Mutation

Therina returned with everything for Styx around midday. The books were placed in a room where he could have one of the more dextrous monsters flip through the pages for him and allow him to read each page.

The moss was also placed in the same room with the containers open. He couldn't physically touch move them, but he had been focusing on learning ways with how to interact with real object using mana tendrils and shown some progress.

The progress of dungeon expansion was much faster than it used to be, and he had already begun digging out giant cavities in a second floor for research on recreating environments within them. He still had many areas he was lacking, such as life which can grow underground, and mana techniques to artificially alter the environment.

One of the greatest limiting factors was sunlight, so until he could overcome that limitation, he planned on causing plants to mutate and be able to survive off a substitute energy source. The main energy supplement is intended to be mana.

"How do you know all this stuff?" Therina asked as Styx walked her through the procedures and techniques he would employ to incite plants to mutate.

"I simply do."

"That doesn't answer anything. You have briefly described images and knowledge of a world not of this one. Your… point and click… method is from there, is it not?"

"Hmm… it is possible. I have knowledge of some things, but most lack the factor of personal identity which makes me feel… confused."

"Perhaps you came from there."

"That is also possible, all dungeons had to come from somewhere, after all."

"We are taught that dungeons are randomly born from ambient mana trapped in caves."

"Just in your village, or as common knowledge?"

"Both, I think. Perhaps it is different elsewhere, but that was how it was taught in our village at least."

"Either way, it's wrong. The mana density in the current dungeon is not much different from outside of it, and it was even lower when the dungeon was new. Nothing is born from nothing, it must come from somewhere, whether that is from somewhere else, or from an equivalent amount of energy."

"It is most likely the system which presides over the world's system and manages leveling up which will take energy from somewhere to facilitate the generation of a new dungeon core. I can speculate either I was mixed in with this energy, the memories were, or just the knowledge. For now, it should be just knowledge and memories."

Therina paused at this speculation and tugged on her hair.

"Is there any way to find out?"

"Some knowledge appears to be getting stronger as I level up, as if what is making me "me" is getting larger along with the rest of me. We can only wait and see, but there are more important matters to currently attend to."

"What matters?"

"You still haven't brought in any extra manpower. I also need you to scout out the forest for a bit so I can start creating a more detailed map. I would also like to make a topographic map, but that may be being a bit too eager."

"A what map?" Therina asked while tilted her head in confusion.

"Nevermind, just go out there and capture some people for me."

Therina went to have a bath first as she hadn't had a proper one since she left. The cheapest rooms in inns didn't have them, and she was unwilling to use a shared bath with humans.

After cleaning herself, she then headed out of the dungeon and began wondering where she would capture some people for Styx.

Once she had left, Styx turned his attention to his new experimental areas on the second floor. The first room was circular, approximately 50m in diameter and 20m tall. The ground was covered in loose dirt and some boulders.

There were several shroom gnomes who were building square garden beds out of wood, while a couple others had freshly harvested flowers and other small grasses and saplings ready for replanting. The flowers were because of Styx's affixation to beauty, while the saplings and grass were due to their high resilience and higher likelihood to produce a successful result.

With a bunch of basic oil lanterns resting on the ground and producing a small amount of light in the room, mosses were placed along the base of boulders, while mushrooms, flowers, grass and several saplings were placed in their own garden beds.

There were three different types of flowers he was testing. One was a small pinkish red avora radmis, or so it is called in this world. They were like cherry blossoms, with two or three flowers blooming from the end of each stalk.

There was also a blue lotus, or royal ariches as they were called, and aqua ursula, which were a pure white or creamy-white spider lily that had nothing to do with water as the name implied.

The forest assassins and treant spirits did most of this finer work as they were far more dextrous than the clumsy shroom gnomes.

Once everything was set up, Styx took over and first watered everything. He could see through his senses how some of the water was absorbed from the dirt, indicating that the plants were alive and functioning.

They weren't getting sunlight however, so he first used a weak mana infusion, trickling in the smallest amount he possibly could. The plants needed energy and wouldn't be able to photosynthesise, so he had to provide a supplementary energy and have the plants to adapt to it.

Mana was an incredible substance, as not only could the basic form of energy refract itself, but the same process could happen in reverse and countless other ways.

The plants didn't have a mana network, so Styx created a pseudo one out of mana which began at their roots and extended up through the plant body, ending at every petal connection, leaf, or folds in the mushroom cap.

He constantly monitored the changes in the plants, which were nothing at first but eventually made some changes.

