Matthias was not sure how long he had been out, but his new fairies had not moved much since he had passed out.

  "Now that we are bonded, I guess we should all introduce ourselves," the celestial fairy began. "I am Lucy."

  "And I am Chloe," the infernal fairy greeted with a flourish.

  "And I am Matthias," he introduced himself. "Two t's in my name. Everyone always gets that wrong unless I correct them."

  The two fairies shared a look before looking back at him.

  "You... You already have a name?" the celestial fairy began. "And you have such an eloquent grasp of language. I was told most cores start out more or less feral. Those that are not feral are usually intellectually stunted in some other manner."

  "That might be because I am not your average elevated beast soul," Matthias began, trying to recall all that the voice had told him. "I was fully sapient before I died. It was a pretty grisly death from what I can figure. But I was told I was being sent here for a reason. I was to follow my heart, and they could only ask that I do my best." When he had tried to say he was human, he could not form the words. Other words just poured from him instead to prevent a pause in his speech. That concerned Matthias.

  The two fairies shared a wide-eyed look, but it was not fear. It was excitement. It was anticipation.

  "I guess we both got lucky," Chloe noted appreciatively. "A developed otherworldly mind. This is monumental. We have such an advantage."

  Matthias could feel the excitement flowing off both his fairies as they did their little dances. He pushed his confusion through the bond to them, hoping they would explain without him needing to ask.

  "You see," Lucy began, "otherworldly souls can bring anything they are familiar with into this world. We won't need to risk ourselves to gather extra bits of inspiration. Once you have enough mana, you can either make things from scratch or fuse things you already have to create something new."

  "Huh," Matthias responded. "Well, I'll be damned."

  "You certainly will be damned if you can't defend yourself," Chloe interrupted. "If anyone else finds out, they will stop at nothing to capture you. You have no idea how coveted otherworldly souls are. The last one found was captured by a lich and converted into several elixirs of inspiration."

  Matthias shivered at that.

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  "But only after the lich had milked their mind for all the information it could get first. Lucky for them they were a person and not a dungeon core," Chloe continued.

  "How is that lucky?" Matthias asked.

  "Because it meant they had limited usefulness," Lucy explained. "As a core, you can actually create things from mana and thought alone. A slave brand on your core would be eternal. There would be no escape for any of us."

  Chloe nodded. "Now that we are bound to you, we are yours alone. Our loyalty is to your survival."

  "So I need to steadily grow in power, but not so fast that I draw the attention of beings beyond my power?" Matthias asked. "Since I am sure that lich had to compete with others to get their hands on that otherworlder."

  Both fairies nodded.

  "The first thing you need is minions," Chloe instructed. "Something to help defend you. Should anything reach your core, it can simply drain mana from you by touch. You will need something capable. There are two ways to go about minions and resources as well."

  "You can designate an area as a node with a bit of mental focus," Lucy continued as she took a seat and looked deep into his core. "Nodes automatically produce resources or minions over time. Or you can manually create minions. A node costs ten times what a single unit of resource or a single minion would cost."

  Matthias' mind was alight with inspiration now.

  "But don't neglect expanding your influence," Chloe reminded him. "Your minions get bonuses for operating within your influence, making them nearly immortal outside of combat. And the larger your influence bubble, the more mana you passively regenerate."

  That locked an idea in Matthias' mind. He first focused on the mushrooms. With hardly any effort, he was able to set it as a node. In his mind it now registered as a common, low-quality mushroom node. Not far away, he focused on a single idea: to make a new creature node. He felt only the smallest drain on his mana as the new node appeared. Excitement spiked within Matthias as the earth began to pile up loosely, and a single ant crawled out of the new mound.

  "Ants?" Lucy asked skeptically.

  Matthias cackled. "You see," he began, taking on the air of an instructor, "leafcutter ants eat fungus. If the workers have no food requirements, all the fungus can go to the queen and population growth. Then the ants harvest biological matter and make more fungus from it. It all snowballs. Sure, I have to pay a nominal upkeep, but ants are good at so many things. Where I come from, there were ant colonies fighting over continents due to their sheer size. We even had fungal growths measured in meters."

  Both fairies shuddered at the thought.

  With another thought, he created a mix of pine needles and leaves for the ants to start on before turning back to his meditation.

  "I don't want to sound... ignorant of your plans," Lucy started.

  "But I don't think ants are a good minion," Chloe finished.

  "That is understandable," Matthias responded.

  "You don't get it," Lucy resumed hesitantly. "Most dungeons with ants get crushed. Ants are a dangerous choice. They do spread fast. And upgrades to the node do affect all the ants that spawn from it. But such dungeons tend to overflow."

  "I see," Matthias contemplated. "Then I will just make something that eats ants." And with that, he decided to summon a single minion. It appeared next to his core as a scaly ball. Then it slowly began to uncurl.

  "Oh my gosh!" Lucy cooed. "It's adorable!" She quickly fluttered over to it.

  "It is armored and has claws," Chloe noted. "I approve." She too joined Lucy in inspecting the new creature.

  "This is called a pangolin," Matthias explained. "They eat ants."

  But his fairies were ignoring him. He could feel their awe through the bond as they showered the pangolin with attention. For its part, the pangolin seemed to bask in their cooing and touches.

  "I dub him Sir Steve, Knight of the dungeon," Lucy proclaimed as she patted the pangolin on the head. "May he live long and serve well."

  Matthias was about to laugh when he felt a touch of mana leave his core. A spark of intelligence flickered in the pangolin's eyes as that mana leapt into it. Matthias had a sinking feeling that he needed more mana, and he needed it sooner rather than later.