Azotreh had spent the last two days in bed. Atu had spent most of her days with the child, slowly continuing to teach them Ilmabi and Aemabi, while attempting to bridge the distance. She was making good progress, at least she hoped so.
Azotreh didn't jump each time she entered the room, which was a good sign for their continued development, and while they still flinched a little from physical contact, it was still progress.
She was still trying to convince Chief Asergia to let her take the child out into the forest. She knew they'd been through many ordeals while in the woods, but the isolation wasn't good for them. She was also trying to convince others to come by her house and meet the child, but so far, the other rabbit-kin hadn't accepted her offer.
She knew that she was not truly accepted by her fellows, but this really solidified her understanding. So she spent more time with the child.
While she was initially a little scared every time her aura touched the child and felt the trillions of small mana pools within their body, she had long since grown accustomed to it after only a couple of days. They were weird, but that was fine. What mattered was that they were a frightened child, and one she had decided to care for.
The fox had also warmed up to her a bit as she spent more time with Azotreh. They shared that the fox's name was Ruby and that they had found each other in the forest. They didn't explain how, but Atu accepted it readily. She knew that she didn't need to know Azotreh's entire story yet. They just needed to get accustomed to warm food and someone who loved them.
Overall, things were going well for Atu.
Nicholas was rather conflicted, but had agreed with the others. Azotreh needed to find a proper parent instead of looking up to them. Nicholas knew he was no role model, even when he tried to be. Back home, his nieces and nephews knew him as the cool uncle. He missed the kids, but deep in his heart, he assumed he'd see them again. After all, if there's a way to travel from Earth to wherever here was, then there must be a way back.
He knew enough to assume that it was simply a power problem. Errazorrus had helped him with that. Even though the dragon was just about as young as Fuzem, he had broken memories from the various draconic parts that composed him. That helped a lot in learning about this world.
But Nicholas was trying something. While Azotreh was recovering from everything, the others had mostly spent time in the dungeon nexus. The beating heart with a single eye in it was still quite the mystery to them all. Even Errazorrus only knew of dungeons from an outsider's perspective. While the windows of what they assumed was the Skill System helped describe what the functions of a dungeon nexus were, they did not assist in using those functions.
All they'd figured out was how to move the nexus behind the weird rock formation in their cave to keep it from the rabbit-kin scout. But that was closer to manually walking than anything. Focusing on the movement caused the nexus body to respond.
Nicholas had been pondering for a bit and wanted to try something new. Errazorrus had figured out that willing the nexus to do something had made it move, but simply willing it to make a monster hadn't done anything. So, he wanted to try something new.
The massive eye on the core closed as he began to concentrate, creating an image of a monster. He only had one to draw on, the wolf-headed monster that had attacked the facility and allowed Azotreh to enter the forest. So he began to visualize it, where the legs were and how they moved. Where the stingers branched from the body, and where the seahorse head emerged.
When he finally had a complete image, something actually did appear in the air in front of the dungeon nexus.
In a black window that looked like dark scales, red text was written.
It was still better than nothing, he guessed. He hadn't gotten a single response from the Skill System about anything they'd tried over the last two days, so an error message was still better than nothing. So he pulled up their main status window.
Their main window, the one that appeared when they brought it up, had gained a new tab when they acquired the dungeon nexus. Unlike the previous two, one for the status sheet and the other for their still rather full inventory, this one was black as the night sky. Similar to the error message before, it also appeared to be made from scales, though the symbol on it was in white, not red.
The symbol on the tab was that of a large draconic eye, still white on the black background. Nicholas intentionally shifted to it.
Like their main sheet, this one was filled with empty space. Though it was much shorter than the main sheet, which had dozens of things he'd barely managed to piece together. This status showed that they had no traps, no rooms, no stored physical matter, and nearly two thousand mana to use. Though their main sheet said that they only had 300 to spend, with an additional 1500 somehow also stored.
This side sheet also had one thing of importance, a monster blueprint named 'Inferior Black Salamander.'
Nicholas didn't like the word inferior in its name, but assumed that everyone had to start from the bottom.
Mentally attempting to select the blueprint did nothing but tell him that the monster was a common monster with the ability to spit a small amount of acid and a soft body. It also described that summoning it as a lesser monster cost 0.1 of their maximum mana, and as a regular monster, it cost 1. There were higher options, listed as Elite, Miniboss, Boss, Superboss, and Ultraboss, but they were all grayed out.
But Nicholas didn't care about that. Just selecting 'lesser monster' hadn't done anything. Instead, he used his previous failure to drive his next action.
He began to envision a salamander. Little, black, soft-skinned. It wasn't really much to think about, since he'd seen salamanders in his own world. He just hoped they weren't fantasy salamanders or something crazy. They were apparently part of a draconic faction, but even in most fiction he'd read, salamanders were like the giant salamanders from his own world with the ability to breathe fire.
It took him only a minute to envision the salamander, at the end of which something new appeared. Black screen with a scaled pattern, but this time with white text.
Nicholas looked at the window in front of him before selecting the option to summon a monster.
