> Dungeon Core, Resistance.
>  by Zemez
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> A New Existence...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the world of Equis, many of its secrets had already been uncovered, such as the depths of the mare-iana trench, the heights of Mount Everhoof, and even the depths of the earth, to around a few miles. But no creature could figure out all the mysteries of magic. They had complex mathematics to explain it of course, but just when the researchers thought they reached a peak, Magic proved them wrong by unveiling a mountain range.

One of these mountain ranges was dungeon cores, and Xaviar was obsessed. Equestria, the only land proven to never have any dungeon outbreaks, allowed their cores to be studied openly, if non-intrusively. And one summer's day in college, he took that opportunity. The marvels he learned opened up his eyes.

Cores were obviously made from some gem-like composition, unlike the manite-infused bones and cartilage of the ponies, which allowed them greater mastery of magic. Gems had different mana tolerances, from the lowest 10 MC, or Mana Conveyance, to the highest known of 1500 MC. Cores had 0 MC, as they actively rejected mana, and took in a byproduct of magical events, or proto-magic. The MC of 10 meant that for every 10 points of mana put in, 1 point of mana would be lost.

This was only the first thing that fascinated him, and the rest could be put on a list long enough to stretch across Griffonia, his home nation, or... What was left in any case. Each nation was much poorer than Equestria, and the reason for this was the Cores. Cores had the unbelievable effects of being masters at transmutation, using proto-magic to create objects, plants, and even creatures! The byproduct of these creations was mana, which every living creature required to continue living.

Equestria contained forty-three of these cores, while each other nation only contained one. The reason for this was that Dungeons would randomly create a 'dungeon tide' in which it would continuously create creatures that would leave its influence and wreak havoc. Equestria should be a barren wasteland of death and monsters by now you'd think.

Equestria would come and liberate a core when a new one was found, relocating it back to their land for the safety of everyone. Only, when the minotaurs refused once, their nation was destroyed. The dungeon had spawned some sort of metal-like creatures that quickly overran their forces.

It was after this, and the scattering of the minotaurs, that the other nations banded together and demanded answers from Equestria, and thereby Celestia. She answered simply, that Alicorn levels of magic were required to subdue the cores, and she would not be spending her time subduing the cores for free, and thusly demanded concessions. Griffonia refused and spent more and more on the military to resist the dungeon.

Most of the griffons now still in the nation live in Griffinstone, the capital, although that was still a generous term. The population was poor, and the Griffonstone currency, slates, was so undervalued, that many had to grow their own crops in the mana-poor soil. Many of the other nations on the other side of the sea from Equestria weren't so better off. The dragons raided other lands for meat and magic, the snakes spent most of their time lazing about to conserve energy, and the sheep were perhaps the best off. Their land still had grass, although they had very little infrastructure, and no national currency or exports to purchase materials to build infrastructure.

Xaviar, at this moment, was climbing down a gorge outside of Griffinstone. The warm air rising up at tremendous speeds would have caught his wings if he hadn't tied them down. The climbing equipment he was using was rank B, which meant it could withstand a level fifty's attack, so he wasn't afraid of any problems with it.

Eventually, he anchored his equipment to an outcropping, taking a short rest from the heated air in an alcove. As he wetted his beak with half a skin of water, he brought up his interface.





He nodded, Every creature had this interface, except perhaps untamed animals, and he was happy to see that his endurance training had gone up by one on the climb down. Every creature could train each of their four attributes up to +10, which didn't count for their points, which was important after level 50, as each point required two AP to increase by one. His class was Explorer, class ranks started at D, going up until A became S rank. The only confirmed S ranks however were the princesses of Equestria. The reason training was important was that as a C rank class, he only gained 3 ATP per level. And as a C rank, he was among ten percent of those in Griffonia.

In Equestria, C rank was the minimum class level, and each race got their class at different points, usually adulthood. Ponies gained a class when they gain their cutie mark, griffons gained it upon turning sixteen. Regardless, D ranks gained two ATP per level, while B ranks gained 4. A ranks gained 8, and while it was unconfirmed, there are rumors that S ranks gained a whole 16 points per level! He could only imagine how powerful the princesses were.

Skills could be trained up to 20. but it was rare for someone to go beyond 10 in their lifetime, the only way was if they put everything into one skill. Skills could be increased with SP, in which every creature, of every rank, gained 1 every five levels. They could also be trained normally, through acquisition of knowledge, training, etc. His class, explorer, actually gave him a 20% bonus to learning skills. 

On the other side was Abilities. These could also be trained, but at a much slower pace than skills, and each had a mana cost, whether it was upkeep or amount upon use. Certain races were born with abilities. All griffons gained Flight I when they grew enough to be able to fly. the other two skills were acquired by him through study and training. As ABP was only gained every 10 levels. He was saving his last point for if he really needed it, as his first point had gone into Flight so that he could pass his primary school gym class.

Creatures could also gain titles, however, these were rare, and would show up separately, these were also the only parts of the interface others could see without permission. He once saw Celestia in person, and the amount of titles she had was staggering. a whole 15 of them! the most prominent one was Embodiment of Day. He could only dream about the benefits that singular title probably brought her, as each title usually had some benefit attached to it. Shaking off the envy, he brought up his own class.



|		Explorer(Rank C)	  	|
|  An adventurer of the unknown past, seek  	|
|  glory, adventure, and secrets unknown!	|
|  Increase skill gain by 20%, earn levels  	|
|  by uncovering the unknown.			|




As it came and went, he was actually pretty proud of his class, which he gained during his mandatory year in the Griffonstone army, which spent most of its time running through Griffonia's only dungeon to suppress it. Each griffon, upon the year they turned 16, was to join the army. It was less that Griffonia had many enemies, but that resources were in short supply, so it was to teach discipline and ways to survive on less.

Most C rank classes gained a 10% increase to an aspect, and they usually only gained 20% to a certain type of skill or ability, not to all of them. It was this aspect that allowed him to go to Canterlot University on a scholarship. It wasn't as glamorous as say getting into Celestia's school for gifted scholars, but it allowed him to study overseas in Equestria for four years!

His thoughts ran out of control as he reminisced, he soon realized an hour had passed as his HP had gone up. He Shook off the dirt from his feathers as he got up and continued climbing in the heat. For a creature with less than 50 Endurance, it would have soon become unbearable. But mana reinforcement increased his strength and endurance by 5% for a point of mana a minute, which allowed him to barely endure it. his singular point of mana from training was in part due to using this skill for the past four hours. Abilities didn't only take mana, however, as they required focused effort to use them, he was already getting mentally exhausted, despite it only being noon, as he could see the sun through the gorge's open ceiling. He wasn't willing to continue resting though.

The reason he was here was that there were records of this area once being a dungeon hundreds of years ago, before the unification of Griffonia against dragon raiders. The core was shattered to prevent the dragons from stealing it. shattered cores were useless, as they lost all their ability to process Protomagic. And using them as common gems proved worthless as well, as they were worse than common gems, still having an MC of 0, and any mana put in them never came out. This meant that shattered cores were usually left where they were.

Since they were useless, nobody owned a shattered core, and he felt that if he could get his hands on one, not only would his Theoretical Thaumaturgy become rank V, he might be able to uncover some secrets those less dedicated to knowledge of dungeons wouldn't uncover.

It was two hours later that he finally reached the bottom. He had expected it to be extremely hot, but as he descended, it had actually become cooler, which meant that the thermal vents in the gorge were along the walls, not the floor. He kept mana reinforcement on however. The dungeon entrance was supposedly in the only cave alongside the floor of the gorge.

