Dungeon Time. Excellent!

  Unnamed Dungeon watched in disappointment as her new friend ran away. She was enjoying the games even if that slime won every time. When the slime first appeared, she was worried that he might be trouble and totally freaked out when he conquered her the first time. Gods. Slimed on my first day on the job. What will my master think? Will he leave me for some that dungeon with bigger creatures? She had seen as soon as she awoke that she already had a master. She hoped he was fun. She hadn’t met him yet. She was sure he was off researching dungeon strategy, or planning what creature templates she could buy off the exchange to add to her dungeon, or doing something super cool like that.

  All she had so far were ants. They could burrow which could accelerate her absorption rate, but they were small and not very strong. There was a very high essence source just out of her reach, but she couldn’t start expanding until her master told her his genius plan. She couldn’t even exchange essence for new templates until she reached level 5, but her genius master had given her a great spot to start. She’d be at level 5 in no time. She had 3 dungeon skill slots available and she was certain her master would pick something excellent for her.

  I wonder if he’s going to turn me into an offensive powerhouse and conquer the world or maybe an unconquerable death trap reaping the essence of adventurers as they die miserable deaths. That didn’t actually sound like much fun. You can’t play games with dead people. Games are fun. Ohhh….maybe I’ll be a puzzle dungeon forcing adventurers to spend years trying to figure out how to get through my traps while I absorb their essence. I wonder if the slime likes puzzles. He seemed awfully smart for a slime. Her ants had cut off enough of the slimes tentacles that she almost had enough slime essence absorbed to be able to make slimes too. Oh…there’s my master now. Is he why the slime ran away? I hope he isn’t mean to the slime. The slime was fun.

  “Hello little Dungeon. The system says I need to name you.” John said as he started thinking of names.

  Army Dungeon of Doom…or …Unconquerable Royal Dungeon of the Drake Empire…or …Ohhh….I got it…The Impossible Puzzle Palace…

  Her master shrugged and said, “Destiny. You are her seed after all. Seems fitting.”

  Destiny? Just Destiny? I mean Destiny sounds kind of nice, but shouldn't I be The Unending Dungeon of Destiny. Or Desty’s Puzzle Palace Dungeon. Welp….too late now. Destiny it is. I bet he’s got something cool planned for me.

  John started flipping through the dungeon tabs and rolled his eyes. Too much thinking. He did stop and look at the Dungeon Purpose tab and selected Training as the primary purpose and Defense as the secondary purpose. He then looked at the expansion and absorption tab and didn’t want to figure it out. John skipped all the way to the last tab, Dungeon autonomy. He set it to max. Destiny can figure out all this stuff by herself.

  “Hey Dungeon. Can you communicate with me?” John asked.

  Oh….here comes the cool plans….I know he has something great planned.

  “Yes, Master?”

  “I set your primary purpose as Training and Defense as the secondary purpose. You can choose whatever you think is best after that. As far as Expansion goes, follow that essence vein in the back corner and figure out the best way to defend it.”

  “Yes, Master!” Destiny said.

  And John turned to walk away and go do more training.

  That’s it. Just add the essence vein to my dungeon? I mean, that will make me level super fast, but what about traps, what about layout, what about skills? “Master? Just follow the vein? Anything else?’

  John thought about it for a few seconds, “Oh. Yes. See if you can pick up some better monsters somehow. Ants will be very slow for me to level.”

  Pick up some better monsters? Oh this is a test. He wants to see what I come up with. Don’t worry master. I won’t let you down. I’ll be the best Training and Defense Dungeon in the whole multiverse. “What skills….?” Krap. He’s already gone. Well…he told me to follow the vein. So I’ll get improved visibility. I’ll also get improved expansion. Those will make it easier for me to follow the vein and secure it. He also wants more monsters, but I can’t get to the exchange to buy more…but I can get improved template production so if I find any remains of monsters it won’t take as much to be able to create them.

  When John entered the amphitheater, he saw a strange little obstacle course set up, but no slime in sight. “Hey gumdrop. I know you’re in here. You can continue training. I won’t bother you. There’s more than enough room for both of us.” John said, but the slime didn’t appear.

  John went to the control crystal and set himself up to train lightning bolt and single target staff skills. He really wanted to get essence manipulation, so he could begin creating more spells and skills. Starting with lightning bolt, he paused before he cast it and began reviewing its components.

  Hmmm…this looks like the standard power supply component. If I make this part wider it will charge faster. John tried thickening the line that he believed was the power input. He tried many times, but couldn’t grab a hold of it and adjust it, so he moved on to the section of the power supply component that determined how much essence he could put into the spell, but after several failed attempts he gave up on that. Come on Essence Manipulation. I know you want to be learned. John gave up on modifying the power supply component after also failing to change the size of its output. So he moved on to the next component.

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  All he could see at his current essence sight level was a few squiggly lines with what looked like dots moving through them. He figured this is the component that assigned the output affinity as lightning, but once again he failed to be able to manipulate the component in any way. He did gain a point in his lightning affinity as he stared at it. So he moved on to the thin strand of essence stretching from him to the target and he began attempting to adjust it to follow in a curved path, but didn’t have any luck. He also tried splitting it into two separate paths so that he would have two smaller bolts instead of one bigger one.

