“Rule # 1 - The dungeon is trying to kill you, don''t die. Dead adventurers don''t spend gold.”


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    50 Rules For Dungeon Divers


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    For a moment I was struck dumb with surprise and too shocked to even begin to think of a proper reply. After a moment I pulled myself out of it.


    Exsan?


    No. I Exsan. Who you?


    No, I meant… never-mind. I am Caden.


    Caden. Core Exsan Caden. Core mine. Caden mine.


    I took a moment to think. I could see myself as belonging to Exsan if I looked at it from a certain angle. We were both part of the same core. And by that logic, Exsan belonged to me. We belonged to each other, each of our actions having an impact on the other. I had been in the driver’s seat before, with Exsan being the mostly ignored backseat driver. Now… we had to act as partners.


    Yes. We can look at it that way. We are both two parts of a whole. How did you learn to start speaking, thinking?


    All broken. Shattered. World dim. Put together. Is better. Felt Caden. New. New thoughts. Lost in them. Saw you. Felt you. You learned. Language. Took knowledge. Took English. Tried understand. New language. Thoughts, words. Speak.


    English? Honestly I hadn’t thought about it, but I was always speaking English in my head. This was the first time…


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    A Hidden Skill has been Revealed!


    <u>English IX (Language)</u>


    The language you brought with you from another world. A language of artistry, poetry, and insanely long novels. Too bad you don''t remember most of them. No you won''t get any rewards for being the best English speaker on the planet.


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    Right… That wasn’t odd at all… Both Exsan and the snarky language.


    Sadly it was probably easier to understand the snark. The system had told me that it had customized the interface. Apparently my own sarcasm was being reflected back at me. The customization of the system probably also explained why I was getting the skill now. I had thought about English and then it showed up.


    As for Exsan... apparently he had been changed a great deal by whatever process had repaired us. Not sure I was happy that Exsan was getting knowledge from me, but whatever. Hopefully he was just getting it because it counted as a skill and he wasn’t going be able to just riffle through my thoughts at will.


    The next question was, what now? I was about to ask when I noticed that Exsan was doing something else. Exsan had started to extend aura out in the shape of two cylinders. He was hollowing the stone out of them as he went along. The two tunnels sloped gently downward and were going in almost totally opposite directions.


    Exsan, why are you making those tunnels?


    They come. Prepare. Make path.


    So informative.


    Who is coming?


    They heard song. Lure. Prey comes.


    What song? What is the prey?


    Would creatures be lured into the dungeon? Was that how dungeons grew? I wondered if we would be eating the creatures, making them into part of the dungeon, or both. This could actually be interesting to see, a natural life cycle that helped a dungeon to grow.


    Dungeon sings. Prey. Prey is prey. Caden know. Stone. Prey by core.


    I took a moment and tried to figure out what he meant. I could feel the constant flow of mana back and forth across my aura, rippling back and forth across the dungeon. Was that the song?


    As for prey… I looked around the core room and quickly saw the statues of Tam.


    Oh. Prey. Right.


    Suddenly I could see myself as a red crystal shark talking to Exsan as a black crystal shark. “Humans are friends, not food.” That just wasn’t going to work.


    Why do we even need humans, uh, prey? We already get plenty of mana.


    Not enough. Grow good now. Eat mana. Only mana stop. Not grow.


    I would need to take his word for it. For whatever reason, mana would not be enough to keep growing. I wasn’t sure exactly what else we would need though. And why would anyone come to the dungeon if it ate them? Well, there was a simple enough answer to that. People would come to the dungeon for loot.


    You don’t eat all of the people right?


    No. Let escape. Offer bait. Bait bring more. More come. Test. Some die. Some escape. Grow.


    I didn’t particularly want to kill anyone, but I knew that this could be the literal purpose of the dungeon. People were going to come here seeking treasure and expect the dungeon to do its best to kill them. Actually… how was Exsan planning on killing them? We had no monsters and Exsan honestly didn’t seem bright enough to make decent traps yet.


    How are you going to offer bait? How are you going to… test them?


    Possess bait. Good bait. Grow strong. Test with monsters. Strong survive. Weak eaten.


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    What monsters? Where will they come from?


