Leaving Lyn behind, Viv observed what Tamiel was doing. Perhaps it was due to his name, but he was more peaceful compared to other goblins. He fought viciously when needed, but most of the time, he wandered around the cave, muttering something to himself.

That something was a new language. Some time ago, he had interrogated a man in Brevusian by writing on the cave walls. Although Tamiel knew practically nothing about the language, he had memorised the letters and the phrases, repeating them every day.

“It’s a good thing too, I won’t always be able to communicate using that method. Tamiel, come here. I’ll teach you the languages of the world, starting from the one you’re already learning. Teach it to your brothers in your spare time.”

“Yes,” Tamiel said in broken Brevusian, mispronouncing the word and placing an accent on the wrong letters. Still, he had more talent than the rest of the goblins.

Not every goblin needed to fight - Viv wasn’t expecting them to become strong on their own. All they had to do was show some potential or drive. Entertain Viv in his free moments.

The last of the five original brothers was Zagon. He spent most of his time in Xeel’s room. He was the one most afraid of him, and thus stayed away from him at any given moment, but he still preferred Xeel over the other goblins. They would often chase him down with sticks and beat him up when he didn’t want to do something.

“Zagon, do you wish to become stronger?” Viv asked.

Hearing those words, Zagon’s limited brain capabilities started working overdrive. On one hand, if he was strong, no one would bully him anymore. On the other hand, Lyn’s training was worse than hell.

But, perhaps in a moment that reflected his name, he understood that this decision would change his life forever. Standing at the crossroads of destiny, he didn’t know what to do. After some time, he raised his voice and said, “Yes?”

“Excellent. The very first thing I want you to learn is that you are immortal. No matter how many times you die, you will always come back - your soul is preserved in the dungeon. The others still don’t comprehend this, viewing death as something scary. Most likely, it has to do with their past lives.” Zagon didn’t like where this was heading.

“So, I can spend some mana resummoning you, especially since it’s so cheap. From now on, I want you to die three unique deaths every day. Whether it be slitting your throat with a knife, jumping into the pit or getting burned alive, you need to die.”

“B-but, master. So painful. So scary.” Zagon curled up in his corner, covering his ears.

“Either you do that or you remain weak forever. Choose one. Let me help you with the first death.”

Zagon looked up, horrified, as Xeel stood over him. He let out a shrill shriek that was abruptly cut short by five black tendrils running through his head. His body started bleeding out in the corner, adding to the pool of darkness on the ground. Minutes later, his body was absorbed back into the dungeon. Viv spent two whole mana to resummon Zagon, who reacted much as Lyn did.

“Whenever you have to die in combat, you do so without a second thought. What is it about this that’s so different?” he asked Zagon, not expecting an answer.

And then, he moved on to something else. He kept a sliver of attention on Zagon, just enough to see if he was properly dying or not. As long as he got rid of his fear of death, he could start killing enemies much stronger than him.

As for Xeel, Viv had nothing to teach him. He was already too strong to be located on this floor, and anything further would discourage anyone from attempting the dungeon in the future. Besides, his abilities could be honed by himself when he was killing adventurers.

The dungeon was fully running now as various goblins busied themselves. Viv started to focus on his project, which involved recalling a spell first. Despite having done it once, he was trying to memorise a higher tier now, which involved its slew of difficulties.

It took him longer than he hoped. Days passed as the spell simply wouldn’t remain in his mind, despite him already knowing it. That’s when the next set of adventurers started flowing in. For a moment, Viv was interested, but it was a party full of half-men.

Two wolf mixes, a bear and a fox mix. They entered the dungeon, talking about a sign that was posted outside the dungeon. “Danger, don’t enter below C rank,” it said. Of course, who would listen to such signs when it was a new dungeon.

Viv sent the named goblins, except Lyn and Xeel, to get some proper experience. Artorius held on for quite some time, but all of them were eventually slain. With proper tactics and guidance, they could win, but what was the point when Xeel was there.