  “Maybe, I just need to level it some more.” John mumbled in frustration as he fired his first bolt at the target. As he prepared to fire a second bolt he saw the slime appear not too far from his side with one tentacle stretched out from the ledge he was on to the next ledge, like he was going to pull himself up. Ahhh…I see…he forms the tentacles by lining up essence and stretching his body. Interesting…wait…what is he doing? Slimes can’t….

  Puddle John saw the evil killer of glowing bits enter and he began his escape, but the human spoke telling him he could train more if he wanted. Puddle John didn’t know if he could trust the human who shrugged and placed his hand on the control crystal and brought up a training dummy. He watched this human begin to cast a spell and then sit there for a long time. Puddle John could tell it was targeting the dummy, but he couldn’t figure out why the human just sat there.

  After a few minutes, Puddle John got bored and thought about leaving, but then he got a great idea. I could learn that spell and show him just how much not fun it was to have your glowing bits killed. So he began copying the components of the spell. It was really pretty easy. After wiggling his glowing bits around into position and stretching and squashing everything into shape and figuring how to break his glowing bits up into tiny pieces and keep them moving like he saw in the second component,, he only had one component left to make. The line that ran from the squiggly section to his target.

  That one proved difficult. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get his glowing bits to leave his body. After a few minutes of trying, he decided to stretch his skin to the target, creating another tentacle and seeing if that would work. As he was about to test it out, he saw the human turn his head in surprise. Puddle John went ahead and released the spell. Before he went unconscious, Puddle John saw the lightning bolt form inside of himself and begin dancing around killing almost all his glowing bits and the remaining few began to slowly fade.

  John couldn’t believe it. The slime had cast a spell inside himself. “Oh Krap.” The slime had accidentally killed himself. John realized, as the last of the slime’s essence began fading away. Acting on instinct, John willed his essence into the slime and began attempting to re energize it. He tried to weave the pattern of thin threads of essence that healing spells were based off of, but he just didn’t have any kind of control. So he did the best he could and moved around the essence he was pouring into the slime and to create a crude copy of a healing spell.

  As John’s essence nearly bottomed out he saw the slime shudder and then slowly began rolling his essence around and its body began crawling towards him. John gave the slime, one last little bit to bring him back from the point of no return when the dizziness hit and he fell to the floor reduced by essence depletion to that state of barely conscious, kind of aware, but unable to do anything.

  John could tell the slime was still coming towards him. Great…save him…eat me…some thanks John’s semi-conscious thoughts reeled through his mind.

  Puddle John regained consciousness with a shudder. My glowing bits…They’re back…Someone is giving me…oh the human is giving me his glowing bits. So yummy. Yes…give me all your glowing bits. Puddle John was overcome with hunger for more glowing bits and without even meaning to, he began rotating his glowing bits and slowly moving towards him. He’s almost out of the glowing bits that he casts with. Oh…he’s pulling glowing bits from the rest of his body. Oh…he’s falling. Now’s my chance. I can take all his glowing bits while he lays there. Yes. Revenge is mine.

  John couldn’t move. His essence was recovering, but the slime was moving closer. He tried to cast a spell, but his mana reserve was empty. He had even drawn some of his health to try and rescue the slime. He had saved him and now the little jerk was going to eat him. If the gods didn’t take away my trump card, I’m going to fry you the second I come back.

  The slime was right next to him. He felt something hard poke him. Then he felt the slime wrap around his exposed wrist. He felt a tentacle grab onto his shoulder and another his hip. I hate slimes.

  I can’t eat his glowing bits. He saved me. He might be cool after all. But the glowing bits are just sitting there, waiting for me to eat them. No. I’m not that kind of puddle. I help those that help me. So Puddle John hardened the tip of his tentacle and poked the human who just laid there. Think John, what do you do to help unconscious people? Oh…I know. You roll them on their side so they don’t drown if they throw up.

  Puddle John carefully wrapped a tentacle around the wrist of the human and pulled his arm above his head. He then grabbed him by the hip and shoulder and rolled him up onto his side. Need to lay off the glowing bits water, mister. You’re kind of heavy.

  John felt the slime roll him onto his side, then reposition his arm under his head and then let go of him. He’s trying to help me. I guess he’s not so bad. I wonder if he would like to be my companion. It’s been a few integrations since I had a companion. John dug through his memories and tried to remember what it was like to use the system to make an animal your companion. Didn’t it just take a crystal of my essence and place it in their core. Shouldn’t hurt to try. Well it won’t hurt to try in a few minutes after I recover.

  Once his head stopped spinning John sat up and took a few deep breaths to clear out the cobwebs. He then began pulling out essence and forming it into a crystal to offer to the slime. When he had the roundish shape completed as best as he could remember how to, he reached out to hand it to the slime when something really hard hit him in the back of the head and the lights turned out.

  That will teach you to kill my glowing bits. Puddle John thought as he started to head back to training. Before he left though, he reached back and grabbed the glowing bits ball the man had offered him. He offered it to me. It would be rude to not take it. Puddle John thought. He started to open one of his ziplock mouths so he could bring the ball inside of his body and weave a net to take control of the essence. However, as soon as he touched it, the ball suddenly came through all on its own and joined the dense swirly mass of growing bits inside of the center of his puddle.

  You are now a companion of John Drake.

  Whoah. Slow down bud. You're not really my type. Puddle John began weaving his glowing bits around the crystal, but he couldn’t get his net to stick. The crystal wasn’t being absorbed. That’s weird. Puddle shrug. Back to training.

  Wow, I got good. Puddle John thought as he flew through the course and caught the glowing targets with ease.