Pov Dungeon Core

  It was quite fun to figure out how to make my monsters more similar so I could combine their connection lines. Making platinum-ranked monsters was now supremely easy, and I did announce to everyone that new floors would be opened up for them soon enough. In fact, I was doing multiples at the same time simply because I could.

  Currently, I guess when I’m finished expanding the 76th floor—which will happen in about four months if my guesses are correct, and I think it might be—then my adventurers will have access to dungeon rooms up to floor 60.

  After that, I think I will make five floors worth of dungeon rooms per one new floor at a time until I reach floor 75. Then I will need to stop because I’m not quite ready to start making diamond-ranked dungeon rooms just yet.

  I need more time for my farms to work on making more creatures that are diamond-ranked. The quality change between platinum and diamond was incredible. The biggest change was the soul itself—the thing that combines the mind and body and powers the strength of every individual.

  It’s also what makes producing diamond-ranked monsters so expensive. Making a copy of the soul of a creature is quite easy. Making a copy when it has reached diamond rank—well, that’s something entirely different. Every pattern I have has a soul component in it, but only now have I started noticing how it connects everything.

  To my surprise, many adventurers believed there was no such thing as a soul, or if there was, it was wholly unique to every singular person. That wasn’t correct, as I could make perfect copies of every single person’s soul—although perhaps not entirely perfect because my monsters could never be like actual beings. But I think that’s more because of what they are meant to be. They are my protectors, not individual beings.

  So I gave all the knowledge I had on souls to the Academy and requested a few new missions to be put up to understand the soul even deeper. Who knows what they will find, as I have been surprised before.

  My work continued, and I was doing so many things at once. We were also once again building out the outer defenses. It only took us a few weeks to fix the battle damage. We also needed to change some things, but only minor things, based on the battles and the knowledge we gained on how to defend in the future.

  The war outside had been going smoothly as some of my creatures and adventurers joined the battle. The Pixies were putting up quite the resistance, as any species should when they face annihilation.

  If I understand correctly, if they surrender and are found not guilty of the charges the United Powers are using to justify this war, they will be able to live. So, most likely, more Pixies will survive than I expected, but I have no problem with that. None of them would be able to hurt me in the future.

  Everything was going smoothly when I felt something unexpected. I focused on Rafe, who had been in meditation for a few weeks now. He was a peak existence. He reached the end of diamond rank even before the war properly started. It was thanks to me and Ace that it was possible, but during the war, he also got his skills to a place he liked. But to see what was happening to him now was unexpected.

  I watched over the course of a few days as the diamond-like shine that his soul emitted changed to a green tint. Then he opened his eyes.

  “It really worked… I’m a rank above diamond?”

  “That you are. Are there any differences you feel?” I asked, but I didn’t expect anything substantial.

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  No matter how much stronger he is now, this wasn't a quantitative change like it was between platinum and diamond—this was more like the difference between gold and platinum. But it seems like it was confirmed—my creatures could get to the next rank thanks to my Creature Advancement skill.

  After some testing, my guess was confirmed. This was indeed a change, more like gold to platinum. What was funny was that there wasn’t even a name for this rank. Now, we even had the power that could easily contest peak diamonds. Some of our advisors, when they learned of this, immediately started advocating for getting some of our other creatures to the next rank so that we could conquer the world.

  Even they didn’t say it with heart, as none of us were really up for another war. Also, this didn’t take into account how much it took to support Rafe. He, on his own, took about 200 diamond-ranked creatures' mana generation, and there was no way he was going to be positive until I reached closer to the end of diamond rank. It would not be a good idea to have many creatures at such a rank. I did wonder what the reason for this was.

  What was even stranger was that while Rafe could go outside my dungeon, he described being outside like being in an environment without any air, like he was suffocating slowly. Because of this, for the first time, I decided to look distinctly towards the core to understand what was happening there.

  While I still couldn’t see outside my own territory without using a few of my skills, I still could not see through rock. But I could feel what was going on outside a lot better, and now, if I focused on it, I could sense the core of this world.

  Immediately when I focused on it, the will of the world focused back on me. It wasn’t out of anger that it did so—it was a reflex. The more it studied me, the more I learned of it. While I was still unsure if it was truly conscious, I was certain that it couldn’t do much to influence the world.

  But what surprised me the most was the very core of the world itself. It did produce mana, but mostly, it took mana, re-energizing it, and letting it rise back up towards the surface. It was also quite clearly just a platinum-rank core.

  That honestly surprised me so much so that I stopped focusing on it, and a little while later, I found myself fully focused back on my own dungeon. After some thinking, I focused back on the core to confirm my suspicions.

  The core was barely in platinum rank, like it had just advanced. Ideas started to form in my head about how things worked. Then the timeline of this world came to mind, and things started to make more and more sense.

  My scientists have started to better understand this reality we live in. Stars are formed, and planets around them. That all take billions of years. Only just recently, have they been able to observe a few planets that they now know have diamond-rank cores because of their shine.

  They were able to figure that out when they started to study more about mana’s influence on our solar systems and beyond. Around us, in other solar systems and in this one, every planetary core seemed to just be in the first stage that we would classify as a ranked core.

  Now, take our world. We know that the first age lasted for millions and millions of years when magic slowly became more and more noticeable. That was because mana levels were slowly rising.

  Then came us—the dungeons. We are so similar to planetary cores, yet so different. But I think those similarities are the key. As Rafe’s very own existence demonstrates, a planetary core can’t sustain an individual two ranks above it. Yet, we dungeons, who are so similar to planetary cores, instead of dying like Rafe would, must somehow combine and forcefully rank up the planetary core to the next rank.

  That must be the reason why, from all the surrounding solar systems, our world was the only one so highly ranked. Somehow, we dungeons are able to forcefully rank up planetary cores. I think we should have an option to choose to do this. The problem is, if we don’t, we would die—just like Rafe would if he stayed outside of my territory for too long.

  What I still don’t know is how much of me would survive this forced breakthrough of a world core. I don’t think my chances would be too bad in keeping my personality, but I would lose everything else.

  And just sitting back, not being able to do anything—I don’t know if I could handle that torture for who knows how long until some other dungeon makes the planet core once again forcefully advance. Most likely, I would then be lost completely.

  So now I was certain I needed to find another way to do things—but how? That was the question. There was no other world around here that could sustain me, and even if I could find a way to reasonably travel to the surrounding solar systems, the journey to the diamond-ranked worlds we knew of would be so long that I would never be able to survive it.

  I think I would still have years of life left while slowly suffocating if I broke through the limit of this world. What if another dungeon advanced before me? Then the problem became that a forceful advancement seemed to consume every other dungeon and mess up the world quite a bit.

  Perhaps that could be fixed because I know how to make breakthroughs less violent, as I had to hide my own breakthroughs during the war. That knowledge could help mitigate the damage caused to this world.

  So perhaps the plan should be to leave this world when I break through and hopefully survive long enough for other dungeons to forcefully rank up this world. Then I could return and not suffocate, as at that point, this world should be able to sustain my existence.

  There was a lot to think about, and I did inform my advisor of what I had learned and suspected so far. It would require a lot of research and information gathering to fully understand the future we were all heading towards.

  So right now, even as everyone else was dedicating their very lives to understanding the secrets of this reality, I continued to expand the 76th floor while continuing to make new dungeon rooms. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stop advancing—otherwise, I might not succeed in surviving what’s to come.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5