One of the first things he had noticed was that he couldn't breathe. This wasn't because he was suffocating, but the feeling was very familiar, almost like it just happened. However, it was because he noticed he didn't have any lungs whatsoever.

  When he tried to move, nothing happened. That's when he realized it, he had no arms, nor any legs. Was he limbless? Did someone cut off his bodyparts? But...he couldn't feel anything else similar to a body, just a waking and conscious body.

  The first thought that popped up was that he was in the afterlife. He had to be, right? Because why else would he not have a body, but be fully conscious? But that thought was pulled out of his mind when he felt the sensation of wood around him, even more so when he focused on it and he could see it more clearly.

  There were walls around him, a wooden and hard texture it would have been, had it all not been gapped and have dust and rot all around it, which spoke of age and neglect.

  He really didn't like this, he almost wanted to fucking scream his eyes out but he didn't have any eyes so he would just have to live with this in total discomfort until he eventually got used to it. Then, he focused downwards to the floor, also rotting and old, but there was something on the ground as well.

  It looked like a crystal, by all means, barely the size of a thumb if anything. It looked brown, clearly blending in with the wood beneath it, but there were traces of an amber-like color within it, streaking the small thing. When he focused more on it, something popped up.

  [Dungeon Mana Amount: 5]

  [Dungeon Monsters: Termites and Crickets]

  [Termite Count: 30,000]

  [Cricket Count: 10]

  [Dungeon Core Size: 1 Inch]

  What popped up frightened him immediately, and he tried darting away from it immediately. Fortunately for him, it all disappeared when he moved away so he could take a breather and figure out what the hell he had been looking at. If anything, it looked like some sort of game interface, and he really didn't like that.

  Considering it was like a game interface, why was he able to see it? Unless that is...he's the crystal? But that thing said Dungeon Core. He's not a Dungeon Core, he's a human! But everything in his situation contradicted that in every way possible; he didn't have a body and only a very nervous consciousness.

  He then noticed something crawling nearby and focused his attention on it, and what he saw frightened him. A termite! Didn't that interface say it was a Dungeon Monster? It looks pretty...ordinary to him, like a regular old termite. However, he also noticed something; it was walking towards the crystal- he means Core. Wouldn't it be bad if that thing get it?

  "No! Go away! Bad termite!" His bad attempt at trying to scold it to go away seemed to actually...work?? The termite froze for a bit of a while before turning and then walking away back into the wall it disappeared into, as if nothing had happened. "Wait! Uh, come back?" When he forced those words out, it came back out of the wall and started walking back towards him like nothing. It approached more slowly this time, like it was being considerate.

  It stopped right in front of the crystal in the ground, it's mandibles clicking softly and it's antennae brushing the air near it. When the mandible made contact, he felt that and it felt incredibly weird to him. It was like being under a blanket but still feeling when some wind is blowing against you, mildly uncomfortable and you wish for it to stop so you could be comfortable again.

  "Uh, yeah, hello, I'm Elias." He ignored the feeling as he tried to communicate with the termite. It was an odd sentence but it was the most true thing he could think of. It clicked it's mandibles again and pressed closer, nudging the crystal, his core by the way, with its head. Elias felt the core vibrate as he felt a shutter of uncomfortable energy run through his non-existence. Okay, yeah, he doesn't like that.

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  However, as much as being touched felt weird, he wanted to move out of the way of, what he assumes to be, the middle of the floor. Well he hadn't seen anything else near him, besides the wood around it, so it would have been safe to assume. "Could you pick me up, little guy? Put me, like, anywhere else?" The termite froze again, like it did when he told it to go away, and he wondered if this is what happens when he tells something to do something.

  Before he knew it, it started picking him up, and the weird feeling got even weird. "OoOkaY!" Elias yelped as the termite picked up the Core and started to bring it somewhere towards the wall. The wall was very chewed up, clear evidence of the termites that inhabit it. He could even see some termites crawling around further inside if he focused enough. It placed him near the opening, making him partially hidden, and also tucked safely away.

  He felt like it only understood him on a boss-type level; like an employee listening to a boss, but he still felt like he should thank it. "Uh, thank you, this is much better." He didn't mean to sound so awkward when he said it but he just did. It just stood there, staring at the Core, and he started to feel uncomfortable. "Uhm..." It was like a staring contest, and it felt like, despite having no eyes, he was losing. "Go back to what you were doing, I'm fine."

