It was obvious to me, that the bonus was the right choice. Not only was it nearly the same number of dungeon points as the other perk, but it also had a treasure blueprint set, and a half ton of materials with which I could start building my floors. It was the best option by far, despite the vaguely mocking nature of the text.

  Bonus! I thought strongly selecting the perk I wanted.

  Instantly, I felt knowledge flood into me, streaming in from some unknown source. I tried to follow the source, tracing the mana back with my sight.

  Pain!!

  I stopped, pain raking across my mind like a hot poker. I felt a slight crack in my soul.

  Fuck, that was bad! I thought, moving my vision back over to my crystal.

  It seemed okay, still white, and shiny and beautiful. Dazzling. Though, looking closer at my illustrious self, I noticed something. A slight defect. A flaw that hadn’t been there before. Just looking at it hurt. It was a scar that marred the perfection that was me.

  Oh dear. I thought a sinking feeling washing through me.

  Menu!

  I was right, I had hurt myself.

  Note to self, do not trace the system, it leads to pain.

  That was something I wouldn’t be doing again; it was not worth it.

  I sighed. No matter how vain I was, and I realised it was a lot. I wasn’t foolish enough to waste another perk point on healing myself. Although, I had proven that my initial decision was correct; my foolish actions would have killed me if I hadn’t healed myself with the first perk, I no longer had such low health that I had to worry about it.

  Mostly satisfied with my decision, I tried my best to forget the blight on my perfect crystal.

  Dungeon, oh yeah that was what I was supposed to be doing.

  Whoops!

  Many ideas had rifled through my mind over the last few weeks, and with the materials that the perk had given me, it had confirmed a thought I’d had. A nature floor, it seemed perfect. Not only was it a continuation of the outside world, but it was cheap. Having used all my points on the map I didn’t have much to spend. And all the material I’d just received had solidified my choice.

  The map had told me how far away the nearest settlements were, and I felt confident in my ability to go unnoticed while I built myself up.

  It would be slow going, having to survive on the animals that inhabited the forest to my north, but it was the safest. And I was all about that. Safe was good, safe was safe and safe was life.

  While I had been grinding out the levels, I had just kept expanding my chamber, on and on, wider and wider and taller and taller. Until now, it stood at 100 metres across at its widest, with the ceiling stretching up to thirty metres. I was proud of my achievement.

  Although, at first, I had planned for lots of tunnels, where the thieves would be hemmed in, forced into confrontations. Now I was considering a huge cavern, Not only had I already built it, but it was different, different from all the examples the guide had had. Surely something as majestic as I deserved to be unique, special. I was ever so special after all!

  While pondering the landscape, I grew more and more confident that I would be able to make it work, with enough time, it took a long time to carve out such huge chambers, and I had lots of ideas, ways to make each floor special, and challenging, ways to subdivide the huge chambers. I made sure to file them away for later use, happy with my idea.

  Caverns would work, I’d make sure of it. I could be patient.

  I could see it now, a huge expansive dungeon, glistening with treasure and littered with bodies, the bodies of those too stupid to turn back, or too eager to see my beauty. Foolish. I laughed to myself, imagining their death.

  Happy.

  But first, I had to build it.

  Natural caverns weren’t perfectly smooth and so I had to texture the rock. Throwing smaller rocks at the walls did a good job, and the technique that I had since abandoned in favour of chipping away at the cracks with mana, came in useful once again.

  All told, texturing took me one thousand mana, leaving me with six thousand left to work with.

  Accessing my materials space, I looked over what I had available.

  It was a good mix, and something I could work with.

  First, I covered the floor with a thick layer of earth, about a metre deep, with the compact soil and then soil in layers. I then spread the gravel and pebbles across the soil.

  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to work with. I had expected the magic to work by just dumping it all on the floor and forcing me to use telekinesis to move it all around. But instead, the magic seemed to work in accordance with my wishes, letting me brush my presence over the land, distributing the gravel and soil with ease, almost as if I were painting.

