Chương 89: Existential dread and nihilism.

Innearth found himself once more sitting in front of the "meaning of life" site. He barely remembered the process of getting here despite the multiple non-simple steps it required. It just sort of happened. This was "happening" a lot lately. It was probably the third time this month he had found himself reading the warning and staring at the grayed-out button. Since completing his personal dungeon, he had excitedly moved on to building out into the void…

but slowly he had come to realize he didn't actually "like building in the void much more than reality"… the reason he had been having so much fun building the facility was due to collaborating with his friends. His only progress had been to start building a flat cosmic void wall or maybe floor in a straight line with halfhearted energy. When he had been younger he thought the meaning to a dungeon's existence had been to gain adventurers.

"That's what dungeons are for! They exist to host delvers! It's a great purpose." So much of Innearth's early time and attention had been focused on gaining those adventurers – or distracting himself while he couldn't think of a good way of gaining them. When he finally made it? He was ecstatic. He had done it! He had made it! The problem was what came next. You get older, gain more experience, learn to critically think and suddenly everything becomes so bland and predictable.

I've seen hundreds of adventurers bypass the same rooms in the same ways… and I've seen hundreds fail with the exact same mistakes. It's hard to get excited for a delve when you can predict what's going happen 5 minutes in. Why does everything become less "fun" when you get older. I don't like this. Innearth liked his adventurers. He was invested in certain ones that stood out and he loved seeing the things he built actually used… but they didn't "complete him" in the way he thought they would.

In the way it had been hinted they would. He felt like a bad dungeon. He should be happy with what he got. He made it! And he did like his adventurers, he really did. So why… wasn't he satisfied? Why did he feel so… lost? Am I broken? … Am I a failed dungeon? Why do I want more? Innearth desperately wanted to know what the meaning of life was in this very moment… just in case it wasn't actually just "gain adventurers, challenge them".

What if it was something else – something incredibly important and he was missing it! Mentally sighing, he went to close the page but stopped right before he followed through. The previously grey disabled button was flickering. Every few seconds it darkened and became clickable before quickly disabling itself once more. Is this site broken too? Staring almost uncomprehendingly Innearth found himself clicking the button in a brief flicker before he even realized he was following through.

Like a widescreen, the site expanded – changing in a way Innearth had never seen the system change before. It wrapped around Innearths vision completely blocking off the portion of his attention that was focused on it… while leaving the rest of his split attention's free to continue running his dungeon. This screen gained a depth, highjacking Innearth's senses in a subtle way to draw him in. To let him fully experience it.

In the background, a narrator began speaking and after a brief panic and confusion at the sudden change, Innearth began to listen. A rock existed and was stifled. It was bored. It was trapped. It was nothing and it thought without knowing what that was. The mana listened and though it wanted to help it could not – for the stone was not sentient enough to clearly picture what it wanted. This rock existed in endless silence for a millennia.

Mana washed through forming pathways in its wake and intent shaped those pathways. Slowly but surely the rock cultivated pathways. Its consciousness increased and as it did its desire solidified enough to be communicated. It wanted something – anything – to happen to it. It wanted out of its cage of nothingness.

It wanted freedom – it wanted the ability to do something to pass the time so bad its thoughts began to pass to the mana more clearly the single wish reverberating and growing until finally, something happened. The rock pushed and pulled and strained with nothing to hold onto so hard it shattered its soul into three. One third of its soul seeped into the surroundings – becoming more real as it infused reality and the Core saw for the first time. This was a dungeon's nascent influence.

Mana helped shape the incredibly raw form of this broken third of a soul and finally, the Core was free from nothingness. It could see, it could push stuff about, it could do something. The break this soul went through did more than just make its influence, however. It was such a traumatic shattering, a third of its soul was split spacially like a crack. It grew outwards into a fourth dimension, weak and fragile and the primordial mana listened and protected it.

