A Humble Achievement for Dungeon Kind

The Yuel and the Fae both separated into two different groups and left to settle a place in Artronia. With Artronia entering into a silent sleep, they traveled as nomads on the land. The Yuel and Fae were both a group of strange races made from the mutated sun and moon mana that was unique to Artronia and this produced a set of special characteristics. They only needed to eat once a day, while taking in energy from the sun and moon mana to sustain themselves.

The Fae's butterfly-like wings, glowed a blue-white when the moon was out. They would become calm during the moons cycle, while remaining pranksters during the day. Their diet tended to be the leaves of trees, small grasses, and other plant life. They were a graceful race at night and slept in upright sitting positions under the full moonlight.

The Yuel's characteristics gave them a much different set of habits. Their bright blood would brighten or dim, based on their mood. During the day and night, they remained stoic and calm attitude. Their movements were always slow and careful, despite their big sizes. They first tried enjoying the plants as the Fae did, but quickly realized it was not to their taste. Instead, they enjoyed insect meat the most.

They would eat the beetles, butterflies, and anything they could find that crawled on the ground. They didn't need to eat much, as most of their energy came from the sun mana during the day. Sun mana contained a mutant attribute of abundant energy, which their bodies integrated perfectly. They only needed to eat 2-3 beetles a day to remain healthy.

After a year of being nomads, the two groups split and settled in different destinations. The Fae settled on a large plateau and the Yuel settled in a large desert. The plateau was great for the Fae. It was up at a higher elevation in the mountains, where they could fly around freely among the mountain peaks while enjoying the closer moonlight during the night.

The desert environment was also perfect for the Yuel. It contained a variety of desert insect species, such as beetles, scorpions, and flies. The Yuel enjoyed the hot sands very much, they would often sleep in the wide open air during the day. They also felt a kinship with the lizards of the desert, with many of them keeping them as pets like a human would keep a dog.

In this way, the two races settled and began to multiply and grow. The Yuel and the Fae had a birth rate and growth rate similar to humans. The Fae had a slower growth period than the Yuel and a longer lifespan. They had a lifespan of around 250 years while the Yuel had a lifespan of only 85 years. The Yuel did not suffer a loss due to their lower lifespan, their fertility rate was much higher than a normal human and the Fae had a much lower fertility rate among their peoples.

The Yuel quickly welcomed an explosive increase in their population as time passed. Over 100 children quickly filled up their little village while the Fae only had 30 at this time. Only 4 years had passed since both races' creation and they had already started to build a culture. The Yuel loved stoic nature virtues, raised lizard companions, and the Yuel children even created a simple sport called Desert Dig. They loved big families, and meal time was their sacred gathering time each night.

The Fae had a much different culture from the Yuel. They loved to carve small bowls out of the mountain rocks to catch the rainwater. They would bathe in these fresh bowls of water after a thunderstorm passed. They formed a social status based on the design patterns of their wings. Their children played tag around the mountain tops, in a carefree manner. The night was a sacred time for them and no member of the tribe was allowed to make any pranks during the night.

...

Time passed by for 450 years and the first generations of the races had all passed away peacefully. The lands have slowly grown richer in the population of both races and more animals have started to appear.

Artronia had finally awoken from his sleep. He extended his mind over the planet again and focused first on the Fae villages in the mountains. He counted over 3400 Fae now. The older generations had already passed away and now there were many young ones playing together under the sunset.

He then moved and glanced at the Yuel villages in the desert. They had over 12200 Yuel living together, each with their own style of lizard partner on their shoulders. The lizards they bred, looked like larger iguanas, but they had different colored scales depending on the personality of the Yuel person. The Yuels talked openly in their own language. Some lay on the large beds of stone, in comfort and chatted while eating desert beetles.

The Yuel had begun to organize themselves into a semi-tribal culture centered around a set of singing customs. Artronia hadn't realized that during his creation of the Yuel and Fae races, he had made a few mistakes when integrating human features. These mistakes weren't exactly a detriment to the races but had inadvertently become some of the most prominent parts of their culture. The Yuel were made from the human body, but their size and minor differences produced longer and thicker vocal cords. This resulted in the Yuel having a deeper voice for both the males and females, along with their voices taking on a thicker sound that was very pleasant to hear. It would sound like a thick rubber band vibrating like the strings of a low chello.

