"The fires of creation were loosed from the heavens and man cried out in agony, for no mortal flesh could stand its glory. Then Yamash Spoke and darkness passed over his face. The heavens trembled, the rents cried tears of light, and day was split from the darkness. And thus was the start of the first night.”

  

  
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    The Hour of Creation, translated from Unresa
  
    


  

  ==Caden==

  After getting lost in my new environment, I returned to myself.

  Wait, what’s that?

  There was a little blinking light in my view. No matter where I was looked, it remained fixed.

  Wait, I think I know what this is. It did say it was going to minimize notifications from now on.

  I wasn’t sure I was ready for more of these… but no point putting it off.

  For the first time, I actually could decide my own priorities. So, I took the time to think about it.

  Do I want to grow as a dungeon?

  Probably, yeah.

  I’m stuck here for more than a year, regardless. I’d end up doing something with my time, if only to not end up bat-shit crazy. Growing is simply part of that. Hell, I’ll have enough mana to level if I just wait a single day.

  Actually, that is a little suspicious, I really should have regenerated more while I was unconscious… Not sure why I didn’t… Something to do with what the system was doing, no doubt. Not actually sure how long I was out of it. Felt like forever, but pain is like that,

  Regardless, being a dungeon will get me in contact with other humans… probably. Only seen three people on this world so far, and they were all human, but it’s not like that’s a representative sample.

  More importantly, what do I actually want?

  I had a new life, in a more literal sense than I had ever anticipated, and could make my own decisions.

  So… what do I want?

  Well, I already had a single desire. I want human contact.

  For a moment, my thoughts turned back to the isolation, to Tam. I’d had a goal, something to get through it, but… it had been rough.

  I might manage to live without that, but I’m not sure I’d remain sane. I’m not sure I’d want to keep living, if I don’t get that. I’ll need it, both for sanity and my own enjoyment.

  What else?

  I had been captured. I escaped, but still… I had been captured in the first place. I hated it. I was so helpless. Oh sure, it part of it had been enjoyable, planning and pulling off the escape had been exciting, but mostly I had been so driven because I had no choice.

  The obvious answer was power. Power without purpose was meaningless though. I didn’t want to seek power just because I was afraid. That… that would end very badly.

  For a moment though, Tam flashed through my mind once again. Him, arrayed in his robes, with his staff and rings, glowing with power… And me, later, struggling desperately to tear myself apart, then me cracking as I forced open the barrier, all the while being sought…

  No, just no. I will not be in that position again, but I need other goals too. Something to use the power for.

  Power… meant that I could determine what happened to me, but it also meant I could determine what happened to other people. And power came in many forms.

  Obviously, as a dungeon, I had some literal worldly power. The power to kill, to destroy. A dungeon’s real power comes from the opposite side, however. If all dungeons did was kill, and there was nothing to be gained from them, then people would just ignore them or destroy them.

  No, creation is the true power of a dungeon.

  People wanted things. It was part of their nature. Exactly what they wanted varied: gold, silver, and other resources that I knew nothing about. Still, it didn’t matter. If I could figure out what they wanted, and I could create it, then I could give it to them. And, in a world like this, levels and experience were almost certainly part of what a dungeon offered as well.

  Not actually sure how normal people level up, though. Could be mana, I suppose, though people produce that naturally. I guess if I see people meditating and sucking up the ambient mana then they might level up the same way I do. At least I would know they get some benefit out of it, and that is something I could provide.

  Whatever they needed, I could offer. I understood people. Sort of… at least as well as humans usually understand each other, anyway. Regardless, if the dungeons are all like Exsan… I could understand them better than any dungeon ever had. It would take me a while to learn the language, but I could. And when I did, I would know exactly what they wanted.

  That is one of the nice things about us, I suppose. Our avarice tends to be out in the open, if it is socially acceptable.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  I would make myself invaluable. And, from there, I could change the parts of the world that I didn’t like. Maybe, I was mistaken, and this was a paradise… but I saw a man try to kill another man, with little thought. Maybe that man was evil, but it was also possible that he was just trying to get by. I couldn’t know what had motivated him, but I doubted I would like the society that produced him.

  This, this is a proper long term goal.

  I could build up my dungeon, and I would, because it would give me the power to make changes. And be safe. However, this would give me something that I could work towards, for a very long time. I might be ageless. Leave the normal dungeons to be content with whatever it is they desire. Probably merely growing and sinking deeper into the earth. I will have something real to sustain me, something that matters.

  My goals might change in the long term, sure, but having a long term goal was worth it. In the meantime, I would embrace this quest as a way to power. Power is fine, but I can’t forget why that power matters in the first place.

  I sighed. I was probably being naive. Almost certainly, actually. Still, I had more potential to make a difference here than I ever had in my old world.

  For you, Father, I’ll at least try. You taught me that much.

