The dungeon building was put on hold for the time being. It seemed that somehow I had been infested with a bunch of people from the earth. I asked the system about it, and it gave me the equivalent of a shrug and said," people who think the same seem to attract each other." I questioned further, but the system only said, "ask the administrator." No way that was possible now, and even could; I have the feeling I wouldn't like the answer. I'll look after the parasites for now. I wanted to euthanize them, but the system seemed very much against that idea. I counted thirty so far, not counting the sinners on the 17th floor. A passive income came from the happy farm, so I had a few points to spend. I used a few to buff the sapiens villages, or it seemed the villages were more like cities now. The giants tried to cull their numbers, but the sapiens pushed them back. The giant chief had been severely injured and couldn't continue his duty. Even magic couldn't heal damage to the spine and partial paralysis. Rexus' son, the otherworldly parasite, took over as the new chief. He had a massive grudge against the sapiens and wanted blood, but I put a stop to that quickly. I needed them to stop killing each other until I had finished at least six more floors; that would take 8000 dungeon years or more, dungeon years, of course.
The mer had figured out how to live in symbiosis with the water life of the 20th floor. It seemed that most creatures in my dungeon could live forever as long as they stayed relatively healthy. I had to keep their numbers to a healthy level by killing them or letting what the system called a rage purge. The beasts would kill each other by lowering their numbers and, at the same time, get stronger by absorbing the mana from the kills.
I also noted quite a few variants among the beasts of the dungeon who officially entered the domain of monsters and divine beasts. The divine beasts became dungeon bosses and could respawn given enough time.
I watched as what was once a squid evolved due to constant fighting and war with an orca pod. The bastard had killed a significant number of them until he had evolved into a giant behemoth of a Kraken. It looked more like a massive coiled cephalopod that had a body length of 100 ft. The thing started warring with the rest of the sea on the 20th floor. After about three months of absolute carnage, the Mer sealed it in a cave using mana chains and enchanted steel from an underwater mine. They drove harpoons through the arms of the squid, nailing it to the ground. The thing didn't care, though; it knew that wouldn't hold forever and seemed content to wait it out by cultivating. The squid thought it a break from its "fun time slaughter."
While I don't level up, apparently others do, just not in a litrpg or gamelit way. The system said it's a mix of help from the system, mana cultivation, and taking life force.
Taking life force means killing others or culling monster populations. Unlike me, it seems others don't take kindly to murder; too bad, it would double the life force you get if you killed a fellow human.
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The rakes were having all kinds of fun. They had several new toys coming in every 30 minutes. Evidently, the summoning wasn't drawn from the same time period or even the same earth; it was entirely random. Somehow though, the things they were holding, regardless of where they were, came with them. Some of them had fought off the rakes and barricaded themselves in a dead end using rocks and other things dropped by previous unlucky lotto winners. The caves were ridiculously long, so there was no escape, and a barrier prevented them from leaving the labyrinth. They rescued who they could and brought them into whatever village/community they had going on. They somehow found food and supplies from the random dead bodies and resolved themselves to eat rake stew. In the last 80 dungeon years, they found seeds, torches, swords, a few rifles, backpacks with all kinds of goodies, and somehow metal that they tore off a tank that spawned in the halls with some crazy old man. The village even had several small kids running around and elderly. I didn't care much about these otherworlders because they actually contributed to my soul point count when they died, unlike those other reincarnated parasites.
The village was surprisingly civil despite the literal lowest of humanity being sent to the floor living there. I suppose either they lived in harmony or they lived out the remainder of their lives as toys for the rakes.
The saurians rather than learning magic, learned to harness it for its elements. During the time of my growth, the dungeon had random patches of mana crystal growing throughout the dungeon. System-chan said this was because the mana I was exuding had no place to go since I didn't have an entrance. The dungeon's denizens had harvested these and found they could store and release mana. The saurians discovered that the mana stones could be converted into other periodic table elements using advanced transmutation. This could happen far easier than transmutation from one periodic element to another. Mana was still a mystery, and the fact that it could be converted into anything and stay that way was basically impossible. But somehow, due to saurian technological supremacy, found a way to convert it to elements like element 115 and be atomically stable. They were already technologically Supreme but now had advanced forward by a couple hundred thousand years.
On another note, they found a temporary solution to my mana constipation. They opened a portal to the surface and vented the mana out. On a second note, cosmic mana flooded the dungeon, and a few adventurers found a way in. It wasn't like they were looking; they just happened to be in the same spot the portals opened. One moment they were on the surface; next, they were on a table undergoing vivisection.
Fascinating work, I'll tell you.
The adventurers were sent back after being turned into living experiments. They still looked the same… that is, on the outside. They had several new hardware upgrades in the brain matter compartment. They had no idea, either. The saurians were pretty good at ensuring they forgot everything about their visit. Ah… yes, the terror in their eyes, while they lay splayed open with their organs lying outside the body on the side table, was exquisite. They had been replaced with several organs that were far superior. The kitty slave was kept though I scanned her organic makeup; her entire body seemed to defy everything organically possible. Like how the fuck do cat ears on top of the head function with that position, and, and! her entire brain somehow functioned normally despite the entire rearranging of the brain. The tail is Okay; I get that, fine humans can have tails, but her brain made Darwinism look like a fucking joke.
You know what, let's fuck around more with her species; let's make them asexual, yeah ooh, good. Let's double, no, triple the birthrate. Make their skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, and immune system 100x more efficient. Let's bump up that IQ of 70 to 200. Finish it off with five senses greater than a dragon. Now to wake her up.
"WAKE UP, FOOL!!!!!!!!"