to move without interrupting the process. Once the corner of the room lined up against the corner of the fence, I stopped it. It was still red. I stood there, unsure how to proceed.

Since it had worked before, I called out, “I’m finished.” Nothing.

“It’s a dungeon room,” Cax said with clear amusement.

I winced a little at my stupidity. I imagined the frame sinking into the ground, and it began to descend, slowly disappearing. As it moved under the ground, a little semi-transparent window opened up under the text on the right side of my field of view. Shifting my gaze there brought it into focus. It was a view of the room’s outline as it moved through the ground. It was on an angle and from a short distance back so I could see every line that made up the room’s structure.

It allowed me to view what was contained within the room. I could see a fair number of stones and some pipes as the frame moved down, passing harmlessly through them. I also noticed a new line of text showing the depth of the room’s floor that constantly updated. 60 cm, 70 cm, 80 cm, …

As the entire frame disappeared into the earth, red lines extended up slightly above the ground, so I still had a reference point for where it was located. Shortly after that, the lines turned green so I was pretty sure I could begin construction. I could see in the special view window, though, that there were still pipes and cables in contact with the room, so I kept it moving down.

As soon as there was nothing inside the room that would be damaged, I stopped it. The text told me that the floor was 11 meters down, meaning the top of the roof was 5 meters below the ground due to the thickness of the frame.

This time I was successfully able to finalize the placement of the room.

Room location confirmed.

Proceed with construction?

With a simple thought, I felt my mana begin to flow from my center into the ground through my feet. I was aware of it sinking down until it reached the outline of the room. It quickly spread out along the lines of the roof, walls, and floor. Just like when I had used Absorb, my mana was being guided by my Create ability and Dungeon Construction profession.

I focused on it leaving my body, trying to get an understanding of how it was being guided, but wasn’t able to glean any information. I was hesitant to try and do anything more than observe in case it interfered with the process.

I was surprised when the stream of energy suddenly stopped about 3 minutes later.

Cax filled me in. “Your mana has reached zero. You will need to wait until it regenerates to continue with the construction.”

“Zero?! Shouldn’t I be feeling sick or something?”

“Ahh, another misconception. No, not at all. The mana that accumulates in your center is specifically there for you to use. The energy responsible for regulating your systems and keeping you alive is unable to be drawn upon. If not, people would be dropping dead every time they accidentally spent too much mana.”

“That’s good to know. I’d hate to deal with headaches and stuff like that all the time.”

I sat down to take a break and wait for my mana to refill. I found I didn’t need to devote any of my attention to maintaining the energy I had already put into the construction. It remained within the outline of the room all by itself.

“Why is that?” I asked Cax.

“It seems to be another advantage that professions provide. As soon as your mana went into the outline, the room activated. The magic is now holding your mana in place. I’m not sure how long it will stay like that or if you could walk away. Perhaps we could test it?” he suggested, sounding eager at the prospect of learning something new.

“Let’s experiment with that another day. I’m more interested in finishing the room and seeing how much experience I can get.”

My mana seemed to be replenishing fairly slowly. While I was waiting, I decided to use the time to go into my interface and get some answers to things I hadn’t had the chance to go over yet. I lay down on my back, enjoying the sensation of the soft grass pressing into my back and looking up into the rapidly darkening sky.

When we were talking about my limits earlier, I had wanted to find out about the other numbers on my stats page. Namely, the ones next to my affinities and spells. However, I had gotten caught up in working out how to get experience and then in the excitement of coming out here to try and make a dungeon.

I started with the numbers that were listed next to my spells and abilities. They were all ‘1’. My view of the sky was blocked as a screen filled my vision.

Spells, abilities, skills, and profession items begin at Rank 1.

This represents a basic level of power and effect.

After a sufficient amount of use, you will gain a greater understanding and be able to increase their rank. This will result in greater effects.

In particular, ranking up spells and abilities will provide you with a choice of evolutions that can enhance or alter their capabilities.

I focused on just the spells section of my stats to make sure I understood correctly.

“Hey Cax. If I use Heal 9 more times, it will reach rank 2, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Ok, and what kinds of…what was the word…evolutions, will be available for that?”

“Well, for Heal, one option might be to make it a ranged spell. Or maybe you could have it cure diseases as well as repair damage. Increasing the amount that it heals for or reducing its mana cost are other possibilities, but most people avoid those options since increasing an affinity’s Tier provides the same thing.”

I was so excited just hearing the prospects. I couldn’t wait for it to rank up so I could see what options there actually were for its first evolution. I was almost tempted to keep hurting myself so I could use the spell enough times. Almost.

“What else does a higher Tier do?” I eagerly asked, keen for as much information on magic as I could get.

“Well, apart from the changes to potency and cost, at Tier II you’ll also be able to manipulate that affinity’s energy in minor ways without requiring a spell. It is even possible to learn new spells by doing so.”

My eyes widened as far as they could. I would be able to design my own spells?!

Cax was quick to bring me back down to Earth. “Don’t get too excited. To reach Tier II, you need to have two of those affinity’s spells at rank 2 or higher. You are just getting started, so it will take some time.”

I knew he was right. I was at the beginning of this incredible journey and I needed to take it one step at a time. I forced myself to stop daydreaming about performing amazing feats of magic. I filed it away as another means of improving myself in order to become better prepared. The fact that it didn’t require experience was a huge plus. It would just take time and effort to gain ranks.

I checked how much mana I had recovered. It was almost back to full. I figured I had enough time to ask Cax one more question before we could resume making the dungeon room.

“What’s the difference between a spell and an ability? As far as I can tell, they’re the same. I mean, Absorb and Heal both use mana, so why is Absorb an ability and not a spell?

“It mainly has to do with the type of mana. Spells are connected to affinities, relying on a specific type of mana and thus available only to those with the appropriate affinity. Abilities, on the other hand, use neutral mana and are able to be learned by anyone. There are occasionally some requirements for abilities, though, such as having an affinity that relates to it. Or merging with a dungeon core from another planet to gain unique ones like Absorb.”

I could sense that Cax was proud of that little comment at the end. Having answered my question and probably sensing that I understood, he went off topic a bit.

“Speaking of Absorb, I have a request. Please use the ability on as many books as you can. I rarely had the chance to absorb the written word on my planet. It is an amazing way to gain knowledge. I have been going through the information contained in the two books you absorbed and comparing it to your memories. It is much better than relying on your mind. You misunderstood and forgot many sections of those two books.”

I frowned slightly. Did he just call me a dumbass?

“Ok, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said slowly, trying to work out if I should be offended. “I don’t have a lot of non-fiction stuff, just business texts from my university days. And I don’t have much spare cash to spend on books. Especially considering I’m going to have to buy a bunch of new clothes.” I adjusted my shirt again, still not used to how tight it was.

An idea came to me. “I guess we could go to a library,” I said consideringly. “If we kept it to just a few books and were extremely careful, it might work.” I thought the idea had merit and resolved to consider it some more later.

Another check of my mana showed it was back to full. Cax helpfully let me know that it had taken about 30 minutes, which meant I regenerated about one mana every 20 seconds. I wasn’t too interested in the numbers but knowing the rate might come in handy in the future.

I cracked my knuckles and rolled my neck to loosen it up a bit. I didn’t physically need to, but it was ingrained behavior. It was time to finish this dungeon room.