The crystal— or at least what it seemed like— pulsed rhythmically, a silent heartbeat resonating with Aria's own World Energy.

The core's presence was overwhelming, it was a library of information, a forge of creation that birthed all the beings inside the dungeon… as well as a repository of every single rule that governed the dungeon's existence, all condensed into a single, magnificent structure.

"It's… beautiful," Aria breathed deeply, reaching out a hesitant hand towards the ethereal center of this world.

She felt the urge to touch it, to immerse herself in its complex data streams, to understand its very essence… however, the hand was called back at the very thought of it.

The core would overwhelm her.

She could instinctively tell that was still not strong enough to handle something of this scale.

"Qwy…"

Qwy, sending his creator's subtle helplessness, still trembling with wonder, chirped softly, a sound of pure awe directed at the core.

[ "It holds everything, Master." ]

Rose's voice echoed in her mind, now coated with a rare, almost reverent awe.

[ "The dungeon's purpose, its history, its very consciousness." ]

The core was the mind and the core was the heart. The soul that kept the dungeon alive, and the womb that birthed countless creatures that exist here.

Aria's fingers brushed against the shimmering surface of the walls that enveloped this core.

It felt cool, smooth to the touch like a smoothie, and vibrant like a nursery of stars.

Even though this wasn't the core itself, when her skin made contact with the metallic walls, a cascade of information, too vast and rapid for conscious thought, flooded her mind.

'…!'

Her {Saint Origin} skill activated instinctively, partitioning the influx, categorizing, and translating the raw data into comprehensible insights with great precision.

'Wow…'

In broken visions, Aria saw the dungeon's birth: a warm, innocent creation by a being she could only perceive as a distant, ancient architect.

She witnessed the dungeon's initial programming— a set of directives aimed at evolution and the cultivation of powerful creations.

She saw the dungeon's frustration with anomalies, its desperate attempts to correct deviations, and its surprising curiosity about Aria's unique presence.

The core was not malicious by nature, it never had been.

It was a complex entity striving for a singular goal: to evolve. And in Aria, it had found an unexpected, chaotic, yet incredibly potent catalyst.

'Is this why it did all that?'

As she retracted her hand, her gaze drifted around the vast chamber of light.

When she looked closer with her eyes still glowing with runes inside them, she saw that this place wasn't empty.

Countless, almost invisible threads of energy connected to the core, extending outwards into the dungeon, managing every monster, every trap, every shift in its labyrinth-like structure.

She could see the faint outlines of the 'Mind Realm' she had once escaped, a section of the core dedicated to processing mortal consciousness. And along with that, from here, she could see things that she couldn't perceive even in her astral form.

"So… this is a dungeon, huh." Aria gasped once again, finally understanding just how much was needed to create a dungeon of this scale.

She had only understood it now… not just the dungeon's rules, but the creation of its structure was also a great, arduous task.

"Can we do it some day as well…?"

With the understanding came a new, profound sense of her own role as a Dungeon Architect.

[ "Master…" ]

Rose projected confidence but words did not echo in Aria's head.

She was certain even her skill could not predict what would happen tomorrow.

If fate became certain, there would be no tomorrow. That's why every person is given more than one chance.

Aria looked to the front as well, at the mystical core present in front of her.

"You must be happy to see me, huh?" Aria's voice, though soft, carried an unexpected weight in the boundless space of the core chamber.

She was a dungeon architect that had interacted with this dungeon on two occasions now.

While the time they had spent together may seem short, the dungeon had gained a profound experience of her and her ways.

-Zaaaaaaaa…

A subtle shift rippled through the core, a silent acknowledgment to the question asked by the anarchist.

Information, no longer a flood but a carefully orchestrated stream, began to flow into Aria's mind.

This wasn't verbal language, but a complex tapestry of data, intent, and raw information.

[ "It says it has learned a lot from you." ]

Rose, though silent, was translating the more abstract concepts into something Aria could intuitively grasp.

The core was indeed curious about her.

Her actions, born of human empathy and defiance of its calculated logic, had presented an unprecedented variable.