The Yuel fell in love with making songs with their deep voices. They were naturally acustic and most had the ability to sing sub-harmonic notes. After 2 generations, they formed a culture around singing, writing songs, and expressing themselves in music. Their songs were gritty deep and rough sounding, but powerful. They had even created a drum-type instrument called the Bootmin-Bok and a woodwind instrument made of Jagmani Lizard bones called a Bagni, which sounded like a low trumpet.

At the end of the 4th generation of Yuel, small accapella bands were formed with their own forms of musical accompaniment to pass the time. Yuels are naturally stoic and expressionless, but they love their humming, beatboxing, and music-making for entertainment. The Yuel would have a music festival every new month due to tradition. Today just so happened to be the music festival, which they would do at sunset due to its sacred nature. They ended up being surprisingly expressive in their music and Artronia quite enjoyed listening to their music.

Artronia mentally hummed along with their rhythm, and the gold mana swirled around the Yuel performers, amplifying the Bootmin-Bok's drum beats and the sounds of their voices. The Yuel closed their eyes, tapping their feet while listening to the performance of the bands. Many of the Yuel, would hum along with the bands, creating a chorus of echoes into the night of deep sub-harmonic voices. The golden waves of mana were dancing along to the beats of the lead singers. Their bodies were a light show of bright glowing light as their excitement was expressed through their lighting up blood. It looked like a modern-day concert of red neon lights outlining the bodies of all the Yuels as the sun dipped below the horizon.

Some of the pet lizards of Yuel tribe members were bobbing their heads to the beat with their eyes half closed. They were curled around the necks of their Yuel companion's shoulders. A few mischievous hid away from the adults eating desert beetles as a snack. Artronia absolutely loved the atmosphere of the Yuel festival. He never expect them to develop and love music so sincerely, he felt something he didn't think he could feel. He felt proud.

Artronia swept his mental gaze over the Yuel softly, like a father watching his children. He couldn't help but think about his other race, the Fae. He mentally moved over to study them for a while, perhaps they would have an interesting change like what he had seen in the Yuel culture.

The Fae were a free-spirited people. They had not grown to love singing like the Yuel had in their culture. Instead, they loved... squirrel races? Artronia was confused at what exactly he was seeing. The Fae had tamed some large mountain squirrels to race around the mountain peaks, meanwhile, the Fae members would fly around watching them. They would bet on the races in a form a flower petal currency. Yes, flower petals. It would seem that the Fae had learned that depending on what kind of plants the members of their children would eat while growing up would influence the beautiful patterns on their wings.

Now they had become very picky with their foods, with the most wealthy groups having flower petals of different quality to trade. These petals quickly became the currency and riches of the Fae. Artronia didn't expect that his experiments in building a mana circuit network for flowers would produce such a different variety and quality of flowers after being asleep for so many years. Some flower petals were extremely alluring now, with a texture of a pure white pearl or a clear mixture of sapphire and ruby gemstones swirled in mixed delight. The flower petals, of these mutated mana flowers, had an appearance surpassing most gemstone treasures from the memories of the archmages world.

Artronia continued watching the little Fae's he had made for a few weeks. They would go out and explore the mountain for more treasure flowers, barter, and trade with each other, and he even saw a few mischievous children trying to sneak into an older Fae's storage room to steal some of her saved petals. They had become complex so very quickly and seemed a bit greedy to count their 'wealth'. Artronia couldn't really understand it from a perspective of a dungeon core, because all of this was what he made and a part of himself. But when he compared what he saw to some of the archmage soul's memories, he could see some images of humans trading gold and silver coins for different things.

'Is this a good thing or not?' Artronia thought to himself, before shrugging it off.

He would look back in later and see if any new changes happened in the Fae. He had to admit that he felt immense enjoyment in watching what his two races had become after a set amount of time. He loved to see their cultures and how they added color to his planet. He didn't even realize before he created them, that he needed them. That he was a bit lonely and having everything within your control is a bit too boring anyway. He loved that he couldn't predict what could happen to these two races, that his small mistakes in trying to replicate the human mana core system, created such distinct differences, unique to his races on his planet. He felt the spirit of adventure, wonder, and unknown start to take hold of himself while inspiration washed over his soul.

