《Nature's Companion》 Prologue 1: The Legend of Boarguard For the first time in a while, Gorm wasn¡¯t surrounded by trees and mountains. He felt a bit lost without them, but he needed a knife, his old one was so fragile it nearly broke while he tried to skin a weak beast. Gorm could still remember when he bought it 80 years ago, the blacksmith boasted that his knives would last at least 100 years. If that liar was still around he would demand his money back, yet he knew that he would most likely meet no one he remembered. When he was still young it bothered him that most of his acquaintances died before was out of his forest again. Now he knew that he was quite abnormal, he couldn¡¯t find a better word to describe the fact that he had been alive when Lavandor the Mad ruled the Lavandor Kingdom or when Karigim the Truthful overthrew Lavandor and founded the Kingdom of Karigim. Or was it the other way around? It was difficult to keep track of such things, so he had stopped paying attention to outside matters at least 2000 years ago. So Gorm was quite happy that the first village he went for still existed. Eighty years were quite some time on the harsh border to the Endless Wilderness. It was enough time for the small village he remembered to grow into a little town, which was unusual. Normally it was the other way around, or that was what he experienced. The for the borderland typical Ironwood wall was replaced by a towering stone wall with huge gates and towers. This was a good sign as he hoped to find a better blacksmith this time around. Gorm didn¡¯t want to come back so soon again. Nowadays he preferred to spend as little time as possible away from his forest. Even though he still hadn¡¯t explored its entirety. After living over 3000 years in it he felt that it was his domain. He went deeper than anyone, he knew of, before him. If a normal person wanted to reach his home, they would need to travel two years through the forest. He himself only needed two months, but he was by no means a normal person. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Kris was sweating. A lot. He was wondering why he had the luck to be on guard duty in this heat. If it was any other gate, or better on any of the towers, he wouldn¡¯t be so annoyed. But it had to be the Forest Gate. The only place in Boarguard a guard would be punished if he slacked on duty. What was worse, nothing interesting ever happened. The only people who used the Forest Gate where hunters, woodsmen, and the occasional adventurer. While he was cursing everything and everyone remotely responsible for his situation, Kris spotted a man coming out of the forest. The man was tall and athletic. His weather-tanned face and his gray hair and beard indicated that he was no longer the youngest. He was wearing beast leather clothing. Was armed with a white bow and an old knife. Together with a small bag, this made all his equipment. As the man came closer Kris could see green-grey eyes calmly appraise him and the gate behind him. Kris could now make out more details, what he thought was a normal white bow, he could now identify as a bone bow with mysterious carvings all over it. When the man was only a few steps away from him, he stopped and asked inThe genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. ¡°May I enter?¡± Kris just waved him through. Half a minute later Kris felt as if someone poured cold water over him. ¡°What the fuck just happened? How could I forget to check his identity?¡± While he was still considering what he just did and whether to run after the man or not, the bone bow suddenly came to his mind. ¡°Was that an artifact? No fucking way!¡± Kris was freaking out. He remembered that in Boarguard only the guard captain, who was also the only son of the mayor, had an artifact. Now he had a new, way bigger, problem. Should he report the artifact to the captain or not? ¡°I hope he doesn¡¯t make trouble.¡± If something happened, he could just say he didn¡¯t see the bow. There was no way he would do anything that would anger some who owned an artifact. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> After Gorm had asked a woman about the way to the best smithy of the town, he went there on the fastest way possible. He didn¡¯t want to stay in the town longer than necessary. The smithy was a huge building just a few streets from the town square. One could hear loud hammering noises from 500 meters away. When Gorm arrived, he was the only customer. As soon as he was inside, a young man came up to him and asked him how he could serve him. Gorm requested to see the best blacksmith in the smithy and the young man immediately went to get him. ¡°Who wants to meet me? Some old fuck? Who do you think y..yo¡­ How may I help you? As soon as the arrogant looking middle aged Smith saw Gorm he became friendly, almost submissive. Gorm knew it wasn¡¯t right to manipulate people, but he couldn¡¯t bring himself to deal with people in a normal way. ¡°I heard you¡¯re the best smith in town, is that true?¡± ¡°Yes, I¡¯m the only Smith on this part of the border who can work with beast bones!¡± The smith said with pride. Even though he could only work with lowest level best bones he was still miles ahead of any blacksmith who could only work metals. ¡°Can you make a knife out of this bone?¡± Said Gorm while taking a bone out of his bag. ¡°Wow! Is this the bone of a Metal Beast? I¡¯m not sure I can work with it. I¡¯d have to try.¡± When a beast gets strong enough it can develop an element with which it reinforces its body and abilities. Every beast that develops an element is called an Elemental Beast, they can be further categorized with the element they developed, every beast that has developed metal is known as Metal Beast. Metal Beasts are known for their hard bones which are easier to work on when compared to other Elemental Bones. Even though he could only work with lowest level beast bones he was optimistic he could work this Metal Bone into a knife. The reason for that was, that the bone already had a knife like form. ¡°How long will you need?¡± Gorm was hoping for a short processing time. He never felt like himself with other people around. ¡°If you want you can get it this evening,¡± Said the smith while receiving the bone. ¡°Great, I¡¯ll be back at nightfall¡± When the Smith saw Gorm leaving he immediately started working. Meanwhile, Gorm sought a quiet corner and meditated off the bustle of the town. When the time came to get the knife, he was a bit excited. If he really could get this knife he wouldn¡¯t have to go into any town or village for the next 200 years. The smith was already waiting in the entrance when he got to the smithy. ¡°Sir, here is your knife. It was my pleasure to work a bone like this.¡± Said the smith while presenting a slim white knife. Gorm took the knife and after inspecting it he praised: ¡°Good knife, nice work! I have some beast bones I have no use for. I hope you accept them as payment.¡± After finishing his words, he reached in his bag and pulled out a few bones. The largest was over three meters long. Some of the smaller ones gave off the aura of high-level bests just short of becoming Elemental Beasts. Just as the stunned Smith wanted to refuse this generous gift Gorm vanished from his view. From this day on Boarguard had a new legend, the legend of a man who could pull huge bones out of a small bag. Prologue 2: Oak Tree and a Way out Gorm only felt at home when he was in the woods. The forest gave him peace and he felt as if he would become one with the forest. He was already halfway to his home when he discovered something sickening in his perception. Gorm couldn¡¯t let this presence defile his forest, so he decided to follow and eradicate it. While he was trying to catch up with the being he discovered that it was running in direction of his home. Because he was sure that he knew the terrain around his home better than anyone else, he decided to confront the creature only in familiar surroundings. A few days later he chased the creature into native climes, he decided to confront it. Just as he was about to arrive at the creature¡¯s location it discovered him and darted to the mountain. Gorms home was in a cave on the foot of the largest and only mountain in the surrounding 10 000 square kilometers. He settled here because he felt a great danger from this mountain and decided to guard its surroundings to make sure it didn¡¯t harm his forest. Some time ago he wanted to explore the mountain. After he was 200 meters behind his cave he had the feeling, that if he made one more step he would be in mortal danger. Since then he only watched the mountain, but never tried to set foot on it again. Now Gorm was in a dilemma, should he ignore his safety and destroy the danger to his forest. Or should he hope that it dies in the mountain? After a short contemplation, he decided the safety of the forest was more important than his well-being. Following the creature, he went deeper into the mountain. After about five minutes he caught up with it. It looked like a mixture of a bear and a boar with a human head. It was losing patches of hair and it seemed like it was rotting. This was the first time Gorm had seen something like this. He couldn¡¯t make out if it was an undead or still alive. He drew his bow and pulled it. An arrow materialized when the tendon was completely drawn. He let the arrow loose. The abomination got hit and immediately burst into flames. ¡°That was easier than expected¡± For the might of the aura the creature gave off it died way to easy. After searching the surroundings, he decided it really was dead. To his surprise, Gorm didn¡¯t feel the usual danger from the mountain anymore. The only explanation for that was, that something wanted no one on the mountain or he was too close to the source of the danger. Both cases weren¡¯t good news for him, but he still decided to further explore the mountain. Sometime later he found a strange stone formation. Between the stones, one could see the entrance to a cave. For the first time in over 1000 years he felt the need to explore again. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> From the outside the cave looked natural, with loose stones and some moss growing on the walls. Because Gorm still felt no danger he entered the cave. As he went inside he could feel warm and moist air on his skin, which gave him a feeling of security. Two hundred meters in the cave it made a sharp right turn. A few hundred meters in the distance Gorm could now see light. He was wondering what that could be and walked in the direction of the light. The closer he came the brighter the light seemed to get. When he was only 50 meters away from the light source, he could finally make out that it was a Sun Stone. That explained why it was so warm in the cave. Gorm kept following the tunnels and got deeper and deeper into the mountain. Unknown to him, the entrance of the cave system began to collapse. The further he went in, the smaller the corridors became. When Gorm just thought he was stuck, the tunnel opened into a room.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Interconnected runes covered the walls, floor, and ceiling. Sun Stones were placed evenly on all walls. In the center of the room, the largest Mana Crystal he had ever seen was suspended in the air. Gorm was stunned. He needed some time to take in what he was seeing. Like in a trace he walked to the suspended Mana Crystal and reached for it. In the Moment his hand touched the crystal it rumbled behind him. He immediately turned around, just to see the entrance closing. ¡®This is a trap!¡¯ Gorm ran to where the entrance once was. But the wall there looked the same as all other walls. He discovered that there were holes in regular intervals, but no indication that they were useful to him in any way. After searching for a few days without finding a way out, the only thing he could do was hope for a wonder. Because even his strongest attack didn¡¯t even leave a mark on the wall. Gorm knew he had enough food for at least a few decades, so he decided to train as hard as possible in this time. Even if he couldn¡¯t become strong enough to force his way out, he could die knowing that he tried everything he could. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Close to 100 years later Gorm ate the last food he had. Water was never his problem, he had an Endless Water Bottle in his Space Bag. Since he had nothing to eat, he could not exercise anymore and because he was still not strong enough to break out, he decided to meditate. Through meditation, he could prolong his life for a few more years without the need to eat anything. Ten years later he started to lose his strength. Every year he would get weaker and weaker. Thirty years later his life force suddenly got stronger. He had comprehended a special nature power. He knew that if he could find a young tree, he could transfer his soul into it and potentially live forever. Gorm took out a simple acorn, this acorn was almost as old as he himself. It was from the old oak that stood in the garden of his parents'' house. It was the only thing he took with him when he left the ruins of it when he was just ten years old. Since then he had been living in the forests of the Endless Wilderness. He wasn¡¯t even sure where he came from anymore. Gorm crushed some Elemental Bones, wood and Mana Stones. After mixing the powders with some water he carefully put his acorn in it. From then on he only cared for this acorn. He had stopped meditating, there was no reason for it anymore. Three years later the acorn, with the help of its extremely Mana rich soil and water, had grown into a three-meter tall oak tree. Ten years later it already reached the height of roughly half the room height at seven meters. When the oak tree was 40 years old and nine meters tall, it finally was about to have its first flowering. This was the time Gorm was waiting for, he was going to transfer his soul. In the past years, he has only regretted that he will not become immortal in his forest. The process of transferring the soul wasn¡¯t that difficult, first, he had to nurture the tree with his blood and when the last drop of blood is getting absorbed by the tree, he had to put all his power into it. As simple as this sounded, to actually do it one had to have very high attainments in nature magic and one must be free of desires. Gorms last drop of blood left his body and he was starting to put all his power into the tree. In the blink of an eye, the oak tree grew thirteen meters tall and filled the whole room. Gorms body started to fade away and the tree grew lusher and thicker. It encased the Mana Crystal entirely. When the last bit of Gorms power got absorbed by the tree, the carvings on the cave wall and in the entire mountain started to glow. The mountain started to shake and draw mana to it like crazy. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Seven centuries had passed since the great Mana Storm that killed countless people. Since then the Endless Wilderness had become even more unpredictable than it was before. The mana concentration was totally random, sometimes it was way too high, sometimes far too low. You could walk in one direction and the concentration would change about once every kilometer. Due to this some towns and villages flourished while others met a cruel end. Because the low mana regions were relatively safe, civilization reached new depths of the Endless Wilderness. To reach a place that was formerly almost a year¡¯s journey into the forest, you only needed a month. Thanks to the difficult conditions on the border of the explored part of the Endless Wilderness Hermits, dropouts, criminals and other interesting characters gathered there. In the outer reaches of the explored wilderness, on the foot of the only mountain in a 10 000 kilometer radius, in a zone with almost no mana, there was a small town. Its only connection to the outside was a single overgrown road, which only the annual tax collector used, and the magic post. The town''s inhabitants had no idea how much their lives would change in the next few years. Chapter 1: Life as a Mana Battery and Freedom When Gorm first regained conciseness only ten years had passed. He was still in the room that trapped him for over a century. The only difference he could find was that the carvings on the walls were glowing in a soft green. He further discovered that the oak tree, that was now him, encased the formerly suspended Mana Crystal. It was as if it was now a part of him. Before he had time to come to terms with his new situation, he suddenly felt a gigantic force draining his mana. He tried to fight back but he only managed to slow the draining. His only option now was to absorb enough mana to offset the draining. Thus Gorms years as a mana battery started, or at least that was how he felt. At any point in this time, he was trying to overcome the equilibrium, just to always fail. With no time to find out why or how this was happening, because he had to always concentrate on not slipping up, he didn¡¯t notice the changes that happened around him. Due to the constant absorbing and releasing of mana his body, the oak, was becoming wider and lusher. It now seemed too big to fit into the room. The other, more important change was that the holes started to give off dim light. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> As the years flew by light in the holes grew brighter and brighter. One fateful day roughly 500 years after Gorm first woke up again, he felt the drain slowing down. ¡®It¡¯s stopping? Finally, I thought I was going insane!¡¯ For the first time in, what he felt were ages, he could think about something except absorbing mana. ¡®It¡¯s finally over!¡¯ Gorm sensed that no mana was drained anymore. It was as if a weight had been taken from his shoulders. Like he could breathe again after staying underwater for too long. Now he only wanted to find out what all this mana draining was all about. The first thing Gorm could think of as a reason was that transferring his soul into a tree needed a lot of mana. After checking his body, he couldn¡¯t find any abnormalities that would explain the drainage. Shifting his perception to the outside, he discovered light blue rectangles floating in his vision.
Welcome, New Dungeon Core! Please review your start options. You may choose five dungeon options. : : : : : Outside interference detected: + massive mana drain + forceful expansion of territory + massive boost in mana absorption - ability to build anything
Congratulations! You have created your second floor. You may choose one dungeon option.
Warning! Only one room on the first floor detected. Please build five rooms to continue. : : : Forceful creation of the second floor detected.
Congratulations! You have created your third floor. You may choose one new dungeon option.
Warning! No room on the second floor detected. Please build a room to continue. : : Forceful creation of the third floor detected.
Congratulations! : : : : : :
Congratulations! You have created your 47th floor.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. You may choose one new dungeon option. : : Completely enclosed cavity detected. Dungeon territory is automatically expanded to include the cavity.
Congratulations! You have claimed land teeming with life. + Endless Wilderness ecosystem You have recreated the Endless Wilderness ecosystem in your dungeon. + common Endless Wilderness monsters package
Congratulations! Due to having fused your nature attuned core with a Magic Oak, having a functioning ecosystem and being in possession of at least 50 DP, you can now buy the natural dungeon package. Do you accept? Yes / No
Gorm knew what a dungeon was, but he couldn¡¯t make sense of those floating rectangles. After reading through them repeatedly he assumed that the mana drainage had something to do with the floor creation. He also figured out that this wasn¡¯t a normal process. The reason for his 500 years of torture had to lie in the room he was in. But that was still no explanation for the 46 new floors. Most probably it was the holes, that was the only reasonable thing Gorm could think of. Now he had to find out how. Gorm tried expanding his perception beyond his prison room and it was surprisingly easy as if he was reclaiming something he never knew he had but always was part of him. While keeping expanding he investigated where the holes were leading. It was like he had a map in his mind, he could see everything his, still expanding, perception touched. The holes were the entrances of a network of branching thin tubes, which were like blood vessels in the mountain. A few minutes of nonstop expanding perception it covered the entirety of the mountain with the exception of a gigantic cavity right in the middle of the mountain and over his current position. It wasn¡¯t like before that he could expand without any effort. No, he had to support the expansion with mana. Gorm felt like he was pushing against a bubble, he had the feeling that if he could get it to burst something good would happen. So he kept pushing with all his might. When he nearly exhausted all his mana, it suddenly gave in.
Congratulations! You have dominated your first few creatures. + one DP Due to being influenced by your mana for a long time it was easier to dominate them.
Gorm felt dizzy, he could perceive that everything in the large cave was a part of him. But he couldn¡¯t understand how that was possible. It shouldn¡¯t be possible, at least when he applied any knowledge he had. And then there were these floating rectangles. He felt a new one appear when burst the bubble. The older rectangles had been quite helpful, despite the fact that he couldn¡¯t fully understand them, so he read the new one carefully. It described what just happened quite accurately. He still didn¡¯t know what to do with these dungeon option selections. Where should he redeem them?
Welcome to The System! This is your first time actively using The System (not-so-)young dungeon core, to activate it in the future, just think about what you want to see. To view your status, think about it. To view dungeon options, think about it. To view the building assistant, think about it. : : Please use The System again soon. Regards: Your personal System Manager
Gorm was stunned. ¡®Are these boxes alive?¡¯ After waiting for an answer for a few minutes without anything happening, he made the decision to view his status. Not out of interest, no, to prove that he wasn¡¯t imagining things. ¡®Status¡¯ he thought.
Status
Name Gorm Title -
Race Dungeon Core Oak Floors 47 Rooms 2
Age 524 years DP 67
Level 1 (47)
Mana 50 / 130 000
Affinities Nature Mana Regeneration 500 per min
Specialties -
Abilities -
Ecosystems Endless Wilderness Monsters 26 Sapients 1
Bonded Creatures -
Intruders 1
The system got his name right but was about it. Gorm was close to 4000 years old, and had a major affinity with earth and nature was only a minor one. But he could still explain them, maybe it had been 500 years since he fused this the oak tree. This fusion could have strengthened his nature affinity. Nature was a top-tier affinity, made up of wood, water, earth, light, and air. Light, on the other hand, was a mixture of fire and air. In addition, everyone with a major nature affinity had a minor affinity with life and death. This could explain where his earth affinity went because as soon as someone gained an affinity higher than the seven basic element ones, one couldn¡¯t use them individually anymore. Unless they weren¡¯t included in the higher tier affinity. And one person couldn¡¯t have more than one major affinity. That was what made the nature affinity so special, it was composed out of every element except darkness. Because it always came with a minor affinity for life and death, which both where a combination of every element except for darkness and light respectively. Gorm now could control every element. The rest of the floating window needed a bit more explanation. Accordingly, Gorm concentrated on the things he wanted to know more about.
Dungeon Points (DP): Dungeon Points are used to unlock dungeon options, specialties and buy special abilities. You currently have 67 DP.
Specialties: Specialties are the things that make your dungeon special or go over the level of normal ability. You currently have no Specialties, to unlock them you need ten, fully functioning, floors.
Abilities: Abilities are your tools for greatness, you use them to expand and build your dungeon. You currently have no Abilities, to unlock them you need to complete your first floor.
