Chapter 3: 1.03

Logan floated down into the core's central room and deactivated [Ephemeral Form]. He returned to his body with a jerking sensation, and staggered. But he caught himself. That's going to take a while to get used to.

Okay. [Construct].

He let himself be guided by deep, ingrained instincts he hadn't known had existed. Probably, they hadn't, not until his arrival to this world and assignment as a Core Avatar. 

Mana poured from the pink, crystalline orb in twisting strands, taking shape as physical material in his hands. Logan shaped a long, thin rod of stone—the cheapest material he could create, he sensed—and capped it off with a flat, curved plate at the end. A shovel. 

He didn't know if this would work, but he had a lot of excavation to complete, and if he could only use his hands, he'd be digging for a long, long time. Not that he didn't have an excess of that. Time. Secluded in what felt like his own pocket dimension, it was something in excess supply.

Like his hands, the shovel sank easily into the wall, carving a hefty chunk out. Good. It must work like that because of who I am, and not because I have super strength. A STR stat of 6 hadn't seemed impressive, after all.

But even at this pace, with a shovel aiding him, he'd be working for a long time to create a few reasonably sized rooms, connected by hallways. Because a dungeon is the goal. Even if I don't completely have a grasp on what's happening, yet.

He used the shovel to pile stone into the core, converting it to mana. He wanted to further test [Construct], and convert enough mana into experience to gain a level, to know what would happen, whether he'd gain a useful skill. But that might take a while.

So he worked. He kept his thoughts off topics like home, how he was supposed to return, and whether he could return at all. Logan hadn't had some dream life, and the idea of being transported to a magical realm with a whole world to discover held appeal, but what about his family? Friends? His life in general?

Just … think of it as a vacation. Once you slay the Demon Queen, you'll be teleported back to Earth, with a whole slew of magical powers.

Logan paused.

Dryly, he thought, or lay the Demon Queen, in my case. He still had no great hope that his class, and the core's name and pink coloring, meant nothing. He wondered when the perversion would pick up. Or maybe he was the pervert, and all this really was a coincidence. I guess Eros isn't guaranteed to mean erotic. And maybe incubus is just my class, unrelated to the core. Not a zero chance.

He'd withhold judgment.

He dug away.

Time ticked by as Logan lost himself to the rhythm. Scoop, carry, dump. The first few trips, he watched the core suck the material in with fascination—but that novelty faded.

His muscles started to ache. Logan had been wondering if or when they would. While he was more powerful in his new body—it had been sculpted to a towering, intimidating physique—it still had limits. Hauling rock for close to an hour had reached them.

Which was troubling, because there was neither food nor water. If [Construct] didn’t allow the creation of either—but especially the second—he might be in more dire straits than he thought.

He checked the core’s status.

[

Core of Eros
Mana: 1.1k/50k
Tier: 1

[

An hour got me around a thousand. So, fifty hours of work to fill it up. The passive mana gain was negligible. A single week’s work, if all I did was shovel stone, eat, and rest. Maybe less. Maybe more. Perhaps that much intense work would have him gassed by the end of the first day, unable to continue. Logan hadn’t been horrendously out of shape in his old life, but he hadn’t been some athlete, either.

Just a dude. Like most people: excelled in a few things, average or poor in most others. A little worse in shape, honestly, than average—but not unhealthily so. Too much time spent behind a computer did that, if not intentionally offset.

Logan set the stone shovel aside, wiped his brow, then sat down, leaning against the core’s pedestal. 

Alright. Let’s see what [Construct] can do. 

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He held his hands in front of him and started to mold.

Water was the most important thing to test, so he did that first. Ribbons of pink streamed from the core and into his hands.

Liquid poured between his fingers.

Perfect.

He cupped his hands and drank greedily. He avoided spilling any. Every drop had been the result of his aching muscles. If he wanted to make a good dungeon manager, he suspected not being frivolous would be key. 

He stopped when his thirst had been stated.

[

Core of Eros
Mana: 812/50k
Tier: 1

[

He groaned, but not out of surprise. Of course magical conversion of material comes at a steep cost. Even a few handfuls of water had burned through twenty-something percent of his mana supply. Not a cost that could’ve been avoided, though. What about food? He was almost scared to try. 

What would the cheapest possible food be?

Rice, or bread? Those felt like obvious answers. He went with the second.

A fluffy loaf of white bread came into shape between his hands, shaped from pink mana. Logan took a moment to wonder at the incredible display. He might have forced himself to come to terms with his fantastical circumstances, but that didn’t mean he was wholly immune to seeing magic happen right in front of his eyes.

He took a bite. The bread was dry, and bland. We stuff ours with sugar, he thought. That’s why it tastes so good. Here was old-fashioned bread; the kind peasants ate a thousand years ago. I see why we upgraded, he thought wryly.

[

Core of Eros
Mana: 455/50k
Tier: 1

[

Logan winced. I’m more than breaking even, so I’m not at risk of starving or anything … but why’s it have to be so expensive? If he really did want to rush to a tier two core, it would take a lot longer than a week, as he’d first appraised. But of course that’s a stupid strategy. Tunneling nonstop and throwing stone into a core? Clearly that wasn’t the intended design.

Though the concept of ‘intended design’ made him pause. Who had constructed this world to behave as it did? Was it artificial? He really doubted it was natural phenomena forming classes, skills, and dungeon cores. But how else? 

A deity with a sense of humor, who’d vacationed on Earth and took a fondness to RPGs?

Logan shook his head. Stop being ridiculous. Though what other explanation was there?

Focus on what matters. You’re trapped underground, if you’ve forgotten.

[Withdraw], next. 450 mana? With his hunger and thirst taken care of, it was time to see if he could hit level two.

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