It took him another few minutes to find it, as the sun was beginning to set from its highest point, it was getting dark, and he only brought a few torches. He didn't have amazing night vision, so he had to squint several times to notice the entrance. When he entered, the atmosphere changed. The gorge had been fairly quiet, now? he heard the sound of creatures skittering. He wasn't too afraid, while the dungeon was said to have been a high level, something he was still confused about, the party that had shattered it would have taken care of all of the monsters except the weakest stragglers.

He lit a torch as the cave descended into total darkness only a few hooves away from the entrance. He had already untied his wings, stretching them to get the blood flowing back into them. He was probably going to lose a few feathers from this trip, but it would be worth it.

The layout of the dungeon was fairly straightforward, different from Griffonia's dungeon, which had twisting pathways that could lead back towards each other. The caves were filled with ash, undisturbed for hundreds of years. while he was in a hurry, Xaviar couldn't help but take his time to admire the rooms. Claw marks, sword slashes, and even melted stone! It told him of the battles that took place to keep control over the dungeon. the Griffon warriors did everything in their power to hold the dragons at bay, but with superior power, as dragons had higher stats, and a lot longer than griffons to level up, in which most dragons took decade-long naps to wait for the ambient magic to level them up, the griffon's lost. However, what confused him was the fact that every corpse, or at least what was left, of the griffon's side was killed by a dragon. and at one point, upon reaching a boss room, in which it seemed to be a large animated piece of armor, or at least he guessed from the slag left behind, that the griffons fought alongside the dungeon?

His confusion was so great that he nearly missed the scuttling behind him. However, he rolled out of the way at the last moment, dropping his torch. with the torch illuminating the figure, he swallowed heavily. It was a rat nearly half his size, it was nearly hairless, with several boils along its body. Its tail was torn at the end, with half of it missing. Its claws were sharp, leaving scratches on the stone floor.

He squared his shoulders and relaxed them. He had to hope that its level wasn't too close to his, while he wasn't weak by griffon standards, he wasn't a combat class, so he had no abilities related to combat. This was one of the few times he wished he was a pony. Even if he was the same class, he'd probably have much higher stats due to being a higher level.

The rat shot at him, he rolled underneath its lunge as he lightly raked its underbelly. His army training paid off, as the Griffonstone Army Technique I was mainly focused on avoiding blows in 1v1 combat. This also told him that the Rat wasn't nearly as high a level as him, as its underbelly was slightly bleeding. If it was truly near his level, his light attack would have done nothing but irritated it.

The rat was hesitant about attacking again, and Xaviar took advantage of this, he grabbed the torch he was now beside, and used it as a club against the rat. Several of the boils popped, creating a sizzling sound as the fluid inside was burned. The rat was singed, but it rolled away in time to avoid being lit on fire. He didn't let it have a chance to escape, maybe bring back some friends. He advanced, swinging again, and with a crack, which came from the rat instead of his torch, the rat flew through the air limply. twitching slightly at the area of its rest. He poked it a few times before becoming assured it wouldn't get up again before hurrying.

He no longer took time to take in the history of this place. He already had to replace his torch soon after the fight, and he only brought three. While he was undisturbed by any other rats, it did take him another torch, as he had to descend three levels, and each of the boss's remains filled him with awe of the power of dungeons. This dungeon seems to have focused on metal-like constructs, with the animated armor on the first floor, the second-floor boss's slag was at least twice the size. with the third floor having telltale marks of combat spells, and considering griffons were unable to gain classes associated with spellcasting, it meant that the boss had the ability to cast magic! This required an insanely high level of Runecarving! Unicorns could cast spells because of their horn spirals, which were insanely complicated when seen microscopically. There were other creatures with these same patterns, but not as highly complex. For instance, Dragons had an organ with natural runes for fire.

His excitement only grew stronger as he passed the slag of the third-floor boss, the wall behind it was knocked down. Most dungeons left a hole in which air could enter where their core was, the reason why was never exactly explored, but parallel tests showed that proto-magic had no trouble going through stone and dirt, unlike normal magic, which only had an MC of 3 with dirt, and 1 of stone.

It was among the knocked-down wall that he found it. its shape was that of a double trapeze, the surface had several cracks upon it, and despite the cores he saw in Equestria having brilliant colors, the broken core was nothing but an opaque black. When he picked it up, Xaviar was surprised when his interface popped up.



|     Artifact Broken Core found, synergy with class: S rank	 |
|  +3 Levels, would you like to activate Artifact: Broken Core?  |



He was surprised. Certain classes had connections to certain items. An archmage, an A rank class, would have at least a B rank connection with any magic staff, a warrior might have at least a D rank connection with a sword, and perhaps a C rank if it was their favorite weapon. These connections could also grow if the rare event of a class change happened, or if the creature attached incredible importance to the item. Synergies usually increased the effect of the item. If a weapon did up to 30 points of damage, then the weapon with a C rank synergy could do up to 40! Synergies weren't an exact number, a C rank synergy with the same item, but two different people could change different aspects of the item.

Artifacts were part of a system, from items of rank D to S, and then there were artifacts above S rank. Artifacts broke the rules, If an S rank item had an MC of 1500, then an artifact could have an MC of 2000! They could bring back the dead without making them undead, they could even give a D rank class the power of an A rank class! The most prominent artifact was the Alicorn Amulet, which not only changed the person's class into Archmage while wearing it, but it also gave them several skills and hundreds of spells at rank 10! the downside was the corrupting nature of this artifact, which made the person both vain and narcissistic, along with these traits, the amulet could only be taken off by the wearer, which made it hard to subdue the owner.

And +3 levels?! Not only was this nearly a quarter of his time spent In Equestria, but this also neatly leveled him up to 30! All his exhaustion was washed away by this. Even if he was ridiculed, and even if he died right now, he'd be happy. In addition, he could activate this Broken Core? Xaviar wondered what it would do, not only was it an artifact, he had an S rank synergy with it. Would he be shown the scenes preceding its destruction? Perhaps it would allow him to perform the impossible transmutation magic dungeons were known for! His mind raced with possibilities of what he could gain before he took a deep breath, calming himself down.

He acquiesced, and soon he felt a pulling force from the dead gem. He waited with bated breath, watching as his MP dropped by 10/second. He wasn't afraid, if he didn't have enough mana, it simply wouldn't work. He could always start putting-

The pain started as soon as his MP reached 0. He opened his interface only to see his HP dropping by the same amount! He began panicking, his first attempt was to let go of the Core, but his claw was stuck in its vice-like grip! Soon he began trying to beat it along the stone walls. this did nothing but tire him out more quickly than the Core was doing. When he reached 100 hp, he quickly allocated all of his points to endurance. with the nine points, his endurance broke the 50 threshold, and he gained the ability Enduring. which increased his HP by another hundred... it wasn't enough. in less than half a minute he was laying on the ground, his vision blackening at the edges, only when his hp reached zero, his vision didn't go dark like he thought it would. Instead, his sight was filled with scintillating colors, He questioned if this meant he was drugged. Perhaps the entire day-long adventure was merely a drug-induced hallucination. The question went unanswered, because after what felt like several hours, the colors cut out, leaving him in total darkness... And then the interface popped up.



|   You died!   |
|      ...	|
|      ...	|
|      ...	|
|     Error!    |





|	 	 	  restoring records...		  	|
|		 Records corrupted, body uninhabitable.	  	|
|	Would you like to restore records in current form?	|



He used all of his will to shout yes... but no sound came, the system still reacted, however.



|    Records restored! Please check your new status!	|



His sight returned, although it was different. He felt that he should be feeling something, anything after what he went through... but nothing came, only the idea that he should be feeling something... And his vision, while he could focus on something to the occlusion of all else before... He never remembered being able to see in fully 360o. Despite the fact that half of it was being blocked by something dark.



|    Biomass detected. Would you like to absorb it?	|



He said yes mentally, It felt oddly normal. and as he did, the black mass that was blocking half of his vision began to clear, he realized the mass was him... or at least his body, with... him, clutched in his claw... now an emotion returned, fear. if that was his body... that meant he was inside the broken core!

