"What? Where am I?" thought Nick. "Newly enlightened makes it sound like I joined a cult." The System screen was the only thing he could see, but it didn't seem to give off any light, which made no sense.

  "And it's pretty full of itself too," said Nick while smirking. At least, he attempted to. "What? Why can't I hear myself? Wait, I can't even feel my mouth moving. I can't feel my face at all. That's... strange." Nick was oddly calm for someone who had lost all of his senses now. He tried lifting an arm only to feel disconnected from the sensation, as if he was flexing a limb that he didn't have, with muscles and a shoulder he didn't have either. Unsure of what to do, he went back to reading the System tutorial.

  "Maybe I'll regain my senses when this tutorial is over?" thought Nick hopefully.

  Given his inability to say anything, Nick thought "Status" and a depressing screen popped up in front of the tutorial.

  "4 of my stats are stuck at 0 or 1. Sure, I rarely exercise but seriously? Although two of my stats are at infinite, which is nice, I think. General skills seems to just mean literally any conceivable skill. Why is dark humor above quantum physics? It probably has more to do with how insanely hilarious I am as opposed to me being subpar at physics. The tutorial is probably going to explain this next," he thought to himself before going back to reading the tutorial.

  "Short version please, without the emphasis on how bad my stats are," thought Nick irritatedly. Surprisingly the System listened to him, and the words in front of were replaced by a single bulleted list.

  "... This is too much of an info dump for me to make sense of anything. I'll just go over it later in more detail. Just 4 or 5 stats would be so much simpler," he sighed mentally before realizing something. "Wait, my charisma was a 3, what's that supposed to mean? This system sucks. It's so inaccurate. All my employees loved me, especially after I gave them raises!"

  "I hope this is the last one." Suddenly, Nick… sensed his surroundings. It was the strangest sensation of his life(or maybe afterlife? Second life? He had no idea what to call it). It wasn't the same as touching or seeing something, but Nick could… visualize his surroundings. He was in a large cavern filled with small spheres, all of them glowing a dull white. More importantly, a familiar black Siamese cat sat in front of him while staring at him intently.

  "Didn't you die though?" thought Nick to himself, but to his surprise, the cat responded.

  "Yeah thanks a lot for that, idiot. I've never seen someone take this long for just the system initiation tutorial." Nick didn't see it's mouth move, but he heard it's voice in his head regardless. Her voice. "I was supposed to help you get isekaied, but you just let me get run over."

  "So you were trying to kill me? Thanks for being bad at your job I guess."

  The cat ignored him and continued. "My punishment was being stuck here in this third-rate world with you as your dungeon guide. You ruined everything!"

  "Well my life plans were ruined too but you don't see me complaining about it. So what's your name? And more importantly, what are these white spheres?"

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  "I don't have a name. And what spheres are you talking abou- Oh. Oh no. Well you're screwed. This world has somehow got an unregulated dungeon farm. Oh well, it was terrible knowing you and I wish we'd never met."

  "Hold on a minute, why exactly am I screwed? They don't seem to be an immediate threat to me right now," asked Nick confusedly. "I also can't keep on calling you cat, so how's Luna for a name?"

  "It's fine, although it doesn't make up for- wait, isn't that just moon in another earth language?" she asked suspiciously.

  "You read my mind," accused Nick, although he didn't quite understand why the cat had an aversion to the moon.

  "True, but that doesn't change how you just named me moon, as if I'm just another one of those second-rate failed planets. This travesty cannot stand. From now on, you shall serve me to ensure my time on this planet is as pleasant as I deserve."

  "Don't you dare!" shouted soon-to-be Luna mentally as she picked up his surface thoughts.

  "Luna," responded Nick with an evil smirk.

  "Huh. Well that's neat. Anyways, why exactly were you saying I'm screwed?"

  Luna scowled at him but still answered his question. "Those spheres are dungeon cores, and you're one too. Dungeon cores are meant to be spread out around the world equally, but the fact that they've all been born here at the same time can only mean that the world has discovered a way to block dungeons from spawning everywhere but here. The fact that they're all newborns like you means that they're all being regularly harvested."

  "Oh, I am also one of those spheres? Is that why I can't move?" he thought, but his musings were interrupted by the System.

  "But why? I don't want to, and I've got no reason to. And based on what Luna said, it's not like I'm going to be helping these sapient species anyways, even if I wanted to, which I don't."

  "That's not entirely true," chimed Luna. "Once you are harvested, you will provide them with a massive quantity of crystalized mana, which is incredibly useful."