'I will make a more, then. I want more color.' Artronia thought.

He looked over his mana core and saw that the golden mana he had spent on the universal gate spell had all been recovered by his long sleep. He began gathering the materials to perform the spell again, with some minor adjustments after the success of the first time. He wanted to reduce the amount of land and creatures that were pulled over from the shift, hopefully sparing the lifeforms in the area. He also wanted to reduce the area involved and move it to a different coordinate in the same world to gather different creatures.

Artronia quickly grabbed all that he needed and after 4 months, he was ready to activate the modified universal gate spell again on the archmage's old world. The spell was successful and the modifications he added were also half successful. He managed to move the coordinates to different biomes, pulling in 3 different sections of the world along with lifeforms, but the creatures still died. A third of his golden mana was used up again to perform this spell, but the results satisfied him. He pulled in: a section of artic lifeforms including penguins, polar bears, and some snow gremlins, a section of jungle lifeforms, including amazonian lifeforms like gorillas, jaguars, tigers, toucans, and many other rich and diverse life, and finally a section of an old ruin filled with moss, vines, rats, and mice.

He spent a long time, recreating all the dead creatures with adapted mana circuits for the golden mana, placing them around the planet. He added the jungle life into many already growing dungeon cores in Artronia. The cores would enhance the rich lifeforms around them and mutate them on their own and without Artronia's interference. He now loved the idea of just letting things go and seeing what will happen naturally. Now there were 40 different jungle groups around the planet, next to each of the dungeon cores. He also made a few other natural jungle areas so that the original animals could thrive.

He took the artic lifeforms and placed them in the coldest areas of the world, while the polar bears and snow gremlins naturally hunted in the area. There were also many deep sea lifeforms from the glacier, which he revived for the oceans. The oceans were now filled with large and diverse life, from microscopic mana plankton to large whales, dolphins, and sharks. Large schools of fish, crabs, and sea life were spread out across the planet. This was all thanks to the large glacier that contained many frozen species from older eras.

Finally, he took the old ruins and... well he didn't do anything with those. But he did think it would be interesting if the carvings could be a universal symbol on his planet. It inspired him to create his own symbol system, in which he started to experiment on his island. His island now had carvings showing the way he did everything. How he created Artronia, then the sun and moon, then the dungeons, then made the Yuel and Fae, and finally now the jungles, sea life, and writing. He wanted to keep improving his writing later, but first, he felt like he needed to celebrate. He wanted to make another core race.

Artronia came up with three new ideas for a core and mana circuit based on animals. But first, he needed to combine the human mana core mana circuit and the animal circuits to make a brand new core circuit. It would be quite a complicated process, and he didn't know if it would cause an abnormal mutation or defect that could hurt his new race's future. He needed to proceed slowly.

He started with his first inspiration, the polar bears and the human mana network combination. He slowly weaved his mana time and time again. He replicated the polar bear mana circuit and altered it bit by bit, comparing it to the human core circuit. He needed to make the circuit able to handle a core, which is completely different than the coreless mana circuit. As far as he understood, mana cores actually housed the soul of a being and were like a difference between 3D beings from 2D drawings. When he made the Yuel and the Fae, he only slightly altered the human mana circuit, but now he was fundamentally inventing a new mana circuit to hold a new kind of soul, a fusion of a bear and a human type being.

Time passed and Artronia failed over and over again to create a mana circuit that could hold an ice-type mana core. It had been almost exactly 3 years since he started, but he finally did it. Artronia felt a wave of satisfaction at completing a completely new core network based on the human core mana network. He quickly stirred his mana and finished the final creations of the bodies of his new race. He was excited to see what changes would await.

Once again, fourteen new creatures were formed from the elemental mana of ice, earth, and water. This formed a frozen mana core that balanced itself within the golden mana environment. The fourteen large creatures looked around curiously. They stood a huge 10 feet tall and had broad thick white fur coats. They stood upright, bipedally like humans, and their backs were upright. They stood naturally, with large bear-shaped faces, but their throats were more developed than the polar bears. Their paws had four thick, but malleable finger-like extensions, which they could use to grip the air around them. Their feet were huge and wide, with a thickness like small tree trunks. They looked majestic and fierce, with a powerful vitality that could support a natural lifespan of around 200 years.