Its form scabbed over and limited itself for protection. Twisting in and out, this soul could hold matter and became the nascent inventory – or storage space of the Core. A pocket just for them. A way of clearing out the earth around them and seeing just a bit more. The third and final portion of the dungeon's soul was boring. It remained in the middle sandwiched between the "inventory singularity string in the center" and the "diffuse influence spreading out like a cloud".

This third portion was the anchor between the two and it resided in the Core's core. Their original body. It resonated and, due to its permanently damaged state, quickly cultivated the Core's intelligence to true sapience. It was more in tune with mana and the two worked together to make sense of the Core's new situation. At first the core was excited its wish had been granted. Something had happened! It could do stuff now! It basked in the new feelings, emotions and senses that bombarded it. It was happy.

For a time. Slowly – over a much longer period than before this rock became once again. It ripped and stuffed bits of reality around it into its inventory spitting them back out into new shapes. The cave it had created for itself slowly ever so slowly filled with Air as mana worked to normalize the void and that was a whole new exciting event to focus on. Each and every event was a distraction, a pleasant task to occupy the Core's time and its boredom was pushed further and further down the line...

but the raw primordial mana was already becoming more rigid and less fun to play with. Shapes were made to give different effects and while mana still delighted the Core it felt less alive, less like a living "thing". This new older mana didn't feel like it was listening to him as much and it quickly became apparent the mana wasn't able to respond in an intelligent manner. Their games were predictable and… boring. Everything was just so boring.

The Core wished it could have a true companion and finally came to an idea. Slowly it shaped a rock to look just like itself – pulling materials from its inventory and lovingly moulding it into a crystalline ball. In an attempt at making a friend the rock – aided by mana but more importantly its raw and still mouldable and broken central soul – ripped a chunk of itself out and clumsily pushed it into the rock.

It ripped half of its power out of itself and pushed it into the crude approximation of its form and a spark of the old mana was able to bridge the gap. A frantic prayer to the mana was heard, a crystallization of intent created and an attempt at creating a sibling, a friend, was completed. It worked. The new rock was given life and the nameless Core had a friend. They had an innate link and the size of the soul he had used was strong enough the two could talk. And the rock was happy once more for a time.

Slowly however, as time – that cruel relentless passage of time – passed, the Core began to realize its spell had been a failure. The mana hadn't fully realized its intent, its clumsy actions not enough to make a true companion. It hadn't made a friend it had created a slave. This created creature couldn't disobey him. It couldn't argue – or at least it claimed it could, but wouldn't... which was the same thing. It kept saying all sorts of stupid junk like how it "respected him too much to disagree"…

and the first Core could see the truth of the existence it had created by this point. It was still his soul just puppeting a new body, it wasn't something else not truly. Despite already knowing it was a failure, the Core attempted once more to create a companion. It designed them with limbs to "do stuff with" and different materials and manas to be more "interesting" … but they too didn't learn or grow or disobey. The core grew disinterested in its second slave… and it's third… and its 10 th.

They also didn't learn or grow. And the Core grew slowly disinterested in all of its creations. The Core continued to try again and again. It cultivated its strength then passed huge chunks of it to a conjured slave that remained static and boring. He did it again. He made another, and another. Each a failure, but each able to do slightly more. They were more animated, jumping about his dungeon and fighting one another in an attempt to please him.

They mimicked life in a more lifelike way but the Core could tell they were fake, so none of it satisfied them. A dozen failed friends. A hundred. Each with different shapes each with different forms. Finally, this process ended when the Core ripped just a bit too large of a chunk out of itself in frustration. Its three soul parts rejoined as it lost its hold on reality and as they did each of the first dungeon monsters combined into it as well.

Whole once more and healing slightly the previously dead core didn't disappear as gravity pulled it down past rock and stone and magma. It existed in a strange state of flux – the broken parts had healed on their own… and now wouldn't heal back together and for some reason, this state kept the ghost alive on its slow descent to the center. At some point, it passed a threshold. It fell and was pulled into the core of the planet – the innermost vulnerable area of the Earth.