  "For some strange reason, that doesn't fill me with joy."

  "That's… a pretty good reason. I don't think that it applies to me in this situation though. "

  "I don't think this tutorial was meant for dungeon cores in my situation, so I'll have to be smart while picking a class," thought Nick, getting more serious.

  "I assume Systemed means to have the System, so intelligent beings. I don't know what to think about only being able to gain experience from the death of others," thought Nick. "Oh well, that's a problem for future me."

  "Not really," interrupted Luna mentally. "Given the fact that you'll be dead and I'll be free in less than a day means that you don't have to concern yourself with these petty morality concerns.

  "Too basic, never going to help me escape."

  "Basically a diverse version of the first, probably weaker overall though. Still not going to help me very much."

  "Seems interesting, if I put most of my free points into precision I could maybe get away with it… hmmm."

  Nick was hooked from the moment the System said you could program them. He could already imagine his robot army taking over the world. He sped through the other options and didn't find anything better, so he made his decision. He had already come up with a few ideas for his escape with the aid of golems.

  "Don't select it, golems are among the weakest of dungeon monsters. They're strong physically but the loss of magic makes them practically useless. You can only channel through one golem at a time, so the majority of your monsters will be worthless." argued Luna.

  "How strong could magic possibly be? And no matter how good it is, it's worthless if I'm dead. Escaping is my number one priority right now," Nick countered.

  "I select Golem Dungeon as my Class."

  "Yes," confirmed Nick before getting slammed by several notifications.

  Nick ignored the last notification and instead focused on the fact that he had spontaneously learned how to use each of his skills. He… instinctively knew how to do everything that his class skills were supposed to do.

  "To create a golem, you just have to imbue a material with your mana and add another material to serve as a core that connects to the dungeon core," thought Nick. "Wait, how do I know that?" Despite almost a minute of deliberation, he couldn't find a reason more likely than the System giving him this knowledge with the skills. Or maybe the skills were just the knowledge? Shelving this idea for future thought, he decided to focus on escaping this place, which was, according to what he heard from the goddess's System, a death row for dungeon cores. Nick had to move himself out, and since he couldn't move himself, he first attempted to make a humanoid golem to carry him.

  "System, create golem."

  Nick's first idea was to have a golem carry him. As a level 1 dungeon, he could only select stone for the core material, and dirt for the general material. "What about my surroundings?" he thought. "I wonder if I can use this material. Inspect."

  The surroundings were apparently made of materials that were too high level for him to inspect, much less use. His only options for golem materials were dirt and stone. He mentally selected these materials, and chose to let the golem be made automatically as opposed to him shaping it. Nick watched with satisfaction as a dirt stick figure was made around a stone sphere the exact same size as a dungeon core. He was just about to celebrate when he felt a sharp headache-like pain forming.

  Nick waited for some time to let headache(probably the mana poisoning) to subside, before attempting to control the golem. He instinctively knew how to control the golem, once again thanks to the System. He wasn't skilled enough to make it walk without losing its balance, so he just had it crawl to him. The golem didn't have fingers; instead its hands looked like mittens. Nick had the golem cup these hands around his core, and then attempt to lift it. His core was barely off the ground when the golem's arms fell off. "Well that wasn't supposed to happen," thought Nick as Luna laughed off to the side. He felt mentally exhausted, so he released the golem from his control. The top layers of dirt on it started falling off and dissipating and soon, there was nothing but a stone core lying on the ground in front of him. It was identical in shape and size to him.

  "Cores are some of the strongest materials in the worlds. These materials are also among the heaviest. The only reason your golem could move your core at all despite the weak materials you used is because you are a young and weak core, and because you invested all of your mana in it," she explained smugly.

  "Why couldn't you tell me that before? Wait a minute, what if…" Nick thought about the risks of his plan, and ultimately decided to go through.

  "No," thought Luna when she picked up on what he was planning. "That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. No, I can't verify that it won't work, but that's because even the infantile dungeon cores I've guided in the past have been smart enough to not try it."

  Ignoring her, he once again selected the dirt as the base material, but this time, he attempted using himself as the core. The core in the golems was cut into the same shape and size as the dungeon core, so being identically shaped to himself should stop his core from being cut apart. He would have used another dungeon core but when he tried, he realized that he was too far from the other cores to select them as materials.

  Nick immediately felt an intense pain far worse than the mana poisoning that felt like a migraine, and felt like he was about to lose consciousness.

  "This was a really bad idea," was his last thought before the pain made any rational thinking impossible.