  Just like that, it seemed to freeze again, as it hearing him. Then, it just started walking away again, leaving the crystal in the spot where it was placed at. He was very confused but he kinda wanted to see, like to feel what was around him. However, despite him being inside of a house, it felt very fuzzy. The house around him seemed to be built like a giant odd square, if what he was seeing was correct. Every room was just a square, and he could see about six squares right now.

  The front door room was one square, the kitchen was another square, the room right of the front door room seemed empty but it seemed like it could be a living room. The room in front of the front door room seemed to be a dining room; as it had a table and a couple of chairs. The room to the left of that room, and the one in front of the kitchen, was empty besides one fireplace attached to the wall. The room to the right of the room in the middle of the house, or so Elias assumes, was actually completely empty. However, besides these six rooms, Elias couldn't see anywhere else. It was very fuzzy and Elias didn't like it.

  If he doesn't have a body, you might as well make him be able to see the entirety of the house he's in! He'll try and unpack that later, maybe try and figure out why he can't see. He tried to go to the front door and he couldn't see past it but he could feel them, hopping damn near on the front door. He heard clicking— no, they sounded more like chirps or something— and the hopping didn't seem unnatural. It was then that he realized it; there were crickets in his front porch.

  Well, if you could even call it a porch, it was just some steps at the front door at best. There seemed to be a lot of them, guessing by the mass amount of hopping. Their presence was comforting, like they could do something if an intruder or something really wanted to burst in here and steal him. Who would have use for a crystal, though? Maybe a poor person, or maybe the people here would know that he's magical or something!

  His own thoughts were flustering him as it all came crashing down on him that he really was just a crystal. He was a magical crystal that could command termites and had plain old crickets at his front door. He didn't feel alone but he also didn't feel like he had much company anyways. He was very unhappy with his situation but what was he supposed to do? He was a crystal, a core inside of an abandoned house that can't do anything besides command them to do stuff for him.

  Elias was suddenly pushed out of his thoughts by a warm pulse near the front door. What the hell? It happened somewhere near the base of the front wall, in the space where the floorboards and wall were chewed into dust by the termites inhabiting them. It was more like a pressure in your chest when you drink something warm and sweet when it's below room temperature. It was very small, but in this empty house, Elias felt it like it was an explosion.

  When he focused his attention to where the termites were, he realized what was happening. Well, it was an all-out war between the termites and some ants that were coming from the wall. It wasn't dramatic, so to speak, but it was a relentless violence that had Elias startled. There wasn't any blood; Elias was pretty sure insects didn't have any, but death did happen, mostly on the ant's side. The tiny bodies piled into the small crevice between the wall, and they were slowly starting to disappear as Elias got that warm feeling again.

  He quickly got the memo as more and more ants died and that warm feeling came again and again. The termites weren't strong individually, but there were more of them than there were the ants and they seem to know the layout of this tunnel especially well. Elias literally saw a termite use a small piece of wood to crush a couple of ants, and he didn't think that termites were that intelligent at all. However, he then noticed a termite get killed by an ant, and he winced.

  "Sorry, little guy." He said but he felt a small amount of that warmth come his way anyways. If he had to assume, this was that "mana" from before, it had to be. He didn't like that his termites died, but he likes that the ratio of termites dying to ants were much more on the side of the ants dying than the termites. Elias also noticed that larger ants were also coming in, but they were easily dispatched of by smaller termites in larger numbers. The surge was also noticeably stronger than before. It wasn't powerful but it was stronger.

  Elias found himself just staring and watching the tiny war happen because it was all he could really do and all that was entertaining, really. The ants pushed forwards, his termites adapted and pushed them back; it was the same old thing but it was still fascinating. However, his attention was taken as he noticed frantic hopping coming from the crickets. Was that a spider? It was smaller than the crickets but not really noticeably so, you wouldn't notice if you were a kid just looking at them but you would if you paid attention. One cricket jumped forwards and crushed the small spider underneath it.

  Elias winced at the act but quickly got over it as the spider gave them more Mana than one of those big ants. Woah. It wasn't a lot, considering, but it was still amazing. This caused Elias to start watching the crickets, however close he could, as they attacked approaching spiders. It was like being nearsighted and trying to look at something that was just out of your near sight. Crickets lost occasionally, if a spider would land a good bite on a vital area or something, but most of the time, the crickets won. Elias was happy with this development, he really liked it.

  The spiders didn't come as much as the ants, but they were nice Mana when they did. Elias found himself settling in nicely to the environment around him, even if it wasn't what he expected at all. Well, can you play him? He's a crystal- core inside of an abandoned house and he's watching termites and crickets fight ants and spiders! He's be called insane back in his old life! Yet, he finds that he doesn't mind this at all. In fact, he could get really used to this.