The soul of the planet reacted involuntarily – like a burp the Dungeon's Ghost was shot up passing through hundreds of kilometres of space before finding a host similar to its first body and reincarnating for the first time. And so began the Dungeon's second life. Or… more accurately the life of the second dungeon. No memories were held or survived its first cycle and the degradation and reprocessing had altered its soul irreparably.

This rock formed in a different way and thus a vastly different personality took root. Its new soul was still split in three but healed much more than before. It could no longer split off of huge chunks of itself to create life… but all the previous versions of that spell had narrowed down the requirements so it didn't much matter. No that's not the way this second core died. She was a curious soul who grew and expanded to the side as far as she could.

She strained to expand and figured out how to split her influence so she could expand just a bit further… One floor became 7 but she was splitting too fast exploring too quickly without properly defending herself. She dug into a cave of a powerful monster without having created a single monster and after being eaten she succumbed much quicker than the first. A fall and quick expel later and the third dungeon began its life.

This dungeon lived a similar life to the second – still immensely curious and full of a desire to explore – but had a more cautious heart. It created monsters to defend itself and slowly dug down not sure yet where the best place to expand would be. Stolen story; please report. Sadly, this Core was cautious but not cautious enough. Madness had already infused the world so when they attempted to combine opposing elements – just to see what would happen – the resulting madness monster killed them quickly.

The fourth life was similar to the third in a way… only this time it expanded upwards and actually reached the surface for the first time. It built up and out collecting interesting materials and holding onto them cleaning up an entire environment before everything started to blend together and… the core killed itself not out of sadness but simply feeling like it had lived a full enough life after just over 20 years. Its existence was probably the most important and long-lasting of the "first dungeons".

For when its soul finally reached the core of the planet once again Gaia was paying attention. Not in an intelligent reasoned manner but in a simple cause and effect blend of random chances that cumulated in an instinctual response. In a moment of surprising clarity, the earth mother linked its spitting out of a strange itch in a specific direction to a more long-term positive feeling in that direction. It linked the two events and then latched onto them – it wanted them to do it again.

Mana had been pulled down closer to it – aiding the planet's cultivation – and the surface had been cleaned – directly promoting life and nature in the area… a secondary facet of the planet's truth. Gaia was not able to focus on this link for longer than a single moment but in that moment the purpose of Dungeon Cores was sealed. The planet's desire was even clumsier and fainter than the first Core's was, all those centuries before…

but primordial mana still lived in the core of the planet at this time to make the impossible possible – and the planet had a truly massive amount of mana to smooth over all the hard technical bits of this spell. This time the free-floating spirit was captured purposefully and held before being shot out in a specific direction. The planet pushed the "healing good feeling itch" towards a "particularly gross feeling outer surface spot". Its spirit flexed with all the finesse of an earthquake and mana did the rest.

This newest core appeared in a wasteland of twisted cosmic forces. An impact site for a meteor that had once had such a massive effect on the region it had wiped out the dominant species at the time. This event had happened long before mana had infused the area but mana didn't care much for minor facts like that. Despite having happened before mana had even existed on the planet, this event of annihilation and extinction had had such an effect on the history of the area mana was attempting to recreate it.

An ashy twisted hungry madness. A wasteland anathema to life was come upon and slowly brought deeper and deeper into the ground by the unwitting volunteer that was this dungeon core. As it brought the pollution down into itself it settled into different floors... it became safer by the very nature of containing and changing it. The barest hints of leftover primordial mana helped once more, shifting the dungeons influence towards its goal of pulling the destruction deeper into itself away from the surface.

The floors began filtering and pulling naturally… and this time when the Core died its purpose was solidified in the world. Versions of the massive/fully cultivated dungeon soul were perfectly split into two smaller ones before being sent out to new areas of high mana density… again… and again… the planet fought an endless battle to keep itself clean. To suck up, store and relocate pollution. To separate out mana types into different floors reducing madness. To clean the atmosphere.