Another emotion, excitement, which fought for territory with fear. He quickly brought up his interface.







|   Biomass absorbed. Griffon template gained.	|



The perusal of his new stats was interrupted by a notification. So many thoughts ran through him at this, ideas on how to help his nation- no, the world, He could create food, water, even medical supplies! He could advance thaumaturgical science by leaps and bounds! He could also risk, did he need to create dungeon tides? Would he slowly go crazy until he did? Regardless, of all these thoughts, only one of them centered on the core of his being. really rooted in his thoughts that brought so much fear and joy...

I'm a dungeon core...
> Dungeon Core.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





He had several things to do before he could think about hosting a proper dungeon. Firstly, traits, which had replaced his racial attribute bonuses. He mentally opened it up.



 The traits told him a lot. First of all, that dungeons apparently got a Parasprite helper? Most likely, these little guys would tell the newly made dungeon core how to do stuff... His was apparently dead. This meant the system treated him as the dungeon core that was shattered. This thought was also supported by the Shattered but whole and the Useless Skills traits.

All of these were pretty straightforward... except for the first trait. He mentally frowned, He'd never seen, let alone heard of an S+ rank. This also brought several other questions, were dungeon cores normally like him? reincarnated through accidents? Or were they formed with incomplete souls? What was a Soul anyways? Most modern Thaumaturgy dismissed the notion of the soul existing... but here was proof. 

In addition, the trait was pretty vague, apart from no maximum level on his monsters, he'd get to the excitement of that later, it gave him 6 upgrades per level? What were upgrades?

He closed the traits menu. He was partially upset at the ??? for his name. he was Xaviar, not-



|     Name changed to Xaviar.	|



…That was easy. He noticed he had 1 ATP, he didn't spend it yet, since he didn't exactly know what each of the attributes did. None of them were self-explanatory, except perhaps the mana upkeep. KPM though... that was a lot of energy.

Well, one thing he knew was that dungeons needed territory to spread, now how did he do this? His first few attempts at getting the system to trigger were unfruitful, no mention of territory, claim, or any variation thereof worked. Eventually, he tried pushing mana through his core, or rather, proto-mana. This was more successful, while he got no extra notifications, he could... feel the area, temperature, humidity, light level, and even each individual microbe inside the hoof of space. Each like he had used the most precise instrument to measure it. He had no idea if this was another effect of his S+ rank trait or if all Cores felt their environment in this level of detail. With only ten mana being used up for a square hoof of space, he claimed the entire boss room.



|      Metal found. Impure Silver, absorb?	|



With a mental nudge he absorbed the remains of the boss. he checked his sheet, and his ATP hadn't gone up. The room was quite spacious, being a circular room with a diameter of thirty hooves. Many of the skeletons of the griffons were absorbed in the same matter. disintegrating into nothing, or what appeared to be nothing to him. Their armor was made out of bronze, which he also absorbed. It was only after he cleared out the room that he noticed that his ATP had gone up to 2.

'So absorbing things increases my attribute points...' He thought to himself. While his Proto-mana regened, he decided to explore the rest of his sheet. The first ability he checked out was monster creation I.



|    Must have an element to create monsters	|



'Element?' as soon as he thought that, hundreds of thousands of options came into his head. So quickly he couldn't process them all. 

'STOP!' With that, the options stopped flooding his mind. The option it had stopped on caused Xaviar to pause.



|	KNOWLEDGE.	|



...Was this an element? He thought it meant like fire, water, perhaps going down the table of elements? But knowledge? He encountered a familiar feeling, doubt. The same feeling he remembered when he accepted the scholarship, when he was forced to join the Griffonstone Army, and even when he decided to go down this gorge... 

'Nothing ventured, Nothing gained.' Were his thoughts as he accepted knowledge as his element. He thought perhaps knowledge would rush into his head, filling him with a veritable library. Only nothing happened, he felt no different. With nothing left, he opened monster creation I.



 
Selecting the create new monster option brought forth another screen where he was supposed to design a creature. He gave up after a few hours, which he now kept track of by keeping a close watch on his mana. He needed to know and design each individual aspect of the creature. It wasn't as simple as just putting an eagle's head on a pony's body. He needed to know where the veins were supposed to connect, the magical circuits needed to be designed, etc. Perhaps later, he would be able to create truly amazing things, but right now? Right now he had none of the knowledge or skills necessary to create new life. Selecting the other option, a different screen popped up.



He felt that he could select any one of them except for Lesser Librarian and place them anywhere inside of what he began calling his domain, which was the boss room he had claimed. He selected the Animated Tome.


|	Select level	|


He chose a nice level 10 for his first creation and spawned it in the middle of the room. Suddenly it was there, floating about two hooves off the ground, flapping its pages and cover in some facsimile of a bird. After observing it for a little bit, a pop-up showed up, surprising him.





So he could see his creatures' status? Checking his mana, he was a hundred short, now down to 90 from 190. The book fluttered about the room, moving randomly and only changing direction when it hit a wall or the edge of his domain. When he began to look through his other abilities, the sight of a rat head poking into the room stopped him. It sniffed the air before looking at his flying book. Soon, another surprise popped up.





H-He could see the status of other creatures!? He was stunned by this revelation. While he couldn't see everything, such as their skills, what he could see was already enough! And it informed him his animated tome was toast. He could do nothing as the rat swatted it out of the air with a leap and began to tear pages out until it stopped moving. he was slightly surprised when the rat leveled up, now being level 18. It reinforced a lot about what he already knew, and told him even animals could benefit from dungeons. It sniffed around for a few seconds before bounding out of the room.

It seemed he needed ways to stop the monsters from attacking his monsters while he made them. With only a max of 500 mana, and gaining 50/hour, it'd take him ten hours just to make five of those tomes. So with that, he looked at Material Creation I. This one wasn't very complicated, although he could only use it within his domain. He started with stone, which only required that he think of a material he'd encountered before using it. It was one unit of Proto-magic per cubic hoof. When he had finally blocked up the entrance for only five Proto-mana, he made a pile of dirt for 3 units... This told him that his material creation relied upon the MC of the material.

with that done, he waited. When his mana reached over 100 he tried to create a griffon so that he could at least have a size advantage over the Rat.



Insufficient resources.



Or not. the screen told him nothing about what he needed. Did the Griffon cost more mana? was he missing some resource on a screen he didn't know how to access? Instead he made an Animated Quill.





A much better offensive monster. along with it's higher attack due to it's higher strength. it had Ink I, which gave it a 10% chance to give the creature Ink poisoning. which decreases Strength and Dexterity by 2 temporarily. Along with Sharp Point I, which gives attacks made with it's point +5 damage.

He spent almost twenty hours making ten of these, he wanted to make more, but when he tried to make the 11th, he got a notification.



|   Insufficient upkeep and at monster limit	|



He checked his status, and his Mana Upkeep was at 1/1 KPM, which meant that each of his creatures was giving him .1 upkeep. Along with the Monster limit. That meant that he could only have 10 monsters due to his monster stat. He then decided to increase his upkeep and monster stats by 1 with his two ATP. When he checked his status he was once more pleasantly surprised.





