Pov Dungeon Core

  It was decided that we would wait to deliver the letter until they were quite close to trying to delve into me once again. It was quite humorous to watch as one of the lookouts noticed, from the corner of his eye, the letter gently floating down almost next to him.

  The way his eyes slowly started to widen as he realized what he was looking at was amusing, and then I could see a few beads of sweat running down his forehead when he understood what it actually meant.

  For about five seconds, he had no idea what to do, but he wasn’t the only one on guard. One of the others grabbed the letter, looked at the writing on it, and took off running as fast as he could toward their command center. The letter went through a few people before reaching the table of the party leader and the current commander of this situation.

  He narrowed his eyes when he saw the letter, most likely because of the timing. There was a lot of debate on when to give the letter, but in the end, we decided we must stop showing that we are just some weak prey and prove that we also have some claws of our own. It was quite a long letter, giving out some terms, and I could see him contemplating everything, just like I thought he would.

  Then he reached the end, and for the first time, I was completely unable to read him. The last part said that I was willing to negotiate how this world would look and function when it reached its end.

  In all honesty, I actually was, because I really didn’t care. And if I’m being more honest, I really didn’t want to be anything else but a dungeon core. Becoming something like the world’s will—having almost no way of doing things on your own and just having to watch—while it did please a part of me, I didn’t like that type of passiveness.

  What I wanted to do was make worlds and then see how everything acted inside and developed. I’ve also guided some events and even helped some who were struggling unfairly. Giving up everything that I currently am didn’t seem like the way to go. But like every child of the adventurers, all of them had to eventually grow up, and perhaps that would also be my future. Even if I would like to be a child, so to speak, forever, that’s probably never going to be possible.

  I continued to observe, seeing how this letter would be received. It didn’t take long for him to contact his superiors, and then a huge meeting room was set up with a couple of dozen communication crystals. I was glad to see their crystal technology was a few steps behind the communication crystals my Academy was producing.

  That’s another thing I have noticed. When you reach the top, most stop struggling to get stronger, which is understandable, but that mentality makes them stop progressing in other parts. From what I understand, that particular communication crystal technology they currently have has been around for about 1,000 years with little change because they reached the point where it was all that they needed, so they didn’t put any more resources into improving that technology.

  I could somewhat see the reasoning behind it. In some things, you are going to reach a wall, but that doesn’t mean you can’t branch off and see what other things you can accomplish with that technology as a base. That’s why I’ve constantly been increasing the size of my Academy with more and more departments that are getting more and more specialized.

  From all of my floors, there are plenty of people who have other pursuits besides just getting stronger. I don’t see a reason why, if they want to, they couldn’t push themselves as far as they can in other pursuits, and I’m more than willing to give them the resources and time to do anything they want.

  Because of all of this, we are starting to actually get technologically ahead of the rest of the world, and it’s just so fascinating to see everything that’s possible, things that I could never dream about.

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  But now that I’ve seen what’s possible, I could recreate them, and I can’t wait to see what they’re like when I start adding that kind of technology to different playrooms. But before that, this stupid war for my existence must be fought.

  Bureaucracy seems to take quite a while, but one by one, more and more individuals connected through the communication crystals. I was a bit surprised that almost half of the communication crystals were for the Beasts, so it seems like they properly formed an alliance.

  What followed was literally three days of straight discussions, sometimes full-blown arguments that I was certain would have come to actual fighting if they weren’t on other sides of the world. As things went on, they were starting to lean more towards accepting my deal in exchange for resources and eventually training more diamond ranks.

  It took three more days for them to offer their terms. It was hilarious to watch the panicking platinum rank that was clearly confused. His orders were to step into my entrance hall and speak their terms out loud.

  The terms were quite long, and a few of them I certainly wouldn’t agree to, but all the people currently working with me on this problem were excited. They wanted to see how far we could push them and, of course, how we could continue to delay them.

