Core of Knowledge

“Well, that was terrifying.”

Xu Han mentally nodded as his dungeon fairy flutters erratically above him. Jemma was still in a panic over the visit of the goddess and Xu Han sympathized with her. A former Soul Emperor, he was still a little shaken from the conversation.

Xu Han had only heard tales of the Gods before, never having the pleasure of meeting one directly. He never knew how lucky he had been. Gressian had been nothing but polite during her visit, but that only made things worse.

It was like a mortal being in the presence of a polite chubby Lazyclaw Bear. A Lazyclaw Bear may look fat, cute, and lazy, and it was, but the mortal also know there was nothing he could do if the bear decides to kill and eat him. That was how Xu Han felt with the Goddess of Warmth.

He was the mortal in the presence of a warm, polite, and great visitor, who could kill Xu Han with a wave of her hand.

If any action was even needed on her part.

Jemma finally got tired and drop down to the ground. She laid flat on her back, an amazing act considering the wings on her back, and closed her eyes. Xu Han sighed. The dungeon core wished he could do the same.

Xu Han was no fool. He knows he needed the gods if he is to expand the Systems they created, so this was but the first of many interactions with the divine beings. For the first time, the former cultivator wondered if he had bitten more than he could chew.

Gressian was basically a homely Kitchen God, so Xu Han fear how he would act when a God of War turns up. Xu Han sighed again. The dungeon core reminds himself to change his way of thinking. His ambition may be proper and acceptable if he was still a ten-thousand-year-old monster on the brink of Godhood, but Xu Han was no longer that person. He is now a dungeon core, a young one with only three floors. He needed to be humbler.

Thinking of his dungeon floors, Xu Han remembered his desire to make some changes. He reached down within himself. When Xu Han first awoken and met Jemma, one of the first questions he asked his dungeon fairy was, “How do I make a Floor?”

Jemma’s answer was to follow his instincts.

It was supremely unhelpful. In the Crimson Lands, no one tell a budding cultivator to just ‘follow your instincts’. In his former homeland, any young cultivator would be first taught the basic techniques of his sect and trained to develop his body to reach the peak of Body Refinement. Only when the cultivator passed Body Refinement, into the first step of cultivation known as Foundation Establishment, would he be given teachings that depend on his talent, luck and comprehension ability. Any cultivation master who told his disciple to ‘follow his instincts’ from the get-go would be laughed at!

So, it was with some consternation when Xu Han discovered that Jemma was correct.

After a long argument that went nowhere, Xu Han reluctantly decided to follow the terrible instructions of his dungeon fairy. The new dungeon core thought about making a floor, and his thoughts turned to a buzzing energy within him. It was only later that he discovered that this was the divine power all dungeon cores were born with, but at that moment Xu Han just ‘follow his instincts’ and expanded. Xu Han chuckled as he remembers the disbelief he felt after he had made his first floor.

As Jemma said, the need to expand was instinctive to him as it resonated with his soul, the soul of his Dungeon Core.

Xu Han followed the same instinct now. With a simple mental command, he sent out his mana. His senses expand with the surge, and the mana allowed Xu Han to scan all three of his floors. It was still disconcerting to think of the dungeon as his body, but Xu Han knew that it was. Like a man who could feel his own body, Xu Han knew that the dungeon was his.

He knew everything about it. Every nook and cranny, the position of every boulder and stone, the depths of the lake, the number of trees in the bamboo forest and the location of every campfire in the maze. Xu Han knew them all.

Xu Han turned his attention to his first floor and focused on the spatial space between the start and end of the floor. With all the adventurers gone, Xu Han could finally do some renovations. The dungeon core let go of his mana and reached within his soul. He touched the divine power within.

Xu Han had used a lot of it to make his second and third floor, but with the arrival of the exploration team, his divine power was almost full again. Xu Han used some of it to change the first floor.

He was met with resistance.

The terrain of the floor resisted the order to change, but Xu Han pressed on. He pushed his power forward, and the resistance quickly melted. Curious about the resistance he felt, Xu Han abandoned his plans for wholesale changes and decided to do something simple first.

He made a deep pit.

A simple hole appeared somewhere in the fog and the dungeon core could feel a drain in his divine power as the hole also appeared on the first floor of the real world.

Interesting!

Xu Han immediately understood what happened. The spatial space of the first floor was not an illusion, it was real and was like a small pocket dimension. A pocket dimension that was connected to the real world. When Xu Han made an adjustment on the floor of the spatial space, an ‘echo’ of the change would appear in the real world as well.

Xu Han quickly made another hole, this time in the real floor. As he expected, there was a drain in his divine power as a corresponding hole appeared in the spatial space. The connection goes both ways!

So, whenever Xu Han created the hole, he wasn’t just making a hole, he was creating two of them. One in the real world, and one in the spatial space. He realized the implication of the connection. Any change he makes will cost more divine power, as he would be making two of the same things. That was probably the reason for the resistance he felt.

Xu Han thought about it for a moment, before deciding to continue with the changes. The extra drain on his divine power was unexpected but it was not enough to make him change his mind. The safety provided by the spatial space was too good to ignore for something like a drain in power. Xu Han could slowly regain any power he lost and as he grows stronger, the drain would eventually be nothing but an inconvenience.

With his decision made, Xu Han focused on the hole he created. A deep hole was too simple for Xu Han, so he shaped the rocks at the bottom into spikes. The drain was still there, but the simple amendment was far from debilitating. It was something Xu Han felt he could get used to.

After the first pit was made, Xu Han decided to create several more and spread them throughout the fog. The pit traps were simple, but with the blindness of the fog, he feels they should be able to spring a surprise or two on the adventurers. There was no way for him to know till the next time the adventurers came along.

It will be interesting to see how my defences would fare against them.

Xu Han paused as the thought entered his mind. It was something that came from Xu Han, and he even felt a tinge of excitement at the thoughts of adventurers doing battle in his dungeon. The thought felt right, and it was also new.