  For now, goal in mind, I needed to start with the basics.

  I had wanted a skill in the sewers, but I saved the AP so I could escape.

  First came buying the skill… Assuming that I can. Still not sure what having Exsan in duel control mode with me actually means. Might not be able to buy a skill without his permission.

  Here we go.

  A flex of my will to tell the system to purchase the skill, and then, after a slightly longer moment than I was used to, the blinking light was back.

  Okay, open that up.

  The skill purchase, itself, was cheaper than its base cost. Back in the sewers, the cost had been 180 AP. Originally, it had been 200, but learning had applied to its cost, taking off ten percent. Since then, my new titles had added some additional discounts for life based skills. Two more five percent discounts had been added. It hadn’t been a flat twenty percent off though. It had cost 163, instead of 160.

  I did some math by scribbling stone on a wall...

  So 200 x 0.90 x 0.95 x 0.95 = 162.45. Yep, it looked like the discounts were multiplicative, rather than additive. Looks like it rounded up, too. That meant that even if I eventually had some truly ridiculous modifiers, I could expect the cost to always be at least 1 AP.

  That makes sense though. Otherwise, discounts have the potential to stack up too far. They could completely remove any cost. Or, with a high enough discount, they could refund AP.

  I had to assume that similar math applied to learning skills, too. Otherwise I should just automatically learn all the soul related skills, either automatically, or just by thinking about them and trying, since they would count as new. Plus… learning would apply, too.

  I should look at all those titles.

  With a thought, just those pulled up. I looked over the titles I had gained.

  Wonder if this is an abnormal amount?

  Probably.

  A number of them had a “I” on them, which should mean that it was possible to get better versions. Reborn Soul, and First of its Kind, were static, though they would make it much easier to learn any new skills, and specifically any soul related skills. Multiplicative, so with just those titles, any new soul skill should only take a quarter of the time. Though, sadly, I had no idea where to even start with that. They didn’t say that they applied to the cost of buying skills though.

  Skill Evolution… well I could just keep trying to use skills in unconventional ways. If I actually knew what was unconventional. Honestly, I had gotten it by accident in the first place. I didn’t know how my skills were meant to act, so I just kept experimenting. The title looked fixed as well.

  Hmm. Wonder if my learning boost from First of its Kind applies to this as well? Not sure if it would count as the first level of the skill, when morphing to a new one.

  Mana Specialist, was useful, and should naturally improve as I focused on mana based skills. Since most of my dungeon related skills also had some crossover with mana, I was sure that would just happen naturally enough.

  Escape Artist. Not really sure what to do with this one. I mean, hiding my core really well was awesome, but the rest? At least it helps with my whole “not having to worry about being enslaved again,” goal. Or dying, should probably include that in my list of things not to do. Slightly below not getting enslaved…

  Dungeon Martyr… Nope, just nope.

  I wouldn’t mind getting a better version of Touch of the Grave. Not really possible with just myself here though, but not being alone was already one of the goals.

  Dread Salvation. Well, it could progress naturally, just like Touch of the Grave. People getting fatally injured here in the dungeon, and then I could heal them. Maybe, not sure. Again, though, not something that I could do at the moment.

  Seen the Infinite Void. Honestly, even though this one did not suggest that a progression was possible, I really wanted there to be one. I’ll need to see what kind of restriction exists on this, before I make any judgments, but I’m almost certainly going to try and get a better version of this. Or at least some skill that does the same thing.

  Actually…

  I looked through the various skills that in the AP store. Nope, nothing. The title hadn’t opened up new related skills that I could buy. At least nothing that I could find.

  Investment Specialist was another title that didn’t have any type of automatic progression. I was probably going to focus on the long term, if I could, anyway. Inevitably, thinking long term paid off more, even if it was long run. What is the point of being immortal if I don’t at least sometimes prep for the future? So, if I could get a better title, it might happen naturally anyway. Best not to stress about it.

  And, Back from the Brink was like Dungeon Martyr… I definitely wasn’t going to be seeking that out. I was already stuck here for more than a year, and I couldn’t save myself by just founding a dungeon again.

  So what next?

  There was a skill I wanted to get at some point, but I would wait until I was prepared to use it.

  For now, I could focus on what was already present. There were a lot of living things here, and I could start to absorb them. And, with the new skill I had, I could by summons cheaper if I needed.

  Eh… it’s a waste to buy them now. I can wait until I understand what already here, plus what life I picked up before. Besides, judging from how much mana it took to help that guy, creating life is really expensive to make. Just have to hope it gets cheaper, I guess. Probably some skill waiting for me after I level up a time or two. Or maybe something to make the monsters with some of the ambient mana?

  Guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

  Okay, so… step one: cataloging all the living stuff.

  After that, the rest of my life awaits. Too bad I have no idea what I’m doing.