"Welcome children," Artronia said. He conveyed his meaning through mana. His tone was filled with joy at his success.

"I will give you the lands of ice and snow. And I give you the racial name of Berans." Artronia gave them a racial name immediately.

The Berans shivered as they felt their mana cores shine in recognition of their racial names. They let out a joyful roar and their faces smiled. To humans, perhaps this smile would be terrifying, but Artronia didn't think so.

"Go now, live and multiply, be free," Artronia said as he lifted them gently and moved them into the colder environment of the glaciers in the artic.

Artronia mentally smiled at his work, but he wasn't done yet. He had another two inspirations from his work on the Berans and he planned to create two more races before he rested again. After the success of watching his previous creations, the Yuel and Fae, grow up, he looked forward to seeing the changes when he would next wake up and he wanted to maximize his entertainment by making multiple races.

Artronia stretched out the mana circuit of the mice he had gathered before and began to try and make a new core system from the human and beran core circuit examples. Thats right, he had made another big race such as the berans, but now he wanted to see if he could shrink the core circuits and make a small race. He used the mice mana circuits as an example to do this.

Thankfully, due to his prior success with the beran race, he finished his new 'tiny' core circuit after 3 months. He used mutant nature mana, wood mana, and light mana to make a mana core that was tiny, enough to fit inside a small mouse if needed. He focused his golden mana and transformed the bodies of his new race delicately. Fourteen small mice creatures stood bipedally on the open ground, but suddenly a loud thunder sounded and light began to burst out of the small mice, like a bright flashbang.

Artronia was startled and he quickly swept his mental strength across his creature's bodies to diagnose the problem. He was worried that some mutation would cause them to be disabled. The light slowly died down and what was left were fourteen mice with beautiful golden fur. Their eyes were bright brown and glowed with a slight light, filled with intelligence. Artronia looked through their mana network and was astonished. The mana cores of the mice race were condensed to the size of a marble, their mana was overflowing, and their brains contained a huge mental strength. Artronia finished his diagnosis and noticed that their vitality had taken a large hit from this mutation, but they would be incredibly in tune with magic and the golden mana of Artronia.

"Hello, little ones," Artronia communicated gently.

"Who?" One of the small mice creatures mentally questioned.

Artronia was once again surprised, his new creations were extremely smart and talented. One of them even conveyed mental meaning through mana instinctively merely a few minutes after their creation. This race had huge potential to use magic.

"I am your maker Artronia, little one. I gave you life and now I will name your race. I give you the name of Mrin. You are blessed by my golden mana and will be a great race. I give you the Forest of Tsib. Live and multiply peacefully children," Artronia spoke gently. He liked this little golden Mrin race.

The Mrin's shivered as their tiny mana cores churned in recognition of their racial identity. Then, Artronia swept them off the ground and transported them to the Forest of Tsib, one of the Jungle forests that were not near a dungeon. He placed them down next to a large redwood tree and just watched them silently for a while. The Mrin were very intelligent, they could speak like humans, but didn't have a language yet. However, this didn't stop them from quickly getting used to communicating mentally with mana like Artronia first showed them. He estimated that the mutation of their cores would heavily cut their lifespans and might cause some difficulties when they were growing. Perhaps they might only have a natural lifespan of 50 years of so. He watched them explore the area curiously for a short while before returning back to his island. He had one more race he wanted to make before he slept.

This time, his inspiration was a plant. Yes, he was using the moss from the ruins as his inspiration for this race. However, he probably wouldn't be able to incorporate many of the features of moss into this race. He didn't want a race of moss that acted intelligent, but a new race of creatures. He adjusted the mana quality and moved the core mana circuits around slowly. After only a short two weeks, he managed to come up with the new core design.

Artronia used water, dark, and earth mana to make this mana core circuit. He formed the circuits and the bodies of the new race were formed. Once again, fourteen new racial creatures were made on Artronia's island. These creatures didn't stand fully bi pedial like the others before. They were still humanoid, but they had smooth dark green skin and a naturally hunched back and posture, like a gorilla. On their shoulders was a beautiful patch of green and brown moss. Their eyes were deep blue and black, while their facial features were handsome and elegant. Their jaws were slightly protruding, but they were angular and symmetrical, giving off an attractive appearance. Their hunched back was completely natural and even looked elegant. Their arms were long enough to where they could walk like gorillas do and their fingers were extra long and nimble. Their hair was the most beautiful though, it was like flowing black water, hanging to their shoulders.

