Dungeon Core, Resistance.

by Zemez

Stumbling About Without Legs.

|	Spread knowledge about a new or forgotten subject	|
|				+1 SP				|

|    Enchanted Mythril War Hammer absorbed. Mythril and heavy enchant learned	|

After the cleanup of his first dungeon run, Xaviar was excited. He could earn SP by inventing new things and sharing them?! He immediately put the point into theoretical Thaumaturgy. He would have put it into Runic Scripture, but apparently, it wouldn't let him... Bummer.

With theoretical thaumaturgy at five and his knowledge of Runes at three... He realized how stupid he was. Or rather he got an inkling of how stupid he was. The Mythril Warhammer was expensive, sure. Mythril was found only in small deposits surrounded by obsidian. And the Heavy enchant was useful if he wanted to make some blunt weapons... But he exchanged it with a book that turned the concept of enchanting into a skill for children.

He checked his status... Which would explain this newfound insight. His Runic Scripture was at two now. From what he knew, enchanting was specific, it used runes as a language to change the nature of the magic itself. Only magic didn't like being in this form, so it tried to revert, and in doing so, turned into bleed-off, heat, light, etc, until it turned back into proto-magic. Enchanting only affected the material it was attached to or the area of the rune itself, depending on what you wrote.

Runic Scripture affected reality itself for a more hefty mana cost and delay. Currently, with the second rank, he could still only affect the fundamental elemental thaumaturgies, air, earth, fire, and water. In simpler words, This allowed one to cast an elemental spell like a unicorn!

When the three left, he took advantage of them killing his boss to make another one. Currently, he could only make one. He figured that would change eventually, but right now he admired the boss he had just made.

He then frowned. He still couldn't understand how the system assigned skills, attributes, or abilities. Although this was the first monster he's made that had more than fifty in an attribute. So he was glad that they gained the abilities that came with High attributes.

This Boss cost a total of 2.5 upkeep though. He wondered how normal dungeons kept up with their pace of development. Just his one boss monster already used nearly half his upkeep! It wasn't cheap to make either, at four thousand mana! He Really wished he had some guide on doing this. Because at the rate he was going, it was untenable. He placed two normal lesser Librarians in the library, one at the checkout desk, another wandering the bookshelves. Each of these at level forty was similar to his boss, except they were C rank. Although he was surprised to notice that even without putting skills on them that the Constructs still gained Runic Scripture II as an ability.

Both of the constructs together were another .8 upkeep, and each took two thousand mana to create! He put some level 40 quills around to fill up the rest of his 8 monsters he could still make. He was forced to make three of them level thirty, which he placed near the entrance of the library.

He was glad that these were still in the hundreds of mana to create, although the D rank looked particularly shabby to his eyes. He wished he could fill his library with entire Librarians!

All was quiet for two more hours after he had finished placing the last quill. The sounds of scratching quills and shuffling papers were oddly soothing. He was surprised to see the Lesser Librarians actually reading the books he placed though.

'...could monsters gain skills like normal creatures?' He wondered to himself. When he could spare the mana, he would test this. But right now, he noticed a group of five outside the Library's entrance. He shifted his focus to look over them before widening his eyes. A group of five griffons in different armor was conversing, making tactical plans. That wasn't what surprised him though. What surprised him was the SIlverish brown plumage of the Griffon in front. The chip in his beak from when he fell onto a rock while they were playing... The way his left talon was gripping the floor while the right was relaxed...

'Brother...' he... Expected to eventually see his brother, but not this soon. He checked the other griffons' statuses.

He remembered this one. Gilda would occasionally come over with a greater-than-thou attitude and act as if she didn't care about his brother's orders... She was awfully quiet today, just nodding. Next was a muscular griffon. His Dark brown plumage was tinged with red streaks.

Xaviar could tell he was antsy, ready to go in and probably smash his brand new monsters to pieces! The next was a Gryph with black Feathers, an oddity for sure. He kept watching around him, before staring straight at where Xaviar was focusing... Sharp senses he supposed.