¡®So those points are like money?¡¯ Gorm had never used money, all his transactions were trades of things of roughly equal value. But he didn¡¯t think of this as an issue. He only hoped he could easily distinguish between what¡¯s a good and what¡¯s a bad deal. Gorm made the decision that he would first try to understand the system and then build the first floor, before using his DPs. He hoped he would unlock some useful abilities and later specialties. Chapter 2: First Impressions and Contact To accomplish his first goal, Gorm started to read the description for everything on the status menu. With the new information, his understanding of his situation improved. He was a dungeon core now, a being that absorbed the mana in its vicinity to use as fuel for its growth. It not only used the mana for itself, but it also purified and enriched it. This better mana would then disperse through its entrance and fill the surroundings. It was like a gigantic, living mana purifier. As a dungeon Gorm had to build rooms and floors with various traps and monsters to protect itself from everything and everyone that wanted to harm him. To encourage letting him live in peace he could give out precious resources. Because although a dungeon core was useful for mages, if a dungeon could produce enough other useful things it would be more beneficial to let a dungeon live then to kill and rob its core. His high mana regeneration was something Gorm found quite extraordinary. It seemed impossible that it was normal that he could fill his entire mana pool four and a half hours. And he was right. The network of tubes was in actuality a gigantic formation that helped him gather mana faster. The downside of this was that unless he could outgrow its usage, the formation would limit his regeneration. This could become a problem relatively soon because unlike simply creating a floor, his mana pool would grow with each new room, tunnel or plant and unlike normal dungeons, his regeneration couldn¡¯t be improved by simply having more living, non-monster beings in his dungeon. But what interested Gorm the most wasn¡¯t the information about being a dungeon, but the ecosystem he earned and his new race. He had called the Endless Wilderness his home for most of his life, so he naturally felt elated that he had something that connected him to it. After getting all the information in regards to him being a dungeon and his purpose sorted out, he opened the information of the Endless Wildernessecosystem.
Ecosystem Endless Wilderness: The Endless Wilderness ecosystem is the upgraded version of the Magic Forest ecosystem, which is the upgrade of the Mystic Forest ecosystem. Due to having a room with an active, functioning ecosystem that is simulating a magic forest you gained the ecosystem Mystic Forest. The System detected a deep connection to the Endless Wilderness in the dungeon core, after comparing its knowledge about the Endless Wilderness with the Mystic Forest ecosystem, strong similarities were detected. The Mystic Forest ecosystem first got upgraded to Magical Forest and then to Endless Wilderness ecosystem. + additional 50% mana regeneration in rooms with this ecosystem active + 25% faster growth and higher birthrate for every non-monster living being everywhere + 150% defense to all trees in the entire dungeon - 75% mana cost to all plants that are included in the ecosystem, anywhere - 50% mana cost to all non-monster lifeforms, included in the ecosystem, anywhere - 25% mana cost to all monsters, included in the ecosystem, anywhere Endless Wilderness ecosystem is your standard ecosystem. Meaning that every new room will automatically be an Endless Wilderness ecosystem with no additional cost. That is unless you specifically want to use another one. You can¡¯t use any monsters, animals, plants or things that are unnatural. This setting is not changeable.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Gorm was shocked that his connection to his former home could influence the system. The effects looked good. Or at least he hoped that they were good. Even though he couldn¡¯t use anything unnatural it didn¡¯t bother him, in fact, he welcomed it. When he was still roaming the forests he always destroyed everything even remotely unnatural. Wasn¡¯t the reason he was in this situation that he wanted to cleanse the forest of some foul abomination? The next thing he wanted to know, was what the deal with his new race was.
Dungeon Core Oak: Due to fusing a dungeon core with a magical oak tree the new race Dungeon Core Oak was formed. This kind of dungeon core can¡¯t have any top-tier affinity except for nature. In return, the affinity gets amplified. You are the one and only dungeon core with this race in existence. + plants grow faster + animals breed faster + an aura of life will be emitted by your dungeon + without advanced mana sense it¡¯s impossible to distinguish your body from a normal oak
The information raised more questions than it answered. How did he fuse with the core, why did the formation get activated after he transferred his soul and how did he become a dungeon in the first place? Gorm had no answers, for now. Because he couldn¡¯t find any answers in the near future, he concentrated on his immediate problems like the only thing left to investigate; the lone intruder. Gorm concentrated on his still expanded perception and what he now knew was his body. The oak tree was something like his brain, but his actual body was the mountain with everything in it. Scanning his core room, that was what he learned his former prison was called, and overall the tubes without finding anything unusual, Gorm started to scan his forest. He called the gigantic room in the middle of his entire dungeon his forest because it reminded him of his former home and was actually his. After scanning over it a few times, he only found two anomalies. The first one was a huge, old tree and the second one was an area of about two meters where his perception couldn¡¯t reach. He could still see what there was but he couldn¡¯t scan the area like everything else in his dungeon. Gorm decided to investigate the first anomaly first while keeping an eye on the second. Shifting the bulk of his concentration from the entire forest to only the old tree, he started to investigate. The most obvious difference between this tree and normal trees was that it gave of may stronger mana signatures. And although the signatures were much stronger than normal they still felt like they were part of him like everything else in the forest. Probing deeper and deeper he discovered a similar bubble like when his perception first entered his forest. But this time it felt fragile and he had the feeling that he would never forgive himself if he tried to burst it. Gorm decided that he would push as gently as possible, he didn¡¯t want to hurt it. Suddenly he felt that the bubble had disappeared. Gorm was in panic. Had he destroyed it? But he couldn¡¯t push with less force. ¡®Hello?¡¯ said a little voice in his head. Gorm winced ¡®Who is there?¡¯ ¡®It¡¯s me, you woke me up.¡¯ said the same voice again, it sounded feminine. But he couldn¡¯t tell clearly. So he asked it. ¡®Who are you? Where are you?¡¯ he really did wonder how someone could speak in his head. ¡®I¡¯m here.¡¯ he could hear the same voice again. There still was no one around, but just as he wanted to ask again he saw a little girl step out of the giant tree. She looked like she was five years old and wore a dress made of leaves. Her hair was brown, her skin and eyes were both green. The skin light and the eyes dark green. Gorm had seen someone like her before, so he could easily identify her as a dryad. He never had seen a dryad that looked this young but the rest of her appearance matched. Together with the fact that she stepped out of a tree, he was sure that he was right. ¡®Hellolittle dryad. Why can you talk right into my mind?¡¯ he asked. ¡®Every dryad can do that, it¡¯s normal.¡¯ the little dryad answered. ¡®And I¡¯m not a little dryad! I¡¯m only small because my tree is an Elder Ash, I¡¯m already 7000 years old.¡¯ That made sense, from his few encounters with dryads, he knew that a dryad aged with her tree. They couldn¡¯t leave their tree until their mental age reached maturity. The only problem with them was, that they almost never were serious. Or at least he never met a dryad that could be serious for more than ten minutes. To his luck, they slept most of the time. ¡®I apologize! How did you end up here? I know that dryads can¡¯t occur naturally underground.¡¯ ¡®My mother put me here so that I can mature in peace. Because my tree is an Elder Ash I need a lot of time for that. Oh, thanks for infusing your mana into me for 500 years. Without you I would still need to sleep for another 1000 years till I could leave my tree.¡¯ the dryad was visibly happy about this fact. ¡®Your mother? I always thought dryads were birthed by nature.¡¯ Gorm was a bit confused. ¡®Why shouldn¡¯t we have mothers? We are not like nature spirits¡­ Oh, you are a dungeon, right?¡¯ Could you please name me? My mother told me, that if a dryad gets named by a dungeon it can grow faster. That is the reason I allowed you to integrate me into your dungeon.¡¯ the dryad had a hopeful look in her eyes. It seemed like she really wanted to be grown up fast. Gorm thought that there was probably more to this than the dryad explained. But he still decided to grant her wish, after all, she was the only person he could talk to. Not that he needed someone to talk to, he had spent up to a century without uttering a single word, it was that Gorm felt with the dryad. She was older than him but still looked like a little girl. Wasn¡¯t it just a simple name? Granting this wish was an easy decision for him. ¡®Ok, how do you want your name to be?¡¯ he asked. ¡®I don¡¯t know, you can choose. I¡¯ll tell you if I like it or not.¡¯ ¡®How about Melia?¡¯ Gorm asked. Chapter 3: Intruder and Future Troubles
Do you want to name Elder Ash Dryad Melia? Yes / No If you accept, Elder Ash Dryad will become your first boss.
Gorm concentrated back on the dryad and asked ¡®Do you like the name?¡¯ The dryad nodded, so he accepted. After waving away a congratulatory message, with a notification that he got five additional DPs. He concentrated on the Melia, who was standing closed eyed, to catch any changes. Two minutes later, nothing had happened yet, so Gorm focused on a new screen that had popped up.
Melia: As a young Elder Ash dryad her physical development is very slow, in return her magical potential is huge. Due to becoming a boss, all her abilities get a 50% boost. Due to becoming a boss she will mature 100% faster. Due to becoming a boss in a dungeon with a major nature affinity, her wood affinity will be upgraded into a nature affinity. This upgrade will take time. Time till finished: 299y:11m:30d:23h:57min:24sec
Gorm felt a bit sad that Melia would be asleep for 300 years. He had just met her and he didn¡¯t even know her yet. ¡®If I had known that, I...¡¯ his thoughts got could when Melia opened her eyes and her voice sounded in his head. ¡®Did something happen? Did I fall asleep again? Why does this always happen to me? At least I have a name now. I hope the nice dungeon man isn¡¯t mad at me.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯m not mad at you Melia, you only slept for five minutes. Do you feel any different? And my name is Gorm, not dungeon man.¡¯ Gorm laughed at her. The small dryad became red ¡®Oh, you heard that? Yes, I feel stronger, but I can¡¯t grasp it. But more importantly, I grew at least three centimeters! My mum was right, getting a name from a dungeon is great!¡¯ Gorm thought that it was quite funny to watch Melia trying to behave all grown up. ¡®Now that you mention it you seem taller.¡¯ he acknowledged. He continued to talk with her for a while, he discovered that besides sleeping Melia''s favorite activity was training small animals to do tricks. She told him that it was quite difficult to have any accomplishments in training when you¡¯re only a disembodied voice. After asking her if she wanted to try it again, now that she could leave her tree, Melia decided that she wanted start immediately. Gorm warned her to stay in the surroundings of her tree, he was going to investigate the second anomaly next and he didn¡¯t want her to get in danger. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Gorm watched Melias taming attempts for a bit before he finally shifted his concentration to the second anomaly.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Reexamining it, he discovered that the area of the anomaly had shrunken considerately. It almost seemed like it had detected his earlier probing and was trying to conceal itself even more. Thinking about his options, Gorm made the decision to use a similar approach to when he first approached Melia. If he was lucky the intruder wouldn¡¯t consider him an enemy. Only this time he would guard himself while doing it. After making the plan Gorm immediately started to act after it. He approached the anomaly with his consciousness until he found himself in front of a bubble again. The bubble made a weak impression, but Gorm could feel strength hidden underneath it. So he decided not to push, but to only touch the bubble. If nothing unexpected happened, he would try to communicate with whatever was hiding there. He carefully extended a bit of his consciousness to the bubble. When he touched it he stopped pushing and tried sending his intention to talk to the bubble. Gorm observed that when his intention reached the bubble, it changed for an instant. After waiting for a few minutes, the effect that kept him from seeing what was happening in the vicinity of the intruder started to fade. Another few minutes later he could finally see what exactly had intruded into his dungeon. At first, Gorm thought it was some kind of specter and he started to regret to be so nice to it. Specters were known to be of negative sentiments compressed by great magic power. They could not occur naturally and where often used by people and organizations with less than savory intentions. They were easy to distinguish from other ghost beings because unlike natural occurring ones, specters where completely see-through. But unlike when Gorm had encountered real specters, it didn¡¯t feel unnatural. Before he could investigate deeper into the issue, the ghost form started to talk. Although the voice also sounded in his mind as well, different to Melia''s voice it didn¡¯t feel as close to him. ¡®For a dungeon so old, you know surprisingly little about your abilities. If you want to know what I am, scan me with the help of the system¡¯ said an old, slightly arrogant sounding voice. Gorm tried it immediately, he even felt a little dumb that he didn¡¯t have this idea himself.
Death Elemental Spirit: Elemental Spirits are rare primal beings. They are responsible for keeping the mana balance and purity, but can¡¯t actively influence it. The Death Elemental Spirit is a higher spirit. It is currently in a weakened state.
¡®Are you really a death spirit? I thought you were only legends. How did you get here? How come that you are so weak?¡¯ Gorm was noticeably excited, it was probably every person¡¯s goal to one day meet a rare elemental spirit and he met an even rarer higher spirit. But, besides his excitement, he also had a lot of questions. ¡®To answer your first two questions, yes I really am a death spirit and no I am very real.¡¯ he made a pause, ¡®I¡¯m not really sure if I should tell you the answers to last two. But if you want to help me there is a way.¡¯ ¡®What way is that?¡¯ Gorm was exited, if the legends were true, then he would gain something by helping it. ¡®You could make a bond with me. If you decide to do so, I can be your advisor and answer some of your questions. But don¡¯t expect me to fight for you like some common monster.¡¯ The Spirit answered. ¡®How do I make a bond with you? I could use an advisor; I still don¡¯t get all this dungeon stuff.¡¯ ¡®You are a dungeon; you only have to use the system to concentrate on me. After I have the intention to make a bond with you a new option should pop up.¡¯ The spirit made a pause. ¡®Oh, and you need my name, I¡¯m called Seker, but call me Sek.¡¯ Gorm did as instructed and a new option really did pop up. He confirmed his intention. For a few seconds, nothing happened. But then he felt like a strand of his soul got pulled out and intertwined with something foreign, he couldn¡¯t quite describe the feeling. He felt a weak, dark but warm power flowing into his soul. At the same time, some of his power was seeping into the foreign entity. He was in a trance. The voice of Sek in his head woke him from his stupor. ¡®Wow, what a strong nature affinity! I don¡¯t think you profited much from this bond.¡¯ ¡®Ah, so the power that flowed into my soul was death affinity. Can you now tell me what happened to you?¡¯ ¡®Ok, the form you see now is not my real form, I got injured and had to escape. That was the main reason I allowed you to make a bond with me, I can heal and regain my power fast with the help of a dungeon.¡¯ Gorm wanted to know what exactly happened, so Sek retold his experiences of the last few years. He had been bonded to an uncorrupted undead dungeon, a rarity, for over 2000 years when he discovered that a group of magicians was preparing to take down his dungeons core. Dungeon cores were used in rituals to expand the mana pools of magicians. But as that was an unnatural process, only few used it. Sek didn¡¯t want to lose his bonded dungeon. Historically dungeons where the greatest allies for the Elemental spirits in their fight to uphold the mana balance and purity in the world. So he tried to warn it of the danger it was in, but he got ignored. When the time came that the magicians finally attacked, the dungeon saw its error, but it was too late to rectify it. As a form of apology, it released Sek of their bond. Somehow the group of magicians was able to sense that and split into two groups, one to get the core and the other to catch or kill the elemental spirit. It was then when it dawned on Sek that these weren¡¯t normal magicians but followers of a cult that tried to destroy the mana balance. He tried to flee, but only after a long fight could he finally escape their immediate influence. After being on the run for over a year he sensed a weak fluctuation of pure mana and followed it to its origin. This was how he discovered Gorm. But because he couldn¡¯t find an entrance he had to use his last strength to teleport into an open room in the dungeon. He then concealed himself for the next two years to not implicate the dungeon with his pursuers and heal from his injuries. Chapter 4: Observation and Planning Sek informed Gorm that he would need a few hundred years till he got all his power back, despite the help the bond provided. He would help Gorm build his dungeon. After hearing about the circumstances, which led to Gorm becoming a dungeon, Sek was enlightened. The process Gorm used to transform his soul into the oak tree, and subsequently into the mana crystal; which then led to him becoming a dungeon, was a ritual that could only be used if the comprehension and harmony with nature reached a peak. This could explain why his nature affinity was so abnormally high. But what really shocked Sek was what happened after Gorm had become a dungeon. He couldn¡¯t think of anything that could make such a violent and fast dungeon expansion possible. Maybe he could find out more when he could have a look at the core room. The only thing stopping him from doing so immediately was the lack of a way to get into the core room. A long discussion later, Gorm had finally accepted his new role in the world. He decided to do anything in his might to help Sek with his mission of upholding the balance. It felt great to finally have a greater reason than just to survive. Sek confirmed Gorms decision to build the first floor before using his DPs. He even made the suggestion to wait with major DP expenditure until he reached the tenth floor and unlocked specialties. That would help him decide what he really needed and what not. Sek explained that only after finishing the tenth floor would he have the chance to buy packages. Packages were more cost-effective and catered to the needs of the dungeon. That was when Gorm remembered that he could buy such a package. Sek instructed him to immediately check its information and then tell him what it said.