Increasing his upkeep apparently also increases his Mana, which seemed to in turn increase his health. While he could use his newfound stats to make another quill, he waited, while he waited, he began to hear scuffling along his stone wall. six hours in, the shuffling began turning to crumbling stone. And he could still only wait, positioning his quills above the entrance, ready to pierce downwards.

And two hours later, right before he had maximum mana, a hole the size of a rat was made. And into the room poured three Infested rats, each similar to the one that had entered earlier. They sniffed the air before letting out a squealing sound as the quills launched themselves at them, stabbing them.



|	Ink poisoning triggered 3x. Critical hit 1x	| 



'HA!' He couldn't help but shout out mentally. Only for his excitement to die down as two of his quills were unable to extricate themselves in time to be broken in half by the rats. With another Quill barrage, the first Infected rat went down, it fell atop a quill, and two more in addition went down with the rat's efforts.

With only four Quills left out of ten, Xaviar was panicking. He didn't have enough mana for what he wanted to do, and both rats were still at half health. Even if he had all four of them attack a singular rat, it wouldn't be enough to bring it down. he began creating a new monster.



|    Normal monsters are unable to be created while	|
|	living creatures are within your Domain.	|



'Talon Clippings!' He cursed as another quill went down. with three left he began trying anything. Trap creation I, which he had ignored after looking at it because the cheapest of the traps required almost all of his mana before he increased it, was also unable to be used while creatures were within his dungeon. Material creation was possible, but he had no possible ways of weaponizing that currently.

Eventually, he tried creating a non-normal monster. Dungeons had bosses, monsters that were stronger than normal, and had special interactions. He had only fought a couple during his army stint, but each one usually required a full team of 5 C ranks to beat. He tried creating an Animated Tome while thinking about it being a boss.

When the system didn't stop him, he pumped it full of knowledges, Theoretical Thaumaturgy IV, Practical thaumaturgy II, Language III, and Runecarving I. He tried at first to make it level 20, but when that didn't work due to insufficient resources, he made it 15, and then finally 10 when 15 was still too much. In the center of the room, a bright light expanded, drawing the Rat's attention. Giving the quills an opportunity to get some distance.





The creature was a large book the size of a pony. Written within its ever-turning pages seemed to be runes denoting some form of magical study Xaviar hadn't heard of.



|     Created a new study of magic, +1 SP, +5 Wealth.	|



He had no time to delve into that new discovery. The two Rats already began advancing on his new boss. Although they never got the chance to get close. Two of the remaining three quills, without his direction, began writing in the Encyclopedia. Soon, with a reddish glow, two streams of fire came out of the pages of the boss, incinerating both the quills and leaving nothing but ashes in the area the two Infected rats once were...



|	10/10 dungeon monsters killed, +1 level.	|



He quickly got notification whiplash. There was only so much information he could process before it all overwhelmed him. He ignored the revelation about his creating a new study of magic in his panicked state, and quickly focused on leveling. He hadn't gotten any ATP, SP, or ABP, but his level now showed 1(2). He tentatively opened it mentally.





...Woah. This was the most information he had gotten throughout the entire half a week he had been down here! He finally knew what upgrades were, and he was spoiled for choice with six points. He immediately took Expanded Mana I and Expanded Domain I. after picking it and seeing that he could immediately take a second rank for two points he did. He then took two Increased Attributes and put both of them into upkeep. He then Increased his runecarving to II before checking out his full status.





He only gained one level and already he was drastically stronger than he was a week ago. He had no other dungeons to compare himself to, but he doubted this was the norm. His S+ soul seemed to give him a lot of advantages.

Regardless, he had work to do. He already noticed earlier when the Infested Rat leveled up after killing his monster. He never knew exactly how it worked when he was in the army, but his monsters were actively made out of mana, they converted proto-mana he absorbed and sent through them into Mana, which when killed, released a burst of mana which creatures in the vicinity absorbed. This was the main way and the reason why Equestria had much higher levels than anywhere else that he knew of, that creatures leveled, through passive mana absorption. 

He had no idea when he'd be forced to perform a Dungeon Tide, and he'd already wasted a week down here experimenting. No creature knew what caused them, so Xaviar needed to work off some assumptions he knew about magic. If proto-magic was the cause, and continually culling the dungeons seemed to work, then he just had to keep spending his Mana.

He'd expand throughout the old dungeon, dealing with the infested rats that get attracted by his monsters, before rising through the gorge he descended. if all went to plan, he'd be level 3, and he could start creating a proper dungeon to help his nation. With his plan in mind, he got to work creating more Animated Quills...
> Grand Opening!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A week had passed, and Xaviar had gotten quite used to his new form of existence. In one portion of his domain, he was watching three level twenty Quills Fighting a single level eighteen Infested Rat. He had gotten another two ABP in this time as he had absorbed much of the slag and corpses left behind, as well as eleven more rats. He distributed them both into Upkeep to speed up his expansion.

While he was watching, he was idly expanding his domain up through the gorge. He found out the thinner he made the spread, the farther he could go with a single mana application. He first followed the rope up, before absorbing it along with his small 'camp'. Which really only consisted of his tent and a few books. After he breached the surface, he decided to spread his influence out among the gorge until he had enough space to completely surround the climb down to his entrance.

'His entrance', seems he had been adapting to his new existence faster than he thought. Sure, it was lonely, he missed his Brother and his sick aunt. Feather plucking, he had even remembered the unicorn who he sat next to during History of thaumaturgy. Who'd constantly ask him to borrow a pencil every day and give it back after class until he just gave the guy the pencil. He hugged Xaviar, it was awkward but nice.

His monsters were thrilling conversationalists. Or at least he liked to imagine they would be if they could do more than make wooshing sounds. He was unsure if they were actually... 'alive' in that sense, but they at least made decisions on their own. If he willed them to move towards an area in his domain, they'd take the fastest route instead of the most obvious.

Speaking of, with his improved Mana, he wanted to get rid of the encyclopedia and make a better one... But he just couldn't figure out how to get rid of a monster. He tried willing it to go away, for it to combust, or even just to dissolve. He tried to get the other monsters to attack it and willed it to not fight back. They just stood there, so he couldn't get rid of a monster he made. He even tried this on the quills, seeing if it was just boss monsters, nope.

Anyways, he had been experimenting with Material Reinforcement. Which actually cost no mana, but required the materials to be around to be shaped. Which meant in theory, it cost no mana. But until he found some way to make metals, or found some, he'd need to make do with the materials currently in his domain, which he could move freely around, and the stuff he could make with Material Creation I Which seemed to be wood for 8 mana per cubic horn, and a variety of stone per cubic Hoof and other non-metallic materials.

Firstly, he blocked the entrance to his cave with around three hooves of rock. If he learned anything from the previous occupant, it's that if there's an entrance to your core, someone determined to find it will. The quills finally defeated the rat, which finally brought him to that sweet level three.

He took a break at expanding, sending the quills back on patrol. The Rats were oddly experienced at tunneling through rock, despite not having an ability to help them do so. The tunnels they dug extended all throughout his new home, and with his time crunch, he had no time to spread his influence around the maze-like tunnels so that his monsters could hunt them down. Yeah, his Monsters also couldn't go beyond his Domain, he tried really hard to get them out, but even if he pushed them out somehow, they'd either return to his domain or idle about unresponsive until there was a path to get back.