The final one was a griffon with... Green feathers? He quickly brought up her status, curious about that.

Made sense he supposed. Griffons didn't have pure magic classes, so they didn't have pure healers. Moss's leveling most likely was behind the others since she had to take on the role of healer.

He stared at his brother for several minutes debating. Eventually, he looked away, resisting the temptation to look at his Status. His brother never shared it before, and it oddly felt... Wrong to peek at his without permission.

"Now that everyone's aware of the history, we're doing the first dive. Full power, don't hold back against anything in there." Alexander said as he pushed the doors open.

The first Lesser Librarian got up... Or at least it tried. It was difficult to tell what happened because as soon as his brother waved a wing at his construct, sharp pain in his core greeted him, along with a blurring of his vision. As soon as his vision cleared up it once more fuzzed up as Ace rushed forward and Crushed the three level thirty quills beneath his bulk, Killing them through sheer impact force.

|	4x abilities 100 levels above core used.	|
|	     Core overloaded with proto-mana		|
|	    S+ Soul resisted Overload, +4 ABP.	        |

...

He wasn't a professor in Thaumaturgical theory, but even an idiot knew that Mana overload wasn't good. He checked his stat- holy Hen!

His mana was full, his ABP had indeed gone up by four, and his health was at five! He checked back in on the group. They were going to go through his monsters really quick, so he may as well just throw everything at them. He directed all the Quills to begin mov-

He looked back at his status. His Upkeep was at 2.9... All his quills were already dead? He looked back, seeing the Griffon with black feathers, Ferrier, inspecting the normal quills that he set his Animated Quills to drop. It seemed he only had his Librarian left. With a heavy heart and an apology he doubted it could hear, he sent it to be smashed apart... Your sacrifice for 1 ABP is appreciated...

The group didn't even wait and read some books, 'heathens', before they were pushing open his boss door.

The Head librarian looked at them... Before losing its head. The fuzziness apparently affected all his other senses, as he heard his brother say something that was muffled before they left... After they left, he checked his status, ready to- Level five?!

He almost wished he could call them back to run through again! He'd suffer that agonizing pain and fuzziness for Decades if it would level him up faster! Unfortunately, he had no beak... Or talons, or any kind of extremity really... He missed preening. The feeling as he ripped out a feather that had been broken or was digging-

Right, back to leveling. He brought up the upgrades once more.

He very quickly took the second level of Expanded Mana. He set aside two points to grab new skills with and pumped everything else except for two points into his upkeep. He needed more powerful monsters. And a level forty B rank boss just can't compete with an A rank sixty levels above themselves, Let alone near five of them. Afterward, he checked his Status once more.

'Wait... 5 traits?' he thought as he looked at the screen. His mana was completely full as well, probably from being stuffed full of proto-mana, and he did have the four Ability Points. He opened his traits, curious about what could have changed.

...That explained it. And also why his regeneration of his Proto-mana was so high now. Overload was usually associated with a Unicorn stuffing too much magic through their horn. This rarely happened on accident and was more common with Unicorns whose class and talent for magic was at least A rank.

Overload was a more debilitating condition than just a broken horn. A broken horn meant the unicorn might be able to eventually retrain their mana to cast simple spells once again, but rarely more than that. Overload meant the total destruction of a unicorn's horn, and usually required immediate medical attention.

...He should be dead. It made sense on why he'd be stuffed with proto-mana, Every ability turns mana into Proto-mana usually at a rate of 1 mana to 10 proto-mana, give or take bleed-off... He never really consciously thought about how he was taking in Proto-mana, he just assumed his Core would stop when it was full. Did his core instead turn Proto-mana into some intermediary product between Mana and Proto-mana? His monsters used mana, but he used Proto-mana.

Regardless, Like a unicorn horn, he should have been splintered if he was stuffed full of mana, the notifications said his S+ soul resisted it... He still didn't understand what that meant. Did some intangible part of him directly affect reality? Is the soul like some form of glue to his physical form? He couldn't even take a new knowledge in this sort of thing!