Natural Dungeon Package: Available due to having fused your nature attuned core with a Magic Oak, having a functioning ecosystem and being in possession of at least 50 DP. This package includes various abilities and specialties that will be added when you reach the required level to unlock them. This package includes various common ecosystems. This package includes various advanced ecosystems. This package includes various common monsters. This package includes various magical plants. This package includes the choice for one sapient monster species. This package includes various common building materials. This package includes various advanced building materials. If you buy this package all your creatures can¡¯t be sustained by mana only anymore. You have sure to cover all their necessities with regular means. This does not mean that your mana won¡¯t influence them anymore. It will still fasten their development and strengthen them among other things. Cost: 50 DP
When Sek heard this description he got excited. Despite its steep price, the package offered just too much of everything. He had seen dungeons with over 100 floors without even one functioning ecosystem. Ecosystems where one of the most important things for dungeons, if they wanted to grow fast and strong, they increased their mana pool and mana regeneration immensely. Besides that, they ensure that hardly mana is needed to maintain a room. Furthermore, many different ecosystems help with the purification of mana immensely. But even more important was the fact that he could already choose a sapient monster species, normally a dungeon had to reach level 100 to do so.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> After buying the natural package Gorm felt not unlike when he first awakened from his life as a mana battery. But because he was fully conscious, he felt information flowing into his mind. It was then, that he discovered the information to create the Endless Wilderness ecosystem and the monster packages he received. Gorm suddenly had the urge to build and create, but he managed to suppress this urge. He impatiently asked Sek what to do next. ¡®You should have had the urge to build and create right now, am I right? Dungeons are emotion driven beings, you might not have noticed it before, but after becoming a dungeon you got more emotional. If I recall what you told me about yourself before your soul transfer, you were more cool-headed. Now that you finally connected to the dungeon part of your mind these impulses will get more.¡¯ Sek had this theory from the start but after hearing Gorms impatient question he felt his theory confirmed. ¡®Is there any way to change that? I don¡¯t like the idea that I¡¯m at the mercy of my urges.¡¯ Gorm tried to be calm but the idea scared him, more than he cared to admit. He had always prided himself with his calm mind and seldom did something out of an impulse. The last time he did so he ended up trapped in a cave, before becoming a dungeon. ¡®I probably have a way to help you, normally this technique his only used on older dungeons. For it to function you have to build your first floor. Then I help you to get into a form of trance and after between 50 and 100 years you will wake up again and the urges to build and the same, will disappear.¡¯ What Sek didn¡¯t tell Gorm was that he would transfer a part of Gorms soul in various animals and plants. The reason the technique was only used on older dungeons because young ones normally had a too weak soul, but he didn¡¯t see a problem there with Gorm. Sek could have used the technique immediately, but he wanted Gorm to first build one floor so he could stabilize his core and soul. If he didn¡¯t do so, Gorm could develop multiple personalities after he woke up. Gorm saw some problems with the technique, but he believed that Sek wouldn¡¯t harm him, because that would harm himself. Sek had told him to build as he felt on his first floor, he would only comment on it after Gorm woke up from the technique. Gorm said goodbye and made the decision to start to build his floor after he checked on Melia. It was only a few hours since he had said goodbye to Melia and she was still trying to tame small animals. As a 7000-year-old dryad even a few weeks weren¡¯t a long time to her, so she still hadn¡¯t gotten bored. She told him that she already made a squirrel bring her a nut. Gorm didn¡¯t tell her that that was probably only because she had a strong nature aura and not because of her taming skills. When he told her that the intruder was a death spirit and now bonded to him, Melia wasn¡¯t too surprised. She had met various elemental spirits before. Among them was a nature spirit that told her mother about their objective and their practice of bonding with dungeons to achieve it. Gorm told her where to find Sek if she wanted to meet him. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Gorm focused back into his core room and started to make plans of what he wanted to build. When he was going through some of the new information he now had access to, he found that on the tenth floor he had to build an opening to the outside for it to be considered finished. So he had to plan with possibly hostile intruders in mind. He soon discovered that he didn¡¯t want his first floor on the level his core room was at. As he didn¡¯t want intruders in his forest, but if he built the first floor where he should, they would definitely find it. After some time he decided on a general dungeon layout. He would make the part of the mountain that was above the ground level of the cavity, that was his forest, into something where his creatures could live in peace. No intruder would come there. Beneath it, he would build normally, or at least accessible for adventurers and everyone else who wanted to come in there. He also wouldn¡¯t put his core oak in the lowest floor, he would move it to the highest, elevation-wise, floor possible. The first thing he did was to finalize the positioning of his 47 floors. Which was easy because they only consisted of the tubes that made up the mana absorption formation. These tubes couldn¡¯t be moved, so he actually was only moving the idea of a floor. He put the tenth floor to the level where he wanted the entrance to be and then floors one to nine above it. From there he switched between adding them above or beneath the other floors. The new first floor was approximately at the height of the first third of the room of his forest. While moving the floors around, Gorm discovered that the room that contained his forest wasn¡¯t bound to any floor. Which was quite practical to make his custom dungeon structure a reality. Now Gorm could finally start to build his first floor. Chapter 5: How to make a Dungeon Floor Because no one, that wasn¡¯t invited, would come in the upper part of his dungeon he could create more than one way up or down the dungeon. This saved Gorm from having to decide what kind of layout his floor had to have before he could start to build it. He could start and build any way he wanted. At first, Gorm only wanted to make a small room to test out how the creation of plants and animals functioned, but when he started he could instinctively create everything he imagined. After this realization, he scrapped that idea and decided to build a basic layout of rooms and tunnels first. Gorm created small, random cavities all over the first floor. Then he connected them randomly until every cavity had at least two connections and they build a large cycle after he filled them with water. Next, he dumped water in all of them and started to cycle them through the network. Because Gorm used a lot of force to move the water eroded the stone at a fast pace. After each cycle, Gorm had to remove a lot of loose stone and sand from the water. His intention for doing this was to counter repetition and create natural looking rooms and tunnels in his dungeon. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Time flew by and as Gorm got more proficient at this work, he could do other things at the same time. At first, he only planned the next steps for the first floor, but he soon discovered that even his enhanced erosion wasn¡¯t fast. So he started to chat with Melia and Sek. Although Sek did not really want to comment on his progress, he still praised Gorm for his creative idea. Almost five years after he started creating the rooms and tunnels, he finally was satisfied with the look and size of them. What pleased him the most were the places where the water dug a way through the wall of the forest room. The resulting waterfalls gave the forest a mysterious feel to it. After seeing them the first time Gorm immediately wanted to close them again, but Melia loved them so much that she threatened to never talk to him again if he destroyed them. So they were still there and after he had accustomed himself to them, they became one of his favorite parts of the dungeon. He liked them so much that he made the decision to upgrade his forest after he finished with the 47 floors he now had available. The cave system that now made up the first floor consisted of six big elongated rooms that were connected to each other through numerous tunnels and small rooms. Gorm observed the terrain carefully before he started to implement his plans. He had decided to make the first floor river-themed. First Gorm searched for a nice route that connected all rooms and made a circle before he deepened it a few meters and filled it with water, the second step was to create tributaries all over the rest of the floor. The third step was to connect the waterfall holes to the river system, lest Melia stopped talking to him. Then he made the water flow, he could move this little water easily and he had the hope that he would unlock the ability to make water flow automatically after he finished the first floor. With the river system in place, it was time to populate it with fish, insects, and plants. To do so, Gorm didn¡¯t plant plants or created adult animals, he created seeds and eggs and put them in the water to grow and mature by themselves. This method was easily possible because there were few mammals in the water, and those that were, he would create when he started to populate the land area. He already had set aside one room for beavers to inhabit. Beavers had always fascinated him. After he finished distributing the seeds and eggs Gorm let them be and informed Sek of his progress, he hoped that Sek would comment his work again. He was pretty disappointed that the only reaction he got was the question of why. But after Gorm explained his reasons to Sek, Sek seemed impressed which appeased Gorm. He had specifically not used the system to populate the rivers, because he thought if he had the chance to let everything grow and settle where nature deemed it best, he would get a more natural environment than any system could ever give him. Gorm also had the feeling, that he would have a deeper connection to his dungeon if he didn¡¯t rely on the system too much. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->>The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. For half a year the only thing Gorm did, was to spread plant seeds, fish and insect eggs and to observe the development of life in his river system. The river waters were now teeming with animal life that fed on the seeds and eggs he distributed regularly, but the plants wouldn¡¯t grow. At first, he thought they just needed time but now he knew that something was wrong. Only after observing the forest room for a few months, did he discover the missing factor. It was light. The forest room had sun stones all over its ceiling and upper part of the walls. Sun stones not only gave off light but also warmth, they almost perfectly mimicked the sun. After his enlightenment, he installed sun stones in the ceilings of the first floor. Only one week later the rivers exploded with plant life. They grew so well that he had to switch off the sun stones for almost half the day every day before he got the problem under control. This created a new problem, when he finally started to populate the land, the animals would be unable to see anything. After thinking for a bit and searching through the materials Gorm had available he discovered moon stones that mimicked the moon. After installing them Gorm created a 14-hour day and a 10-hour night. The feature worked so well that he implanted it in the forest room. Much to the delight of Melia. Even Sek seemed happier. With the basic things clarified he started to plant a few trees and other plants, he matured them till they could distribute seeds. Then Gorm tried to use strong winds to disperse them, but unlike water, where things could float, wind didn¡¯t work. The only thing Gorm could think of, to get a more naturally populated room, was to fill one big room with all the plants, animals and insects he wanted on his floor. Then he only had to wait for them to spread. If by this point the first room wasn¡¯t to his liking, he would destroy everything in it and wait until it was populated again. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Gorm started with selecting which ecosystem he wanted to use and decided to start with a common one. If possible he wanted it to develop to a higher tier on its own, or at least with as little help as possible. After careful consideration, he picked the common riparian forest. It suited the situation on the first floor and didn¡¯t conflict with the Endless Wilderness Ecosystem. Before he started to plant he created a few more streams to simulate nature more closely. Gorm first planted reed and a few types of bushes near the river shores. Then he chose different softwoods like willows, alders, and poplars. At this point, he decided to implement floods on a regular basis. He had discovered that riparian forests often experienced flooding on shore close parts of the forests when he had looked at the descriptions of the trees he had picked. After the softwood zone was finished he created a hardwood zone which he let go over into normal forest. With most of the plants finished he created a few animals to serve as the start of his wildlife. After adding insects Gorm started to observe the floor. He felt like something was missing, but couldn¡¯t point out what. He kept tweaking things, but the feeling that something was missing never left Gorm. Without any idea what to do, he turned to Sek for advice but got rejected. Without other option, he asked Melia for help. She agreed to help him if he promised to create a lake close to her tree for her. Melia had discovered a new hobby besides playing with animals, swimming. After she kept pestering Sek to play with her, because Gorm was busy creating his first floor, Sek had thrown her into a nearby lake. He then had to save her because she couldn''t swim, so he taught her how to. Since then she had a new passion. When Melia stepped foot in the first floor she was really excited. There were so many places to swim. But Gorm reminded her of her job, so she reluctantly left the river shore. As soon as Melia saw the forest she knew what Gorm meant when he said that something wasn¡¯t right. The trees weren¡¯t as green as they should be. Almost immediately she knew what happened. Gorm had long told her everything about the system and his available ecosystems, so she knew that he could automatically create different ecosystems and the corresponding biomes. She knew that Gorm didn¡¯t use this option, so the explanation was easy, he didn¡¯t have fertile soil. The only solution was to use the system to convert all the soil into fertile soil. Because he was at it he transformed the riverbed into the system version too. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> One year later the first floor was finally completely populated. Gorm had changed the things he didn¡¯t like in this year. The floor was now teeming with life. Everything looked healthy. His favorite part of the floor was the beaver room. They had built a huge dam and a lot of castles. Even the first and only monster on the first floor was a beaver. It was the first of his kind in the dungeon which made him also the oldest. It was exceptionally smart, Sek had told Gorm that it was at the cusp of becoming sapient. When Melia first saw it, she immediately fell in love with it and would always swim with it. Beavers were her favorite animals altogether. Thanks to them she could play with animals while swimming. Chapter 6: Abilities and other Information Gorm waited a few more months before he finally declared the first floor as finished. He got a message that he now had a complete first floor and that abilities got unlocked. To find out what abilities he had he only had to open his status.
Status
Name Gorm Title Natural Dungeon
Race Dungeon Core Oak Floors 47 Rooms 27
Age 531 years DP 23
Level 1 (47)
Mana 278 020 / 300 000
Affinities Nature Mana Regeneration 500 per min
Specialties -
Abilities Natural Dungeon Advanced Environment Creation Cycle Creation Growth Spurt
Ecosystems Endless Wilderness Riparian Forest Common River Monsters 27 Sapients -
Bosses Melia (Elder Ash Dryad)
Bonded Creatures Seker (Death Spirit)
Intruders -
Naturally, Gorm first checked his abilities and he was very disappointed that he only got four. He figured that the Natural Dungeon ability was from the natural dungeon package, so he only had three skills he earned himself. To calm himself down, he looked over the rest of his status. The new title interested him the most, but when he inspected what it did, he was disappointed to find out it only listed the restrictions and rules that came with purchasing the natural dungeon package. The only thing that appeased him was the fact that it had a tag that said that it was evolvable under the right circumstances. What shocked Gorm was, that he only got 26 new rooms. He had created at least triple that number. After calming down a little, he inspected the first floor again and discovered that some big tunnels that connected counted as extensions of rooms. For example, the entire ring of rooms that had the main river in them was one big room. So 26 rooms were quite impressive. In the process of finding this out, he discovered, that he could inspect the entire floor and comprehensive information would be displayed.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
1st Floor: Rooms: 26 Ecosystems: Riparian Forest and Common River Size: ~ 6 000 km2 Sapients: - Monsters: 1 Appearance: The entire floor is shaped like a gigantic torus. A circular river with lots of tributaries builds the center of the floor. The land area is filled with forests. There are a lot of side rooms to the big center room.
Gorm focused on the rest of his status again and noticed that he had more than the 17 DPs he should have, then he remembered that he got some messages for rewards while he was building the first floor. But what he saw next made him happy and helpless at the same time, his mana pool had increased to 300 000 but his regeneration was still 500 mana per minute. After only one floor his mana capacity had already increased two times, he now finally saw the real problem he would have in the future. The only positive that he could win this situation was that the upkeep for the dungeon didn¡¯t strain his mana. That Melia and Sek where in the boss and bound creature section respectively didn¡¯t surprise Gorm, but only three ecosystems did. Only after rereading the description did he remember that it only showed active ecosystems. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> After looking over the status and investigating how the system classified rooms, Gorm found Sek. He wanted him present when he found out what his abilities did. In case he got any questions. First, he wanted to know what he got from the package he had bought.
Natural Dungeon: This ability is the summary of all standard dungeon abilities and some of the abilities included in the natural dungeon package. It enables the dungeon to use all included abilities with great skill. Included abilities: Absorption Matter Creation Life Bestowal : : Creature Evolution All abilities included were reworked to be more natural in their effects.
Different from what Gorm had thought, the Natural Dungeon ability also included skills he had earned himself. Another surprise was that all basic dungeon abilities were included in it. So Gorm didn¡¯t have to buy them later. This was a pleasant surprise. Now the next three skills had to be good also and Gorms luck would be complete.
Advanced Environment Creation: This ability allows the dungeon to create any environment with great ease. This is the advanced version of the rare ability environment creation. Due to the ability Natural Dungeon, it includes an option for a more natural creation, for example, terrain.
Cycle Creation: This ability allows the dungeon to incorporate different cycles in its design. For example, day and night, weather phenomena; like rain and wind; and seasons. Unique ability that got created because the first floor includes a cycle (day and night).
The next two abilities had surprisingly simple descriptions, but Sek made clear that it was quite the feat to have an advanced ability. More so if it was a rare one. It was rare to find a dungeon with 100 floors with an ability like this, let alone a unique ability. Despite being bonded to a dungeon for over 2000 years and it having a lot more floors than Gorm, his old dungeon didn¡¯t have a unique ability. Now only the last ability was left to examine.
Growth Spurt: This ability is inherent to Dungeon Core Oaks. It passively boosts the growth of all plants by 100%. It also allows boostingof the growth of a target plant to 1000% of its normal growth rate.
It sounded a lot like the description of his race, so Gorm thought that it was only there to represent his innate trait, but Sek informed him that it wasn¡¯t a representation but an ability which effects were additional. Short, it was one hell of an ability. It seemed like the other abilities were way better, but due to its passive effect, it outdid them. Gorm learned that passive abilities were very rare and dungeons seldom had them. They worked even if there was no mana left or intruders on a floor. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Sek and Gorm discussed Gorms new abilities a bit longer. But Gorm wanted to rid himself of the urges he experienced as soon as possible now that he stabilized his soul and core. So he urged Sek to begin the procedure. But Sek told him he needed a bit of time to prepare. With nothing else to do, Gorm created a system of small cavities and tubes on the second floor similar to what he had done on the first floor. Then he filled them with water but different to the first floor, he only moved the water in the part he wanted the main river to be. He then proceeded to connect the second floor to the first floor. He made a waterfall on one of the many tributaries of the first floor. It then dawned him that even if land was created on the second floor, nothing could grow there because there was no light. The solution he came up with was to randomly spawn sun and moon stones all over the second floor. When they got dug out plants could grow around them. He hoped that would create an interesting scenario. He would probably get a lot of monsters. Normal animals only became monsters if they had to fight hard to survive and bested a lot of dangers or they were extraordinarily clever. The beaver on the first floor that became a monster fell into the second category. With only limited light sources animals would have to fight for these oases of light. And animals would become monsters more frequently. Because he could automate the flowing of water, thanks to his new abilities, Gorm had decided to let his dungeon develop freely in the next 50 to 100 years. The only rule he set, another new ability he had gotten, that nothing in his dungeon was allowed to attack Melia, Sek, and the monster beaver. Melia and Sek were a no-brainer, but the beaver was more out of curiosity. He wanted to know how far the beaver could go without fighting. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Sek had finally finished his preparations, Gorm had said goodbye to Melia and everything in the dungeon was settled. Gorm withdrew his entire perception back into the oak tree and Sek started to chant words in a strange language. The last thing Gorm thought before his conciseness faded, was that his dungeon would develop nicely and Melia and Sek could live in peace while he was asleep. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Sek had just finished the ritual to start Gorms soul trial. Now he could only wait. He returned to the forest room. Sek was fascinated by this room. It shouldn¡¯t exist. He didn¡¯t feel anything artificial about it, but how could nature create something like it? No matter how he thought about it, it didn¡¯t make sense. Sek wandered through the forest room and the first and second floor. He felt strange while watching the lush plants and healthy animals. Before he came to Gorms dungeon he only felt safe with death around. While there certainly was death around him, it wasn¡¯t what comforted him. Everything did. The cycle of life and death could be observed and Sek felt comforted by this fact. Walking aimlessly, eventually led him to the beaver room. He watched Melia play with the beavers. She was trying to teach some young ones to swim. But because beavers can¡¯t swim like humanoids, she kept failing. Despite that, she never gave up. While Sek watched her he felt unlike ever before. He knew it didn¡¯t have anything to do with Melia in particular, but he couldn¡¯t pinpoint the reason. Sek continued to walk aimlessly and observing his surroundings. That he couldn¡¯t figure out what had changed didn¡¯t bother him, he had at least 50 years to slowly figure it out. Chapter 7: War, Peace and Everything in Between Beabea hoped that the dungeon, or how Melia called it, Gorm would soon wake up again. His clansmen had difficulties with holding back the boar clans that tried to push their way into the first floor. They had a huge number of monster boars and their leader was close to becoming a sapient. The only reason they hadn¡¯t stepped foot on the first floor was that Beabea already was a sapient and could train and command the Beavers¡¯ way more effectively than his adversaries. If Gorm was awake he could try to convince him, that monsters from the second floor couldn¡¯t come up to the first floor. With the help from Melia, Beabea was quite confident. Melia was completely team beaver, how could she allow ugly boars to attack her favorite animals. Especially because her cute Beabea was their leader. She had given him this name when he just had upgraded. The upgrade not only gave the beaver vastly improved intellect, the ability to speak and huge power boost, it also reverted him back into a baby beaver. Since then Beabea had grown a lot, but he was still only the size of a young beaver. All this made him Melia''s favorite and it cost him. Every day he had to play with Melia for at least an hour. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> When Gorm just fell asleep, Beabea was still a huge monster beaver just short of becoming sapient and it probably would have stayed like this for a long time. There was a common river turtle that had mutated into a monster, its rapid increase in intelligence made it seem like it would become sapient before him. But because Gorms plan for the second floor worked a bit too good, the first floor soon saw itself invaded by monsters from below. At first, the beavers stood no chance, their only luck was that no monster could attack their leader, Beabea. Otherwise, they would have been destroyed completely. Under the stress of the constant attacks Beabea finally broke through and after receiving Melias ¡°care¡±, he started to lead his kin. He developed traps and revised new dams and castles that maximized defense. Through this help, they started to regain ground. And with the help of Melia, who vowed to send Sek for everyone that harmed the young of the beavers, they slowly recovered their population. Only that they now had several monsters. A few years into the ongoing war between the second floor and the beavers, the second ever monster on the first floor, the river turtle, had a breakthrough and became sapient. It started to support Beabea and became his advisor and commander. Soon they had an absolute advantage against the second floor. Especially because internal strife had broken out on the second floor. Grasping this chance, the turtle commanded a group of beavers to ambush some of the nearest light oases. They killed everything that lived there, including young, old and crippled animals. It was the biggest massacre thus far. So it was only natural that the death spirit Sek discovered it. Despite him staying out of everything that happened, he decided to uncover what had led to something so senseless. He found out about Melia''s rule concerning the young beavers. After he scolded her for this unfair rule, he changed it so that it protected every living being that was defenseless as long as it wasn¡¯t hunted for food. The turtle that had commanded the atrocity was also punished. From then on it wasn¡¯t allowed to take part in any fighting and Sek took it with him when he went into seclusion again. The new rule caused the strife on the second floor to develop into a full on war. Because the defenseless couldn¡¯t be killed anymore, an endless circle of revenge killings was created. The first floor took this chance and solidified their defenses and strength. When Sek got wind of this circumstance he was shocked. He always thought he would never make a mistake like this. No matter how hard he thought he couldn¡¯t find a way to change the rule to stop this vicious cycle. He needed a second take on this problem. Sek didn¡¯t want to ask Melia and Beabea was too involved to have an objective opinion. So his only option left was the turtle. It had become calmer and more foresighted while in seclusion with him.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. After a bit of thought, the turtle had the idea that it could travel on the second floor and collect the defenseless, especially the children and teach them peaceful ways. Sek liked the idea and gave his go, but decided to stay around to observe how it worked. He didn¡¯t want something like after his last intervention to happen again. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> The river turtle had changed while in seclusion. Now he couldn¡¯t even understand how he could ever make that decision. His main goal with the suggestion he made to Sek was to repent and make his home a better place. To never forget this new goal, he gave himself the name Keeper. Keeper knew his name wasn¡¯t very original and if Melia found out she would probably scold him for picking such a stupid name, but he didn¡¯t care. He now had a mission. And it was more important than his name. And so his journey began. He had to brave a lot of difficulties. In most places, he wasn¡¯t welcome and sometimes the owners of an oasis of light would even try to hunt him down. But he still managed to pick up some abandoned and orphaned children. The one that left the deepest expression on him was a basically newborn badger. Its clan had been wiped out by a herd of wisents. They stood no chance against the huge animals that were one of the only nomadic species on the second floor. The only time they came to an oasis was when they were about to have young in their herd. And the badger clan was unlucky enough to have their home chosen. When the herd left three days after the fight, there were only ten badgers still alive and only two weren¡¯t injured. One was a nearly blind old badger and the other one was the newborn. Despite Keepers efforts, the eight injured animals died only two days later. The old badger decided to follow the turtle together with the newborn. After spending some time with them Keeper found out, that the badger was a nearly sapient monster. It got blinded when dug up a sun stone by accident. While wandering around with his always growing entourage, Keeper kept looking for a place to stay. He didn¡¯t want the young animals to grow up on the road. But he never found a place to stay. One day he discovered a half-dead stork after searching for survivors of a raid on an oasis. Keeper managed to nurse him back to health. Out of gratitude, he led them to a small opening in a wall. When Keeper started to question what they wanted there a second stork stepped out of the opening. Soon they were led into a tunnel, after several turns, they arrived in a big cave. The cave was completely lit, several sun and moon stones covered the ceiling. The vegetation was lush and there seemed to be no traces that indicated a lot of animal life in it. Short, it was the ideal place for Keeper to build his bastion of peace. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> In the beginning, Sek didn¡¯t think that the Turtle could change anything, but only one year after Keeper began his journey, Sek could already see a difference. Nonetheless, he kept observing. Sek soon discovered that all the animals, but especially mammals, were much more intelligent than they should be. And not only on the second floor but also on the first floor. To verify this, he continued to watch the dungeon. But to his surprise, they weren¡¯t only already smarter, but they kept getting smarter. Sek couldn¡¯t find any natural reason for this and even after considering all the things Gorm could do he couldn¡¯t find the cause. He would have to talk with Gorm about it after he woke up. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> As the organization Keeper founded spread over the second floor, the fighting started to slow down. So much so, that some clans started to attack the first floor again. The constant fighting had increased the number of monsters on the second floor, so they had a huge numbers advantage, even with only one or two clans attacking together. But The beavers didn¡¯t sit still in all this time, Under the leadership of Beabea, they developed many new traps and other defensive buildings. Some elites had also been sent to the second floor to become stronger there, so they could easily defend against all invaders. This only changed when a monster boar, that was incredibly close to becoming sapient, appeared in a boar clan. It started to gather more and more boar clans around itself before it started to attack. It ruthlessly sent normal boars first, as to discover and destroy all the traps. Then it sent a lot of monsters to fight the beavers. Thanks to the good preparation, the Beavers could still hold on, but who knew how long. That was the reason that Beabea wanted Gorm to wake up again. With Gorm present, he could negotiate a truce. Maybe more with the help of Melia. When Beabea was deep in thoughts he suddenly felt a wave of pure mana rushing over the entire dungeon. He knew Gorm had woken up. Chapter 8: Waking up and Problem Solving Gorm woke up with a huge headache, he felt terrible. But he also didn¡¯t feel the need to immediately build a new floor. His urges weren¡¯t completely gone, but they had toned down to an acceptable level. He had a new feeling of control, like he could, for the first time since becoming a dungeon, decide what to do and how to do it. After collecting his thoughts for a while, he turned his perception outwards. The first Gorm wanted to contact was Melia. She was playing with a small beaver, which felt remarkably like the first monster from the first floor. Gorm wondered how it shrunk from a giant monster beaver to this new, small, size. But this could wait, first, he would greet Melia and Sek. Then he would concentrate on what had happened in the dungeon. Melia was overjoyed that Gorm was back. But immediately started to complain about a hog clan that was bothering the beavers. She demanded him to make the fighting stop. Melia wanted peace and quiet when playing with her little beavers. Because Gorm didn¡¯t know what was going on, he promised her to consider it and fled from her ceaseless talking. He then searched for Sek and found him floating around on the second floor. Gorm almost wasn¡¯t able to recognize him, Sek wasn¡¯t black anymore. He now was a blackish grey. With his color the aura he gave of had changed, Sek felt more approachable and a lot calmer than before. Sek''s reaction to Gorm waking up was the opposite of Melia. He only greeted him back but didn¡¯t say anything else until Gorm asked him about his change. But Sek didn¡¯t know the reason, he had noticed that he was changing, but didn¡¯t know why. So Gorm asked him what Melia meant when she wanted him to stop some hogs from attacking the beavers. To answer the question Sek told him what had happened in his 87-year absence from the dungeon. When Sek finished his narration, Gorm was stunned. To have 2 new sapients was huge but more shocking was that all his animals seemed so intelligent. How could animals form clans and tribes, they sometimes even had members from other species. He would need to investigate that phenomenon in depth. Gorm also appreciated the rule that helpless animals had to be spared in fights and wars between tribes and clans. So he made the rule official. But he also added a new rule, it was to keep the sanctuary that Keeper developed safely. In the future he wanted Keeper to do his work not only on the second floor but in the entire dungeon. He then returned to Melia and the beaver, he now knew was Beabea, to ask them about their idea to make the fighting between floors stop. He then visited Keeper to ask him the same thing. After listening to their ideas, Gorm pondered for a solution that felt right to him. He had the idea to make the floor wars a monthly event that lasted one week. That would give the weaker first floor time it needed, while still keeping them on the edge. With this arrangement, Gorm hopped to keep the number of newly mutating monsters up, while giving them enough time to develop and fortify their strength. If it worked out like intended, he would implement this in all his future floors. Or at least for the part that was not accessible for outsiders. Because he wanted these floor wars to have a meaning, Gorm would make some floors more desirable for certain species than for others. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> With Melia''s request settled, Gorm focused on Sek''s discovery. He wanted to find out why the animals in his dungeon were so intelligent. So he observed their behavior. Some animal species, like the beavers and badgers, that originally were relatively intelligent and lived in groups, had developed simple languages to communicate among themselves. Despite searching for a reason for over a year, Gorm couldn¡¯t find one. So he decided to build his third floor. If the animals still showed the abnormal intelligence, he would at least know that it applied to new floors as well. From there he could then keep searching. Gorm wanted the third floor to be a normal forest, but he liked the connection between the first and second floor so he created a one on the third floor. It would be one of the few water sources on the floor. He then proceeded to make more rooms. He didn¡¯t use the method of the first two floors but tried the abilities he had. After he woke up, he didn¡¯t feel like the abilities of a dungeon were unnatural anymore. He had understood that an uncorrupted dungeon was closer to nature than everything except for elemental spirits.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. He created a huge room with the connection to the second floor and the river as a center. Then he created similar rooms all over the floor, he wanted more than one connection between the two floors. It would make the war less centralized. Gorm hoped this would increase the number of new monsters. The gigantic rooms were connected with numerous tunnels and smaller rooms. With the basic layout done, Gorm selected the common forest ecosystem and started to place some plants in all the rooms. He then scattered a few other water sources on the floor. With that finished he waited a year so that the plants could fully populate the floor. One year later he started to spawn some animals, he made sure that they had normal intelligence. This time around he also spawned one monster on the floor, a common mouse. He wanted to find out if it also developed a greater intelligence. With his floor set up finished, Gorm only had to wait till the wildlife spread over the entire floor and a few more monsters were around before he introduced the floor war. He would make sure that in the beginning, only the third floor could attack the second floor and not the other way around. Two years later Gorm felt it was time for the first floor war between the second and third floor. Until this point he could only observe slight increases in intelligence among the population of the third floor. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> With nothing to do anymore, Gorm looked at his status. He hadn¡¯t done so since he woke up.
Status
Name Gorm Title Natural Dungeon
Race Dungeon Core Oak Floors 47 Rooms 109
Age 622 years DP 42
Level 3 (47)
Mana 98 020 / 580 000
Affinities Nature Mana Regeneration 500 per min
Specialties -
Abilities Natural Dungeon Advanced Environment Creation Cycle Creation Growth Spurt Creature Maturation Clear Headed
Ecosystems Endless Wilderness Riparian Forest Common River Light Oases Common Forest Monsters 9567 Sapients 2
Bosses Melia (Elder Ash Dryad)
Bonded Creatures Seker (Death ??? Spirit)
Intruders -
The most shocking thing about his new status was that Sek''s race had changed. But his information wasn¡¯t different. Gorm would have to talk with Sek about this later. The increase in rooms, the huge number of monsters and the new ecosystems were easy to explain. But the increase in DP and the new abilities weren¡¯t. After a bit of investigation, he found out that the new DPs were rewards, for example for the creation of a completely new ecosystem. The abilities were harder to investigate, but he found out, that he gained the creature maturation ability 35 years into his sleep and the calm mind ability when he woke up. Now he only had to find out what they did.
Creature Maturation: Due to the extremely fast pace at which your creatures become monsters you gained the ability to forcefully advance any animal in your dungeon to sapient. Passively advances the probability of any creature advancing to a monster by 50%.
Calm Mind: Due to a special ritual and the help of an elemental spirit you got rid of most of your urges and gained a calm mind. Due to your calm mind, everything costs 25% less mana.
Gorm was stunned. He had gained two more passive abilities. Since he found out that anything passive was normally rare and good, Gorm was thinking of ways to obtain more passive abilities. He didn¡¯t think it would be this easy. But he figured that it wouldn¡¯t be that easy under normal circumstances. With that sorted, he found Sek again. Chapter 9: Realization and Solution Gorm confronted Sek with his changed race, but Sek still tried to avoid the subject. So Gorm could only let him be. If someday he wanted to talk about it, he would tell him. But Gorm still stayed a bit and observed Sek. He discovered that Sek wasn¡¯t emitting a pure death aura anymore. It felt more complete. A bit like a nature aura only purer, which shouldn¡¯t be possible, as nature was the highest level element possible. Gorm shelved the topic for later investigations and went back to observing his dungeon. He let a few floor wars pass but kept the main part of his perception trained on the third floor. He had learned to keep his entire dungeon in his perception. Only to observe things in more detail did he need to concentrate. After the few floor wars, the inhabitants of the third floor started to catch up to the inhabitants of the other two floors in terms of intelligence. Which indicated that he could replicate intelligent animals in his entire dungeon. This, in turn, made him think about the implications of using them as cannon fodder against adventurers and other invaders. Before he opened his dungeon to the world, he would need to find a way to create creatures with normal intellect, or he would feel bad. This new problem was hard to solve alone so he asked every sentient being in his dungeon for help. These talks, especially those with Beabea and Keeper, cemented his resolve to not use his intelligent animals as his soldiers. Or at least as long as no one found his way into the upper part of the dungeon. After countless fruitless days, Gorm turned to the system store for a solution. After a bit of searching the ability and creature store without finding anything, he was quite upset. Then he thought that if he couldn¡¯t find a way to make his animals stupider, he still could search for ways to make them more intelligent. Maybe he would feel better with them fighting for him if he made them more capable of defending themselves. The new search under the parameter to increase the intelligence of the creatures in his dungeon was also fruitless. When he was about to give up, Gorm remembered that he still was allowed to pick a sentient monster species. After going over the different options he picked out three of them.
Animal Evolution (humanoid): Animals can now evolve more easily to monster and sentient. They now are able to evolve even further. Option to become a humanoid animal unlocked.
Animal Evolution (divine): Animals can now evolve more easily to monster and sentient. They now are able to evolve even further. Option to become a beast unlocked. Option to become a divine beast unlocked.
Animal Evolution (open): Animals can now evolve more easily to monster and sentient. They now are able to evolve even further. Animals can now devolve. Option to become a lesser beast unlocked. Option to become a beast unlocked. Option to become a humanoid animal unlocked. Option to become a divine beast unlocked. Option to become a humanoid beast unlocked.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Gorm would ask Keeper and Beabea what they thought was better. But he was inclined to pick the first option. Humanoid animals were rare in the outside world. Despite Gorms more than 3000 years of life, he had only ever seen one humanoid animal. It was a mouse and one of the wisest creatures he had ever met. Humanoid animals were vastly more intelligent than sentient animals and normal beasts. They were able to build flourishing communities with different species and were able to use the same methods as most other humanoids to increase their strength. Their only disadvantage was, that they normally had very poor talent when it came to practicing. Beasts, on the other hand, were very talented and strong, but had no human form and needed their own methods to increase their strength beyond their bloodlines. Divine beasts were as intelligent as humanoid animals and way stronger, but almost no chances to advance significantly after reaching that level. Only animals with the natural potential to become divine beasts, they were called divine animals, could become really powerful. But only very few races and species were this lucky. Dragons were one of them and among the most powerful. Gorm had never heard of humanoid beasts before and the description of them was not very helpful. It only stated that they were beasts that appeared almost completely human. That wasn¡¯t really enticing for Gorm. If someday he would need to send someone to investigate he would simply buy the ability to summon them for 20 DP. He remembered that he saw that option when he was looking through the store. The main reasons he didn¡¯t look favorably on the open animal evolution, were that it would enable devolution for his animals. And more importantly, make it possible for lesser beasts to appear. They were way stronger than any normal beast or monster and were completely instinct driven. They would attack anyone. That wouldn¡¯t be that bad if he could command them to not attack anyone or go to the lower floors to act as defenders for the public part of the dungeon. But the information told him that wouldn¡¯t be possible. They would obey no one. Gorm would have Beabea and Keeper make the final decision, they were the ones that would be affected by said decision. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Beabea was in favor of option one but in general he didn¡¯t care. As long as he could get more intelligent. Keeper on the other side wanted to become stronger to protect even more helpless animals. So he favored option two. But he too didn¡¯t really care. Without a real decision, Gorm found Sek and asked him the same question. Sek almost exploded. After calming down a little he made sure that Gorm hadn¡¯t made a decision already. Then he explained why he was so worked up. Humanoid beasts are the absolute pinnacle of animal evolution with great power. They were able to do anything a human could do, were supremely talented and were able to switch between their human and any animal form. Or better any animal from they ever had. That meant that if a normal mouse could become a humanoid beast, it could transform into any form it ever had. They were so rare that even Sek had only heard stories about them. So despite the less than desirable chance of lesser beasts occurring, the third option was by far the best. Sek told Gorm that it shouldn¡¯t be possible for such a good option to appear bevor 500 floors. Gorm didn¡¯t hesitate anymore and selected the open animal evolution. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Since Gorm picked the animal evolution 13 years had passed. In that time Gorm had created two more floors. They had similar themes to the second and third floor, as they too had a lack of needed resources. After this concept worked so good in the predecessor floors Gorm decided to use it again. The fourth floor had a powerful sun stone in the middle of each major room and only moon stones everywhere else. The fifth floor was a steppe with only a few smaller rooms that had forests and a reliable water source. In the last 13 years, the decrease in difficulty to evolve into a monster and basic sentients showed itself. Especially the first and second floor were crowded with monsters and sentients. But the three new floors also profited and developed at a much faster pace. Keeper had been the first to break past the sentient stage and evolved into a beast. Gorm had also expanded the operation of his organization to all floors except the first. Beabea followed Keeper closely, just one month later he evolved into the first humanoid beaver. Much to the distress of Melia. She disliked his new form and searched for a new beaver to cuddle with. An indirect consequence of the higher evolution rate was the introduction of a general language. Keeper and Beabea had developed it together and thanks to the high amount off sentients were able to spread it everywhere. Gorm found it so convenient that he made it compulsory for anyone that could learn it, to learn it as soon as possible. In arrangement with Sek, Gorm introduced some other rules too. The most impactful one was that everyone had to do anything in his or her might to stop or kill a lesser beast should there ever be one. To their luck, in the entire 13 years, there never was one. Another important rule was that criminals would be sent to the tenth floor, or a floor under it. If they could survive, they would be allowed to come back up. He also designed a few of the rules that would only be used on floor ten and under. Like that no one could ever divulge anything that had something to do with the upper floors. Unless Gorm specifically allowed it. He also forbade leaving the dungeon. Sek had told him about some cases were dungeons got destroyed because monsters wandered out. If a dungeon started to spill creatures it normally was corrupted. And corrupted dungeons were terminated as soon as possible after they got found out. Sorry for disappearing without any notice. Originally I only wanted to go hiking for a week, but at the end of the week, I decided to move on for a week longer. Actually, I should have told you already. Overall, the second week was a stupid decision. I broke my left arm and fractured my right arm.