I didn’t die or anything, as far as I was aware. It wasn’t like waking up - I was just there suddenly, and couldn’t remember how it happened. I had memories of being human, of events and family and life, but they felt like they happened a week or so ago - not difficult to remember, but not recent, exactly. It was very disconcerting.

  It was more disconcerting, however, to apparently be a set of four rooms and a colorful orb. I wasn’t stupid - I could tell that I was a dungeon core, thank you very much. It was still very, very unsettling to be aware of walls and floors as I was once aware of my arms and legs.

  Well, nothing to do for it. Settings, I mentally intoned. Nothing. Expected, but disappointing. Status, I tried.

  Disappointing that skills hadn’t carried over, but-

  Oh thank goodness, Rhea was here. Dungeon- I started to say, and was interrupted by a new text box appearing.

  Well, that was concerning. A mysterious number of maximum floors was annoying, but not too worrying. An error with the visitors calculation? Was our… unique nature messing up the counts?

  Well, there was other work to be done. Achievements, I tried.

  Well, that was somewhat disappointing. I tried to ‘stretch’ out my awareness and see past the walls, but was hit with a boundary. I tried to expand the room, but only gained an awful headache for a few seconds, despite the fact that I didn’t even have a head. That was just unfair.

  With nothing better to do, I started to open up all the menus to attempt to gain more information, or at least stave off boredom. Mana and Monsters brought up nothing. Mana Generation, however, brought up a new text box:

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Oh. That was kind of bad. Was my dungeon a vacuum?

  Well, I really couldn’t do anything about it if it was, and at least I didn’t have to worry about adventurers. Rooms, I tried.

  Opening up the expansion option expanded my proprioception into the area surrounding the room, which was extremely disorienting. Attempting to actually expand made a notification pop up, telling me that estimated expansion costs were two mana per square foot. Seeing no reason to try further, I closed the menu.

  Attempting variations of Help, Questions, or simply repeating important looking words got me nothing. It seems that I had exhausted its capabilities.

  Looking at my grand total of zero skills, I tried to do some math problems in my head, and after a few problems, a new message popped up.

  …

  I mentally winced as thirty-three bright text boxes appeared in my vision. Quickly dismissing them, I tried to do another math problem, and found it much, much easier and quicker. Skills, I thought.

  I spent the next ten minutes trying to do more math, but nothing else happened. Emboldened, I tried another tactic, and mentally recited poetry I had memorized.

  …

  Opening up the skill menu, I found a new entry:

  Going through all of the poems that I previously couldn’t remember well at least staved off boredom, but no new level ups came. I tried to meditate to at least stave off boredom, but after only a few seconds, the now familiar skill pop-up appeared.

  …

  As far as I could tell, this just made it a bit easier to keep my mind clear. After half an hour, I had gotten to level nine of the skill, giving me ‘45% increase on meditation.’ The system couldn’t even get its grammar correct. Blah.

  This was so, so boring. Mental math couldn’t help that much. I never thought I’d wish for a math worksheet, but I actually was. At least it would be something to do. My mana count did tick up to 2/5, but unless I wanted to expand by a single square root, I didn’t see anything I could spend it on. I attempted to summon a fireball, but nothing happened.

  Wait, of course. Dungeons couldn’t just cast spells, they built and summoned minions! I focused and attempted to shape the mana into an ant.

  It sorta worked. I couldn’t make actual ants, but I could make ant-shaped rocks. I could feel it costing me something, but my mana bar still read 2/20. Too small a cost to affect it? Attempting to create a proper ant minion just made a giant ant statue out of dirt that quickly crumbled, leaving a pile of dirt on the ground, and costing me one of my mana points. After another few minutes, the other small ants did the same.

  I would have frowned if I could, but instead I focused on the task. Perhaps ants didn’t work, but would moss?

  This worked better. Sort of. It was definitely moss. It was, however, very small, very brown, and very dead. Trying to push it around just brought back the headache, and I was now out of mana. Lovely.

  After another few minutes, a new screen popped up.