The adventurers passed through the suspiciously empty hallways. There was no point in wasting regular goblins, and Lyn was busy blowing himself up. They narrowly avoided the traps, and upon entering the next room, all they saw was a world of darkness.

“I don’t think this is a great idea.”

“We’ll be fine, keep your guard up.”

They all died seconds later.

As expected, D rank adventurers were too weak to even put up a fight. The dungeon absorbed their bodies, leaving the goblins to pick up their equipment. There was a magic staff Viv was interested in giving to Lyn, but that was for later. At least the named goblins now had proper weapons.

That wasn’t the only half-men party that came to the dungeon. The second one was smarter - as soon as the rabbit mix saw the darkness, the entire party turned around and left. The third one wasn’t as smart as them and perished just as quickly as the first. Viv told Xeel to capture the third party, though he didn’t know how to properly control his strength yet and ended up killing them anyway.

According to the prisoner he interrogated, they were located in the middle of nowhere. The news was slow to spread, but eventually, this place would be swarmed with adventurers. Ones that hopefully had some enchanted equipment.

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Spell Gained - [Brazbon’s Might] (tier 3)

It took a week and was much more expensive than he thought it would be. Thanks to his title, the memorisation process burned 110 mana while the actual spell took 225 mana. It wasn’t something he couldn’t afford, but it was too much to put on a regular creature in case this didn’t work out.

So, he needed something cheap. Thankfully, something fitting had already delivered itself to his dungeon. The majesty of summoning something was wasted on an earthworm who shouldn’t be worth a unit of mana in the first place.

From there on out, the process was familiar to Viv. Channelling the spell, newly created runes lit up on his orb as mana was swiftly drained from him. It was a miracle that the earthworm didn’t implode from the amount of mana that it received.

The earthworm began to rapidly expand. First, it reached goblin height in length, then it continued. By the end of its transformation, it stretched out to 10 metres, becoming as thick as a human.

Creature Gained - Giant Earthworm (D)

The spell he remembered was simple - it traded rationality for size and power. While the earthworm wasn’t too smart in the first place, it was now as dumb as a rock. Unfortunately, despite casting a tier 3 spell on it, it was still a D rank creature.

“Congratulations, your name is Devourer. A fitting name for what you’re about to become.” He said, creating a link with the creature.

The earthworm grew thicker, its colour becoming a deeper brown and its skin thickening. It was unlike creating a link with the goblins - this was more instinctual. Viv could feel Devourer’s emotions and thoughts just by concentrating on them.

“Now comes the tricky part. Lyn, bring a knife,” he commanded, trying to transmit emotions of calm to the earthworm at the same time.

Lyn heated the knife with his flame, looking between Viv’s orb and the wall nearby. On the wall was inscribed a pattern of runes so complicated that they made Lyn’s head spin.

“I’m sorry for the disrespect, master,” he said, picking up Viv’s orb. He held it next to the earthworm’s body, carefully trying to replace every single line of the glowing pattern.

The earthworm started freaking out. It thrashed in pain, knocking Lyn over and sending the orb flying across the room. Fortunately, it wasn’t a cheap crystal ball made of glass, or else Viv would be very furious as he descended to hell.

“Stupid creature, you’re lucky to be chosen by master. Stay still.” Lyn jumped on top of its body, bringing violet flame only centimetres away from its head. He waved it around madly, threatening to bring it down at any moment.

At the same time, Viv was doing his best to communicate with Devourer. He felt its fear and its pain. First, he tried to soothe it, but when it didn’t work, he turned to bloodlust - an overwhelming amount of it. That seemed to do the trick as the earthworm completely froze, not moving from its spot.

It was challenging to carve the runes properly. They were small and numerous, often overlapping to create a completely different rune. They were also wrapped all around the orb, which added a layer of difficulty.

When the process was finished, Lyn bowed and stood to the side, comparing his drawing to the orb. The rune on the orb faded as Viv stopped excavating dirt from the cave. It was the rune pattern that flashed on the orb every time something got absorbed and turned into mana - something so advanced that Viv had no idea how it worked.