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I am allowed to use my right arm again today and will be publishing the first new chapters later this week. But there will not be chapters every day. I hope you''re still up for my story. g0lb0r Chapter 10: Progress and Missing Feelings After finishing his first 5 floors, Gorm tried to practice again. When his judgment was still partially clouded by his instincts, he didn¡¯t think about this option and when he just woke up he didn¡¯t have the time. Gorm hoped to break past his limitation in mana regeneration as soon as possible. The need to do so got apparent to him after a conversation with Sek he had to think off every day. And although it took place almost two years ago, he could still remember every word of it. ¡°Gorm can you focus your attention on me please?¡± Sek had asked him. As soon as the spirit felt his perception focus on him he continued, ¡°I think you should be clear that it isn¡¯t normal to have floors as huge as yours this early. Your first floor alone is as large as a normal dukedom. You are lucky that the formation is covering your mana upkeep. But my analysis gives me reason to believe that everything situated below your future 10th floor will not get that benefit. If that really is the case, you will have serious problems to provide enough mana to create and maintain new floors.¡± At first, Gorm didn¡¯t want to believe him. But after some contemplation, he realized that Sek was right. He understood that the entire mountain was covered with the formation and after focusing on this fact he had the feeling that it was like a border town. Inside he was safe and everything could be accomplished easily, but as soon as he stepped past the safety of the city wall he would have to fight for every little accomplishment. Sek could somehow feel that he was in deep thoughts and waited before he continued to talk. ¡°I don¡¯t know how you can overcome this barrier, but I think you prioritize to increase your mana regeneration. It could help if you can find out how the formation works. I find it is quite complex. For example, have you ever thought about the mana that your floors should create? Where does it go? How does it disappear?¡± What Sek had said still shook him as much as when he heard it for the first time. That he hadn¡¯t thought about that himself bothered Gorm. He knew that he still was way more emotional than when he was still a human. And although he could think faster, more complex and could remember way better than before, he still missed something. Gorm couldn¡¯t quite describe it. What was worse, was that since he discovered that he missed something he had as a human. He couldn¡¯t focus on anything anymore. Neither cultivating nor investigating the formation. Gorm knew he had to do something or he would stagnate for eternity. So he went in seclusion. When he was still human he had never done this and only knew about this practice from his talks with the few other people he met that were in the same realm of strength as him back then. He took back all senses he could into his core. He couldn¡¯t withdraw his entire perception, when he tried to remove it from an area, he felt like he was trying to cut off a limb. So he withdrew all he could without cutting it off completely. Then he started to cultivate, Gorm hoped to calm his mind and rid himself of the weird obsession with the thing he lost but couldn¡¯t pinpoint. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Since he started to practice two years ago, he had run in few complications. The method his mother taught him still worked, which wasn¡¯t that surprising as it trained the soul and mental strength. He even got a pleasant surprise when he discovered that his soul cultivation wasn¡¯t wasted but only in hibernation and it took only minimal effort to reclaim it. It even seemed as if it had increased quite a bit. Most of the two years were spent reclaiming his soul cultivation and getting used to it after over 600 years. Now that Gorm had part of his power back he felt much calmer and his thinking was getting faster and faster but he still felt as if he missed something. Because even his improved mental capacity couldn¡¯t help him with that Gorm decided to seek Sek to discuss his new situation before he started to analyze the formation. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->>Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Since Gorm went in seclusion, which was a weird thing to do for a dungeon core, Sek noticed the growth of tremendous power in the direction of the core room. He couldn¡¯t understand how anyone or anything could gain power so fast. When the might that radiated from the core room started to increase slower after one year Sek was already awed. He was so distracted, that he couldn¡¯t concentrate on the formation anymore, he had been analyzing it until then. Just when he thought that it was finally over it continued to increase. Now one more year later the increase finally stopped. Sek was already numb and wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it started again. A few minutes after the stop, Sek felt that the power started to disperse into the dungeon. A few seconds later he felt that Gorm had left his seclusion. He felt the bulk of Gorms perception arrive in his vicinity. It was countless times more formidable than before. Gorm felt mightier than most old dungeon cores. Sadly, it was only his soul cultivation that was mighty, without the mana to back it up it was only good to increase control and computing capacity. Before Sek had the chance to think more about Gorms insane soul power, Gorm started talking. ¡°Sek I¡¯m here to ask for your advice.¡± As usual, Gorm didn¡¯t really greet him. But Sek was used to it and originally didn¡¯t really care. ¡°For what? I¡¯ll try my best to answer.¡± ¡°I have the feeling that an integral part of me is missing. I thought that after I recover my soul cultivation I will recover it, but it is still missing. It is driving me insane.¡± This was the first time that Sek had the feeling that Gorm was agitated since he gained control over his urges. ¡°Calm down! If you want me to help you I need you to explain to me what you did and what you think is missing.¡± Sek tried to calm down Gorm first. ¡°I went into seclusion to calm my mind because I was agitated. After you told me about the fact that I won¡¯t be able to build a 10th floor if I don¡¯t overcome the mana regen issue.¡± Gorm explained in detail what he had done in seclusion. He also told him that he didn¡¯t know what was missing. Sek was surprised about Gorms strength before he became a core; he didn¡¯t think that he had been one of the peak powerhouses in this part of the Endless Wilderness. He was also wondering how Gorms mother knew a soul cultivation technique. It didn¡¯t seem like whatever Gorm was searching for was connected to his soul cultivation, otherwise, it would have come back already. Sek needed more information to give qualified advice. ¡°I don¡¯t think whatever was missing had anything to do with your soul cultivation. Could it be that you cultivated another technique when you were still human? Maybe you forgot to train it?¡± After a short silence, Gorm answered, ¡°I practiced a technique my father taught me, but I only practiced it when I was still young and before I achieved one with nature. I think it was vitality cultivation method, I didn¡¯t achieve a high enough level to judge it.¡± ¡°Maybe it was that technique, if you are able to practice it again it could help you with your situation.¡± Sek didn¡¯t believe that it would help and he even less believed that Gorm would be able to cultivate it again. A dungeon didn¡¯t have a real body. Their body was the dungeon. How could it be possible to train something like that? And even if they only thought of the core as their body it was still unlikely to strengthen it with normal cultivation techniques. Sek had heard of old and powerful cores that created cultivation techniques specifically for dungeon cores, but he was too young of a spirit and had explored too little of the continent to have met one of them. But it seemed that his reply had satisfied Gorm or at least he did leave to reenter seclusion. Sek hoped he would be able to concentrate on exploring and analyzing the formation again. It deeply intrigued him. He had never seen this kind of formation before and had the feeling if he was able to decipher it, he would be able to advance further in his evolution, where ever it might take him. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> The talk with Sek was quite fruitful for Gorm. He remembered that he still had another cultivation method. He hoped that it would help him to get back what he was missing. Gorm remembered how his father taught him this technique, back then he didn¡¯t understand how imagining that his heart was the seed of a tree that germinated and grew would help him with anything. But after the talk with Sek, he realized that it was probably this that helped him to achieve one with nature when he was still in his early hundreds. After calming his mind again, he started to cultivate, or he tried. He didn¡¯t know where his heart was. First, he tried to use the center of his core as the heart but it didn¡¯t work. Then he used his entire core, as it had the same task as a human heart. It pumped mana to and from the entire body. But that also didn¡¯t work. The only thing that the two failed attempts gave him, was the feeling he would miss out on the chance of his life if he didn¡¯t find a way to practice after his father¡¯s method. Chapter 11: Knowing Oneself and Change Because his attempts to cultivate his father¡¯s technique failed so far, Gorm started to think about his existence as a dungeon core. Or to be exact, dungeon core oak. For the first time since he fused with the oak and the mana crystal, he tried to come to terms with his body and form of existence. Despite spending over 600 years as a core he never tried to feel what it felt like to be one. Now that he finally tried, he discovered parts of himself he never knew existed. Apart from undiscovered places in his five floors and strange new animals and monsters, Gorm discovered that he couldn¡¯t comprehend the forest cavity. He instinctively knew everything about his floors, now that he tried to really understand them. He even knew everything that had ever happened there and what was currently happening. It was a weird feeling, that Gorm was unable to describe if someone ever asked him about it. Because the feeling of being omnipotent inside his dungeon disturbed him, Gorm lessened the amount of perception he distributed through the floors. Now he only knew roughly what was happening on the floors. Gorm focused the freed perception on the forest cavity to reinforce his ongoing investigations of the room. Despite having the bulk of his perception and mental strength focused on this one task, he still didn¡¯t understand the cavity. Gorm wasn¡¯t even sure if he was able to perceive its entirety. Let alone explore its secrets. It felt like a mysterious force was trying to divert his attention from discovering anything. And despite Gorms big efforts, he couldn¡¯t even find out from what exactly it was diverting him. Frustrated he stopped his probing, for now, and focused on his core room. There were only two things out of the ordinary about the core room. The first was the mysterious runes and holes on all of its surfaces. But he already knew they were the core part of the formation that spanned all over the mountain. It at least seemed like it was the core. The second thing was his core, or more exactly his core oak. He always saw it as a natural part of who he was now, but as his floors had shown, there was always more to it than just being there. So Gorm diffused his perception into the core oak. After a short time, he felt himself like he never did before. Nature was completely in tune with him. Gorm was sure that this new feeling would help him in the future. But he wanted to experience this state for a bit longer, so he pushed all thoughts aside and even let the control over his perception slip. Unbeknownst to Gorm years went by. And while his core room was completely peaceful, the rest of the dungeon experienced great changes. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> In the beginning, everything was calm, nothing changes, or at least nothing anyone would notice. But as time went on, Sek stated to feel something, he was still unsure what exactly was changing, he only knew that he liked whatever was. Next was Melia, but she didn¡¯t really think about it, the only feeling she had, was that Gorm was making things so she felt better. So she didn¡¯t see any reason to be alarmed. After that, the changes got more apparent. Especially on the first floor, the already almost perfect ecosystem got further perfected. Missing insects, animals and plants started to appear. And that was only after the microorganisms had been supplemented with those that were missing to perfect the floor. But no one, except for Sek and Melia, noticed these changes. Melia still seemed to find that nothing unusual was happening. She only liked staying on the first floor more. Sek, on the other hand, was progressively getting more and more shocked. How was it possible for such a perfect floor to exist? How was it possible that nature was almost perfectly represented in something artificial? Something like this wasn¡¯t impossible, but Sek had never heard about a dungeon core that achieved something like this despite being unable to interact with the outside and not having thousands of years of time. But the change didn¡¯t wait for Sek to comprehend what was happening, it even sped up. After the first floor got perfected the second floor started to go through the same process. And after the second floor was perfect the third followed. Finally, it finished on the fifth floor. Sek hoped that, now that Gorm had finished whatever he was doing, he would exit his seclusion and answer his questions. His wish didn¡¯t get fulfilled. A sixth floor started to appear, then a seventh, an eighth and finally a ninth. The floors were barren, nothing more than lifeless caves and tunnels. Not even water could be found there. Thankfully no tenth floor was being created, otherwise, Gorms plans would become obsolete. With the creation of the ninth floor, the sixth floor started to expand again. When it reached similar proportions as the floors before it, the expansion continued on the seventh floor.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. The eighth and ninth floor expansion was different. All floors before them were ring-shaped. But the eighth floor was the first floor underneath the large cavity. So it was many times bigger than the floors above it. On the eighth floor, despite its shape changing, the layout didn¡¯t change. It was still comprised out of a mix of huge rooms and tunnels. It was only on a much larger scale. But the ninth floor was different, it was only one huge room and it was way higher than any floor before it. There were a lot of mountains and caves in the room, but the mountains above a certain height all had a more or less flat top. It looked quite bizarre. Just when Sek was wondering what was going on, he had observed the entire process, from perfecting the old floors to the creation of the new ones, water started to gush out of every spring on every floor. The huge flood sloshed through the entire dungeon. It created new rivers and lakes on the floors without or only few of them. When it reached the sixth floor it already had torn various plants and animals with it. Like the flood had a mind of its own it released some of it on its way through the sixth floor. Before it continued through the seventh and eighth floor. On the eighth floor, it let go of the last of the materials it had torn with it before it continued into the ninth floor. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Sek watched the water pouring out of holes in the ceiling of the ninth floor and decided to inspect the other floors. He wanted to find out what the damages in the dungeon were. And how the new floors were doing. Sek went to the first floor first. And like he thought there weren¡¯t any real damages. The only things that were really damaged were the dams and their other structures of the Beaver clan. But Beabea and some of the other sapient beavers were already planning how to rebuild, repair and most importantly improve their infrastructure. They were even glad that their old buildings got destroyed. Only Melia was unhappy. Because the next floor war was due in only one week and every available beaver had to help rebuild their defenses. Even Melias personal beaver playmate had to work. ¡°Sek what are you doing? Do you know why Gorm would destroy the houses of the beavers? Why did Beabea need little Bea? He is so small; how can he help with anything?¡± Melia bombarded Sek with questions. ¡°I don¡¯t know, Gorm went in seclusion. He didn¡¯t tell me about his plans. Didn¡¯t you feel that the floors were getting closer and closer to nature?¡± Sek answered. Melia looked at him with big eyes. ¡°Oh! I thought Gorm was doing that on purpose. To make me more comfortable when I¡¯m playing with my friends.¡± Sek sighed, he knew that Melia was na?ve and only acted as if she was already a grown up, but he had hoped that with her age of a few thousand years she would at least think on her own when something so unusual happened. ¡°I don¡¯t think so. If the beavers won¡¯t play with you, why don¡¯t you go swimming? You normally swim all the time.¡± ¡°No! The water is muddy and dirty. I don¡¯t want to swim when the water is dirty.¡± Melia seemed offended by even the thought that she would swim in muddy water. ¡°I¡¯m bored. Sek show me around the dungeon! I¡¯ve never been to another floor than the first.¡± ¡°Ok. Follow me, I originally wanted to inspect the other floors.¡± Sek could only give in, He knew Melia good enough to know that he had to do so no matter what. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Melia wasn¡¯t impressed by the next few floors. But Sek was surprised. He couldn¡¯t find any obvious damages due to the flood. The only thing that really changed was the distribution of water. Most existing rivers got a bit wider and deeper and in general, there was more water on all floors. The water could also flow from the first to the fifth floor now. Sek thought that that was good because it made the dungeon more of a natural whole. Melia liked it because she could theoretically let herself float through the entire dungeon. And she wouldn¡¯t listen to anything Sek had to say against it. Like the waterfalls that connected the floors for example. When they reached one of the entrances to the sixth floor Sek warned Melia that the following floors weren¡¯t complete yet. But when they stepped foot in the sixth floor they found themselves in a steppe, not unlike the one they just came from. After careful investigation, they discovered that the fifth and sixth floor worked more like one floor on two levels than two different floors. Their connections were mostly in rooms that had had one half on the fifth and the other half on the sixth floor. The only thing that was really different, was that the sixth floor had fewer resources and was a bit more barren. But because the floors were so interwoven, that wasn¡¯t that obvious. It would be interesting to see how the inhabitants worked with this situation. The seventh floor was almost exactly like the second floor but had more resources and less light. Melia didn¡¯t like this floor because it was too dark, so Sek had to move on. He would come back later to investigate it in detail. He felt like there was more to it than they had seen on the surface. On the eighthfloor the found the same ecosystems as on the first floor, or so they thought. They soon discovered that besides the ecosystems from the first floor there were also expansive normal forests. This instantly made it Melia''s new favorite floor. The floor seemed normal enough on the surface but after exploring it in depth, Sek discovered that it was made up of a lot of natural choke points and every room was defendable with relative ease. If defenses were built many rooms would become fortress which was even more easily defended. Sek liked this floor because it was a good defense against invaders, whilst still seeming natural. If the inhabitants of this floor were as intelligent and talented as those in the old floors and the situation was like it was in every floor, except for the first, Gorm would gain a formidable and well-trained defense force. Now that he had seen the eighth floor, Sek was curious what the ninth floor was like. He left Melia behind, no one was allowed to hurt her so he wasn¡¯t worried about her. And even if something wanted to hurt her, nothing on the new floors had evolved past being a monster. Chapter 12: The Change continues The ninth floor was completely different from all floors above. When Sek saw it for the first time, he was stunned by how different it was. What confused him was that this floor didn¡¯t look like it would do a good job defending from intruders. Sek felt that this was strange. The eighth floor was like a fortress that guarded the floors above. But the ninth floor was one, open floor. Now that he had seen that all newly created floors were already finished, Sek had high hopes for the last floor. When he stepped in the ninth floor he was astonished. As far as the eyes could reach there was water. Which was only interrupted by few, different sized islands. When he started to inspect the floor, he discovered that only a few of the biggest islands were inhabited. Most islands only had vegetation and some insects on it. This circumstance seemed strange to Sek at first, but soon he discovered that the water was teeming with life. Despite being only a freshwater lake, it already had some very dangerous animals swimming around. This was the first floor where Gorm hadn¡¯t only provided the basic types of animals. Some of the stronger predators had bloodlines. It seemed like Gorm wanted to make the waters a deadly trap for intruders. Despite only providing basic bloodlines, Sek could already see how dangerous the ninth floor would become, especially in the water. The old floors already had some of the more basic bloodlines appearing. If this was an indication for the development of the bloodlines in the dungeon, the basic bloodlines of the ninth floor would need only a few short decades before intermediate bloodlines would appear. Most animals with intermediate bloodlines would become sapient when they reached adulthood. So it made sense to leave most of the islands open. It wouldn¡¯t take long before the first water dwellers would become humanoid beasts and leave the water in search for a place to gather resources. The only thing that still puzzled Sek was how Gorm would connect to the tenth floor, and how he would secure said connection. With that in mind, he reexamined the floor. When he almost gave up, due to not finding anything, he remembered an island that seemed strange. It was by far the biggest island but was also the least populated. Or so it seemed. Hurrying to said island Sek discovered that it wasn¡¯t the least populated, it had by far the densest population. But the population didn¡¯t consist of anything that Sek normally considered as such. The inhabitants were almost exclusively ants. All kinds of ants were fighting for territory and resources. Sek could observe that the vegetation on this island was growing a lot faster than anywhere else. He also spotted some ants that were sitting on a leaf that was floating away from the island. As soon as they were roughly 500 meters away from the shore, they suddenly died. It seemed like they couldn¡¯t leave the island. Sek was certain that this island had something to do with the connection to the tenth floor. But he didn¡¯t know what, so he could only wait until Gorm exited his seclusion. Unbeknownst to Sek the change, he thought finished, continued. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> With the first nine floors finished whatever energy it was, that was responsible for expanding, changing and perfecting the dungeon, shifted the laws that governed the dungeon. At first, extremely small ice and fire stones started to appear all over the floors, then water stones came into existence. And after that, some wind stones got created. With time all elemental stones were scattered over the floors. This change wasn¡¯t too extreme but it almost immediately got apparent that something had changed. Until this point, there was always a more or less constant temperature, but now it started to fall or rise to match the natural circumstances in the individual ecosystems. Sometime later the inhabitants of the first floor noticed a breeze and a little later it started to storm and then rain. These phenomena were new to everyone, so they started to panic. After almost an entire day it finally stopped and the first floor returned to its usual calm. A few months went by and weather and temperature changes were already normal on all the floors. But then, after a series of storms, the temperature continued to drop. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Keeper was swarmed by concerned animals every day for the last few weeks, ever since the temperature started to drop the number of concerned animals started to increase. And since he would help with their normal problems they thought he could help them with this problem too. But Keeper was almost as clueless as them.