They lovingly brushed up against each other and rubbed each other's arms in greeting. Their facial expressions were very expressive, like a human baby, or even the complete opposite of the stoic nature of the Yuel. They excitedly smiled after giving each other hugs in good nature.

"Hello children, " Artronia said mentally to them all.

The new race paused what they were doing and their mouths hung open in amazement while listening to the voice in their minds. They were very expressive and actually made Artronia laugh at their cuteness.

"Haha, little ones. You are the last race I will make before I sleep. I give you the underground, the caves, and the undergrowth of the world. Take care of the caverns and creatures below for me, okay?" Artronia explained gently like a father to his children.

The creatures had broad smiles on their faces and nodded like chicken pecking rice.

"Haha, I will give you the race name of the Lhey. Go, be happy, and multiply," Artronia declared as he swept them down to the edge of a cave entrance with his golden mana.

The Lhey felt themselves shudder as their mana cores changed in recognition of the racial name. They moved around excitedly at this feeling, trying to express their joy and excitement, but they were in the air already and it looked like they were just flailing their long arms and legs around. Artronia laughed while watching the Lhey. He never knew that moss was such an expressive element when mixed with human mana circuits. They scrambled around inside the caves joyfully. They naturally loved the moist atmosphere of the caves and they filled their stomachs with the many creatures, fish, and worms nearby. They were the least picky of all the races Artronia had made on what they wanted to eat. He estimated that the Lhey would have a natural lifespan of around 500 years, due to the powerful survivability of the green moss circuits.

He waited a while and watched over the new 3 races he had made before he would sleep to recover his mana. He had used up four-fifths of his golden mana reserve this time during his experiments and the universal gate spell. He needed to rest for a long time this time and recover all that he had lost. He estimated he would sleep for around 1000 years.

Artronia watched the Beran's, in the artic, the Mrin in the Forest of Tsib, the Lhey in the caves, the Yuel in the desert, and the Fae in the mountains. He was quite pleased with all that he had done and now his planet had so many creatures. He filled the oceans with sea life, the jungles and forests with land and animals, and the mountains had birds in the sky. He had glaciers of ice that spanned the size of continents, mountains that towered into the sky, floating islands of wonder, magical metals, and finally, 5 beautiful self-created races.

He was quite happy with everything. He used to be a floating bunch of broken shards in the void. He wasn't even sure if he was a real existence before, he was just acting based on the soul shard of the archmage and his dungeon core instincts. But now, he felt something within him was different. He felt this difference after he had decided on naming himself and after his mana changed to a golden color. He was here, he was alive, and after studying the mana core for so long, he knew. He had a soul. He was a dungeon core, but also a mana core. He had a soul of his own.

He could feel the growth of his soul after creating the three races. He felt that after he woke up and recovered his mana, something else would change within him and it would be a good thing.

Artronia tidied up his floating island for a few days before he slept. He removed all the old ruins and finished carving his murals to include the creation of the Berans, the Mrin, and the Lhey. He enclosed his golden mana core within a self-made temple that looked similar to the old ruins, but with his own personal flair. The design was similar to a cross between Aztec and Mayan designs, but the murals were like ancient Egyptian drawings. They were pictographs and were incredibly detailed because they were mentally imprinted onto the walls. They looked exactly like modern photographs, with heavy image definition. This wouldn't be possible without the wonders of mana and Artronia's powerful mental strength.

Finally, after everything was tidied away for Artronia, the murals were completed alongside a magnificent temple for him to rest comfortably in, Artronia closed himself off for sleep and recovery. His last thoughts before he lost consciousness were about his anticipation to see the changes in his 5 races after he woke up. And thus, Artronia slept.

This would eventually be known as the end of Artronia's creation era, and the start of the era of Great Search.

...

Author's Note:

This is the end of the plan for creating races right now. Next, I will start with some individual tales of races in Artronia.

Which race do you like the most? Let me know in the comments.

- Yuel

- Fae

- Beran

- Mrin

- Lhey