The meaning of a dungeon core's life was to clean the surface. To recycle mana. To push out more mana if the ambient mana fell too low because that was important too. To bring dangerous destruction and madness away from the surface. A simple tool used by a sub-sentient spirit in a harmless way. That was it. That is it. That's the entire point of the dungeon system and the only reason you keep being created. We keep being created. That is your entire reason for existence. Nothing more, Nothing less.

It's like how most organic life seeks to reproduce as its base purpose. Dungeon cores seek to clean up the planet. Simple. Easy. … There was only one teensy tiny problem with that set up. The dungeon cores were smart. They were thinking and feeling beings. Their consciousness was unsatisfied with such a simple passive purpose. Once they built themselves a big enough "dungeon" they were able to complete that purpose passively. It was an innate part of their being not anything they actually had to consciously do.

We were bored. We were lonely. We could – and still can – do so much more than simply sit there like trees or the rocks that birthed us. We can create items and feats of madness stronger than any sapient being. We can wield so much more mana at a time and regenerate massive amounts of it with our size. We wanted to do something with that mana. Who would relegate something so fundamentally good at manipulating mana to simply recycling duty? To being a trash compactor. An automated waste facility?

And so began the search for "something to do". Many dungeons found themselves pushing too far into the depths of magic. We died violent deaths infused with madness or built destructive devices just a bit too strong. An equal number always found themselves getting bored of life and deciding to end it peacefully.

"I've done everything I ever wanted to do… I can die happy" – that's a common thought many older dungeons made and continue to make to this day. So dungeons wanted to "do something" and were repeatedly dying short mayfly-like lives despite being ageless and theoretically immortal. That would be the end of it… but at this point the dungeon soul recycling system had already been made… and it had a solution for this "problem".

Dungeons that lasted longer were obviously doing something right – the mana dumps that broke sometimes polluted the surroundings even worse after all and longer living dungeons were all around better mana filters. … the reincarnation pool for dungeon souls was growing in weird ways. It was gaining new abilities to fulfill its singular task as Gaia's wishes were crystalized one by one into this permanent spell. It wasn't capable enough to design a perfect dungeon…

but what it could do was mix and match the dungeons that did well with each other. Just selectively copying versions that lasted longer, or using the ones that failed quickly as fuel for the ones that had the traits they wanted… Evolution. Of a sort. The personalities and base traits that did well were more than likely to succeed again.

There was always some degrading process as the souls fell and rejoined the reincarnation pool – passing through thousands of kilometres of solid earth to reach the core can do that to a soul – but those mutations actually made the process more efficient. Dungeons that liked to spread to the surface and make tall towers up into the sky… ended up being more likely to get attacked by sapients. Either they moved up and their core was easier to get to… or they built up into a city and were deemed too dangerous.

On the other hand, dungeons that were afraid of the surface were more likely to survive. A simple logic to choose for that trait again and again until it became essentially permanent. Dungeons that were entertained were more likely to continue wanting to live – lasting longer – and so the ones that chose to attract the first adventurers and challenge them were "Good seeds". Ones that interacted too personally with sapients either became depressed when they died and "broke"…

or decided not to use them as the very efficient entertainment source they were, leading to boredom, that constant lurking killer. Similarly, sapients learned some caves had magical treasure within them but any that didn't provide a reward or killed in unjust manners were put down. Culled. This helped selectively breed the perfect dungeon personality. Not engineered… but built with the singular purpose of surviving as long as possible and "doing its job".

Several hundred generations in a vastly interconnected family tree dating back thousands of years. Dungeons that lasted 50 years instead of 10 or 20. Dungeons that found reasons to live for 100s of years – one or two of the oldest even lasting whole millennia and heavily heavily affecting every single dungeon that came after once the pool got ahold of their "data". And then the system happened. One of the 11 primary gods who made the system was a dungeon. Or…

more accurately used to be a dungeon and knew how lonely an existence it really was. They didn't have a distinct plan for how to help their brothers and sisters still trapped in the earth… but unlike the rivalries and enmity between other gods, the dungeon god remained uncontested with their goals. With their desire for the dungeon system designed specifically towards helping their siblings. The hopes and dreams of a diety. We know this story because he's told us.