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. The only thing he knew, was that this change was happening on every floor albeit on different rates. So he wasn¡¯t really able to help anyone, but he still tried to calm everyone down. Keeper knew that the only person who could know what was happening was Seker. Keeper kept searching for him, but couldn¡¯t find him. He was starting to believe that Sek and Gorm had abandoned him, but he knew that Melia was still playing with the beavers every day. When he was thinking about the beavers he discovered that the beavers weren¡¯t particularly bothered by the weather and temperature changes. Melia had probably told them what they were. After thinking about it for a bit he felt incredibly stupid. He knew that despite being na?ve and playful, Melia was an old and powerful being. She even knew about the outside world. Once Keeper remembered this, he went on his way to the first floor. When he arrived there the beaver guards were eyeing him suspiciously, but let him enter the floor. Keeper knew that that was only the case because they felt that he was way more powerful than him and they would probably tell their superiors about him. But that was exactly what he wanted. Soon a group of humanoid beavers appeared in front of him barring his way. Keeper could immediately recognize Beabea. Despite his changed form he still had the same feeling as before, more importantly, he felt the protection of Gorm on him. ¡°Hello Keeper, I haven¡¯t seen you in a long time. I hope you are well.¡± Keeper himself hadn¡¯t changed much, he only grew bigger and stronger after he evolved into a beast. So it came to no surprise to him that Beabea recognized him. ¡°Greetings! I¡¯m good. I¡¯m only a bit concerned due to the sinking temperature. I¡¯m here to ask Melia for an explanation.¡± Keeper answered. He immediately told them why he was visiting, because he knew that the beaver clan didn¡¯t like intruders and he didn¡¯t like being on the first floor. It always remembered him of the time of his life he was the least proud of. ¡°Ah! I knew you would come to visit Melia about that. I bet you searched for Seker and didn¡¯t find him. Melia told us that he is currently studying how the weather and seasons got introduced to the dungeon. Oh, have you heard about the new floors? It seems that the eighth and ninth floor are quite special. Seker even demanded from us to send one of our best constructors to the eighth floor to construct fortifications and teach the beaver clans there.¡± As usual, Beabea couldn¡¯t stop talking. Keeper knew that was only the case because he felt he was worthy of his respect. Normally Beabea would only talk the bare minimum possible. ¡°So that¡¯s it! If Seker has something to study he won¡¯t bother with anyone except form Gorm and Melia. What are these seasons you were talking about? Are they what¡¯s responsible for the temperature and weather changes?¡± Keeper ignored the unnecessary things and went straight to the things he found important, but after seeing Beabea''s face he added, ¡°I already visited all the new floors, I had to spread the Sanctuary over the new floors. But on the ninth floor, I didn¡¯t make a lot of progress. I sent the first humanoid fish, she¡¯s a trout, to establish a headquarter on one of the uninhabited islands. Which isn¡¯t that easy, because there the water is dangerous. They have a few dozen beasts already.¡± Beabea''s lineaments relaxed after hearing Keeper talk about the new floors. To Keeper, it almost seemed like he was hoping to talk to him some more. But he had no time to talk with Beabea, he had to calm the animals all over the dungeon down. ¡°As much as I like talking with you, Beabea. I don¡¯t have time now. I promise to visit again after I can calm the situation down.¡± ¡°Yes they are, but on what exactly seasons are, you better talk to Melia. I¡¯ll let you off this time, but you better keep your promise!¡± Beabea didn¡¯t seem too fond of letting him go. But after a few more exchanges Keeper could finally go and find Melia. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> It was snowing and the normally life teeming floors were peaceful. The few animals that went outside did so very reluctant and had no nerve to start trouble. Even the few exceptions that thrived in the snowy climate tried their best to not anger anybody. The only floor that wasn¡¯t cold and snowy, was the tenth floor. While being a bit colder than before, the Winter only manifested itself in storms and a slight drop in temperature. This made it so that a lot of the powerful clan heads went there with their families. At first, they just went to the first island they could find, but they discovered that the islands were very dangerous, but what was more dangerous was swimming in the water to find an island for themselves. Soon they only went to the island that the Sanctuary occupied. It was one of the biggest and due to the effort of Keeper''s organization, it was also the best developed and guarded. Keeper found this development positive. The tourism, that was what Sek called this phenomenon, could help to drive the development of the island forward. With those many different clans involved, Keeper finally had enough manpower to build the fortifications he so desperately needed to be able to defend the island from the aggressive water dwellers. Since Keeper got the explanation what seasons were from Melia, he had taught how to build a shelter to keep warm and storage for food. Without this, almost half of the population would have died. When Sek finally came by after stopping his investigations, the first snow had already fallen. After a conversation about the implications of seasons, Keeper had shown him how he made the different animals winter proof. When Sek saw this he was quite excited. Until that point, most of the animals lived nomadiclives and even most of the clans would change locations frequently. Clans like the beaver clan were exceptions. But with the shelters build, this would probably change. The clans would start to expend a lot of manpower and resources to build a headquarter. And to not lose what they build they would have to defend it and with that, they couldn¡¯t leave. This would make it way more interesting in the future. If enough time passed, it was possible that they would have a similar development to the humans on the outside. But because they didn¡¯t have any influences Sek hoped to study the formation of a civilization. Despite only being interested in nature and similar things normally Sek found himself exited on the prospect of something like this. So much so that he hoped Gorm would wait a hundred years or more until he opened himself to the world. Super Nice Maps I decided to make a map in Paint. It does not look good, but it is also inaccurate. I''ll probably make better maps in the future, but until then you''ll have to settle for these two artworks.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
This map has one little spoiler, but I don''t think it will make much of a difference as you will know it in one or two chapters anyway. Spoiler: Basic layout of the entire dungeon. The brown dots symbolize the future floors. I was too lazy to draw them all. Chapter 13: Shock and Astonishment When Gorm came back to himself, he felt great. There was still the bugging feeling that something was missing, but other than that he felt great. He instinctively knew he had gained back the one with nature state, he didn¡¯t know he had lost. But this discovery could wait first he wanted to find out if anything in his dungeon had changed. Gorm wasn¡¯t sure how many years he had spent in the wondrous state of enlightenment, but the tiny bit of his soul strength that was still spread out gave him the feeling that the dungeon had undergone enormous changes. As he started to spread his soul power through his dungeon again, he discovered that he suddenly had four new floors. Perplexed he started to scan over them, he discovered that except for the ninth floor there weren¡¯t any new ecosystems. But still, where did these floors come from? The only explanation Gorm could think of was, that in the state of enlightenment, they got created by his subconsciousness. He knew that when he got into a similar state when he was human, his body got cleansed and strengthened. Maybe this was the dungeon version of that phenomenon. To learn more he would have to ask Sek. First, he wanted to inspect the new floors a little closer. Gorm liked the design of the interwoven fifth and sixth floor. It almost felt like it had to be like this. He couldn¡¯t understand this feeling and decided to come back to it when he had less important things to do. The seventh floor was like a darker but more resource-rich version of the second floor. Only after some deeper investigation did he discover that when it was night, the moon stones would shine and give the room a magic feeling. It was also then, that he discovered that he found microscopic small elemental stones all over the walls and ceilings of the floor. At first, he thought that was floor specific, but when he checked the previous floors, he discovered that they were everywhere. Gorm would have to find out what they did as soon as he finished inspecting the new floors. The eighth floor was even more interesting to Gorm than the two before. Not because it had some kind of special ecosystem or an interesting deviation. No, it was the layout of the floor that fascinated him. Especially due to the different forms of fortifications that were built, the entire floor seemed like a huge Fortress. All possible entrances to the ninth floor were tightly guarded. This fact was a bit strange to Gorm. What reason was there to do so? If intruders should reach the ninth floor he would notice the entire private part of the dungeon. Even more importantly: It was impossible for intruders to reach the ninth floor because, without a connection to the outside world, it was close to impossible to step foot into any part of the dungeon. After pondering for a bit without finding a reason, Gorm continued his investigation of the new floors and focused his perception on the ninth floor and the last floor. The vast water scenery stunned him at first. When he was alive he had never seen any body of water that was even remotely as big as his ninth floor. Gorm had only heard of the sea, he had never left the Endless Wilderness. Now he could roughly imagine what an ocean would look like. He even made the resolution to make an ocean floor when he had a big enough space later on. After a bit of sightseeing, he didn¡¯t use his usual approach of sending the bulk of his unused soul power into a floor to investigate, he discovered that it was quite clever to have this floor as a barrier. Most of the beings that would visit his dungeon wouldn¡¯t be able to survive in water for extended periods of time. The only problem he found, was that he didn¡¯t know how to connect to the next floor. With a bit of deliberation, he decided to create the future connector as far away of the place where he planned to make his entrance. When he arrived at the point where that would be the case, he discovered that a huge island, the biggest he had seen so far on the floor, was there. The island seemed special but he couldn¡¯t figure out why, so he used his usual method of floor inspection. Thanks to the new information he found out that the island was only inhabited by ants. That was the first time he had seen something so clearly unnatural in all the new floors. After a closer look, he figured out that the ants were restricted to the island and couldn¡¯t leave. Relieved he focused on the island again but couldn¡¯t find out what was special except for the ants. Only after he focused on the part of the island that was almost 100 meters underwater, did he find what he was looking for. Deep under the island, there were eggs in a huge chamber. When he inspected the eggs he wasn¡¯t able to discern what they were there for, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with the connection to the tenth floor.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Despite him focusing every ounce of expendable soul power on the eggs he couldn¡¯t figure out what they were there for. Dejected he left. First he would visit Melia and then ask Sek for advice. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Gorm found Melia playing with a small beaver, despite being new born it already was sapient, or it had at least reached that evolution level. ¡°Hello Melia, how are you? And who is your little friend here?¡± He greeted her. Melia looked around, then she grimaced and tried to make an angry face: ¡°Oh hello Gorm. You still remember me? Did you only visit because the first creature; in your dungeon; that is born sapient is with me? Humph!¡± Seeing Melia¡¯s fake angry face Gorm almost started to laugh. ¡°Yes! The only reason I haven¡¯t talked to you in a while was that I was busy. I just exited my seclusion and the first person I visited was you. I didn¡¯t even know I had such a beaver in my dungeon.¡± ¡°Liar!¡± Despite calling him a liar, Melia seemed very happy and started to smile again. ¡°I like the winter you made! I had so many fun snowball fights with my beavers!¡± Whilst saying that she made a very serious face. It seemed like she thought that snowball fights were something adults did. Melia obviously didn¡¯t know a thing about what it meant to be a grown-up. Gorm could still remember when she grew three centimeters and was proud because she was even more grown up. In Melia¡¯s world being grown up meant to be old and tall. Gorm very much hoped that it would stay this way for a long time. Even when he was still human he never met someone even remotely as cheerful as Melia. Now that he had met someone like this, he wanted to keep it. So he said; ¡°I made them only for you. Do you like the other seasons as well? Do you want me to make you something else?¡± ¡°Really? I knew you would remember me! Yes, but spring is my favorite.¡± She made a pause, ¡°I don¡¯t know I have to think about it.¡± ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll come back after I talked to Sek.¡± ¡°Promise?¡± Melia asked with wide eyes. ¡°Yes, promise!¡± Gorm made a mental note to remember to visit her, then he left to find Sek. He was currently on the third floor. It seemed like he was observing a clan of badgers and a clan of lynxes. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> The two clans that Sek was observing were quite interesting. They both seemed exceptionally strong, albeit in different ways. The Badger clan had a lot humanoid animals and the lynx clan had an almost equal amount of beasts. They both had a bloodline too, both had the most basic forest bloodline. They seemed to discuss how to expand their cooperation. The two clans were ideal for each other. The forest badgers needed protection and the forest lynxes needed skilled craftsmen and shamans. Because Gorm didn¡¯t know what a shaman was, he approached Sek with his perception. ¡°Hello Sek, could you explain what a shaman is? And why the lynx clan needs them so desperately.¡± Gorm came straight to the point. ¡°Finally! I thought you¡¯d never leave your seclusion. A shaman is a primitive mix of an alchemist, a doctor and a priest. That is at least here in the dungeon. In the outside world, they are also able to use magic to heal. But more importantly, what in natures name did you do while you were in seclusion? You somehow created four floors and perfected all your existing ecosystems. Your dungeon is now as close to nature as you can get without an opening to the outside world.¡± Sek started a, for him, uncharacteristic rant. ¡°And even if you had an entrance you shouldn¡¯t be able to get so close to nature before a long process of adaptation.¡± Sek didn¡¯t stop talking for quite some time. When he finally stopped he had already talked almost half an hour. More than he had spoken in total before, or so it felt to Gorm. ¡°I¡¯m also not sure what happened, but I think it has something to do with the state I entered when I regained the one with nature state. At least¡­¡± Sek interrupted Gorm rudely. ¡°You regained what?¡± ¡°One with nature.¡± Answered Gorm, he was confused. He had never seen Sek react to something so violently. ¡°What is so special about that? I reached this state when I was just a few hundred years old, back when I was a human.¡± Sek took a deep breath and started to explain. ¡°Gorm, you have to know that you were probably one of the youngest humans ever to achieve that state. But you are definitely the youngest dungeon core, even if I include your human life, to ever achieve one with nature. And you are the first dungeon to achieve it before even opening to the world.¡± After a short break, to let what was said sink in, Sek continued. ¡°When a dungeon core achieves any form of enlightenment it always affects the dungeon. But what happened here was insane, maybe it had something to do with you being a core oak and a natural dungeon. Still, it shouldn¡¯t have had such a big impact. You got four huge new floors, perfect ecosystems for all ecosystems currently in the dungeon and two new functions. The functions are what really bother me. You shouldn¡¯t be able to have them. You were missing key components to creating them. The only kinds of elemental stone you had where water, sun, and moon. I don¡¯t understand this. I need some time to think! If I don¡¯t come to talk to you before you start to create the tenth floor, please visit me before you do so. Oh, I think you should try to look at your screens, maybe they can explain what happened to you.¡± Chapter 14: The Puzzles Solution After his talk with Sek, Gorm had new things to think about. A lot of things he didn¡¯t understand were now clear. Thanks to his new realizations, he decided to try and cultivate his father¡¯s cultivation technique one more time. If he hadn¡¯t achieved anything after five years he would continue and create his tenth floor and the connection to the outside world. But first, he would follow Sek¡¯s pointer and checked his status and his notifications.
Status
Name Gorm Title Natural Dungeon
Race Dungeon Core Oak Floors 47 Rooms 923
Age 655 years DP 142
Level 9 (47)
Mana 3.9 m / 3.9 m
Affinities Nature Mana Regeneration 500 per min
Specialties One with Nature
Abilities Natural Dungeon Perfect Environment Creation Complete Cycle Creation Natural Seeding Growth Spurt Creature Maturation Clear Headed
Ecosystems Endless Wilderness Riparian Forest Common River Light Oases Common Forest Ocean Archipelago Monsters 148 k Sapients 27 k
Lesser Beasts - Humanoid Animals 1,8 k
Beasts 2 k
Divine Beasts - Humanoid Beasts -
Bosses Melia (Elder Ash Dryad)
Bonded Creatures Seker (Death ??? Spirit)
Intruders -
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Gorm didn¡¯t find anything too special on his new status, only the new ability, Natural Seeding, stood out a bit. But like the other changes, it was easily explainable with the special state he entered. But he still was surprised, when he saw the number of beasts and humanoid animals. Especially in comparison to the number of monsters and sapients. Gorm knew he had quite a few monsters in his dungeon but he didn¡¯t know it were that many. Next, he concentrated on the changed abilities. The only difference they had from before, was that they were now able to recreate any cycle or environment perfectly. Creating a perfect replication of nature. Gorm thought that the new ability was relatively self-explanatory, but decided to take a look nonetheless.
Natural Seeding: This ability allows the dungeon to seed plants and animals in a more natural way.
Despite the fact that he already thought that the ability was self-explanatory, Gorm was disappointed. Especially because he had the feeling that it wasn¡¯t that easy of an ability. If that wasn¡¯t the case, why was it a separate ability and not included in Natural Dungeon or Perfect Environment Creation? But for now, he wasn¡¯t able to find out the reason. The next thing he did was to look what the description of the One with Nature Specialty was. Because he had achieved the state before, Gorm believed that he already knew what it did.
One with Nature: Advanced state only creatures with great understanding of nature are able to achieve. Due to achieving this state you have the option to make any floor a perfect recreation of nature. If used, a floor won¡¯t cost any upkeep as long as nothing has to be respawned. After opening yourself to the world the mana you will give off to the outside will be almost indistinguishable from the natural Mana.
Gorm was shocked. He already knew that normally one¡¯s mana would become similar to the natural mana, but he didn¡¯t think that as a dungeon core he would still gain this effect. What was even more shocking, was that he could have floors for an upkeep of zero mana, as long as no intruder destroyed anything. If he really couldn¡¯t find a way to increase his mana regeneration, he could use the effect to still get more floors. With his status out of his way, Gorm focused on his missed notifications, but he soon discovered that they were mostly about the changes that he had done unconsciously. He also found out that he got the 100 DP for having all his floors perfected and with complete cycles. He even got a free pick for an up to rare magical plant. But Gorm wanted to wait until he got the first natural magical plant before he introduced new ones. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> After reviewing all his notifications Gorm decided to visit Melia before he entered the five-year seclusion he had planned. Melia was still playing with the little beaver but when Gorm made his presence known she immediately told him: ¡°Oh, finally! I know what I want. I want to take little Bea with me and show him my tree and pond.¡± Gorm was confused. ¡°Then take her with you. I won¡¯t stop you. Why shouldn¡¯t you be able to take someone to your tree?¡± ¡°But I can¡¯t! I tried and I can only take them to the outskirts of my forest. If I take someone deeper into the room he will have a lot of pain.¡± Melia retorted. ¡°What? Why? Can you take someone with you right now?¡± Gorm was stunned if what Melia said was true, he would have to find out why. ¡°I can take Bea with me. But if she hurts I will take her back out!¡± Said Melia and Picked the small beaver up and headed towards the forest cavity. After a little while, they arrived in the huge room and Melia started to walk towards her tree. A few hundred meters into the room Gorm could feel that the little beaver was behaving strangely. When Melia was over half a kilometer in the beaver started to cry out in pain. ¡°Melia you can take her back out, I will investigate this, I don¡¯t have any way to change it for now. Please be patient, I promise you I will try my best.¡± Assured Gorm Melia. Because Gorm didn¡¯t feel anything strange before, he decided to try the same with another animal, but the situation was the same. A few unsuccessful experiments later he decided to come back after his seclusion and after he had built the tenth floor. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Back in seclusion he started to think about his father¡¯s technique again. He tried to cultivate with his core, his entire tree and the entire core room as seed. But to no success. With only a few months left until his limit of five years was over, Gorm decided to raise his core room into the forest cavity. He didn¡¯t believe that it would change anything, but he was running out of time and he really wanted to succeed. So he did the only thing he hadn¡¯t tried yet, except for taking his entire dungeon as the seed. Raising his core room was surprisingly hard if he didn¡¯t do it in a way that would leave the entire room intact it wouldn¡¯t move. Only after two months of hard work did he succeed, but he still had the problem that the core room was still intact. Nothing he tried was able to destroy the room. Gorm only found out, that reasons were the runes and formations on the room''s surfaces. So he had a crazy idea, what if he recreated the runes and formations of the core room in the forest cavity? <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Recreating the core rooms runes and formations came out to be harder than Gorm ever expected. But after fifteen years he was almost finished. He had worked without pause and had forgotten time. So Gorm wasn¡¯t aware how long it really took him. When Gorm completed the last rune of the last formation something incredible happened. The walls around his core oak started to fade away. And he could feel how his roots finally were able to really take root. They tunneled down and expanded. Only when his roots started to appear on the ceiling of the eighth floor did he stop. But not only the roots were growing, without the restraint of the small core room the trunk and its branches grew. Soon he reached 100 meters in height. But only after reaching 250 meters did the speed of growth slow down. After his growth spurt was over, Gorm stated to take in the changes. Obviously, he had grown bigger, but what else did change? Only after he scanned over the forest cavity turned core room, did he discover that he finally had the same feeling of omnipotence he had on all his floors in the cavity as well. He felt more connected to his dungeon than ever. Even with the minimum amount of his soul force spread over the dungeon, Gorm knew at least the rough situation of every floor. Before he had to expend a significant amount of soul force to achieve the same result. Reveling in the new sensations and feelings, Gorm sensed that something or someone was running panicky towards his core room. When he focused on the person he discovered that it was Melia. She had tears in her eyes and a panic-stricken expression. Seeing her like this hurt Gorm in his very soul. Only now did he truly realize how much she meant to him. He would do anything to make her happy again. And so he talked to her. ¡°Melia, what happened? Why are you crying?¡± ¡°Boohoo I lost connection to my tree.¡± Melia cried whilst still running. Gorm instantly shifted his perception to Melia¡¯s ash tree and found it completely fine. Right at that moment, Melia arrived at one of the waterfalls into the new core room. Just as she wanted to jump in direction of her tree she suddenly stopped and looked confused. When that happened Gorm got a notification and unlike his normal notifications, this one wasn¡¯t ignorable.