He brought up his upgrade panel, he had never been this excited leveling up before. Then again, previously, leveling only gave give attribute points and the occasional skill point or Ability point. He paused, while he could rush what he wanted, he looked over his list.





He extremely wished that he had more points, but he had to think long-term instead of short. Right now, his mobs were the weakest of the weak. The average adult griffon was at level twenty D rank. D rank classes were pretty generic, such as warrior, seamstress, farmer, etc. While they'd still spend a year in the military, most of them would only run a dungeon once or twice in their lives under the protection of two C ranks. In comparison, those C ranks would be in the dungeon twenty to fifty times more than the D ranks, as C rank Combat classes were spread thin. Which meant each would be near level fifty...

Then he had to contend with the legendary Nighttalons. In the army, you only heard rumors of them, and civilians treat them as national heroes, despite never seeing them. While rampant dungeons were the biggest threat the nations had to deal with, there were plenty of other threats that could pop up. A random Magic user abusing the citizens, a magical anomaly destroying an entire town, etc. Anybody who got a class that was B rank or above was automatically put into the Nighttalons, as any class that high rank was never a pure non-combat class... Even the weakest was level 50 by the time they finished training.

Why was he so sure they exist, and why did he know so much? His brother, although he never told him his class's name, was an A rank, and he was also a Nighttalon.

He had to take advantage of several of his traits, he couldn't go slow, There's plenty of documentation of Dungeon Tides, D ranks were nothing but cannon fodder, C ranks were barely able to hold their own, only at B rank and above could the Dungeon tide monsters be stopped. Since nobody knew the actual levels or ranks of Dungeon Tide monsters, he had to assume the average was C rank.

He had to take immediate gains right now for future growth. He took a skill point, an ability point, and a point of new knowledge. Finally, he took Improved Treasure with his final points. He assigned the skill point in Runecrafting, the ability point to Monster Creation, and took his new skill in Runic Scripture I.

He needed to increase Monster creation if he wanted to keep an edge. When he tried to create monsters above level twenty, he couldn't. His S+ rank soul should have allowed him to, but it didn't. The third rank of Runecrafting will allow him to create Lesser Librarians, which he hoped considering they had such a prerequisite, they were at least C rank. Finally, He took Runic Scripture I and  Improved Treasure so that he could provide better incentives than the Griffon Chits and writing quills that have been dropping from his monsters.

While his mana didn't go up, he had already been stockpiling so that he could build his grand design. He had already surrounded an area of sandstone alongside the bottom of the gorge in his domain. He checked his Status.





Afterward, he first blocked off the top of the gorge in his domain with ordinary sedimentary rock. He created shunts inside of it that the warm air would blow through, half of these led out the side of the rock, and half of them led out the top in different areas. It was time for the sandstone, He would inevitably run out, as he hadn't prepared a big enough area, but he has plenty of mana to create more.

First were the steps and foundation, Material Reinforcement I Allowed him to change some properties of the material, He could double its resiliency for the mana cost to create it, change its density, and even allow him to engrave fine artwork. Xaviar was not an artist when he was a griffon, at least not a good one, his talons could never stay steady long enough. However, with his abilities, he only had to think before it would be made.

The foundation was six Hooves tall, with an area of ten thousand square hooves. He did run out, eventually having to use around five hundred mana to create the rest of the foundation. The top of the sandstone was smoothened and polished. Stairs molded, and railing designed.

He made the walls out of marble, ten hooves tall. Each was fairly nondescript, but he spent a total of seven thousand and five hundred mana on the walls. Which required an extra four hours. Somebody was bound to notice his work, so he had to cut corners. He made the roof out of ordinary rock. Two pillars over an overhanging arch depicted a simple cross-marked array of etchings that looks pleasant.

He didn't have enough mana to create all the wooden shelves and furniture he wanted. Instead, he spread his domain to a space woodland several hundred hooves away by stretching his domain thin. Then he engulfed it. Each tree disappeared one by one as the building filled up with bookshelves, a single large desk, and plenty of stone walls.

Finally, he created a wall to separate the back of the Library. Here, all of the heat shunts he made earlier ended up, creating a strong updraft throughout the room. For now, his Encyclopedia would go here until it was beaten. Then he'd replace it with a stronger boss.

The room was outfitted as a private reading room, with a desk, along with several bookcases, currently empty. Otherwise with a rug and some lights he didn't exactly know how to decorate the room...

He moved onto the library. Books were only three mana per, so he filled up all of the bookshelves, which created a maze of books. His new Rune Carving III allowed him to finally understand how his Animated monsters flew. He made it so that occasionally a random book would flutter off the shelves and onto a lectern, where a quill would pretend to write in it before it would fly off onto another bookshelf. When creating the books, he was surprised he could actually put his skills into them.

Of course, he went wild, he imagined adventurers coming in and taking a break, sitting down at one of the intersections and reading a book while waiting for their mana to recharge. Perhaps later he could even have animated drinks and lights, even serving-

He was getting ahead of himself. He was still lacking mana, so he brought up his quills and the Encyclopedia. After a week and some experimenting with the rats, the Runic Scripture ability increased in power depending on how many quills wrote in the book at once. The increase lost half its potency for every extra quill. For a 2x increase with two, 2.5 with three, 2.75 with four, etc.

Placing the Quills around, he waited for his structure to finally be spotted, The Grand Library of Griffonia was open!





Villem double-checked his map. His friendly earth pony companion, Potluck, was looking over his shoulder as he did. Macy, their Minotaur bruiser, was sitting off to the side admiring the structure that wasn't on his week-old map. He and Potluck looked at each other, trepidation and excitement visible on both of their features. There were only two things that this building could mean, considering that engraved above the entranceway was 'Grand Library of Griffonia'. Either the kingdom had expedited the construction of a new library faster than even Equestria was known to, or this was a new dungeon!

"We're going in, right?" Potluck's excited voice sounded behind him.

"If it's dangerous-" He began before being interrupted by Macy.

"Every job we do is dangerous, but this is Phenomenal."

He turned towards the two, They were staring at him, waiting for him to say yes... He ran a talon through his head feathers before sighing. "Alright, one run, we get enough information to sell to the king, then we continue heading west for Equestria. We're still on a job."

He was sure they'd be fine, He was a C rank Fury Talon, Potluck was a B rank Master Chef, and Macy was a B rank War Smith with each of them averaging level 70.

"Yes!" both of them shouted before running up the steps, Villem shook his head before following more sedately.

When they opened up the large double oak doors, they stared in shock. Floating candles adorned the large room, bookcases filled with books flying from shelf to shelf, and occasionally landing on a lectern to be written in briefly before flying off once more.

"...this is a dungeon right?" Potluck asked in shock. Villem could only nod mutely, he was the only one of the group who had actually been in a dungeon before, the air felt tingly, almost supercharged. This was a telltale sign of an area with a high concentration of magic, and unless a natural wellspring of mana popped up overnight... This was a dungeon.

"Well? Let's go in, what do you think we'll fight? I bet the books'll come off the shelves and attack us!" Macy exclaimed as she thundered on in, hefting her Warhammer in her hand.

The other two could only follow along. The bookcases were tall, they guessed about eight hooves high, and each had nine rows for books. They first encountered a group of three writing quills, They readied themselves as the quills floated over.

After adjusting themselves, the quills shot forward, Potluck slammed one away with a pan, the sound of the shaft breaking signified how weak it was if it was defeated from one hit. While Macy ducked, Villem let himself get pricked. He didn't even feel it, his endurance must have been at least double the quill's damage for that to happen. He snatched it out of his skin and broke it in half. Macy followed his example and did the same.