  The short grass I used to make the paths, a maze of intertwining trails that led across the cavern, avoiding the exit of the floor, for obvious reasons.

  Along the trails, the longer grass grew thick, hiding the ground and the other paths with ease and making movement much more challenging, and hopefully, more intimidating.

  Who knew what lurked in the grasses? I imagined they would think.

  Bushes and underbrush grew sporadically, blocking the paths and hiding amongst the grasses, there were a few berry bushes amongst the bundle, and these I used as a food source for the insects and bugs that had come in the life starter.

  Surprisingly, only the short trees fitted in my room, the larger ones were just too tall. Way too tall.

  With all the foliage in place, it was time to think of the danger. Since I wasn’t planning on confronting the various intelligent races, only the local animals, it didn’t need to be particularly vicious. Just enough to draw them in, and to kill them once they wandered too close.

  It was time to look at the passive mobs I had got from the perk.

  As I read through the list of creatures, I was more and more pleased with the perk. It seemed that not killing anything until level twenty had really paid dividends.

  I started with the blood sucking brambles, selecting all ten to place around my floor. Unfortunately, it seemed that they came as seeds, and that seeding and growing it required mana.

  It took a while, as I had to regen my mana, but it wasn’t too long until I had them placed in and amongst the berry bushes and paths. Hopefully, they would grow strong soon, though I had little hope it would be a quick process.

  The iron spine hedgehogs were little babies that I spawned near the bushes. They looked around briefly, before burrowing under the bushes, and grasses, trying to hide. They were ever so cute, and I instantly fell in love with them. I doubted they would ever net me a kill, but perhaps an injury or two as something stumbled onto them.

  As hidden as they were, they had relatively little to fear from the thieves who would be wandering through one day, and as long as I made sure to maintain a healthy population, they would always be a part of my dungeon.

  The weeping willows were easy to implement, and I simply replaced some of the trees with them. They were almost identical to the couple I had got in the foliage material, with only a slightly unnatural waving to the branches and a darker trunk.

  Between two of the willows, I placed both Healing Herb patches, hoping that some unconcerned animals might wander too close while grazing, and the willows would snap them up.

  In the ceiling, I cut away a small space for a nest and the magpie seemed happy enough. It was quite a large bird, large enough that I had had to increase the size of the space to make room for it. But, once it got settled, it seemed right at home.

  I paused for a few minutes, contemplating the floors’ design, and picturing what I wanted it to become. Something my future self could be proud of, something distinctive, illustrious. A place where people would come, from all over the world, an endless source of fuel for my majesty. I revelled in it for a moment, a beautiful idea.

  I sighed, snapping back to the present.

  I wanted the floor to feel alive, and for that I needed an ecosystem, something where it needed very little management. Then I would be free to expand, to use all my resources on improvement not maintenance.

  The floor needed to balance the producers and consumers all the way up the food chain.

  More insects!

  I added more of the insects from the life starter and watched for a week, using the time to replenish my mana.

  Not enough, more insects.

  After I had created a good stock of insects, I needed the things that would eat them, birds. Smaller than the magpie, they flapped through the sky, wings beating hard as they swooped down, scooping up beakfuls of the flying insects.

  Buying the birds from the store had cost me only a few points, but it was well worth it.

  A few more tweaks and additions and another week of watching and I had done it.

  My first floor was complete.

  All that was left was the stairs to the second floor.

  On the opposite side to where I wanted the entrance, I cut a small arched tunnel that descended 15 metres, before turning back on itself, and descending another ten. I was sure 25 metres of solid stone was enough to support the cavern I had just made.

  Taking the roots of the nearest tree, I encouraged their growth, feeding them mana until they stretched down the tunnel, forming an intertwined lattice of root stairs that would allow access to the second floor.

  I took one last look at my menu before committing to opening up to the surface.

  Menu!