Warning! Someone is trying to intrude into your core room. Do you allow your boss Melia to enter your core room? Yes / No
Gorm hastily chose yes. As soon as he did so, Melia darted towards her tree. When she saw that her tree was ok and her connection went back to normal she started to cry in joy. A little while later Gorm made himself known and asked Melia to visit him. ¡°Woah! You are so big!¡± After knowing her tree was fine she quickly went back to normal, and now, that she was finally looking around she noticed the huge tree that suddenly stood in the middle of the room. After a little talk with Melia, he had her bring little Bea and Gorm, again, got the warning that Bea wanted to intrude into his core room, as soon as he accepted he was able to enter. After a bit of searching Gorm found the option to allow all of his dungeon creatures entrance into his core room. With the changes dealt with and Melia¡¯s wish fulfilled, Gorm decided to try to cultivate his father¡¯s technique again. Chapter 15: Success, Luck and a new Chapter Now that Gorm had moved his core room and had melded it into the huge forest cavity, he decided to try to cultivate his father¡¯s technique again. He thought of the entire new core room as the seed, and while it felt like he was doing something right, he still didn¡¯t succeed. So he decided to investigate how a tree grew. He picked an acorn and planted it while fully concentrating on it. He then accelerated its growth. He watched as the first rootlets sprouted. He watched on until a fully grown oak tree was in front of him. After some deliberation, he figured that he had the wrong approach. Gorm always imagined the seed as attributeless, but what could grow out of a seed without any attributes? Gorm rethought his entire approach and decided to make the seed an acorn, he felt that fitting as he was an oak tree. Starting to cultivate again, Gorm immediately felt the difference. Energy he never knew existed started to gather right above the crown of his tree. It started to mix with his mana. Gorm tried to figure out what exactly was happening, but the more he tried to understand, the more his control slipped. Soon, without him noticing all free soul energy and perception was sucked into the vortex in his core room. As Gorm¡¯s very being was mixed with the foreign energy first changes started to appear. His already huge tree expanded further, albeit very slowly. As the amount of energy and mana increased the speed of growth of the core oak started to accelerate. This acceleration of growth wasn¡¯t focused solely on the core room, the entire dungeon experienced the same benefits but in a weaker form. When the vortex filled the entire core room, it stopped growing. But at this point in time, a plant that would normally need a year to mature would mature in only a week, an animal that needed three years to reach adulthood would need three weeks. And the dungeon core oak that had grown to a height of a bit over 250 meters in 650 years was already almost one kilometer high. While that sounded high, it hadn¡¯t reached the halfway point of the new core room yet. When the core oak finally stopped growing its height was almost exactly half the height of the core room. The only problem was, that only the height grew, its roots were still underdeveloped. Just when it seemed like the crazy growth acceleration in Gorm¡¯s dungeon had stopped, it picked up again. But this time around it the acceleration didn¡¯t target physical but rather spiritual growth. Only the core oak was different, whilst everyone and everything gained in spirituality, it finally grew its roots. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> While the whole dungeon was in a growing frenzy, roots started to spread. Soon they had spread all over the existing floors. With no room left to grow into, the roots dug deeper. Just like when Gorm achieved one with nature, a new floor was made, but unlike the first time, this time roughly one-sixteenth of the new floor wasn¡¯t as spacious as the rest. This small part almost seemed disconnected from the rest of the dungeon. Only a few, well-hidden passages connected it to the rest of the dungeon. Its structure was also simple. The rest of the floor was normal. Another difference was that there was only one traversable connection between the ninth and the tenth floor. It was exactly under the ant island. The flora and fauna of the new floor were also different. While the bigger part of the floor had a perfect recreation of a forest. The smaller part only had rudimentary plant life and so far no animals. If observed carefully, it was possible to see that anything that came near to one of the passages, would be unable to pass through. But even with the new floor, the roots growth didn¡¯t stop. Soon what would become the eleventh floor was created. It was almost completely the same as the tenth but for the size of the disconnected part of the floor. Said part was a bit bigger and the plant life seemed a bit more complete.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The tenth and the eleventh floor had numerous connections, but the separated parts only had one. With the eleventh floor completed the roots slowed their growing speed. And while only the part with floors was densely packed, the entire mountain was crisscrossed with roots. The roots continued growing with vastly slowed speed. But unlike before the only grew in circumstance and not deeper into the ground. When the growth almost stopped one root in the separated part of the tenth floor experienced a sudden energy boost and shot through the stone, opening a narrow entrance into the dungeon. Soon after the miraculous energy-mana-vortex started to dissolve. The dissolving energy would give anything it touched one final boost. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Because the vortex was situated in the core room almost everything in it got said boost. In the rest of the dungeon only few had that luck. Among the lucky few was the very first monster ant queen. But the luckiest of them all was a small Barbary macaque. Barbary macaque only occurred in the core room, they never had even a monster emerge from their ranks, but nonetheless, they were still the smartest non-humanoid animals. For this reason, dryads liked having them around, they would normally tame them and have them help grooming their trees. Probably for this exact reason had Melia¡¯s mother put some of them with Melia. So far Melia hadn¡¯t discovered them, otherwise, they would suffer through a similar fate to the beavers. The small Barbary macaque was playing in the crown of the core oak when Gorm succeeded in cultivating the technique his father left. Through the almost 50 years it didn¡¯t leave. This was rewarded with a much better boost, be it physical or psychical. When the energy vortex stated to dissolve it got the boost from it. Only then did he leave, he decided to travel the dungeon. The first floor he visited was the sixth. He was shocked by the wide and open spaces. He started to travel the floor but by the time he was had spent five days there, he still hadn¡¯t met any animal intelligent enough to talk to. Like most barbary macaque he learned to speak the dungeon language at birth. They were one of the few that were able to do so despite being only normal animals. Frustrated he decided to head back home, on his way back he, again, encountered a bit of the dissolving energy. Almost immediately after he absorbed it he felt tired. But knowing the dangers of sleeping unprotected in the dungeon, he mustered all his strength and continued his journey. When he finally arrived back at the core room he didn¡¯t know where he should go. He hadn¡¯t been at his colony in over 40 years. So without much further thought he headed to the core oak and went back to the nest that was his home during his stay. He soon fell asleep. While the small Barbary macaque was sleeping the vortex was in his final moments of dissolving. When only a few wisps of energy and mana were there, it was possible to see a colorful mix of soul strands. They were what made Gorm Gorm and also held all of his dungeon abilities and specifications. All, except for one wisp of mana and energy, went into the core oak. The last wisp was also about to head into the tree when it suddenly turned around and headed for the sleeping monkey. The small monkey was his in evolution phase, if nothing unexpected happened he would become a humanoid animal after he woke up. But now, with the addition of the last wisp, he would become something different. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> When Gorm woke up, he felt like good. Or more exact, he felt better than he had ever felt before. He knew had gained back what he was missing. This feeling alone would be enough the make him feel great, but with the success in his father¡¯s technique, everything was different. For the first time did he feel like he was in total control in his dungeon. He felt everything, he knew everything, he was everything. Gorm was instinctively aware that he now had an entrance. The place where the single root had punched a hole through the mountain wall was almost exactly on the place he had planned to make it in the first place. From the outside, it looked like a normal little cave. Which was what Gorm wanted. He didn¡¯t need any unnecessary attention. Even the two new floors were like he had planned them. This made him wonder how this automatic building feature worked. Now that he had an entrance he could finally sense his connection to nature again. But unlike when he was still a human, he didn¡¯t perceive it like he was a part of nature anymore, or at least not entirely. A feeling of loss washed over him and his great mood from before vanished. He started to feel abandoned. For almost his entire human life he had lived for nature, to protect it. And now, it abandoned him? Just when he was about to give in to his dark thoughts he remembered what his father once said to him. ¡°A dungeon core is part of the world, yet separated. A dungeon is separate from the word, yet exists on it. Imagine being a dungeon core. How confusing is its world? It would be easy to become deranged and abandon the world. But remember, no matter if the world likes you or not, if nature likes you or not, as long as it is part of you, you are part of it.¡± The words seemed to be made to help him in this specific situation. Gorm felt that if he lived by them, he would be able to become stronger and make the world, or at least his world, the dungeon, a better place. Chapter 16: The Foundation of an Antpire Anty was very excited since she had hatched a few months ago she had grown significantly stronger. She was the first among her sisters to exceed sapient. She had just evolved into a humanoid animal. Anty knew that the rest of her sisters would become beasts, she didn¡¯t know why she knew that. They all were born with knowledge and memories they didn¡¯t understand, especially her. When they hatched, different than what her memories prepared her for, they weren¡¯t alone. Something, Anty could somehow identify as a death spirit, and a little girl were watching them. The spirit had introduced himself as Seker and the girl as Melia, Melia then named her, the firstborn of her sisters, Anty. Besides her name and the fact that she was the first born she soon discovered, that she was different. She had more knowledge and memories than her sisters. Anty also was more humanoid than her sisters. Even when she just hatched. This was probably the reason why Melia had given her a name and not one of her sisters. Ever since they hatched, Anty was the teacher and decision maker among them. She somehow knew what her twelve sister¡¯s specialties were. And more importantly, she knew how long it would take for them to become beasts, because only when they were beasts could they birth sufficient monsters to satisfy the expectations of the dungeon and herself. Especially her youngest sister had huge potential, probably the most, other than herself. Now after staying in the room, they were born in for so long, Anty decided that it was time for her family to ascend to the floor above. She already knew that an island mainly inhabited by ants would be waiting there. Thanks to her inherited memories she already knew that the ants would be the perfect foundation for their future ant empire. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Settling on the island was easier than Anty had expected, no matter where she or her sisters went, all ants, even the few monsters among them, would make way and even listen to their commands. Only her oldest sister was different, where ever she went, the ants would follow, they would even fight for the right to do so. At first, Anty was worried about the strange happenings, but soon she remembered what her oldest sister¡¯s specialty was. Now a few months later almost all followers of her sister were monsters, she even had a sapient queen in her retinue. Thankfully she also evolved into a beast, she was the first, and so far only one that was able to do so. Anty¡¯s other sisters were all sapient now, but it would still take quite some time before her next sister could evolve. Not to mention the time needed for all her sisters to evolve. For now, Anty concentrated on teaching her sisters about their duties and building the foundation of their future kingdom. She had her oldest sister command all ants on the island to help build thirteen homes for them. As much as Anty liked her sisters, she knew that when they fully awakened their powers and evolved into beasts, they would need their own places. This need became more evident when her oldest sister finally moved into her own hill. Almost immediately, her retinue started to modify the still basic anthill. After almost a year of work, all sisters had their own home, but only Anty and her oldest sister didn¡¯t have a basic anthill. Anty¡¯s hill was only big enough for her sisters, herself and the firstborn ants of all her sisters. Anty didn¡¯t know why, but all her sisters promised her their first born of each batch. Her only guess was that they wanted to give her a guard of formidable monsters, because she couldn¡¯t produce offspring the same way and amount, like them. The hill of the oldest sister was bigger than the basic ones, but that was the product of her ever-growing colony of monster ants. The main difference was that her hill wasn¡¯t made of wood, leaves, and dirt, it was made entirely out of stone and dirt. It looked almost like a natural hill if it wasn¡¯t that barren. She also decided to call herself the queen of earth. When the queen of earth laid her first batch of eggs, they all had a deep earthen hue, especially her very first egg. When they finally hatched all larva were already monsters. Only the one that hatched from the very first egg was different, it immediately was sapient. Right after the hatching process was over, many of the original ants in the retinue of the earth queen left. Only those that had an affinity or at least a connection to the earth element stayed. Those that left went to the six next oldest sisters. They respectively named themselves fire, air, water, wood, light and dark queen. The other five, six including Anty, didn¡¯t get a single ant. The element queens let their retinue modify their respective hills, to better suit their future children. These works took a long time, because of the little number of ants, the queens had at their disposal. Only the water queen was better off, the sapient queen, that once followed the earth queen had come to her and soon laid a batch of eggs. With this influx of workers, her hill progressed much faster compared to her sister¡¯s. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->>If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Anty was anxious, somehow the growth cycle of an ant and number of times a queen could lay eggs had slowed down. This wasn¡¯t that bad for her other sisters, especially those that had evolved into beasts for a long time and were able to lay good foundations. But her eighth sister, the queen of darkness, who had only evolved for little more than a year, this change was disastrous. She had planned with the normal growth speed and couldn¡¯t support the additional time on her own. And while her older sisters had no major problems with the change, they couldn¡¯t spare ants to help her. Only with the help of the unevolved sisters and the guard of Anty was she able to finally pull through. With the disaster averted, Anty discovered that while the growth speed had slowed tremendously, the affinities of all ants grew in an unimaginable speed. Besides that, the number of mutations also increased. The increase in mutations was especially evident in the strong ants and the best eggs of each batch. Most of Anty¡¯s guard were some kind of variation. The number of normal elemental ants was decreasing everywhere, but most mutations where weak. The few strong or useful ones were immediately recruited into the core of each queen. Some of the rarer mutations were able to bestow a second or third affinity. Depending on which affinity¡¯s they unlocked, they would join the defense or offense queen. Any combination of earth, wood, water, and light would join the defense queen, combinations of fire, air, water, and darkness would join the offense queen. Despite their names, they specialized in support, the defense queen was responsible for food, first aid, and building fortifications. The offense queen¡¯s main responsibilities were transportation, information, scouting, and assassinations. That was at least what Anty wanted them to do. Thanks to her inborn knowledge, she knew how kingdoms worked. So she tried to model their kingdom after her information. She didn¡¯t consider, that the kingdoms that adopted these structures were mainly human kingdoms. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Thanks to the many new mutations all of Anty¡¯s sisters now had at least a few ants in their retinue. But more importantly, the queens of offense and defense had finally evolved into beasts. The growth of their colonies wasn¡¯t as fast as their older sister¡¯s, but they had way stronger and a wider variety of ants than them. Due to the work of the colony of the defense queen and the planning of Anty, the ant island was completely organized and every piece of land was used. But the ants needed more space to grow. After long deliberation, the sisters decided collectively to search for a place to expand to. To their luck, some of the ants of the queen of offense had discovered a tunnel below the chamber in which the queens had hatched. The expedition force included the best members of each of the already evolved sisters. Anty even send her whole guard with them. She had trained them to be able to fight, something she knew they would probably have to do in the future. But until that point in time, the ants never had to fight. After the expedition force left two weeks of tense waiting begun. When they finally came back, they had lost about half of their members. But Anty¡¯s guard was still complete. It turned out, that after exiting the tunnel they arrived on a new floor, with forests and many animals and monsters. If they knew how the animals on floors above and animals in the outside world, they would discover that the animals were in the tenth and eleventh floor were more normal and similar to the outside. They scouted deep into the woods before they experienced their first attack. After repelling the ambush, many more followed. They never lost more than two or three members at one, but due to the large number of attacks, the casualties increased fast. Now, a difficult decision had to be made, should they try and expand on what was probably a huge floor with many hostile animals or should they stay on their small island? As the de facto leader of the ants, Anty decided to expand. It may cost them some children, but they desperately needed the new space. And if they Anty wanted to fulfill the expectations of the dungeon they would need the strength they could only gain through fighting. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Anty was sure she had made the right decision when she had decided to push into the tenth floor. They had already established an anthill right outside of the entrance to the tunnel and send some of their subordinate queens there. While their eggs wouldn¡¯t develop as good as on their home island, they were able to boost the numbers of the ants and reduce the number of casualties of the children of the queens. Until now there hadn¡¯t been a need to establish more ant hills on the tenth floor. The reason for that was, that the expansion of the colonies had slowed down significantly since they started to have casualties. Anty estimated that they had at least five more years until they had to expand the territory under their control. But while they didn¡¯t need new territory, they never stopped exploring the floor. Recently they had discovered that there was a second floor underneath them, but so far only Anty¡¯s guard was strong and experienced enough to venture in it. Before they hadn¡¯t fully explored their current floor they wouldn¡¯t start any large-scale offensive to the next floor. But the exploration of their floor was trickier than expected, very early on, scouts had discovered holes in walls, and while they fit into the holes, they couldn¡¯t pass through them. Only a few days ago had they discovered that some of the weakest monster ants they had, had accidentally crossed to the other side almost two years ago. The other side was apparently not very appealing, plants were sparse, and to leave again they had to reach a certain amount of strength to come back out. Thankfully the ants were in a group and were able to survive against the animals there. While they had casualties, they were able to increase their strength significantly and leave. When Anty heard about this news, she suddenly had a new memory, in this memory, she sends small groups of ants in regular intervals into the strange area. Every time she did so the dungeon was pleased. Sometimes the ants that were sent in came out with useful resources and treasures. Together with the memory she got the information, that the same thing was possible on the next floor, the only difference was that the ants could be a bit stronger and the rewards better, but the enemies would also be stronger. Super Nice Paint Pictures I thought I give you some information, that I didn''t make very clear.
First, the basic elements. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Every other element or affinity is a combination of two or more of basic ones.
These are all currently possible evolutions for the animals in the dungeon. Please ignore the divine animal option! In the future, there will be more options. I at least plan to introduce more.
I think I''ll make these "info" chapters a regular thing, maybe every five chapters one or something like that. Chapter 17: Checking After overcoming his existential crisis, Gorm turned back to his dungeons matters. Since he achieved initial success in his father¡¯s technique just below 50 years had passed. But the changes in the dungeon were enormous. Before he would examine all the new things, Gorm wanted to find out if there were any benefits to having an entrance and a bigger core room. Because he couldn¡¯t find any changes that he could trace back to one of the two things, he decided to consult his status window.
Status
Name Gorm Title Natural Dungeon
Race Dungeon Core Oak Floors 47 Rooms 1.3 k
Age 707 years DP 142
Level 11 (47)
Mana 17 m / 17 m
Affinities Nature Mana Regeneration 1000 per min
Specialties One with Nature Initial Success in ???
Abilities Natural Dungeon Perfect Environment Creation Complete Cycle Creation Natural Seeding Growth Spurt Creature Maturation Clear Headed
Animals
Ecosystems True Endless Wilderness Riparian Forest Common River Light Oases Common Forest Ocean Archipelago Mystic Forest Monsters 552 k Sapients 157 k
Lesser Beasts - Humanoid Animals 19.8 k
Beasts 25 k
Divine Beasts 1 Humanoid Beasts -
Plants
Magical 1.4 m Monsters 65 k
??? 1.7 k ??? 1
BossesRoyal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. Melia (Elder Ash Dryad) Anty (Greater Antmother)
Bonded Creatures Seker (Life and Death Spirit)
Special Creatures - (Divine ???)
Intruders 13
Gorm was amazed by his new status, especially the doubled mana regeneration and almost tripled mana capacity intrigued him. He had finally been able to increase his mana regen, but more importantly, he had gained the increase in mana capacity he should with floors as huge as his. Another noteworthy fact was, that he couldn¡¯t find any indication that his mana regen was burdened by the upkeep of the two floors outside of the mountain spanning formation. Gorm had a feeling that this circumstance had something to do with his father¡¯s cultivation technique, which he assumed was also where his new specialty was from. To confirm this notion, he willed the description to show in front of him.
Initial Success in ???: After achieving initial success in an unknown divine grade cultivation technique and the nature of your core, you now have complete control over every part of your dungeon with a root of your core oak in it. Due to the absolute control, the floors gain all their mana from what your roots passively disperse. Due to being a divine grade technique, the System is unable to predict the changes that would happen when further cultivating it.
This time Gorm was stunned, he had prepared himself for a high evaluation of his father¡¯s technique, but he never thought it would be divine grade. Gorm could still remember how his father taught him. Back when he was still a child his father had taken him into their garden and had shown him a little seed. Whilst explaining the technique, his father accelerated the growth of the seed and used it as an example. Thanks to that he was able to grasp it the first time he heard it. That made his father very happy, but he still had him help with farm work. Now that he thought about it, it was quite unusual for farmer family to have a divine grade cultivation technique, from what Gorm knew, Kingdoms had fallen in fights for cultivation techniques of lower tiers. Brushing off the thoughts about his past, Gorm concentrated back on his status. The next things he wanted to investigate were the changes in his list of ecosystems. Especially the True Endless Wilderness interested him.
Ecosystem True Endless Wilderness: The True Endless Wilderness ecosystem is an accurate recreation of what the majority of the Endless Wilderness is like. The Endless Wilderness ecosystem is an upgraded version of the Magic Forest ecosystem, which is the upgrade of the Mystic Forest ecosystem. Due to having a room with an active, functioning ecosystem that is simulating a magic forest you gained the ecosystem Mystic Forest. The System detected a deep connection to the Endless Wilderness in the dungeon core, after comparing its knowledge about the Endless Wilderness with the Mystic Forest ecosystem, strong similarities were detected. The Mystic Forest ecosystem first got upgraded to Magical Forest and then to Endless Wilderness Ecosystem. + additional 100% mana regeneration in rooms with this ecosystem active + 50% faster growth and higher birthrate for every non-monster living being everywhere + 300% defense to all trees in the entire dungeon - 95% mana cost to all plants that are included in the ecosystem, anywhere - 75% mana cost to all non-monster lifeforms, included in the ecosystem, anywhere - 50% mana cost to all monsters, included in the ecosystem, anywhere Endless Wilderness ecosystem is your standard ecosystem. Meaning that every new room will automatically be an Endless Wilderness ecosystem with no additional cost. That is unless you specifically want to use another one. Due to an upgraded version of the Endless Wilderness Ecosystem being available, you can, for a small amount of mana, upgrade any Endless Wilderness Ecosystem into said upgraded version. You can¡¯t use any monsters, animals, plants or things that are unnatural. This setting is not changeable.
Ecosystem Mystic Forest: Common Forest that, due to a long exposure to high-density mana, started to be inhabited by more and more magical plants. + 50% chance for a monster plant to appear
The True endless wilderness ecosystem was a surprise, it basically doubled all effects of the old endless wilderness system. What was most surprising, was that the part he had explored of the endless wilderness was apparently only the outermost rim. When he had cleared his questions from his status, he would investigate his new core room in detail, he really wanted to find out what the true endless wilderness was like. While the mystic forest was nothing special, its effect was awesome, Gorm had already seen the huge numbers of magical and monster plants. Magical plants were uncommon, at least from Gorm¡¯s experiences, but he now had almost one and a half million of them in his dungeon. They would greatly elevate the strength of all his animals. Monster plants were the next evolution phase of plants, even Gorm had only seen a handful of them on his travels. To evolve into a monster plant a magical plant needed huge amounts of mana and some other special circumstances. Most magical plants could grow for tens of thousands of years before they accumulated enough mana to evolve. Monster plants were multiple times more effective than magical plants and would be treasured anywhere in the outside world. Gorm knew that plants could evolve further, with one stage being sentient and another being sapient, but because he had never met anything beyond a plant monster, he wasn¡¯t sure what the stages were exactly and in which order they were. So while the huge increase in animal evolutions made him excited, the number of plant evolution, especially the almost two thousand from which he didn¡¯t know the evolution name, made him ecstatic. Something that bothered Gorm was, that he didn¡¯t know his new boss Anty, but due to her name, he assumed that she had met Melia. And if Melia gave her a name she couldn¡¯t be all that bad. He would talk to her as soon as possible, especially because of her race. Gorm assumed that she was responsible for the ants that guarded the entrance into his true dungeon. He wanted to talk about some plans he had for the inhabitants of the first nine floors. He was playing with the idea to give them the possibility to enter the lower floors for training and resource gathering. He only had that idea now, that he knew that his suspicion came true. Only in the part of the dungeon that was within the formation, did the animals show the crazy increase in intellect. The two new floors still had a higher chance for monsters to appear, but the probability for a sapient animal was as minimal as in the outside world. Another piece of good news was that Sek finally was able to finish his change, Gorm didn¡¯t think that evolution or mutation would be a good way to describe what the spirit went through. Gorm hadn¡¯t ignored the thirteen invaders, in truth, as soon as he saw that there were invaders in his dungeon he had scanned it in its entirety, and the intruders turned out to be small animals that had stumbled into the entrance of his dungeon. After discovering the high mana density, they decided to settle in the part that was intended for the future adventurers. Now the only thing left was the nameless unknown divine creature. Gorm pulled its description up.