"...so, awesome decor but weak monsters? Are dungeons normally like this?" Potluck asked, inspecting the remains of one of the quills. Villem frowned in thought.

"Normally no... The one Griffonia has is put into layers, with lower difficulty monsters at the entrance, and tougher ones at the back... Maybe the library has a basement." Villem said after a while.

"Who cares if it's easy? That just means that we can get through the dungeon without a scratch and grab some books on the way out." Macy spoke up.

"You're right, The dungeon isn't our main priority, we'll take a gander at the first-floor boss and then leave." He finally said before they continued moving on.

The next group was just more quills, they must have been tougher, since they did one damage when he was hit by them, and potluck got poisoned. For lower leveled D ranks, Ink Poisoning would have been devastating, but for C and B ranks with seventy levels? It was barely an inconvenience. They took a short break at one of the tables. They wanted to see how long the debuff would take to clear up.

Macy in the meantime pulled a book off the shelf before beginning to read it. Villem decided to get a little rest, he hadn't slept well last night and it showed in how distracted he was by this dungeon. Potluck must have decided to cook something since the smell of fruit his nostrils right before he faded.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Villem awoke with a start, hitting his front legs on the bottom of the table as he stood up, his eyes blearily looking around for danger as his talons glowed a dark grey. Eventually, after realizing he had just been startled awake for no reason, he sat back down, wiping a talon across his eye as he looked at Macy, who was standing up, an expression of shock on her face as she stared down at a book.

"Wish to enlight the, very sleepy, class?" Villem finally said as she stood there for several seconds.

"It's... Runes." She finally said.

"Isn't that... Normal? The minotaur's smithing secrets aren't so secret anymore." Potluck asked.

"This isn't normal runecarving, it's a method of writing a sequence of tangential runes to create phenomena."

"You mean enchanting?" Villem asked, if it was, they could sell it for some-

"No, it's... Hard to explain, like what unicorns do, only through what I think is some sort of sentence structure!" As she explained it, the two still looked at her bewildered, to them, it sounded just like enchanting. Which Macy already had the ability to do, most of Potlucks tools were made and enchanted by her after all.

"Look, enchanting is done by putting a rune for say, fire. What you'd then do is create mana channels to flow the mana into the rune. What this is... It's more like spellcasting! Only... I can barely understand half of this, and my Runecarving is at nine!"

The two were more attentive now. A book on enchanting was worth a few bits, but Macy was their resident expert on runes. And she was having trouble? They stared at the book laying open on the table like it would come alive and start flapping away.

"You want it."

"I want it." It wasn't even a question, and the answer came back immediately. They had already been here for an hour, it was time to finish the dungeon and get moving, hopefully, it didn't mind they were taking a souvenir...

They came upon a final door. Opening it made their eyes widen, inside was a book the size of a pony, its pages turning silently as it floated, defying all notions of gravity. The rush of hot air hit them, causing them to flinch. 'rookie mistake' Villem thought to himself. Although the book seemed to continue floating there when they reopened their eyes.

They tentatively stepped in, and the doors slammed shut. Two quills came from behind the desk and they braced to be stabbed, however instead, they floated over to the book, its pages stopped turning and the Quills began writing. Villem's eyes opened wide as he yelled, "Dodge!"

They scattered as the floor instantly raised up in a jagged pillar of stone where there were standing. Potluck wasn't fast enough as he was tossed to the side, his scream causing Villem to wince.

"Status!" he yelled as his talons turned grey.

"Unwounded!" Macy shouted from the other side of the pillar.

"I'll live." Potluck shouted. "Down fifty health"

"Then why are you whining?" Villem shouted as he shot off towards the Book, only to roll out of the way as a jet of water came streaming at him.

"Because it still hurts!" His shout came as a pan came flying past Villems head, smashing into the book. Before clattering to the ground. The book teetered unsteadily.

"Macy? What are you doing!?" Villem asked.

"Observing, keep fighting!" She shouted back as the book Regained its balance and began being written in once more.

While He wasn't exactly afraid of what the boss could throw at them, his own health was near a thousand, and a glancing blow only dealt fifty damage to Potluck, who had near the same endurance as him. He didn't know how much mana the boss actually had. For all he knew, it could keep doing this all day.

He lunged once more, only to be blasted into the pillar by a column of air. He tried to scream out as the jagged edges of the pillar dug into his back, but no air came out of his lungs.

Another pan came flying out from the side of the pillar. Through the blackened edges of his vision, he saw the book fall to the ground inert. He heard some mumbling before the agony in his back flared up once more. Squawking in pain, he realized he could finally breathe again as he took deep lungfuls.

"...You okay?" Macy asked, looking over his back.

Was he? He looked at his status, he had lost more than two hundred health with that single blow. He'd be fine in a few hours, but until then his back was gonna feel like shreds.

"...Loot?" He wheezed out. Potluck went over before holding up a quill. Villem thought at first that it was one of the enchanted Quills they had been fighting, before realizing it was a different plumage entirely.

"No idea what it is, but we can have the guildies look it at and figure it out. So why didn't you step in Macy, Villem wouldn't have gotten hurt if you had helped him charge it." Potluck said.

"... It was using that language." Macy as after a few moments. Both of them stopped and looked at her. While the monster was weak, that was the magic she was talking about? While they didn't exactly have Runecarving as a skill, it was basic knowledge that runes needed channels for Mana to go through for their effects to work, but if that was what was written in that book... Villem no longer cared about whatever reward he'd get from the king for finding this dungeon because that book was worth more than Griffonia combined.

"We're leaving, now." He said as he forcefully pushed himself up. They didn't question him, good, hopefully, they were realizing how valuable the book in Macy's bag was as well. As they reached the entrance they paused. There was a... What could only be described as a multitude of rectangular magnets in the general... Image of a griffon. Only it was six hooves tall and had spread its wings, which floated in the air without being connected to anything. The bars were covering their exit, and they prepared to fight until it tapped a sign next to the door.

'Exchange items for reading material?' they thought puzzled... Before it hit them, This was a library, and the book they had wasn't a dungeon drop, although the only thing they actually bothered to pick up was the one the boss dropped. They took it off the shelf, while a normal library would have them check out, this was also a dungeon...

Before they could do anything, Macy came forward and put her hammer on the ground. The automaton looked down at it before picking it up with one talon and examining it. Eventually, it nodded, retracting its wings and stepping aside. With that, they walked out into the sun and looked at each other wordlessly.

"Your hammer..." Potluck finally said.

"I can make a new one, I was prepared to give my entire travel pack," Macy replied.

"Let's get a move on... We need to get back to the equestrian branch, I'm calling off our primary mission, we'll inform the king of his new dungeon and board the first airship," Villem said, the other two didn't say anything...
> A Brother Alone.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

King Bjaltair sat around the round table, he'd have gotten rid of it by now if not for it being a cultural icon. an hour ago, the Iron Claw mercenary group had given them the information on a new dungeon outside the capital. He rewarded them, and the situation worried him. The mercenaries hadn't haggled or tried to get more money for the information. all the griffon who seemed to lead them did was take the chits and hand over a parchment with information before leaving. Nighttalon saw them leave by airship the same day.

"Obviously we need to use this opportunity to raise the D ranks," Eagleclaw said. As Bjaltair looked at him, he couldn't help but remember the tales of the old griffon who lead his military efforts. The griffon's feathers had turned greyish white in his old age, and the scar across his right eye only emphasized the glass eye in the socket.