  The so-called peace talks lasted for a few months. We only communicated through letters, even though they wanted to see representatives and demanded them every time they came back to amend their terms.

  What was still keeping us at the talking table, so to speak, was the fact that I was willing to give ridiculous amounts of hard-to-find materials. What was stopping them from accepting was that they would need to protect me against the other two powers and the fact that I would never allow them to visit my core.

  I actually had no problem allowing them to delve on my diamond-ranked floors whenever I reached that far, but everyone also knew—at least on our side—that the peace would never last. In fact, most of my analysts were certain that we could only stretch the non-hostilities for a few months at most. The reason being the other two powers and the opposition to the peace talks on both the Masters' and Beasts' sides.

  As a show of good faith, this time, not just a letter arrived but so many really expensive and dense mana crystals that it actually took them a week to get all of them out of the first few fake floors. This delay, however, was useful because I was only putting a small part of me into focusing on it, while everything else was focused on making me stronger and better able to defend myself.

  Those slimes were magnificent. And I was now calling them slimes, even though they started as just a nutrient ooze. A couple of them have now reached diamond rank—something I didn’t expect them to achieve so quickly—but I had made them a perfect environment. And, well, the platinum ranks are basically the size of huge capital cities. That allowed them not just to consume some of the other slimes around them but, more importantly, to absorb the incredibly strong solar power that their farm playroom was providing.

  There were currently about 50 million individual slimes, but they still had plenty of room. Eventually, even if they fully covered the entire floor, it would not stop their development cycle. The funny thing is that when they reach diamond rank, they don’t get bigger; instead, they shrink to about the size of a human, and yes, they become proper sapiens then. Their ranking-up lifecycle finally helped crack the problem with my other patterns developing consciousness and sapience too soon.

  This meant that I could now fully make my farm floor work to produce diamond ranks in quantity. Now, it will take quite a while to get this working, but I just finished expanding the 52nd floor. All I have to do now is make a basic environment, modify the patterns for this floor with the new things I learned, and just let it start developing on its own. Then it would be time for another breakthrough and another farm floor.

  Of course, the other side also had time to prepare. They were trying to be sneaky, but they were bringing in dungeon melters and other devices. We were currently trying to figure out what they did. They were also bringing in more and more personnel, especially the Beasts, and it seems like Vivian's grandfather was bringing in his entire clan. That was a weird move, and we weren’t certain what it meant.

  Like this, another few months went by. With so much focus on only making the new floors and farm playrooms, I was getting things done fast. I had to make some basic dungeon rooms, but when that was done, I broke through and managed to get my ‘My World’ skill to rank B. But it was a close thing. Every time I upgraded that skill, I felt more solid, and I liked that feeling.

  Even with so many peak diamond ranks up above, I still managed to keep my breakthrough completely hidden. In fact, I was most likely going to keep all my breakthroughs hidden until I reached the final breakthrough before diamond rank, as I simply couldn’t keep that one hidden no matter how much I wanted to. But by then, it would be too late for them. About a week after my breakthrough, things changed for the worse as a delegation from the Pixies and the Delvers came.

  The Delvers were also like the Beasts, and the Masters were a portion of them who wanted a long-term treaty, while another portion advocated for my end or total control over me. The Pixies were the ones wholly wanting my destruction. The peace talks were more difficult after that, and only about two weeks later did they finally fall through, and the flood of diamond ranks—about 100 of them—rushed into the labyrinth.

  I looked back on everything that happened, and I was a little bit disappointed. We’d missed the opportunity to show our strength, but in a way, it might have helped us in the long run because now they had no idea what strength we actually had.

  The diamond ranks will soon learn that it will not be easy to navigate my labyrinth, and with its constant changing, they could be lost there for a long time. Up until this point, I had kept the labyrinth from changing whenever they entered, but this time I let the dungeon rule I crafted take over. Let’s see how long it will take them to figure out that it would not just be a few months' work to reach the core.