Thinking about attributes made me realize that I had never looked at my orc avatar after I purchased him. I had no idea what level he was or anything. I ignored the weird sensation of looking at myself. After all, half my consciousness automatically took over the orc body when it respawned.

Male Orc – Avatar of Dungeon Core Arthur – Level 4

Strength – 32

Constitution – 27

Dexterity – 22

Intelligence – 40

Wisdom – 46

Charisma – 10

Luck – 10

Dungeon Avatar – While alive retains half the consciousness of the dungeon core. Intelligence, wisdom, charisma, and luck attributes are replaced by the dungeon core’s attributes. Level is the same as the dungeon core. All level up attributes will be distributed equally to strength, constitution, and dexterity.

I looked at my attributes in shock. If I assumed that the average human had attributes of ten then my avatar was a real monster. It had over three times the strength and over twice as much constitution and dexterity. It also had my intelligence and wisdom behind it. Which made me wonder if I could use my avatar to directly cast spells.

A couple seconds later my avatar was holding a ball of fire in one hand and a ball of water in the other. The avatar also had its own separate supply of mana. I felt stunned at the implications. I couldn’t use that mana to create monsters or help expand my dungeon. I could use it to cast any of the magic spells I had learned.

Next time I created plumbing in my dungeon I was using my orcs mana pool and not my cores. The plumbing I had made last night had cost me as much as an entire goblin. It was totally worth it though.

Well now that my avatar was back it was time to confront my issues. One point and a few minutes later I was carrying a store bought vase filled with various flowers from the garden room. When the professor saw me she looked a tiny bit afraid. I wondered how much longer it would take before she realized that nothing in my dungeon was going to hurt her.

Of course when she saw the flowers I was carrying that trace of fear turned into full blown curiosity. “I owe you an apology. I should have told you.” I said and handed her the flowers.

She looked up and down my orc avatar. “So this is your avatar? I only got a glimpse of it before. I was thinking it was just a big goblin, but it’s obviously not. It’s as similar as a gorilla is to a baboon, or a hawk to a pigeon.” She finally said.

“Yeah the goblins are considered tier one monsters. This is an orc, which is considered a tier three.” I explained.

“I’m not sure what you mean by tiers. Still this is way closer to a human than the goblins. Except taller, with green skin, and way more muscles. Would this be what the average orc looks like? Or was this one involved in bodybuilding or something?” She asked curiously.

“No idea. I only have one orc, although I think most have tusks. Eventually I will be able to get more. We will know then I guess.” I said shrugging.

“I want to do a full examination later.” The professor said slowly walking around me.

“You’re welcome to examine my body whenever you want.” I said in a teasing voice. The professor instantly turned red making me smile.

She stared intently at the flowers for a moment and then changed the subject. “Where did you get these flowers? Are they from your dungeon? I haven’t seen any of them yet.” She said.

“I have a bunch of options for various plants and animals that I haven’t used yet. I don’t have nearly enough space. It also costs me mana.” I explained.

The professors gave me a curious look. “Does that have something to do with all the strange things that have been happening? Is it related to this weird interface that I now have access to? And the fact that electricity and most other technology no longer seems to be working?”

I nodded. “Three days ago I woke up in the middle of the night with a headache. There was this weird message and then it asked me to create a character. I picked dungeon core. I’m kind of surprised that you picked human instead of one of the other races.” I said out of curiosity. She struck me as the type of person that would want to experiment.

“I remember the headache. Like most people I went back to sleep though. The next morning I woke up to what I assume was the same character creation screen. Unfortunately my only options that weren’t greyed out were human and a bunch kind of disturbing races. Gnomes and dwarves may not be that bad but why would anyone pick to be a slime person or a goblin? Eventually I decided to just remain human.” The professor explained.

“Yeah I was picking just as those races were going grey. I’m kind of scared at some point I’m going to end up running into a god or dragon. I actually watched the dragon option turn grey right before I was able to pick it.” I shared a bit of my own experience.

“Well as I created my character there weren’t a lot of options. I put my points in intelligence and wisdom of course. Is it crazy that I feel smarter than I did before?” She said in a slightly wistful voice.

I shrugged. “I know I’m smarter. Dungeon core came with a fifteen point bonus to intelligence and wisdom.” She gave me a surprised look. “Just how high is your intelligence and wisdom?”

“Forty intelligence and forty six wisdom.” She gave me a shocked look. “Mine are only in the low twenties.” I was quite impressed. As long as it was linear, that made the professor more than twice as smart as the average person.

Professor Hanson shook her head and then continued her story. “Anyway I woke up and noticed that the AC wasn’t working. I went to turn on the TV, and it’s not working either. Pretty soon I found out that telephones, radio, cars, basically every piece of technology that relied on electricity stopped working. It’s a bit odd though because guns are working but none of the cars are. Even the old diesel trucks that don’t rely on electricity don’t work.”

That was odd. From what I remembered old diesel engines just relied on combustion to run. I didn’t know a lot about them but I couldn’t think of any reason they wouldn’t work but guns would. Then again I also couldn’t think of a reason that electricity wouldn’t work.

“Then things started appearing from the forest. It started with the animals being more aggressive. After that creatures appeared that nobody had seen before. Even a few that everyone thought were just a myth. Some of those were really dangerous. The mayor organized the town and the sheriff recruited a few dozen extra deputies. Since then everyone has boarded up their houses and most of the men have organized regular patrols of the forest. One of those patrols found you and I guess you know the rest of the story.” The professor concluded.