One hour later…

Alright, he was core enough to admit it. He may have been a little too impulsive when it came to ditching the old fart. Especially now that he sat underground, filled to capacity, unsure of what to do with himself, and filled with questions.

Stupid, dumb, idiot rock. You could have at least found out how to evolve first. Or had tried to learn more about the Guild, or that ‘invitation’ thing, or anything. He had had the entire history of the world at his tendril-tips and had told it to fuck off.

He and his creations sat in a pitch-black cube of empty space, a good thirty feet below the surface. It had taken him a few feet of digging downward to max out his reserves, while only costing a third of his energy to fill it back in. Also, yes, he had tried reabsorbing the dirt. No, it hadn’t given him an infinite supply of energy. Damn.

After an hour, he had made themselves a nice little room to begin the dungeon. If he could stop being indecisive and actually start building it, anyway.

The roots he had grown while burying them became annoying, to say the least. He had no way to get rid of them, now that the witch wasn’t around anymore, and his creature ended up being far too small to break them. Kinda. It could crack the root given time, sure, but it had struggled to sever it from his body. After a few minutes of failed attempts, he had just said to forget about it.

In the end, he had started directing the growths to his sides, out of sight of their box and through the soil around them. It had been unbearably tedious to have to manually direct four different roots at once, all growing in opposite directions of one another.

Until it had stopped being annoying and made him the happiest core alive. So THAT’S how!?

It had been a mystery to him how he would build such massive structures and be able to have ‘total control’ like the voice had said when he couldn’t even build outside of a one-inch radius of himself.

With his new roots, though, he felt connected to everything around him. He could feel his own reserves of energy pumping through each root and cycling back into himself. When he had discovered he could literally see out of the roots, it had made him want to cry. This is so fucking cool.

Just having the potential to do… whatever he wanted with his life, having freedom after so long spent at the mercy of others, had overwhelmed his emotions.

He looked to his creature, currently parading his replica around the room, and felt at peace. First thing’s first, let’s brighten this place-- Huh. It had certainly been devoid of light in their new home... but he now realized he could see perfectly fine. Where the fuck had this night-vision been during his time in the witches cabin!?

The only explanation he had been able to reach, was that the roots were far more important than he had previously anticipated. Well, I should still add some light for the little… Oh, right.

His creature didn’t need any light to see, and it appeared he no longer would either. Add that to the bottom of the core to-do list, then.

With his creations now safe, he wanted to see what he might be able to do about keeping it that way.

While having the dungeon completed before the Guild found him was important, what had mattered more to him was that his creations were protected. Or, rather, were able to protect themselves.

Verifying he had maxed out his reserves, he focused his intent on his first living-creature while he began the building process.

It hadn’t terrified him at all when it disassembled mid-stride and vanished into those colorful orbs of light, reappearing within his mind’s eye. Nope, not one bit.

His replica had begun rolling across the floor, its chariot gone.

Okay, then. What should we work on first, little guy? He hadn’t really been asking his creature, but it had responded to him anyway. Turned out it could hear him from in there after all and was not afraid to tell him what it wanted. Good to know.

It had taken all of its tendrils and outstretched them into a massive star, then flexed as hard it could, for as long as it could. The striated limbs bent and posed in different ways before it had started what must have been the most intimidating form of jogging he was ever likely to see. He got the message well enough.

Do you want to be stronger? A vicious nod from his creature had served as its reply.

Do you want to be faster? Another nod.

He had been shocked it hadn’t asked for… a head, maybe? Perhaps a few noses? You don’t want me to change… anything else? I would if you asked, you know. An aggressive no had followed his line of inquiry.

Well, damn. Who was he to say-- Oh, right. He supposed he could tell it no, and it would have likely obeyed him without hesitation anyway. Fuck. That. If his creature wanted to be able to move faster than any other living being and hold a mountain on its tiny shoulders, then he would find a way so it could.

When he had first built the little guy, he had just used his intent and gone from there. He worried, however, that if he used something so vague as a foundation now, it would drastically change his creature’s form. Which, it clearly did not want.

Taking a closer inspection, he focused at the heart of his little ball of death, where all the limbs were attached to…each other? The poor thing just had a big ball of meat at its core, which seemed to guide the appendages. Let’s start here.

He began by simply dumping the energy he had into his creature, with no specific changes intended aside from power and speed. To be perfectly honest, he was just experimenting and wanted to know if it would grow in size or not.

While he watched the entirely white reserve symbol slowly drain into every color of the rainbow, his creature had begun to vibrate.

An absolute horror show had followed. Thin, new tendrils had begun to sprout out of the central bit of flesh as well as the larger appendages, quickly twisting and coiling along their lengths. The original ten limbs, however, had begun to elongate and widen. Dozens of smaller ones that had only recently appeared began to wrap themselves around the main limbs. By the time the display had finished, his creature had effectively tripled in size.

