[Saeri] Geez what are you thinking I can’t believe you didn’t just run away! If it can use mana like that it’s clearly evolved into a monster right? You don’t even know anything about fighting I can’t believe you did something so dangerous!

As expected. I’m getting quite a lecture all the way back.

[Eita] Haha. Well I was trying to run away right? Besides, isn’t it fine? We got our prize and everyone is safe.

I am certain that I would have died, or at least have had to give up on my prey, had I not learned to sense mana properly outside my dungeon. That was certainly a closer call than I would have prefered. Well, I’m not going to tell Saeri that though.

I promise myself to make a few extra backup plans from now on. I’m not a girl who can’t learn from things going wrong ok? So in a way things going wrong is exactly what went right.

[Eita] Everything turned out ok didn’t it? Now come on. We’re almost at the dungeon so keep pushing. I’m just going to extend the dungeon territory down once we reach the foot of the path. I don’t want to have to pull everything up this path.

[Saeri] Hmph. Fine but you’ll have to explain yourself properly later.

I giggle and walk up the path back to the dungeon. Saeri is adorable when she’s serious and acting bossy. It almost makes me forget how sore all of my muscles are. Almost. I made a promise to myself to spend the rest of the time until the meeting slacking off and doing whatever I want.

I spend a good deal of the saved up mana pushing the dungeon territory down the path. I absorb the antelope and feel it’s mana fill up my reserves again. I also get it’s pattern to play with. I start playing around with it and Saeri and the cats come join me soon after.

It wasn’t too late but it did end up taking us until mid afternoon. I figure it’s good enough to start eating and having fun now. I did promise the cats lots of delicious meat after all.

Let’s see. There’s this delicious berry, and a apple thing that’s pretty sour. As for salt, well luckily it seems the river I’m occasionally diverting has some dissolved rock salts in it. Oddly enough I couldn’t just filter the salt out of the water with my dungeon. It wouldn’t let me create salt until I boiled away a bunch of it to create some. It took Saeri quite a while to purify it as much as we could too. Well, it was worth it. No more bland food for us.

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The dungeon creation could control just how much of this antelope meat I wanted to create and what shape so I tried all sorts of things. Animal fat to substitute oil. Thin slices that cook immediately on our stone pan with a nice berry and herb dipping sauce. Thick steak pieces topped with salt, diced herbs, and a little of that sour juice. I even minced some venison and rabbit meat by hand. It’s difficult, or maybe impossible, to do that sort of thing with the dungeon interface. But at least once it’s absorbed a good sample I can create more, no problem. With a little extra animal fat mixed into ground venison and rabbit meat, I made little hamburger patties. Those were by far the most popular. The steaks turned out either a little raw or a little tough but the cats seem to enjoy those anyways. I myself love the paper thin slices which really lets you taste the meat. All in all, it was a nice night. We ate and drank juices and all in all had a hell of a feast.

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We’re getting to the end of week 1 now. One more week before the meeting, and that doesn’t include travel time.

Name : Eita

Race : Dungeon

Soul : Human

Level : 7

Mana Pool : 750

Mana Regen : 30 / hour

Dungeon Points : 20

Huh. Apparently that thing is worth about 30 or 40 cats. Plus what I gained overnight. Oh and I gained a level from killing it with my cats I guess. There’s definitely some things I need from the dungeon history but that can wait for a bit. I haven’t even introduced monsters to my floors yet anyways.

For now, let’s modify the fat antelope we just got. Interestingly, it has a crystal, similar to the ones that are in my creatures. It’s the first one that got brought in that has one. I guess this is proof of its ability to interact with mana on more than a basic level? The crystals in my creatures helps them use my ambient mana instead of eating and such after all. I can vaguely tell what it’s crystal allows it to do, but it doesn’t look like I can do anything with it yet except for change it to the smaller one my normal summons have.

Another interesting thing I hadn’t noticed was that beneath its fur, on the sides of its neck and body, is actually several tough, almost scaly, patches. The scales are small and overlap each other, sort of like on a snake. They are well hidden by the fur growing in between them, but they probably provide some defense for when it’s fighting against another charging antelope.

Well, either way for now let’s increase the muscle density and make it a little more aerodynamic. I will keep the horns though. Hmmm. You know, horns and teeth and nails and shells aren’t all that different from one another. Let’s see if I can add in a connected row of short dull horns across it’s chest where a harness would go…. Holy crap I can. It kind of looks like how a spiked collar would look actually. It’s a pretty nice aesthetic. It shouldn’t affect the antelope’s movements at all so why don’t I add a few more on it’s back to help distribute the force. Of course I’ll leave room to sit in case I need to ride it. Maybe I should spread the scales over its entire body too. Oh and it would look amazing if we got rid of the hair except maybe some white stripes of it on it’s neck and back, sort of like a cool mane.

It costs…. My god it costs like 500 mana. Come on I didn’t even do that much to it. Ugh. Most of the changes were just aesthetic.

Ok so I need 2 of these for transport…. Then a carriage…. Plus gifts and a new dress and all the harnesses. Hmm. This is going to cost a lot of mana. Sigh. Thats most of the mana for the next few days huh.