“My dungeon is evolving? What does that mean?” I asked out loud.
“Master, I think you should see this.”
Elaya had appeared in front of me and the rest of the girls. I nodded, and then she waved her hands, transporting us to another part of the dungeon. I didn’t know if this was part of the abilities from her job or if it had to do with some connection she still had with the dungeon. Either way, it was convenient to be able to instantly move to another part of the dungeon without the travel kiosk. Calypso was able to do such a thing, but I didn’t unlock whatever skill allowed such a thing yet.
When we appeared in a new spot, my mouth fell open. The dungeon looked extremely odd. This looked like the boss room, the final room that Xin used to inhabit, but there was something massive flowing through it. It reminded me of the wave of miasma that was flooding through the final stage of the dungeon upon reset, but it was floating above the ground, moving at a slow pace in a circle. Furthermore, while half of it was the murky black water, the other half glowed a peaceful white.
“This is… what am I looking at?” I didn’t want to guess, especially since I had several experts present.
“The dungeon that you created was never a true dungeon. After all, the lore you infused in it was at your direction. In a way, it was a pseudo dungeon, where you function as a core linked to it with a bond, not unlike a slave bond. You weren’t the dungeon’s master. Xin was. However, you were the core. The dungeon was linked to you in various ways we hadn’t even begun to figure out.”
“I thought it might be something like that.”
I had never thought of myself as the dungeon core, but since learning that souls were a kind of lore, it stood to reason that my soul was sustaining the existence of the dungeon. This was only confirmed when Faeyna regained the lore from her dungeon upon resolving the curse within her heart. I couldn’t guess how that will affect her in the future. We would need to be careful of it, as she may eventually become miasmically cursed.
I probably would have become infected with miasma too and eventually formed a miasma soul because of my own dungeon. Thankfully, I had so many resistances to such a thing that this had never become a problem for me. I understood that if someone else tried to form a dungeon like I did, they would probably eventually become trapped in it. It was good I had been ignorant to such things, or I may not have been willing to take so many risks.
“I don’t understand, what is going on with the mana?” Xin asked.
“This is the point I wanted Master to see the most,” Elaya responded, her eyes bright. “This is something I have never seen before. This dungeon has seemingly merged miasma and mana. Likely because of how Astria and I had split the fairy fountain, with me corrupting it and her injecting life force and mana into it, the dungeon somehow has developed a new property. It now contains properties of this world and others. In essence, it’s created unity with this world. A dungeon that is in balance with nature.”
“A god dungeon.” I breathed.
This seemed to become a recurring theme.