"It doesn't make sense, the place is almost four times larger than a normal low-rank dungeon, but only has low-ranked dungeon monsters?" Emmerick, his magical counselor spoke up. His silver blue plumage was a reminder of the fact that he was the only pure Mage class in the kingdom. Bjaltair had never actually seen Emmerick fight, but the mage seemed to always be where he needed to conduct research. His magical advice was invaluable.

"If you think about it logically, maybe it exhausted itself building the 'Grand Library of Griffonia' huh, nice name. Its basic construction, it built this structure in less than a week and considering no creature has come to us before this, we can estimate maybe even half that or more. If we wanted to do that, we'd need to pull workers from other departments, which would leave us with little manpower to do anything else." Fenrez, his economic counselor replied. His dark brown plumage made him the most normal-looking griffon at the table. He was also the lowest rank in the room with a C class. But Bjaltair kept him around for his brilliance. The bird seemed to have a knack for putting other issues into perspective that his other advisers couldn't.

"So next time someone comes in, it could have tougher monsters?" Eagleclaw asked, getting up in excitement.

"Probably not any that'll put up a challenge for an old roost like you. But it already did, 'after beating the boss, we were greeted at the door by a large construct similar to a griffon. It pointed to a sign that said to exchange something for the book we had grabbed. with everything on our person either too valuable to give up, or not valuable enough, we put the book back and left.'" Emmerick said, reading from the parchment they had been given.

"So it can make monsters while creatures are in it?" Bjaltair asked, worried.

"We can go in with that assumption, yes."

"Then we send in minimum C ranks. Nighttalon-" Eagle claw started before being interrupted by BJaltair. "Will be the only ones going."

all three of them looked at him.

"If I might ask... why? The report said they barely suffered any injuries, and their leader was a C rank at level seventy. The dungeon should either be spawning Low leveled C rank, or level fifty D rank." Fenrez asked.

"The Griffon was walking peculiarly... Like his back was uncomfortable or restricted." He answered.

"So he had a sore back, what makes you think it was an injury from the dungeon?" Emmerick asked, before being surprised as Eagleclaw spoke up.

"Because the boss battle is light on details." Eagleclaw started as he looked at the parchment. "They describe it as a spellcasting book, but not on how it fought, neither on the specific spells, just saying it used elemental magic."

"Which means the boss was C rank and had the means to injure a semi-powerful C rank... Did they lie about the rest?" Emmerick thought out loud.

"No, I don't think they did. I think the boss wasn't actually a high level, otherwise, they wouldn't have gotten out to speak to us. I think they lied about the boss drop so that we wouldn't confiscate it. Most likely the item was something related to how the boss casts spells." Fenrez said.

"...You think it dropped a Staff?" Bjaltair asked gravely. Staffs, true magic staffs, were a rarity. The lowest rank of one ever seen was B, and that staff was improperly made and took a unicorn their entire life to make. What they allowed was for a normal creature to cast a spell that was housed within the staff if they had the mana for it. In a properly trained magic user's hands? it allowed them to not only use the spells within but increased the power of all spells cast with it. Methods to make them nowadays were lost after the disappearance of Starswirl the Bearded, but a newly made one used to be made by every newly promoted Grand Unicorn.

"That means this dungeon is even more valuable..." Emmerick whispered in shock.

"We have two weeks before the Iron Claws reach Equestria's shoreline. The Nighttalons will be running the dungeon day and night as respawn permits. Squad Raptor will be the first ones to run the dungeon as well as the last... where they'll shatter the core." After none of them spoke up or gasped in shock he continued on, pleased that his advisors agreed with his decision, or at least expected it of him and didn't refute. "The area is to be cordoned off as a new construction project, Nighttalon squads are to be on guard twenty-four seven and are to alias themselves as construction workers. No squad is to be informed about the shattering of the core until Raptor Squad begins their final run. Any other business?

"...Alexander's brother still hasn't been found, we can't find any trace of where he went after leaving the city..." Emmerick spoke up reluctantly. Bjaltair's turned to face him, a scowl on his beak.

"A C rank snuck out of the city under the direct watch of Nighttalons, and you're telling me that you're so incompetent that you and half the Nighttalons can't find the tracks of one low-level Griffon?" Bjaltair Paused, taking a breath before calmly putting a talon on the table. "A C rank can't have unlimited stamina, increase the search radius, In the meantime, contact Alexander and tell him his brother's on an excavation at an old dungeon site. Forge a letter saying as such and that he'll return in a month. That will give us enough time to find the featherplucking bird."

He looked over each one of them. "We cannot let Alexander out of our control. If his brother isn't found after a month... Terminate him. All dismissed."

As the three left, Bjaltair looked out the window to the west, towards Equestria, towards Celestia...

"I won't let you win this time..."





Alexander stood in the small house that could barely be called a hut. The furniture in the current room was sparse and taloncarved. Weeks were spent making them, and as he traced his talons along the back of each, his memories piled up. their Aunt's perfect carving honed through decades of living and a dexterity score of near two hundred... His brothers, messy and unrefined, but creative, pictures carved onto the wood, crude and unrecognizable, but he always said it was a tale about a griffon flying as far as they could into the sky, never coming down.

And his... plain and boring, he never had grand aspirations as a child, he wasn't inventive, nor was he skilled, but his brother was. His chair was crude... that's all it was, but he didn't need it to be anything more, his brother's crude scribblings were enough. He promised he'd protect them both from anything.

Anything except sickness it seemed. Blackheart... the necrotizing of the heart, which caused the talons and feathers to eventually turn black... until death. As he looked towards the urn on the table he couldn't help but wish he did have the power to cure sickness. Aunt Fen... He wasn't like his brother, but somehow he managed to look up everything he could. Every obscure reference, every crackpot theory he could get his talons on... Nothing could have been different, he couldn't have saved her even if he was there...

Why wasn't he there?! He promised himself he'd be there! And then he wasn't, on some stupid errand across Griffonia looking into a stupid grave robbing! He picked up his chair before swinging it at the wall. It splintered, and as he swung it back to hit it against the wall once again, he stopped and took a deep breath. Setting the chair down the seat was slanted, causing anyone who sat upon it to constantly have to push themselves back towards the center.

He didn't blame his brother... he couldn't even if he wanted to, he wasn't even here when she died. Blackheart takes only a day, and he snuck out two weeks ago... He doesn't even know...

He blinked away the tears, looking behind him. Gilda was there, she had been the entire time. Her trip to Equestria a year ago changed her. She used to be brash and arrogant, with the skills to back them up. She came back the same, but more muted. The old Gilda wouldn't have stood there and waited patiently.

"I can only assume you're here to tell me that the king has another stupid task and not to just watch your squad leader fall apart." He said, wincing as his voice was hoarse.

"A new dungeon outside Griffonstone," she answered, her eyes trying to look anywhere but at him or the ramshackle house.

He sighed. he put a talon on the urn containing his Aunt. He'd hope his brother would understand. He took a deep breath and turned around, leaving the urn on the table.

"Let's go," he said as he walked out of that house... out of his memories, and back into the unfair world.
> 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...
> A Library is a Place for Learning.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"We'll have this done in ten minutes, then we'll be back at the barracks and show them that Raptor Squad won't be the best for long." A white-spotted griffon said. He seemed to be the leader of the group of four, and judging by his voice, he was barely out of adulthood.

the rest seemed charged by his words, however, which made Xavier metaphorically shake his head and return to what he was doing. The runes were positioned in a way that if anybody got near the room his dungeon core was in, he could conjure a massive maze of reinforced stone.