    This was the most frustrating game of twenty questions ever. I knew Exsan was probably trying to answer as best he could, but that didn’t help much.


    Okay. To be fair, for speaking English for only a tiny bit of time he was actually doing amazingly well. However, it was obvious that he and I were using very different viewpoints. I wonder if Exsan found my lack of understanding equally frustrating.


    Exsan was looking at the world and taking parts of the universe as simply given. Unfortunately I had no idea what they were. Not entirely true. I knew human nature enough to guess that the bait he was referring to was the gold, silver, etc… which I had absorbed before in the sewers.


    Monsters here. Dungeon make monsters.


    What was I supposed to make of that? Perhaps the dungeon simply created monsters automatically when people entered. Honestly that would be no stranger than any of my other abilities. I scanned through the dungeon again, just in case.


    The usual life filled it, and there were no signs of monsters yet.


    What was the point of buying the various creatures, plants, and so on in the AP store then? Hmm… well I suppose they could simply create a larger variety of monsters, or make stronger ones. Maybe each dungeon had a normal type of monster that they produced. Of course I hadn’t seen anything in my status like a monster type. Eh… this was all just guesswork anyway. Hopefully Exsan would pick up more English fast enough that I wouldn’t need to have too many conversations with a caveman. “Igg talk good. Igg bash with rock.”


    I went silent for several minutes as I thought, but Exsan didn’t interrupt. For the moment that was probably for the best. At least I had some crucial information. Humans were going to be coming for the dungeon. I wasn’t sure about the signal that was drawing them. However, there would also be monsters in the dungeon. I wasn’t sure about that either, but Exsan had the dungeon instincts, not me.


    Of course, Exsan wanted to kill some of the people coming. That was not too much of a surprise. It fit right in with the instincts I had felt from him before. Honestly I should probably glad that he wanted to farm people and wasn’t an omnicidal maniac. Nope, just a homicidal one. He saw the approaching people as food and bait to acquire more food.


    I was not entirely sure what to do about this. Until Exsan had a better grasp of English we weren’t likely to have any good conversations either. Exsan seemed content with things as they were. He viewed me and him as belonging to each other and that was enough for him.


    Honestly I could remember how possessive those instincts had been. How all the space around me had belonged to me and only me. How they wanted me to never let it go.


    And now I needed to prepare for visitors. I was getting them far sooner than I thought I would. So for now I continued extending my aura to various places and gradually expanding the dungeon. The most I could do at the moment was prepare by opening up space.


    Exsan’s tunnels started from the single point where they met. From there I started to create a large room, so the tunnels would actually enter the room from a decent distance apart.


    This would be the main area… probably. Honestly I wasn’t sure what else Exsan might do with the tunnels. Hopefully, this would be the main area that people entered, and I wanted it to impress. I wanted people to believe that this dungeon was special. The more unique the dungeon was, the less risk people would want to destroy it. Unless there were special rewards for destroying special dungeons… damn, I really wished I knew more. I damned my paranoid brain for overthinking everything and making this harder than it needed to be.


    I didn’t know how common dungeons were and how people would treat a new one. I was hoping for a symbiotic relationship, but I was going to be practical and prepare for the worst anyway.


    I considered trying to stop Exsan and get more time, but I didn’t know what that might do. I might be able to cause a stalemate with him, but he might also get very angry. And I had no way to really communicate why I was doing what I was doing. Not yet. I was literally attached to him, so it would be a bad idea to make him my enemy. I needed to bide my time until I had more information. I could confront Exsan later.


    The amount of mana that Exsan and I were using was just below the natural rate at which we were recharging. However, as the hours passed our combined mana kept increasing as the feeder slowly chugged away. The moment our combined total hit sixty I got a prompt.


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    Exsan is attempting to level up.


    Total mana required: 60


    Current mana totals:


    Caden: 33


    Exsan: 27


    Would you like to level up?


    Yes No


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    I was glad to see that leveling up was still possible and that it would combine different amounts of mana to meet the total with no problems. I briefly reviewed the message and willed yes. The notification light blinked into life and I opened it.


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    Your status has changed – Level Up


    Status</u>


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    Living Creation II (Life)</u>


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