This history is one that's been dug up by a power on another plane of existence. With whom the rules of causality and history and time and space are lessened. The most important point of the dungeon system as designed was connection and community. Something every single dungeon had been desiring from the very first rock all those years before. A way to have friends. To have peers. To not feel as alone. Instantly the life expectancy of cores jumped upwards.

The ability to get help in their initial years, saved thousands of cores from an early death… and more importantly the ability to communicate and bond, prevented a huge number of loneliness-related deaths. The dungeon god interacted with its mortal siblings to a much higher degree than other gods. It listened to our feedback and let us help shape the way our system works. A tutorial was made and refined by the combined feedback of hundreds of cores.

A language was solidified and given to the newborns as soon as they came to life. Sure… the language we created has shaped young cores and effected their personalities more than even the previous instincts… but it was worth it. After Cores began figuring out which affinities were the "best" the uniformity of Dungeon Cores rose rapidly. That flipped to a negative feeling of "sameness' where Cores stopped feeling like individuals – or like they mattered – leading to more deaths...

A round of artificial information hiding was made. Separations by Tier and then more permanently into ranks were made. Rank affinities were shortened… all to let Cores pick based on personality instead of following some "best build" that shoehorned them into a nameless clone. At this point, the panel had completely faded and had just begun to shrink till only the voice remained in Innearth's mind to finish its message.

Cores weren't always unique but by and far they were different enough to not just feel like a nameless hole in the ground. And that's essentially the position we are in now. Our god. The dungeon that ascended higher than the rest of us told us… a bit more than most species. The war against the void had gotten worse as time went on. They had grown their celestial realm (which the dungeon god bragged was their own body) to the point there was no longer any chance of demons entering reality…

but now it was harder to defend for some reason. To make matters worse the god of war and most effective demon killer had somehow died. The gods were no longer winning they were in a stalemate. Instead of rotating off in shifts and visiting reality, every single god was needed to hold down the frontlines. Every single god needed constantly in an endless war to protect reality. That was over 400 years ago as of the time this site was created.

The dungeon god told us before he disappeared that if any new gods were made the pressure on them might be lessened… but if it's not obvious no one has ascended to godhood since the system has been made. This is all we know. More than most races but not a full picture. We don't know why all the gods are needed to release pressure… but it's evidently more than just manning some theoretical castle wall. We don't know why the god of war died when the gods were supposedly winning… nor why none have died since.

We know anything you can probably infer from this story… but those guesses are just that. Guesses we have no way to confirm. So. This is it in full. Your existence is needed but only to passively filter mana. Knowing this, Knowing the state of the world leaving it would be selfish… but we can't force it on you. You're our family after all. Each and every core is our family if you go back enough generations.

We've tried to provide toys to keep you occupied and given you options and examples of fun games you can play… but maybe this story is all that's needed to give you a new option. The final options we know of. Instead of solely making a place for adventurers to delve for entertainment… you could attempt to make a place challenging enough to birth a new god. Harder, faster, stronger monsters all the way up the challenge ladder. That's a worthy meaning to your life.

There are other options for dungeons who know the truth of this world. Many possible meanings you can adopt. Tons of older dungeons turn to faith. An attempt to wake our glorious mother. A worship of the dungeon god who gave us our very own custom made system. A worship of the planet that has kept us around and given us a family. If we wake the world… perhaps our situation might change?

We might be able to die for good if we wish – by asking her to prevent our souls from being recycled endlessly and ripped apart to birth new dungeons. Alternatively… we could work towards improving the process. Intelligently design our sibling and future selves to remove our boredom. To improve our minds and situation to better fit what we wished we had ourselves… It will take time to wake Gaia… a massive amount of time but if you have what it takes that is a worthy goal.

