The moment the Dungeon confirmed its race, it felt its core expand Rapidly to almost double its previous size.

  His consciousness expanded with it. Instead of merely feeling his heart, now he could sense about 20 square

  meters of space around him. He also realized he could now move his "eyes" around the area he controlled. With a

  mental whoop of excitement he quickly circled around his new territory, stopping only when a barrage of new

  windows popped up in front of him.

  5 small crystals grow out of the ground near the Dungeon core. They look like small obelisks and are translucent.

  Once they've finished growing, the crystals begin to exert a minuscule influence upon the natural energy around

  them.

  The Dungeon feels slightly overwhelmed by all the new information he received. "Cores, a forge, and a

  mana purifier? Where are my starting minions?" Then, after rereading all the windows, he comes to a

  chilling conclusion," Oh, so that's why crystal dungeons are so rare."

  After a moment of despair and self-pity, he realizes that wasting time isn't helping fix his bleak near

  future. "Okay, I have 5 crystals and 250 mana. I need to create the forge in order to build defenses,

  which, since I don't have any minions, are literally my only hope of survival at the moment."

  "Create a forge!"

  About 20 centimeters to the right of the dungeon core, a basic forge begins to take shape. It is made

  from a gray, opaque crystal. The main body of the forge is a cube with a deep bowl- like depression

  carved into it. In the center of the bowl, a small crystal core stands, its top in line with the top of the

  body. The body also had four small obelisks: one on each corner. These obelisks however, had joints

  and were curved inwards until their peaks pointed toward the tip of the core.

  "Hmm strange little thing isn't it?" The dungeon thinks to itself. Then another set of windows pop up.

  "Well, there's the starter minion I suppose... Alright, enough pessimism lets see, I have enough mana to create

  one more core. That'll bring me up to six cores. Then, I can enhance four of these core and create a purifier and

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  a defense array, for safety. I can put the other two cores into the purifier and keep adding cores to it as I make

  them until its full! Then with a stable mana income of about 150 mana a day, I can invest in either another

  purifier if I feel safe and my inner greedy pig overwhelms common sense, or I can invest into defenses and

  eventually a golem!" The Dungeon excitedly concludes.

  Now comes the work. First, the dungeon sorrowfully uses its remaining 50 mana points to create a lesser core.

  It then enhances the cores, a surprisingly hard process involving interweaving the two cores at a molecular level

  to form a larger, clearer pyramidal core. The first enhanced core was transformed into the mana purifier. The

  enhanced core grew into a two foot tall thin rod that split at two points. The middle and upper segments began

  slowly rotating in opposite directions and drawing in energy. When the two remaining lesser cores were added to

  purifier, they retained their obelisk like shapes and attached to the base, pointing in opposite directions at a slight

  angle. "Whoa that looks awesome!" the young dungeon exclaimed. " I wonder what the defense array looks like?"

  The defense array was very different. The enhanced core splits into two pieces. The larger base doubles in size and

  gains a curved depression at its peak. It loses its translucency and becomes gray and opaque. The smaller tip changes

  shape to become a hollow semicircle. A small, clearer crystal in the obelisk shape grows into the semicircle like the

  forge. Eight smaller crystals grow inward from the semicircles edge, pointing towards the center crystal. The

  second part then 'stands ' up in the depression of the base with the center crystal parallel to the ground. It begins to

  slowly rotate, seeking out any threats.

  "Great! Now I'm ready for action! No little rat is going to kill me!"

  The universe, apparently hearing this confident boast, decided to test that theory.

  "Oh shoot, shoot, shoot! I didn't mean it! Sorry Universe! Please Don't kill me!" the Dungeon thinks in a panic.

  "Okay I can do this. I need to calm down. They're rats... evil footlong rats. Let me try and control my array."

  The Dungeon's mind focuses on the array and a window pops up.

  "YES! PLEASE!"

  The array grows in size and clarity, finishing just as the rats enter the room. They have red beady eyes, raggedy

  black fur, and terrifyingly large incisors.

  "HP 100? For a rat? My boss is really a glass cannon!"

  The rats pause for a moment to orientate themselves. The light in the dungeon room, however dim, is enough to

  hurt their eyes that have only seen darkness so far. That full moment is something they never get.

  "If those things get close my array is toast! DIE RATS!" The array opens fire at the first rat. Energy builds up in the

  eight side crystals, and a small beam of white energy is fired from each into the main crystal. the main crystal then

  focuses the power and blasts out a huge ray of power towards the first rat.

  The rat is stunned for a second when its seemingly helpless prey opens fire on it from a distance. However, it

  quickly pulls itself together and runs towards the painful little crystal with its partner.

  They take four seconds to scramble over to the array. In that time the lead rat's health had already been whittled

  down to 50 HP. "Oh this is gonna be close!!" the dungeon worriedly exclaims.

  For five seconds the two rats and the array trade damage. Then, the first rat's health hit zero and it died! The

  array was left with only 25 HP though. But now Its power activated and it dealt 20 damage per second to the

  other rat. 5 seconds later, the second rat was killed as well right before it could deal a fatal blow to the array.

  "Oh thank goodness that was way too close! Let's see what I get for that close fight!"

  The Dungeon happily absorbs the rats.

  "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? ONLY 50 MANA?"

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Thank you all for your patience, here's chapter two. It turns out my "computer crash" was just me accidentally

  stepping on the power button of the extensor. hehe.... really embarrassing... Any ways chapter three still needs a

  bit of work so expect it a bit later tonight.

  AN Infantile Treant