Unsure whether to burn his non-existent eyes out or congratulate his creature, he stared numbly at the sudden changes. It had certainly had the desired effect… his creature definitely seemed pleased with itself, their bond overflowing with gratitude.

I-- Uhm… Okay, then. Looking at his reserves, he still saw at least a third of it remaining. Huh.

He had intended to use all of his energy during the experiment, especially with the abundance of soil now available to him.

His creature had begun individually moving the new tendrils while it learned about its own body. The smaller ones, it had apparently discovered, could be moved independently and unwrapped from the larger limbs.

As it experimented, his confusion only grew, I specifically meant to use everything at once. Why didn’t that use it all up…? He focused back on his creature in an attempt to pour more energy into its form. Instead, his head practically screamed out, a horrible screeching noise flooding his senses. What the fuck is that!?

Even worse, his creature had writhed in agony within his mind’s eye. Oh, shit. I am so sorry! He immediately finished the building process, bringing his creature back into the real world.

Once the particles of light had finished constructing it, he realized it had become quite cramped in their room.

Are you okay? Using its new tendrils, it shakily formed a miniature thumbs-up.

With a mental sigh of relief, he tried to get his thoughts in order. What had that sound just been? He had his guesses... but could wait to find out for sure. It would be quite the easy problem to solve, actually.

With how his roots allowed him to see more, they had also allowed him to absorb things from further away than his core could have on its own. He expanded the room they were in until his creature would be able to comfortably move around.

He continued to absorb the nearby soil until his reserves had been topped off. Hm… let’s try…this.

Focusing his intent, he imagined a massive crystalline pillar at the center of their new room. He intended to spend every damn drop of energy, so it had better be worth the incoming core-ache.

The moment he had imagined the pillar and felt that familiar sensation, it began appearing exactly where he had wanted it. That’s pretty convenient. Motes of multi-colored light warped and hardened, and he had watched his reserves drain while the column continued to grow. By the time the process had ended, it stretched from floor to ceiling and was at least four inches in diameter. Great, now I can’t even see half the room.

He expanded the area once again, glad to note the column had grown through the soil both above and below itself. It appeared even more imposing, somehow, although it would have been pretty awkward if it had just toppled over on top of his creature after he enlarged the room.

It appeared translucent and completely smooth. He could vaguely see the form of his replica through the pillar, distorted by the odd angle. A soft light emanated out from the crystal, casting terrifying shadows across the walls while his creature investigated the new addition.

Absorbing more soil had been enough to stave off the worst of the pain from using all his energy. The new room had become a foot tall from top to bottom, quite the spacious area for a core normally one-twelfth the size. His connections to the various roots he had made him appear a little larger, though he had hidden most of them outside of the room his creations sat in.

He mentally prepared himself. Okay. This is probably gonna hurt.

Now that he had filled his reserves to about half, he focused back on the pillar and attempted to expand it some more.

His thoughts emptied and were replaced by an echoing wail, Ow. Ow ow, ow. Fuck. Yep, that had definitely hurt.

Well, that made things a little more simple. Although, it also meant he would be at a serious disadvantage.

Obviously, he had a max build-limit for what he could create. If he tried to push a creation past his own personal limits, the building process would tell him to go kick rocks. I need to figure out how to evolve.

Both his creature and the pillar it had started climbing would be staying as they were, then. What about the size of a room, though? Inspecting where his pillar met the ground above and below, he realized it didn’t go down into the soil at all. To be frank, he didn’t have a single damn clue how it hadn’t already fallen over, especially from how much his creature had been abusing it. It had already taken to swinging off the pillar and then launching itself towards a nearby wall. Uh… Hm.

There hadn’t been any noticeable penalty when he absorbed soil at full capacity, aside from the waste of potential energy. So, he felt comfortable building a second room, out of sight of the one he rested in. He began to construct a massive empty sphere above them, easily five times the size of their current room. Huh.

He filled it back in with dirt, though it had taken a few cycles of absorption to do so. His roots had been growing wildly at this point as well, though he continued to guide them in the cardinal directions. No sense in not expanding his territory.

With a mental command, he had his creature grab hold of both him and his replica. If the pillar did end up toppling over, he knew it wouldn’t do any serious damage to the little guy.

He briefly wondered if the other cores would laugh at how cautious he had become. It made him wonder if any of his brethren shared his same views about life… after what he had heard from the witch, he no longer felt so sure.

Here we go! Once he had told his creature to ready itself, he began expanding the room with the pillar.

After it had started to grow in proportion to the newly enhanced space, he began giggling to himself.

His creature had stayed the same size, which was certainly unfortunate for it, but the pillar had already reached over a foot in diameter. If I grow the room, the pillar will grow alongside it.

What if he hadn’t wanted the pillar to grow? Or, what about if he shrunk the room? With such a massive space, his creature had already begun to explore once more while he mumbled to himself.

There might be much about the building process he still didn’t understand, but he knew one thing for certain. It would be a lot of fun to work it all out.