“It shouldn’t do anything. The work is sloppy and there are imperfections everywhere, but if Pecan is right in saying that every detail gets considered, then this should help.”

Now, it was time for the final step. He focused on Devourer, sensing the link between the two. Compared to Xeel, it was effortless to further link their souls. Now, Viv was fully aware of every function of its body and every emotion it felt.

“I’ve only starved once in my life. It was a cruel winter - the previous harvest had gone bad, and the lord imposed heavier taxes on us. My parents starved first, but soon after, I followed. First, the hunger pangs. After that, you can distract yourself, but when they come back, they’re more painful than ever.”

Viv shared his memory of his childhood. It was a blurry memory, made clearer as he told it to Devourer. It would be one of the main reasons why he abandoned everything in the village.

“But, hunger is not only physical. It’s an intense craving for something.”

Once again, he shared a part of his soul. The desire for power still burned in him, as bright as the first day he saw how ugly humanity was. Stronger and stronger, until nothing in the world could oppose him, until the very strength extinguished the presence of false gods.

Feeding off the overwhelming emotion Viv was feeling, Devourer began to change. Its body expanded to be fifteen metres in thickness, and it grew in length ten times over. The runes on its body began to wrap around it, creating thick, red rings on each section of his body. Its mouth opened to reveal a horrifying circle of teeth. Beyond that was a whirling red vortex, spinning in place.

Devourer (C)

Once a humble earthworm, it discovered the Demon Lord’s hunger. Now, all it knows is eternal hunger as it longs to devour everything in the world. A greedy creature that can turn anything into mana, further evolving itself as it does.

Abilities - Devour.

When the process was over, it let out a low-pitched wail as it gnashed its teeth. It locked onto Lyn, who ran as if his life depended on it. Upon being told by Viv that no, it couldn’t eat the goblins, it immediately dived for the wall. Its teeth rotated, crushing the dirt into smaller pieces and absorbing them into the vortex.

That would take care of the expansion problem, though it would be another problem when the floor became massive. He also felt that Devourer was now a guardian of the floor and would only get stronger as more creatures were introduced to the second floor.

Now, it was time for gardening. He had enough mana to simply grow the plants himself, but as Devourer would be endlessly expanding the floor, he also needed something to keep endlessly growing plants. Fortunately, he also had the spell for that. It took two more days to learn it, a less frustrating experience than the last spell, but still annoying.

Spell gained - [Blood Growth] (tier 2)

A second-tier spell, though much trickier for regular demons to learn. Viv only knew it because of the Demon Lord’s inheritance. One of the Demon Lords had caused so much massacre that her lands were filled with rivers of blood. To prevent any curses or diseases from spreading to her people, she made the demons learn how to use it as fuel to further plant growth.

As the base, Viv chose the goblin warrior. It was going to be less mana intensive to mutate it since it didn’t have any evolutions based on it. With a flash of light and expenditure of mana, the goblin warrior’s armour turned into bark, and the weapons turned into a great oak staff, both coloured deep red. The goblin itself grew in stature, becoming both wiser and older.

Creature Gained - Goblin Grovetender (D)

The creatures themselves only cost 30 mana, and they didn’t have great combat capabilities, but they were perfect for the job ahead. The only problem was finding enough blood to grow the plants. In the future, captured and killed adventurers would fuel the expansion, but for now, it would have to be goblins.

Each of the goblins was required to bleed itself daily, and those that were named had to sacrifice themselves in the name of the greater good, but they were cheap to resummon, and the only cost was some minor trauma. Soon enough, grass and trees began to sprout, covering the newly excavated land. It would take some time to finish the quest, but it was more efficient than spending 1100 mana. Besides, Devourer had turned out just like Viv wanted it to.

Although the giant worm was mindless, it had the potentially to infinitely grow. It expanded as it consumed rock and earth, and one day, it would reach titanic proportions. Only when Viv got access to the outside world could he make Devourer evolve, bringing it closer to the gluttonous beast it was supposed to be.