- (Divine ???) Barbary macaque that, due to lucky coincidences, got the chance to evolve into a divine animal. The evolution is still in progress, so it¡¯s unknown what the end product will be.
Even though Gorm didn¡¯t know what a divine animal was, he knew that the little monkey would be insanely strong, so he decided to make him the guardian of his core oak. As soon as the evolution process finished he would talk to the monkey and make him his protector. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> With all the new information sorted through Gorm only had to investigate a few more things and talk with Sek, Melia and the new boss Anty. But he would try to do so with more patience. Now that he was open to the outside and didn¡¯t have to worry about how to get enough mana to afford the upkeep of his future floors, Gorm could allow himself to do things a bit slower. In his last life, he never was in a state of constant stress like in his dungeon core oak form. If he was still a human, he would have never had the energy to work this crazy for so long. Now the only things Gorm wanted to do was expand his dungeon slowly, enjoy his time with Melia, Sek, and his creatures, and find out why he even was in this situation. Gorm didn¡¯t know that the very definition of being a dungeon core was to never have peace for long. Unbeknownst to anybody, a group of hunters of the nearby village was on its way to the dungeon. Chapter 18: Greencliff ¡®Fucking boars! I¡¯m trying to find just a single boar! For almost a week! Where the hell did they all go? Normally the woods here should be overflowing with game, but since a few months ago it started to dwindle rapidly.¡¯ Ben was the son of the owner of the only restaurant in the entire Rimmlands. Not that that was hard, with the hard conditions everyone faced. His father¡¯s restaurant was also the reason why he was so pissed. Once a month Ben had to hunt a boar, which his father then prepared in a special way for their village blacksmith. Ben could still remember how angry the werewolf was whenBen was unable to hunt and his father had to take out time from his busy schedule and hence wasn¡¯t able to deliver in time. Thanks to this scary memory he didn¡¯t even play with the thought to return empty-handed. Now there was only a bit over a day left until the usual delivery time arrived if he included the time his dad needed to cook Ben had only a few more hours before he had to be back. More importantly, he would miss the exercise day if he didn¡¯t come back before tomorrow morning. ¡®I really hope that stupid cripple doesn¡¯t pick me for the demonstration again.¡¯ Ben shuddered at the thought of the exercise day last week. Out of options, he decided to take a risk and leave the relatively peaceful low mana zone he was currently in. ¡®Whatever I meet there shouldn¡¯t be as horrible as the punishment I would get if I miss training or don¡¯t bring a boar home in time.¡¯ Ben quickly climbed on one of the bigger trees. After finding out in which direction the mountain was, he came back down and made his way in its direction. The mana zones in most of the Rimlands where seemingly random, but in reality, they never jumped more than three levels between zones. So it wasn¡¯t surprising that the zones directly around Greencliff where relatively low-level. But different to all other settlements every zone more than three zones away from the village was at least a high-level one. Another uniqueness of Greencliff was that the village that was nestled under and in a cliff was the only known place where a zone with almost zero mana bordered directly on a high-level mana zone. The cliff itself and a small area beneath it had nearly no mana, but everything on top of the cliff was at least high-level. In general, the zones near and especially on the mountain were on a much higher level compared to everywhere else. The only exception was the village which was directly on its foot. When this was discovered, around 200 years after the zones appeared, and the mountain grew, hordes of mages, researchers and adventurers tried to find out why that was the case, but never got any results. This was also the time when the expansive system of caves, tunnels, and houses in the face of the cliff were first created. Ben was told that some mages thought that there were mana zones inside it and tried to find them by digging, without success naturally. Ben also wasn¡¯t too sure about the mountain growing part. But their town mayor told them he once had a friend who lived at the foot of the then much smaller mountain. If what he said really was true, it would mean that he was over 700 years old, which didn¡¯t make it more believable in the least. If his parents hadn¡¯t warned him to always be respectful to the mayor, he would just treat him as a confused old man. Which he still did, but he didn¡¯t show it. Concentrating back on finding boar trails, Ben felt a slight increase in the mana concentration. This meant that he had arrived in the border region between zones. A few minutes of walking later the concentration stabilized again. After crossing two more zones he arrived at the foot of the mountain. Contrary to anything he knew, Ben didn¡¯t encounter even the most basic magically enhanced animal, let alone a true monster. Even after a thorough search, he didn¡¯t find one. They and boars seemed equally scarce. Without much of a choice, he went to the next zone. After almost an hour of searching, Ben found the trail of a few boars. Exited he followed them ¡®If I see thing correctly, they left just under an hour ago. If I¡¯m lucky I¡¯ll be back before dinner.¡¯ Soon he discovered more and more trails. They all seemed to lead in the same direction. Half an hour later he discovered the boars he had followed in front of him. Carefully he sneaked towards them. As he came closer he discovered that one of the boars was a magically enhanced animal. This made it strange that he hadn¡¯t been discovered already.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. When he was in was close enough to comfortably kill them with his bow. He stopped and observed them. When they focused on something to their right, Ben released the arrow he already had on his bow. Surprisingly one arrow was enough to kill the magic boar. And its companions also didn¡¯t seem to care. They relatively unhurriedly made their way into some shrubbery and continued with their way. Ben quickly tied some branches into an improvised sled and heaved the boar on it. He was somewhat split between immediately going back home or finding out where all the trails lead to. In the end, reason prevailed and he made his way back home. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> It already started to get dark when he was able to see the massive defensive wall and its towers of Greencliff. These defensive fortifications alone would be enough for any other place to become a town. And if one considered the population size of Greencliff too, it bordered on a miracle that they still were a village without its own official crest. When he had asked his father why that was the case, Ben was told that the mayor refused any kingdom or empire that wanted to bestow one onto them. The main reason was that he and most of the village''s inhabitants didn¡¯t want a garrison force stationed inside their walls. Back when he was still a child he discovered that above the entrance to the cave, in which the mayor lived, was a crest engraved into the stone of the cliff. The answer that his school teacher gave him, after asking about the crest, was that Greencliff already had a crest, but none of the surrounding powers wanted to accept it. It was as old as Greencliff, which was enormous for the Rimland. The oldest town in the Rimmlands Ben knew of, besides Greencliff, was a 200-year-old bastion city of some empire. Arriving in front of the gate, Ben greeted the guards that were lazing around in the guard chamber in the gate. If he didn¡¯t know them Ben would assume they didn¡¯t take their jobs seriously, but somehow they always knew when something was going to happen. After passing through the gate, Ben made his way over the cleanly paved streets towards his home. Only a few dozen meters away from home he was stopped. One of the street sweepers, this was what the locals called the people that wanted to migrate to Greencliff, yelled at him. ¡°I just cleaned here! Don¡¯t you see that? You¡¯re smearing blood everywhere. Can¡¯t you pay attention to the fucking boar you¡¯re dragging around?¡± He could understand the street sweeper. But the point in having him do this job was to find out how serious he was in moving to Greencliff. Only if he was able to last the month of community work without complaining, would he be allowed to truly move in. Just when he wanted to answer to the man, two guards arrived and took him away. ¡®Another one that doesn¡¯t make it.¡¯ Ben thought and continued home. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> ¡°You¡¯re finally home! Mum and I were about to send someone to search for you. Do you have the boar?¡± Bens father seemed more concerned with the boar than with Bens situation. ¡°Yeah, it took forever to find one, I had to go up the mountain to hunt one¡­¡± ¡°You did what?¡± asked Bens mother, who just came in, upset. ¡°I had to go up the mountain to find a boar, but I shot a magical one. Maybe I can get a nice bone arrow from uncle Gren.¡± Ben answered. ¡°The only thing strange was, that most of the magical animals and monsters seem to have gone somewhere in the mountain, I discovered their trails when I went after the Boars.¡± He added. ¡°What? Do you think, that is the reason why there was so little game in these past few months? If you think so you have to tell the mayor about it. Some of the people with special needs had a hard time finding prey.¡± ¡°Keith, you take Ben up to the mayor. Ben, we will talk after you are back.¡± Said Bens mother and with a stern gaze at Ben she added. ¡°Don¡¯t think you will get away scot free.¡± <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> After the long walk to the cliff face and the even longer walk upwards, through the countless tunnels and caves inside the cliff, Ben and his father arrived at the highest point. A few guards, secretaries and advisors were the last obstacle to reaching their goal. Thankfully Bens father Keith was a respected member of the village, he even was in the council, so he had no problems meeting the mayor. This was the first time in a few years Ban visited the mayor. Almost magically his eyes were attracted by the crest above the door into the mayor¡¯s chambers. It showed a mighty tree with huge roots and an eye in the base. The roots seemed to clasp a stone beneath them. Behind the tree was a mountain, that vaguely resembled the mountain on which¡¯s foot their village was. His father¡¯s knocks tore him out of his thoughts. Very soon the mayor called them in. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> The mayor was a big man, and despite his clearly advanced age, he was still fit. If it wasn¡¯t for his unkempt silvery grey beard and his always moving eyes he would look quite dignified. Coupled with the stories he tended to tell, especially to the kids, Ben always felt he was a mad person. The worst thing was, that as soon as a topic wasn¡¯t to his liking, the mayor started to unconsciously release his aura. Which, despite being nature attributed, was irritating, to put it nicely. Now Ben had the questionable honor to tell him about his discoveries. Chapter 19: Cutting Ben started his narration with the reason for going hunting in the first place and the fact that the amount of game was decreasing. When Ben was talking about the game shortage. The mayor started to frown and faintly released an extremely overbearing aura. Thankfully it still was somewhat reserved. Enabling Ben to continue. As he kept talking, the pressure started to increase. The mayor apparently didn¡¯t like the fact that he had to search high concentration mana zones to find something to hunt. But when he arrived at the part where he found the trails that all lead into the same direction, the aura started to trouble Ben. If it wasn¡¯t for the fact that his father shielded him, he wouldn¡¯t have been able to continue talking. Already thinking that the pressure couldn¡¯t increase any further, Ben proceeded to finish his story. When he finished his earlier presumption was proven incorrect. The fact that the boars didn¡¯t care about the death of one of them and continued walking somehow agitated the mayor so much that he unconsciously released his full aura. The pressure was so big that even Keith, Bens father, started to sweat. If it weren¡¯t for the protection he gave Ben, Ben would have fainted. ¡°You are absolutely sure that the boars simply continued their way up the mountain after you killed one of them?¡± asked the mayor in a rougher than usual voice. ¡°Yes, only one looked back, but it still followed the rest,¡± Ben answered through gritted teeth. ¡°Tomorrow you will bring me and a few of the stronger guards to the place where you shot the boar. We will investigate where all the animals are going.¡± ¡°Sir Hal, I hope you won¡¯t bring my son further than he already went.¡± Bens father asked worriedly. ¡°I won¡¯t. But he has to at least show us the trail. After that I will send him back. Now please leave, I have to inform the elder council and the guard captain.¡± the mayor shooed them away. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> On their way back, the father and son duo didn¡¯t speak. Only when they arrived back at their home, Bens father talk again. ¡°Go to bed early. Tomorrow will be a hard day. I will talk to your mother. Tell her I will inform the town council before I talk to her¡± Ben only nodded. He was still a bit out of it. He couldn¡¯t understand why the mayor had such a strong reaction to his story. On his way to his room, he quickly told his mom to wait for his father. When inside his room he immediately went to bed, this would be the first real sleep in almost a week, that was if he could still sleep after what happened earlier. Just when he drifted into sleep, he got woken up again. His little sister was bent over him and looked at him expectantly. ¡°Did you bring something for me? You promised!¡± It took ben awhile to really register what was happening when he did he wanted to flare up, but couldn¡¯t. Inside he cursed the person who made his five-year-old sister so damn cute. ¡°No I didn¡¯t, but tomorrow I will go into a high mana zone with the mayor. I will collect a nice plant there for you.¡± He said while stroking her head. ¡°But you really have to do it! If not, I will not heal you if you get hurt while hunting.¡± ¡°I promise Keila,¡± Ben assured her. Keila was the pride of their family. She was born with a rare natural nature affinity. Different from acquired affinities, one could get after training, her affinity let her control plants instinctively. And that was while she was still a baby. Ever since she was three, one of the elders in the elder council taught her how to control her gift. Now, only two years later, she already was able to heal most wounds and illnesses. One could imagine how far she would come in the future. One of Keila¡¯s favorite hobbies was to grow plants. This was why she had Ben bring back a plant whenever he went hunting. She even had her own little garden. Her master had gifted it to her after she found out that Keila could mature plants way faster than normal. Besides growing faster, she also saturated her plants with mana. The first plant Ben had gifted her, a little apple tree sapling he had found in an abandoned monster den, had already reached the magical plant level. Not that Ben really knew how to distinguish it from a normal tree. ¡°If I like it you can pick one apple. But only one! Grandma Bostrid said I can only pick one every week.¡± Keila chirped happily while leaving his room. He really had to bring something nice. Despite being unable to distinguish a normal tree from a magical one, he could distinguish a normal apple from one of Keilas. Her apples where tiny, despite the considerable size of her tree, but held a huge amount of mana. The last time he had eaten one he da directly broken through. He could still remember the strange gaze the old trainer gave him when he was able to complete his regimen without breaking a sweat. Thinking about the many uses of Keilas magic apples he drifted back into sleep.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Ben woke up with sunrise. After a quick wash and breakfast he made his way to the foot of the cliff. There he waited besides the main entrance. Most public buildings and storages where inside the cliff. Bens father explained that that was so that in case of an attack, be it human or beasts, they could evacuate those that didn¡¯t live in the cliff and as long as they could defend the few entrances on the base of the cliff they wouldn¡¯t lose too much even if everything in the village was destroyed. In case of a prolonged siege there even where gardens and fields inside the larger caverns. Keila''s garden also was inside the cliff. And because her master had used her considerable might as a member of the elder council, it was right beside the family cavern. Why every family had a cavern inside the cliff was something Ben never understood. Especially the fact that besides a place to live there also where workplaces. His father for example also had a restaurant inside the cliff and it was even bigger and better equipped than the one in the village. Another strange thing was that whenever a new cave was needed a new cave would appear, but only above a certain height up the cliff. The bottom layers where the same ever since Ben could remember. They also where the only places where not every cave had an obvious use. Ben speculated that they had something to do with defense. But because there never had been a need to evacuate into the cliff since he was born, he wasn¡¯t sure. Deep in thoughts, Ben didn¡¯t notice ten men in Greencliffs guards uniform and armor that had gathered on the other side of the entrance. ¡°Oh man, I hope whatever that boy found is at least a bit interesting. It has been over 15 years since the last time we had to intervene.¡± The youngest looking of the ten said. ¡°I don¡¯t think the captain would have sent us if it wasn¡¯t something dangerous. I believe he said that Sir Hal will accompany us.¡± Responded the obvious leader of the group. ¡°If even that old man comes it shouldn¡¯t be easy.¡± Turning to the man that first spoke, he continued. ¡°Seth, why are you always so negative about our missions? I still remember when the town council sent us to get that old witch Bostrid, you also said you wanted some action. And you know how that turned out. She had one of her plants inject an aphrodisiac into you.¡± ¡°Thankfully I was fast enough to bind you¡­ I don¡¯t want to know what you would have done if you were free.¡± Interjected another man whilst laughing. Except for the first man they all started to laugh. ¡°It¡¯s good that you are relaxed, but I hope you will be a bit more serious when we¡¯ve left.¡± An old voice suddenly said behind them. Without waiting for a response the mayor turned to Ben. ¡°Ben let¡¯s leave.¡± <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Soon they arrived at the clearing where Ben had shot the boar. He then showed them in which direction the other boars left. After inspecting the clearing for a bit the mayor sent Ben back. A few minutes later they made their way after the boars. Halfway home Ben remembered that he had promised Keila a new plant or seed. He wanted something special to make up that he had forgotten to bring something when he came back yesterday. And he really wanted one of her apples. So Ben turned around and went back to the clearing. After finding the track of the mayor and the guards, he decided to follow them. Mainly because he was curious about where they were headed. But also because he thought that following behind them would be safer. Just over an hour later he discovered that the number of tracks increased tremendously. Another hour later he arrived at a small clearing. Cautiously he stepped in. On the opposite side of him was a roughly three-meter-wide hole underneath a bundle of what looked like roots. Curiously he walked over, he saw that the tracks of the mayor''s group led into the hole. When he stood in front of the hole he felt highly concentrated mana coming from it. Ben debated with himself if he should let his curiosity or caution win. In the end, he decided to look for a gift for his sister and leave. After searching the entire clearing for a bit without finding anything he turned back to the hole. Maybe he could find the plant which belonged to the roots. Climbing around the hole he found a small sprout, little more than a thin stem and two leaves. Thankfully it didn¡¯t grow out of one of the almost a meter-thick roots but had a small root that connected it to one of the thick roots. Ben took out a special knife his sister had given him for cutting cuttings she could grow. With a surprising amount of force, he was able to cut the small root right where it connected to the big one. Satisfied with his harvest Ben quickly made his way back home. When Ben arrived back at Greencliff he went straight to the cliff. He knew that Keila would be in her garden and he needed he to plant whatever he had brought back immediately. <<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->-<->> Keila was sleeping underneath a tall ash tree she had planted just a few months ago. While she was sleeping underneath it, it was easy to watch it grow. As quietly as possible, Ben sneaked towards her. When he was right in front of her, he pulled out his waterskin and poured a little water over her. Keila woke up with a startle. ¡°Ahh! Ben! Why are you so mean? You always do something like this.¡± ¡°Hehe, I found a super special plant for you didn¡¯t even hear me when I walked right beside you.¡± Ben defended his actions. ¡°You¡¯re still mean! But if the plant is really cool I¡¯ll maybe forgive you.¡± Ben put down his backpack and took out a small wooden box. ¡°Here, it grew out of a huge root above a hole. I think it was right above a mana spring or something like that.¡± Keila took the box and opened it. ¡°Wow! It has so much mana!¡± Keila shouted excitedly. ¡°I¡¯ll plant it immediately!¡± She walked into the middle of her garden. Her master had told her that she had to leave a space in the middle of her garden. If she found a magical plant she could plant it there. Despite not understanding why she followed the advice. But now she had found a plant with a high mana concentration. Carefully she dug a small hole, put the cutting in and covered the root with dirt. Then she used her magic. Keila slowly established a connection and started to pour mana into it. Different than normal plants, it needed a few seconds before it started to grow. And its growth speed was extremely slow. Over an hour later, Keila stopped supplying her mana. By now the cutting had grown into a roughly half meter high oak tree sapling. To Ben, who had been watching the entire time, it had been a very boring hour. ¡°Do you like it? Why didn¡¯t you grow it a bit bigger?¡± Ben asked Keila. ¡°I love it! I tried, but it needs so much mana, I can¡¯t make it grow quicker.¡± Keila seemed exhausted. ¡°I will show it to master tomorrow. Can you tell mom and dad that I want to sleep in the garden today?¡± ¡°Wow! I knew that it was special!¡± Ben was quite proud of himself. ¡°I can but only if I get one apple. I will tell them that master Bostrid wants you to try something overnight.¡± Keila allowed Ben to pick an apple. After sitting down beneath the apple tree he ate the apple and started to circulate his mana in the way the old trainer had taught him. It was already dark when Ben finally finished absorbing the mana from the apple. Keila was sleeping underneath the now one-and-a-half-meter tall oak tree. Ben took a blanket out of his backpack and covered her. Then he made his way home.