Core of Knowledge

“I cannot believe it worked!"

Xu Han, the newly created dungeon core, laughed as his dungeon fairy flew in circles above him. She was agitated, in disbelief, and quite funny when angry.

It was strange. Xu Han was a cultivator, a man who had lived for thousands of years, and he had forgotten when the last time was when he truly laughed. He had given up everything in his quest to ascend, and oblivion should have been his fate. However, though the mercy of the Heavens, he was now laughing. To laugh and to feel joy, Xu Han wondered when the last time was. It had been too long.

As his dungeon fairy continued her mumbling, Xu Han looked through his body. Xu Han was not unused to the action. When he was a cultivator, he had driven his senses into himself on countless occasions, looking though his dantain and meridians, but it is different when one is a dungeon core. For a dungeon core’s body was its floors, and it was a place of death.

Xu Han watched as the bodies of the two dead adventurers slowly sank into the floor of his dungeon and felt the burst of power that came with the absorption. It was a strange feeling. It was nothing like the cycling of Qi during cultivation, and more like the joy he felt after an enjoyable meal.

The analogy was accurate as Xu Han was eating the adventurers. According to his fairy, Jemma, this was what dungeon cores do after killing adventurers within their dungeons. Dungeons eat the adventurers, and anything else they have on them. Considering the feeling he was having, Xu Han could get used to it.

“Hey! Are you listening to me?”

Xu Han turned his attention back to his fairy. Jemma is a flighty creature, but she was also a wealth of information and Xu Han was glad to have her. He would have no idea what to do without her. Xu Han apologized.

“Sorry, I just ate the two adventurers who died and was overwhelmed by the feeling.”

“Oh! Of course! That’s right.” Jemma said as she landed on the floor, her tiny chest puffed out in pride. “According to the handbook, the first meal is always special. You did great, by the way. I mean, it was all my doing. I'm your guide, and you listened to my advice.”

“I remembered someone saying my idea for my floor was stupid. Something about how it would never work?” Xu Han teased, which caused the dungeon fairy’s face to turn bright red.

“Well, it is unusual. Most dungeon cores have simple first floors, full of creatures or traps. I can't think of any core having a strange poisonous obstacle course for the first floor. Who would have guessed I would have a reincarnator as a dungeon core!” Jemma defended herself.

Xu Han laughed again. In the Crimson Lands, reincarnation was not unknown, but Xu Han had never heard of anyone who could remember every aspect of his previous life upon birth. In this new world, not only was this not unheard of, it was common enough that the locals had a word for it!

When Xu Han informed Jemma of his previous life as a cultivator, he had expected disbelief. To his shock, the dungeon fairy accepted his story with a shrug. If Xu Han still had a head, he would have shaken it in disbelief.

This new world was so strange.

Some of the strangeness was to be expected. A new land would have new people, new cultures, new knowledge, and even new species. The last point was very important to Xu Han for he was reborn in a species he had never heard of; a dungeon core.

Dungeon Cores do not exist in the Crimson Lands, but that’s what Xu Han had been reincarnated as. Luckily, Jemma was here to inform him about what dungeon cores are. A dungeon core was a sentient creature, with his core acting as its brain and the dungeon his body. As a core, Xu Han cannot leave the dungeon, and he has only a limited sense of things outside his dungeon but in return, he was all-powerful within the dungeon's territory. Xu Han was glad when Jemma explained it to him because he would be fumbling around for ages otherwise.

With the dungeon fairy’s explanation however, Xu Han realized a dungeon core was similar to something from his old homeland. They were called Secret Realms, places left behind by powerful cultivators for their descendants. In his arrogance and pursuit of ascension, Xu Han had never left one in the Crimson Lands.

Now, he has a chance to right that wrong. A chance to share the knowledge he had hoarded when he was the Crazed Scholar. Xu Han wondered if this was why the Heavens reborn him as a dungeon core.

“Hey! You are not listening to me again.”

Oops. It seems that he had forgotten about his dungeon fairy again. “Yes, I know how lucky I am to have you as my dungeon fairy. You are the best dungeon fairy I could have asked for.”

“Glad you realized that!” Jemma huffed. “Though I understand your distraction. You just had your first batch of adventurers making their way through your dungeon. You even killed two of them. You must still be high on the feeling of your success.”

“That is correct.” Xu Han immediately agreed. "We can work on more deaths next time."

He paused and frowned. That was weird. He was a cultivator and was no stranger to killing, but Xu Han never had an urge to kill everyone before. He was a scholar, and the thought caused him discomfort. The urge to kill was a foreign to Xu Han and the former Soul Emperor knew it did not belong to him.

It belonged to the dungeon core.

It was the instinct of a dungeon core, the urge of an apex predator. Xu Han realized he needed to be careful. He did not want to lose himself to the urge, he must not let the dungeon core's instincts take over completely. Trying to take his mind off the strange urge, Xu Han asked his dungeon fairy a question.

“Jemma, I felt a rush of power when I ate the adventurers, but it was strange. It was as if I could taste the power the adventurers were providing me.”

"Oh that! That's just the power of divinity.” The dungeon fairy said with a chuckle.

"Divinity?" Xu Han repeated, staring at the dungeon fairy flying above him. As a dungeon core, Xu Han was just a stone, and the dungeon fairy has a habit of flying above him. “Jemma, what do you mean by the power of divinity?”

“Exactly what I said,” the dungeon fairy answered, her voice sounding very bored. “Any mortal who has a Class has a touch of the divine. He has been blessed by the Gods, and when a dungeon core absorbed the body, the dungeon core is also absorbing the divinity within the mortal.”

“Is this divine power important?” Xu Han wondered aloud.

“Oh yes," the dungeon fairy laughed. “Dungeon cores need divine power to create creatures and make things out of nothing.”

“So, are dungeon cores divine beings as well? Is that why I can create things?”

“Not exactly. Dungeon cores are born with limited divine power and can use it to create and expand their dungeon, but they can’t refill their divinity naturally like the Gods. However, dungeon cores can absorb the divinity of adventurers to replenish their divine power, so that is why it is important that more adventurers come to your dungeon.” Jemma, the dungeon fairy, corrected.

“So, what is to stop me from just storing the divinity I absorbed from adventurers, and never used them?” Xu Han asked as an idea came to him. He had no wish to become a god after his previous failure, but he wondered if a dungeon core could use the divinity it absorbed to become a god.

“Because if you do that, adventurers will never come to run your dungeon again. Worse, they might decide to just destroy you. Dungeons cores need to be constantly growing, building new floors, giving out treasures to incite adventurers to enter. No one need a dungeon core that stopped growing.”