Ozymandias watched as the bearded dragon casually trotted through the tunnel and entered the den. By now, he had figured out whose tail was at the tunnel. It was of this particular bearded dragon. Looking at the magnificent creature that had invaded his dungeon, Ozymandias did not feel threatened, instead he felt greed taking over him.

"I want it."

It was the perfect specimen to have as a dungeon monster, even more so than the mouse he was trying to claim. Lizards and snakes felt more like dungeon monsters than mouse and insects. However, he could never have expected what came next.

The bearded dragon, as soon as it entered the den found its target - a large, juicy beetle that was rolling a sand dung.

"What the fuck?" Ozymandias' mana voice leaked out of his core, startling every creatures in the domain.

The bearded dragon had smoked the beetle whole by breathing fire through its mouth. It was something that didn't make sense. Ozymandias had checked and the said creature did not have any mana core.

The bearded dragon acted quickly. It picked up the beetle and darted out of the dungeon at a lightning speed. Ozymandias had no time to react nor any of his dungeon creatures. It was just too fast.

"So this thing can happened without a mana core, huh."

After recovering from the shock, Ozymandias thought of a plausible development. Until now, he had thought that only after having a mana core can a creature have a fantasy ability but the bearded dragon fire breathing ability had proved him wrong. None of the creatures in his domain had shown any fantasy like ability even after having mana core except for the fact that he can albeitly command them, so he thought in that strain.

"The mouse." A Sudden realisation sat upon him. The mouse was surprisingly abnormal for a mouse. It was particularly territorial, aggressive and strong for a mouse even though it did not have a mana core. Also, it was resistance to poison, something unheard of in a mouse.

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He focus on the mouse once again. It was sleeping peacefully. It's body had no abnormalities. Instead he decided to check it's tunnel.

Ozymandias was surprised by the intricacies of the mouse tunnel and more so by the things he found inside. He found a part of the tunnel, a metre long or so with two chambers full with mushrooms on bones, leaves and twigs as well as dung of the mouse. It was as if the mouse was growing them. He also found a chamber with bodies of insects buried, two of which were his own creatures.

"This is not normal mouse behaviour."

Ozymandias was right. Mouse didn't farm mushroom nor buries food neither hoard nuts. What he did not know was that the mouse was a species called Arav mouse and this was the trait of the Arav mouse, which had help it survive in the Arav desert or it will have gone extinct a long time ago.

Ozymandias evaluation of the mouse rose higher. He couldn't wait to claim it as one of his dungeon monster. But he had to wait. If he infused too much mana, a mana deviation will occur and the creature will become corrupted. He did not want that.

He check the mouse again. It was still sleeping, having been exhausted from the fight. He infused a small amount of mana in the mouse and withdraw his presence from the mouse sleeping chamber.

Ozymandias attention was drawn by the mushroom. There were three types of mushroom - a glowing type mushroom with flat cap and growing singly, a black bell-shaped capped mushroom with bulbous stem that grew in circle around glowing mushrooms and white tiny conical capped mushroom that grew in tight colonies far from the glowing mushrooms.

In the mushroom growing tunnels and chambers, Ozymandias found many minute spores floating in the air and in the soil. With a tendril, he captured one of the spore. He absorb it not only it's prana but the entirety of the spore.

A new wave of information floated his core. It was the blue print of the spore, down to its microscopic details. This was a new thing that Ozymandias had not experimented on before thanks to his evolution to second ring.

"Reproduction, huh."

Ozymandias learned from the new information that he could recreate the spores but double the cost of mana. Thankfully, the spore only had two units of prana, so it will take double of that which wasn't even half an unit of mana.

With that he created hundred spores of mushroom, which cost him forty units of mana and scattered them around the den. He hastened their growth with his mana until the den was full of mushrooms and spores.

In the mouse dungeon, the mushrooms feed on the remains of animals but here, they feed on both organic matters and ambient mana present in the soil and air. In return, the maggots and beetles began to ate the growing mushrooms.

Ozymandias noticed that the maggots and beetles stay clear of the glowing mushrooms, which also happens to be the biggest of the mushrooms growing upto an inch and with bulbous stem. It means that the mushroom was harmful to the creatures, most likely poisonous.

The mushrooms brought a new aesthetic to the dungeon. What was before a rugged, barren land of death has bloom into a forest of mushroom, bright and beautiful with many creatures frolicking around. Ozymandias wanted more of these things.

He remembered the outside world. He peer outside. It was dark outside, no longer bright. Night has dawn. However, that had no effect on him as he saw the world only in black and white. He only differentiated between the level of dimness and brightness.

The world outside was barren as well. There were little vegetations. He saw only some occassional bushes and cactus in the barren sandy terrains. There was nothing else.

Then he saw it again. A creature was approaching his domain. It was the bearded dragon. Again.