It was frustrating. And he couldn't ask any creature to find out if there was already research on this, none of his monsters were able to speak, he tried with his automatons. And it wasn't like he could just walk-

If he still had talons he'd slap himself. He had the Avatar Upgrade. He'd make an avatar and go out in the world to try and see if any creature had found evidence of this before... Although, that begged the question of if his Avatar could leave his domain.

Future what-ifs aside, he had to get ready. He pumped two of his five ABP into monster creation. He put two into Material Creation, and one into Material Reinforcement.

With his large mana pool and 12 upkeep, he tried something he hadn't yet done. He selected the Griffon option on his monster creation. The popup the system gave him, as usual, surprised him.

|     Unable to create Origin Creatures without permission.	|

Origin Creatures? He'd have to set that one aside, for now, He already had too many fundamental mysteries of the universe to worry about. Instead, he'd set up his library like before. Only his Head Librarian was level eighty now. Along with all of his other monsters. Two Lesser Librarians were now stalking the shelves, with one at the front desk. He could adjust the skill's levels that he gave them. So the Librarian at the front only had language III and Runic Scripture I, while the head librarian had Runic Scripture II. The two wanderers didn't have any. With 7.6/12 of his upkeep used up, he spent the rest of six quills at level 70. He couldn't make anything from his list that wouldn't be a distraction at best with the point two mana he had left. So he left his last monster slot open.

It took him less than an hour, he didn't exactly know how to tell time with the sun and still had to rely on his regeneration to tell time. Since he couldn't exactly entertain himself with board games or the like, he began gently carving out another floor underneath the library. His immense Mana reserves now allowing him to directly create stone.

His upgrades into Material Reinforcement and Material creation weren't without merit either, he could now create low MC metals, such as iron and copper. Tin was also on there as the most expensive item, but for 60 mana per square horn? It was pretty much only going to be used for decoration.

Xaviar also began using Material Reinforcement on the cavern that housed his core. The Rats seemed to leave his Core alone, but he blocked off all the tunnels anyways since he'd know if one tried to tunnel back through. He also began tentatively putting runes down on the floor. He had no idea how he would activate them yet, but each one would shoot a large wall of stone up to the ceiling.

His manipulations were halted when he detected another group of griffons coming into his domain. He wasn't getting much warning, since his domain pretty much stopped at the edge of his Library. He'd make it bigger, but he was afraid that if he made it too large, there'd always be creatures in his domain, preventing him from making monsters.

He looked over this group's sheet and didn't bother reading much before going back to writing runes in his cave. The highest was a level fifty B rank, and the other three weren't too far behind, but their party was terrible, no pseudo-healer, and all of them had pretty low endurance. Besides, he was more interested in the problem of how to power all of his runes instead of seeing whether they passed or failed.

That wasn't to say he had no idea what they were doing, he still could see and feel them walking about, hear them chattering in his domain like his dungeon would be stepped on again. He just wasn't focusing on them. Although with how much they were trash talking him, he was kinda hoping they crash and burned...

Author's Note:

Sorry for the late delivery of this, this chapter just never sat well with me, and I still think there are improvements that could have been done. The next chapter should be better.

Origin of the Runic Language:
Long before the unification of the tribes, The three types of ponies had no idea they had other, civilized, creatures out in the world they shared with each other until the first Minotauren longboats landed on the Unicorn's soil. They were as strong as an earthpony, and wielded surprising weapons that weren't intended to maim or injure, but to capture. Most unicorns in this era couldn't do much more than simple levitation and a few cantrips related to their profession. To the unicorn's surprise, an entire village disappeared overnight, causing them to formally come together and create the unicorn council, made up of the strongest unicorns.