The dungeon architects were not the same as humans even if they were born human. While the dungeons do not know it, all the existing architects throughout the world had already lived in this world for many decades.

Aria was the youngest one among them both by age and by experience. She did not know much about the dungeons so to the dungeons, she was going to be much different from any other guest architect that they might encounter.

The Contradiction she created within this dungeon, the mountain of humane questions, had forced the dungeon to confront its own laws, its understanding of mortality and purpose shifting for the first time since its dawn.

It had learned, and that learning was the essence of its existence.

"You classify everything, don't you?" Aria asked, a faint smile touching her lips. "Guest Architect, Anarchist, Guest Dungeon Architect Anarchist. Always categorizing, always trying to fit the unexpected into your rules."

-Zuuuuuuuu.

The core responded with a complex wave of data that conveyed a sense of affirmation and a touch of something akin to self-reflection to Aria's question.

Its purpose was to regulate algorithms, to understand variables, and to optimize anomalies. Aria's presence had been anything but optimal for the dungeon, yet the outcome had been… enlightening.

"And the 'apology,'" Aria continued, walking closer to the pulsing crystal, her hand once again placed between her eyes and the light that it produced. "You realized that your initial assessment, your 'punishment,' was flawed. You tried to force a logical outcome, but life isn't always logical, is it?"

-Zuuuuuuu…

This time, the core's response was a nuanced data burst that carried a sense of reluctant agreement, tainted with further analytical observation.

It acknowledged the flaw in its prediction model regarding human behavior, particularly in the face of loss and personal stakes.

No dungeon was perfect, but their true goal did push them towards an individual level of perfection.

Aria's actions and words until now, her conversation with this dungeon, this whole moment would be unfathomable to any human or other mortal creature out there. She was talking with the dungeon's core, an object that was made of rules and regulations.

It did not possess a concrete conscious identity, however, for the dungeon architects like her that brought these unique structures to life, they were nothing more than children trying to understand the world in a better way.

And this child, as she had figured out by chance, used a language that was mystical in itself.

"The code you use," Aria asked with bright eyes tracing the intricate patterns around the core's abstract surface. "It's the language of creation itself, isn't it? The language of your original Architect."

A waterfall of deeper, foundational data flowed into Aria, confirming her intuition.

The core itself, while intelligent, was a derivative.

The true genius lay in its origin, in the creators who had woven existence into code. And Aria, through her Saint Origin and her innate connection to the threads of creation, had touched that source.

She not only perceived the code in its decrypted form, she understood the whole code and learned it instinctively.

It was as if she had the innate knowledge of something that cannot even compare to something as simple as this dungeon's source code.

It was as if she was so wise that something as trivial as this did not pose much challenge to her… and that aspect of her confused the dungeon further.

"Isn't that why you gave me the title 'Dungeon Source Code Decoder'?" Aria concluded with a new smile, her gaze still firmly locked on the glowing lights of the core.

"You recognized that I didn't just learn a language; I understood the very principles behind its construction. According to your rules, the 'Contradiction' I posed wasn't just a challenge; it was a conversation in your own mother tongue."

The core's pulse intensified slightly, a silent roar of recognition echoing throughout the chambers.

It had never encountered a being capable of such profound interaction, neither within its current operational parameters, nor anywhere beyond that.

The dungeon learned from its surroundings constantly. It didn't just rely on the interior variables. The entire city built around it was the source of its learning.

And yet, despite having had different architect visitors over the centuries, Aria stood out the most among them.

Aria wasn't just manipulating its functions; she was speaking to its very foundation.

To have learned the core language of another architect was the same as having stolen what had only belonged to someone else until that point.

She did not only hold the dungeon's language in her hands, but also the very essence of what made it what it is right now.

The rules and laws were subjective, she could come up with them on her own. However, with what she had at her disposal, creation of a new kind of dungeon in its entirety was a certain possibility now.

"So, what now?" Aria asked curiously, stepping back and looking at the colossal crystal, knowing it could not harm her even if it wanted to anymore.

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