Digging down as far as you can to bring vast amounts of collected mana close to the planet's core is a worthy purpose. It's sure to bring the planet one step closer to sapience! Every little bit helps and digging through the mantle is a fun challenge to work around. If anything… it's something to do. The most common and proven manner of dungeon coring is to always have new adventurers and make different monsters and devices and shapes for all eternity.

Along with your natural and learned instincts, that's something that should entertain you for countless days and hopefully years… but that's not a purpose that would excite anyone who found this page. If you are reading this page this option has probably begun to bore you. Want to become a teacher? Write guides for other rank 4 Cores, or find new information to stock our shelves. The darkest option I'm not even going to help you find how to do is to hobble your mind. Attempt to sleep for once…

a milder form of death that allows your body to continue functioning like the good little mana collector you are… while your mind escapes guilt-free. Whatever your choice. Whatever you decide it has to be your own. We've tried to guide you before and it obviously didn't work. This is our final plea. Stay alive. Find something to live for and make sure to grab on tight. And remember. We understand. We know exactly what you are going through and we want you to know you aren't alone. … Innearth "sat" there stunned.

It was one thing to believe nothing mattered and another thing to be told so. He was a recycled existence. A creature that existed only to clean up pollution and not commit suicide "Because really, is that so hard!" The message had been a roundabout one even as it was a long one to tell. It was a whole story. One that Innearth didn't even need to theoretically believe. It could be fake! It could all be fake… but it felt real. There was a quality to it.

A weary sort of cadence to the narrator's voice like they didn't really care if they were believed and that helped Innearth treat it as fact. For the briefest of moments, Innearth embraced the wrong message. His memory flashed to Core-Leaks. dcs and imagined his core joining the ranks of their shock videos. Shattered smashed ground to dust because nothing really mattered in the end. I wouldn't really affect anything right? Another dungeon would take over my place managing the mana in the region right?

For the tiniest slivers of a moment, he spiralled on this point "that nothing actually matters" and dying wasn't more than a minor inconvenience before he was reincarnated with a fresh slate… And then he snapped back hard. His mind shifted from core shatterings to his newly made cosmic void armour surrounding his core and latched onto the feeling of not wanting to die he had while making that. Why would I go to all that trouble only to throw it all away for nothing? Stupid.

He thought of his friends and how he had gotten into a rut recently, because they hadn't been talking as much… but equally realized that was in part "on him". He should be reaching out more. They would be sad if he just disappeared... that wasn't "not mattering" in the slightest. He remembered how he felt when he didn't know how Abe was doing or how mad he had felt when he learned FED was being bullied all those years ago.

That "there is no real purpose" message was not actually the goal of this site despite how much the story talked about it. Despite finally finding out there wasn't a proper meaning to life Innearth had been given a whole bunch of artificial ones. Alternatives. Ones he could make his own. Innearth was suddenly reminded of his very first crystal dwarf. What is my purpose? That dwarf had become happy once it had a goal. And… in many ways, that's all Innearth had needed from this message. A goal.

Not entertainment like adventurers were, but something he could imagine was important. In many ways… Knowing there isn't some secret purpose that I'm failing to do is freeing. I'm not letting anyone down by not doing something specific. I can like adventurers without basing my whole life around them. If nothing matters I can do whatever I want. The goal that sounded the most important to Innearth was the first one. The one about the gods. They had a good "purpose". Protect reality.

Not a dull one like "clean up some pollution and then sit there passively" but one that felt like it really mattered. Innearth would argue it was a purpose that mattered more than anything else he could think of and he was incredibly jealous that it was theirs and not his own… … he wanted that as his purpose. He wanted to help with that noble purpose in any way he could. If all Innearth had to go off of was that "a new god would help them", then that was the most important goal he could think of currently. But…

there wasn't a time limit on that goal. It was just a personal project he could think on and stew over. A purpose lazily chosen from a list of purposes but one that Innearth liked the sound of. It didn't have to be unique to be special. Just because others might have the same purpose didn't mean it "didn't matter". It was a goal and a purpose and he made it his own. Innearth left the site and didn't look back. He had a goal, but first he wanted to check in on his friends.