This appeared to be quick, but actually took several days. His attention was so focused that he didn't pay attention to anything else unless he was alerted to an intruder in the dungeon. This was generally just a wild animal or some low level monster, but a small pack of goblins that were bruised and battered had also invaded.

~~~~~

Of the plants that Styx was working on mutating, the moss was the first to adopt changes. The plant finally adopted the pseudo mana network he had built within its structure. He no longer needed to feed it mana as it began to absorb its own from the ground.

This realm, planet, or whatever it was, was large enough to house a seemingly endless number of kingdoms according to Therina, so Styx was under the belief that the mana stored within the earth was theoretically infinite. Even if it weren't, a room full of the moss would taking very little, even if its consumption was to increase by a hundred-fold.

One characteristic that Styx discovered was the moss started to take on a more silvery blue color, which was a bit more vibrant at the tips of its leaves and capsules that grew atop its stems.

Just like the moss, the mushrooms began to adapt to their mana networks very quickly as well. They also grew larger, much larger, than they were before. They were originally about 4 – 8cm tall, and now they were a giant 10 – 15cm.

They also had a strange emission from the gills as occasional blue phosphorus motes of light drifted down briefly before vanishing. Even the gills themselves were emitting the faintest of blue glows from the cavity between each one.

The grass and saplings were two polar opposite. The grass didn't die, but was still struggling to adapt to using mana as an energy source. The saplings took to a mana network quite well, but they all died without fail for reasons Styx couldn't fathom.

The flowers had struggled quite a bit too, nearly 90 percent of them simply dying. The remaining ones were beginning to show progress but were yet to become fully independent. They appeared slightly more vibrant and a bit larger, but what was most surprising was how they ejected mana into the air.

The moss, grass and mushroom absorbed mana from the ground and would emit some into the air, but it was only tiny, miniscule amounts. The flowers on the other hand would output more mana than they absorbed. This was the main reason why they couldn't become independent. They would emit too much mana and very quickly wither.

With the moss and mushrooms no longer needing his support, he focused on helping them grow and proliferate while spending his mana elsewhere. He had a treant spirit collect some of the wheat and cotton seeds Therina brought back from the village months ago.

He planted a small field of each, focusing on the same mana infusion method while creating a mana network inside each seed.

As they were seeds and not actual plants, he was unsure on the best way to create a mana network, so he created various different nucleuses inside the seeds. There were a hundred seeds of wheat and a hundred cotton, so he designed ten different nucleuses and gave each to ten wheat seeds and ten cotton seeds.

They were growing from seeds, so the process and verification would take much longer than the other plants which were forced to adapt or perish. Affecting it at the seed level was the most effective method for forcing it to adjust to environmental factors as it would grow into it.

Styx felt like this was a good opportunity to level up again. He had an abundance of experience but had been restraining himself from levelling up until he had filled up his potential.

As a dungeon core, he was unsure whether his mana network differed from a living person such as Therina, another human or any other exotic race. He couldn't view his own mana network or any internal structures of his core, and his levelling up was different as well.

He could voluntarily level up or not as soon as the experience threshold was reached. He could even store additional experience points and even level up multiple times at once should he choose to.

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2,193 exp used to level up.

Lv. 7 -> Lv. 8

Accumulated skill experience bonus:

Mana Control <Lv. 9> -> <Lv. 11>

+ New Subskill: Mana Vein Creation

Dungeon Control <Lv. 8> -> <Lv. 9>

Basic Dungeon Construction <Lv. 6> -> <Lv. 7>

Trap Construction <Lv. 8> -> <Lv. 9>

Internal Resource Storage <Lv. 11> -> <Lv. 12>

Mining <Lv. 13> -> <Lv. 14>

]

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Species: Dungeon Core (Dungeon Master: None)

Name: Styx

Mana: 880/880

Exp: 3,477(+)

Level: 8

Abilities:

Dungeon Creation <Lv. MAX>

Mana Control <Lv. 11>

• Mana Infusion

• Mana Vein Creation

Dungeon Control <Lv. 9>

Dungeon Facility Construction <Lv. 7>

• Biomass Converter – 100 mana

• Breeder – 50 mana, 20 biomass

• Storage Crate – 10+ mana, 10 physical material

• Blast Furnace – 100 mana, 20 stone

• Storage Tank – 20+ mana, 20 physical material

• Rotary Mana Engine – 40 mana, 10 stone, 1 iron

• Material Refiner – 150 mana, 10 stone, 2 iron, 1 emerald, 1 ruby, 1 amethyst

• Alchemy Table – 200 mana, 5 stone, 10 iron, 1 ruby, 10 quartz

Basic Dungeon Construction <Lv. 7>

• Scan – 10 mana/m3

• Blueprint Creation – 5 blueprints

• Blueprint Manufacturing – 5 blueprints

• Mental Projection – 1 mana/min

Trap Construction <Lv. 9>

• Bait – 5 mana, 5 biomass

• Spike Trap – 20 mana, 10 stone

• Pitfall Trap – 10 mana, none

• Arrow Trap – 20 mana, 10 stone (5 on reload)

• Weak Poison Gas – 50 mana, 1 stone, 1 biomass (expendable)

• Chaotic Space Trap – 200+ mana

• Crushing Wall Trap – 30 mana, 20 stone, 2 iron

Internal Resource Storage <Lv. 12> (49,977/102,400)

• Physical Material – Stone (30,000), Dirt (10,000), Biomass (785), Ardonite (1,200), Manasteel (37.045), Wolfbone Steel (11.988), Wood (114)

• Liquid Material – Water (7,829)

Mining <Lv. 14>

• Basic Material Identification

• Mineral Detection

• Auto-mine

• Overdrive

Resources:

Biomass – 785

Stone – 496,145

Ardonite – 89,334

Dirt – 112,055

Clay – 72,400

Wood – 114

Water – 7,829

Manasteel – 37.045

Wolfbone Steel – 11.988

Monsters:

• 16x Miners (<Lv. 4> x1, <Lv. 3> x4, <Lv. 2> x8, <Lv. 1> x3)

• 12x Shroom Gnomes (<Lv. 3> x1, <Lv. 2> x4, <Lv. 1> x7)

• 6x Stonerats (<Lv. 6> x1, <Lv. 5> x5)

• 8x Forest Goblins (<Lv. 3> x2, <Lv. 2> x6)

• 3x Forest Assassin (<Lv. 7> x3)

• 5x Treant Spirit (<Lv. 11> x1, <Lv. 10> x4)

Titles:

Level Suppressor, Lusty Dungeon

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Lusty Dungeon

Effects:

• Reduced burden on host in breeding

• Born monster stats +15%

• Subject to random bouts of lust

]