On the other side of the ocean the Minortaurs took them, Minotaurs were inventive, rather making a tool to make work easier than doing it the old way. Unfortunately for the unicorns, they were one of the solutions. Given picks and shovels, they were to mine for valuable ores the minotaurs used in their tools. Despite their superior magical ability, each attempt by the unicorns to escape ended in failure, until Spearhead was born; The first Pony to be born in captivity since the time of Grogar. the slaves stashed him away in a spacious alcove they mined out, trying their best to sneak food and water to him and his mother every day until she passed.

Spearhead grew up knowing only the tales that the other ponies told him. Of a land across the sea, different from their rock-hewn surroundings, lush grass, fields of flowers, and a land where they were the most superior of pony kind. As winters dragged on, he saw less and less of the ponies who had raised and taught him.

Spearhead began improving what his mentors had taught him on those days in which nopony visited him. Soon, he improved the basic elemental magic he was taught to even more advanced applications. His telekinesis could carry boulders, his own prowess was enough to match their mightiest legends. And at the age of sixteen, He left the alcove he was stashed, from the original fifty, only thirteen unicorns remained. He inspired them with his improvements, and they left the cave that had imprisoned them.

Pickaxes swinging and large elemental spells from Spearhead flew through the air as they made their escape. Only to run into complications. The minotaurs had developed a new tool. None of them were spellcasters or had the ability to become spellcasters, but they studied the horns of the dead unicorns and developed the Runic Language. The minotaurs brought weapons of injury and death to bear now against the captives, warhammers that would shake the very earth, arrows that would light on fire with no kindling. Pony after pony fell, until only Spearhead remained, his mastery of magic still superior to the crude form of magic they had invented.

He escaped by boat. Nearly starving, and severely dehydrated, he made it to the shore he believed his mentors told him about. The unicorns had been fighting the Minotaurs back since the first village was taken. Spearhead joined them, Impressing even the Counsel with his mastery of magic. Upon driving the minotaurs out of their land and making sure they would never return, Spearhead relayed the story of his upbringing, and was made the first Grand Unicorn...

Comments

[Black--Soul]

Awesome chapter. To sad he could not become a
'Pen Pal' with his brother.
So getting his monsters defeated by others levels him up? Nice way to have a win-win scenario. Would explain Equestria riches! Alicorn have a mutual benefishal agreement with their Cores. They respect one another and support eatch other.
I guess if control is given outside dungeon limit than the Dungoncores could make up a great defensive military force if Equestria is ever in danger.

[Black--Soul]

I hope Xavier can hide long enough for Celestia's or Luna's arrival to save his Core...

[Davenfjeld]

Brilliant as always! Love the way the library is set up, and the graphs certainly make this whole thing clearer.

Hope the story continues to go alright for our Core, he only has so much he can do.

[rikithemonk]

Lost me half way through chapter one.

it's just bland and stats.

[Black--Soul]

Maybe he can build a mobile Dungeon? Many other storys give me the idea...

[Black--Soul]

Mobil fortress/Dungeon to travel the world and let all Nation enjoy its ressources and let them level up while leveling it.

[Black--Soul]

Here some humor filled stuff, might get your laughing muscle excercised and get th creative juices flowing

1.

2.

3.

4.

[Tonto the Trotter]

Enjoyed what you have written so far, I'm a big fan of Dungeon Core fics, so I was pleasantly surprised to find one over here. So far so good, I am liking the world-building and monster variety so far. I hope this one continues.

And for anyone else looking for Dungeon Core fics, I recommend 'Dungeon without a System', 'Thieves Dungeon', 'Yagacore', 'There is no Epic Loot here, Only Puns', 'The Dungeon Calls for a Sage', 'Dungeon Life', 'Dragonheart Core', 'The Heart Grows', 'Eternal Spire', 'Lucid Core' and 'Island Core' over on Royal Road. These all range in quality from Amazing to Enjoyable/interesting. (The ones in Bold are stories I would recommend more confidently.)

On Amazon you can read Bone Dungeon series, Dungeon Heart series, Any of Johnathon Brooks Dungeon Core series and Cat Core.