The fight with the receptionist was pathetic, He wasn't even a combat class before, well, now, and he could see how they were screwing up!  One of them seemed to be some sort of stunt flyer, doing flips and rolls in the air to dodge flying metal wing shards. Unfortunately, he seemed to be getting in the way of his teammate, another young griffon hen who seemed to have a skill in dive tackling. If the System didn't prevent party members from dealing more than half damage to each other, he'd swear the acrobat would get killed by his teammate with how many times he dodged into her. Still, he'd bet mana on him taking more damage from his teammate than the Librarian.

He focused his main attention, which seemed to have little difference in how much focus he could give a task, back onto his runes. they were carved all over his room, and were basic as basics could get in Runic Scripture. All they did was specify that a block of stone should be raised from tens of hooves below, with supporting runes to specify the dimensions. as a dungeon core, it seemed he knew exact distances just by the two points being inside his domain.

Now the issue, is how could he power it? Typically, enchanted objects had channels carved into them that you flowed mana into. However, there were potentially two problems. His core had protomana, not mana, and second, he couldn't just push it out of his core. Every time he used up his protomana he was using an ability. Unless...

His other focus noticed they had finally beaten the librarian. They took several minutes on what should have taken them less than one. Each of them was near half health as well, although one of them must have promised the king their life because the librarian dropped enough chits to buy a full course meal.

His first plan failed. drawing runic instructions to take mana from his exact location only sucked up the protomagic around him, as well as giving him a notification about his S+ soul resisting an effect called D rank Mana Drain. not to mention, several minutes in, it was highly inefficient. The script to specify his location, since he couldn't just make up random coordinates, had to be extremely descriptive, and it was five times bigger than the script to move the wall. If it did work, he'd run out of space to write quickly.

He almost carved a chunk out of the floor instead of a smooth line when he noticed that the group had somehow gotten so lucky, they managed to fight the quills when their wandering pattern had them the farthest they would be from any Animated Tomes. And then he did carve a chunk out of the floor, a large one.

They. Were. Tossing. Books. Just- Just... willy nilly on the floor! What civilized creatures did that in a library!?

"Feather droppings. This is an awful dungeon, isn't it? If you're going to have so many useless books, at least have one of them open a secret passage."

U- useless!? Heathens, blasphemers, b- absolute bullies! the knowledge they were throwing on the floor took him over ten years to get his claws on! Missed meals, odd jobs, and awful pay in university went into his knowledge...

He tried to take a breath and realized he couldn't... It seemed that was the final straw. He untethered his Head Librarian.

The doors to its office creaked open. And the head librarian paused at the sight of the party. No amount of mental nudging got it to move and attack them. The party stared at it, yet it seemed to ignore them. Looking down at the books scattered on the floor...



 |   Head Librarian has been afflicted with the status Enraged. |
  |		 double damage dealt and received.	 	 | 



The Librarian's normally gentle sky-blue glowing eyes turned a deep red. Its wings lit up with runic scriptures for increasing hardness as it threw them at the party.

They scattered, fast. Unfortunately for them, all of the cover the library had was the bookshelves, which the mobs took care not to attack when they were full of books. It wasn't something he ever directed them to do, just something they started doing on their own.

The unfortunate part was that they had emptied almost all of the bookshelves. Wood splintered and cracked as the bookshelves toppled. They had nowhere to hide, although Xavier bet even if they weren't panicking they wouldn't have a chance at winning against the boss which out-leveled them by twenty levels. So far, they had been going up against C and D-rank mobs, and the party had lost half its average health.

The stunt flier was the first one to get hit... He had tried to corkscrew around a wing shard when a bookcase next to him toppled over due to a hasty dodge by one of his team members. His head, well, it was bloody, that was for sure. Despite Xavier calling the segments of wings shards, they weren't sharp, they were actually really dull and blocky. So when a griffon collided head-first into a block of metal? Flesh caved in first.

He thought maybe killing a delver might be some emotionally charged moment, He didn't exactly despise violence, but any remorse or disgust just wasn't present. Although there was satisfaction. While the books they threw on the floor were effortless to create, and he could just destroy them and remake them back on the shelves, it was still incredibly rude and inconsiderate to just toss them about. He was determined to never put a secret passageway into his library if this was going to constantly happen.



 | 1/1 Dungeoneers killed +1 Level. | 



After he dismissed the message only the white-spotted leader was left alive. The Divebombing griffon seemed to have been the one who knocked over the bookcase, and stood still horrified, probably blaming herself. the other griffon seemed to use very few active abilities and just used his claws. He dealt a fifth of the Head Librarians' health before getting hit with enough blunt force trauma to stun him. The second hit finished it.

The leader seemed to be getting lucky, however... getting this far was too lucky in fact. the Griffon didn't have any skills relating to luck, and it clearly wasn't his skills. He was awful at fighting.

What he seemed to be good at was fleeing though. Most of the bookshelves had been destroyed, and he was slowly running backwards. 

It was only at the entrance that he turned around and ran. Three wing shards chased behind him, down to stairs, closer and closer until they were touching his tail...

And with an audible thunk, the shards fell outside his domain. The Griffon had gotten away, past his domain boundary. The Head Librarian stood outside, looking at the small group of assembled griffons who looked shocked and battle ready. Xavier was surprised. While he knew everything that happened in his domain, it took concentrated effort to look outside of it, so he rarely bothered.

Well, if he had an audience... The Head Librarian entered back inside the library before coming back out with a wooden board and a nail. using its own body to hammer it into a signboard that now existed on the outside wall.



 | 	    You have marked the griffon Jaxier as a renegade of knowledge.   	    |
  |  Any creature with the knowledge subtag will deal double damage to the Renegade. | 



The griffons crowded around his sign, giving each other incredulous looks before they looked back at the way Jaxier had gone. His sign had a wooden carved-out depiction of the griffon, below it said, "For the crime of rough treatment of valuable knowledge and disregard for etiquette. The Griffon depicted is banned from the Grand Library of Griffonia."

He wasn't expecting any actual effect from this. But a permanent debuff to the griffon he'll take. he soon repaired the chunk he had torn out of the floor and continued making channels that lead to his core. Of course, he also replenished his monsters.

before he did, however, he split his upgrade points in half, putting three in his upkeep, and three in his monster stat. He hesitated... before applying the two points he had been saving into Runecrafting. With his runic scripture upgrading to III, Knowledge flooded his mind.

Elemental Mastery. Elementalism was considered the basics of magical manipulation. Certain classes could go farther with it than others, but that didn't mean it was useless. Cloudwalking, fire breath, earth manipulation, water breathing. Each and every creature had at least a single innate ability based on one of the four elements of water, earth, fire, and air. These talents could also be mimicked by spells.

Runic Scripture grew more advanced the farther you went down it. Paragraphs of script are reduced to sentences, and finally, words. Each Element had a word that corresponded to it. yet... Even at this height of the skill, where he could rewrite the script he made for the walls in five words, he still didn't know what those words were.

Each word worked as a master spell. It connected to... something, he didn't know what, which would take his intent and turn it into a spell.

While this knowledge was great, it didn't help with his current predicament. The fact he couldn't push raw magic out of his core. with the last channel in the floor complete, nothing. Of course, it was a long shot since he wasn't exactly willing to carve his own core. He may have been stupid enough to act on impulse once, but after dying for it, he wasn't going to make the same mistake...

back to the drawing board, he guessed.