In a dark cavern behind a waterfall, a massive beating heart suddenly began to glow brightly. The eye set in its center rolled up as sharp spines began to emerge around it, like a massive set of teeth. The teeth closed before opening again. The eye behind them was replaced with a dark abyss leading into seemingly nowhere, from which a small salamander crawled free.
It climbed onto the beating heart before dropping to the floor with a wet sound.
The teeth closed again before opening and revealing the eye once more.
Once the eye was once more present, Nicholas looked at the new windows. They almost filled his vision. He knew Fuzem and Errazorrus were seeing them too, though Errazorrus had been suppressing system windows for Azotreh to give them proper time to recover. While power was important, so was their mental health.
[Congratulations! You have created your first monster. +100DX, +100EXP]
[You have gained the Dungeon System as a result of your actions]
[Dungeon System integrating with Skill System]
[Due to interference from the Infinite System, assistance and railguards of the Dungeon System have been removed]
[You have received the blessing of the Black Dragon DG (Ruby)]
[Due to not having established a Dungeon Territory upon summoning your first monster, your territory is being automatically assigned]
[Avatar detected]
[Your territory is now the aura of your avatar and core]
[Upon creating a room, it will also become part of your territory]
[Your Dungeon Faction: Black Dragon has reached the Second Threshold. +10C to Mana and Mana Regeneration! You have gained 10 DP! You have gained b1739999]
[Error: Assistance revoked. You have no blueprint benefit. Replaced with Dungeon Perk Choice]
Nicholas parsed the notifications. Once again, there was another resource to worry about; whatever DX was, Nicholas didn't want to know. He had a theory about dungeon faction thresholds, but needed more data.
He would choose the perk later; for now, he had a little salamander just sitting listlessly on the floor of the cave. He could sense it through a connection to his consciousness. He nudged the connection, and the salamander moved a little.
He sent a command. While Azotreh's perspective was riveting, sitting in a bed for the last two days, Nicholas wanted more. So he commanded the little salamander to leave the cave.
The salamander jolted and began to move. It was painfully slow, but it moved. Finally, it reached the mouth of the rock formation hiding the core. It didn't seem to want to move from its home, or somehow incapable.
Nicholas nudged it again to move, and this time, a new dungeon window appeared in his vision. He could tell it was a dungeon window because of the scaly black background of it.
[Would you like to promote 'Lesser Black Salamander' to Champion status? Y/N]
Nicholas hit yes immediately. It wasn't even a question. Now that he had a way other than Azotreh to see outside, he took that opportunity without hesitation.
[Lesser Black Salamander has become a Champion of your dungeon. You have used 10 DP to make a Lesser-Type monster a Champion]
[Champion monsters can leave your dungeon territory, and can support other dungeon monsters from your dungeon within their aura]
[Upgrade Perk: Champions and Generals to gain higher titles than Champion]
The moment Nicholas chose to grant the monster champion status, he felt not just his connection to it, but the core's connection to it grow much stronger. He didn't know what that meant for the little salamander, but assumed it was good.
It was definitely good for him, because the strengthened bond was just barely strong enough to support his next reckless action. He took a moment to breathe before he nudged the bond again.
This time, he didn't intend to make the little monster move, but instead to push himself into the monster's body. The dungeon only had the one monster, and no matter how little it was, he wouldn't let it get eaten by a bird.
He pushed for nearly ten minutes before the bond finally gave, and Nicholas suddenly found himself within a different soul.
Azotreh's soul was vibrant, filled with life. But this soul felt weird. As he appeared in the realm, he saw the same golden dome that existed over Azotreh's soul, with the purple starlight beyond, but with one other thing. A wormhole, or something similar, sitting right above the dome.
The wormhole was slowly pushing small particles of cerulean light into the glass of the dome, and Nicholas felt that it was strengthening. He didn't know how he knew, but this soul was barely a minute old and being fed by the wormhole in the sky.
It was disconcerting, feeling a soul being brought into existence. But he eventually refocused. He walked towards the obelisk in the center of the soul while admiring the differences. Azotreh's soul felt a little cluttered, but this one was barely there. There was one sculpture, one that looked like an open mouth dripping acid. Otherwise, there was very little else. The ground was made of slightly squishy black stuff, like the skin of the salamander.
Nicholas entered the obelisk with ease, finding a half-formed salamander sitting on the table in the center. This inner obelisk was more organic than the cold sterility of Azotreh's. This one felt like a stomach, or maybe that was just the slightly creepy way the walls pulsed.
The salamander on the table glanced at Nicholas, who raised his hands. He couldn't sense hostility from the little salamander, just curiosity. But it still felt like a home invasion to just stroll into someone else's soul.
Even so, he had to. Or thought he did. He communicated to the salamander that he was going to use it to see the world outside, and that he'd do his best to protect it.
The salamander communicated something strange back. Something about not worrying because it couldn't truly die. Nicholas stared at it for a moment before the little salamander made a spare chair for Nicholas, who sat in it.
With Nicholas settled, watching through the eyes of the salamander, the little lizard stepped into the Nightshade Forest.