It was time for another breakthrough, but I was so fascinated watching what was happening in the 47th playroom. The adventurers were also starting to worry, as I hadn’t even opened up the 45th-floor dungeon rooms.

It was all part of our plan, and I hoped that it would work as intended. I was getting kind of frustrated that I needed to change my plans and how I operated just because there were forces out there stronger than me. Fortunately, in the grand scheme, it shouldn’t take me too long to reach the point where I would feel a bit safer.

As I advanced, I took a moment to appreciate the wonderful feeling that came with it, but then I started with the floor guardian. This time, I actually took one of the patterns from this playroom. It was a really successful one, and I think it was going to be the first to reach platinum.

It had six powerful legs and its head was similar to a rhino’s, but with a horizontal horn that had multiple smaller points on it. It was also bigger than a regular rhino, with multiple rows of teeth that could crush bone easily. I think it would be a nice challenge, although I do need to make it stronger, but just a bit.

Then came the skill selection, where I put most into Creature Making, bringing it to S rank, and the rest to the Ever-expanding quantity skill that I was able to get to C-plus rank. When that was done, I connected with my dungeon after the advancement, did my regular post-breakthrough jobs.

Then I started expanding the next floor, making sure the height was back to where it needed to be and not 1000 meters. Here, I would need a lot of height. I also opened up the dungeon rooms of the 45th floor.

It will take me a bit of time to expand the 48th floor, but I have noticed a bit of a worrying development. The creatures of the 47th-floor playroom started to look the same, with only a few differences. The ones that were currently gold rank and climbing closer to platinum were the exceptions, but they were also the first ones, and they didn't have much competition straight out of the pit.

Nowadays, there was a steady stream constantly leaving the pit, and around it was a constant battlefield. Almost everyone seemed to go with exactly the same body parts with every rank-up they got, as those were the body parts they would need to survive and consume in that kind of environment.

That wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but there wasn’t any way I could make the choice of body parts more deliberate—it needed to be made by the subconscious as there was no other way, unless…

I immediately issued a few missions and hoped that they would be taken care of quickly. It only took about 10 minutes before I noticed the missions being accepted, even if they didn’t fully understand why I needed such skills.

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I had been so focused on the pattern part that I’d completely forgotten the skills. Yes, they were currently developing skills, but I needed different skills that would help synergize their bodies and desires more.

Even with all of them being quite similar, like with every other creature, variation was the key to their survival. Right now, everything was simply too similar. The way they acted and thought was different, like every other species, but the way they were developing made them more and more alike the stronger they got. Well, I knew there might be problems, so I don’t know why this has surprised me so much.

Fortunately, we had a skill smith in my dungeon. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a part of me; she was an adventurer, someone who I’ve been following for quite a while. Hopefully, she can get the skills exactly how I want them. This might also help her become more confident, which might help Ace secure her services a bit faster. He’s really taking things way too slowly with the skill thing—he won’t have much time before things go crazy.

It took about a week to refine the pattern once again, adding the skill development into it and even changing the last stage of the first cycle. Now they would already get a few different body parts while they were still inside the ooze, so there would be more variation when they got out of it. I made sure that none of the changes would make them acid-proof, as I needed them to leave the pit; otherwise, they would simply consume all the smaller creatures.

It took about 3 months before the pits were filled with the new version of the pattern, as it was outcompeting the old one. Now, as they got out of the pit, they would also get access to a skill that would allow them to actively choose what body parts they wanted and not let their instincts dictate everything.

Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking with this part—how could I have made the pattern that wholly relied on instincts? While those were good for survival, that was about it for their usefulness.

It took me a bit longer than normal to finish expanding the 48th floor, as I was quite focused on the 47th, but it was still just shy of six months before I finished. The floor was 189,000 kilometres in length, nearly 161,000 kilometres in width, and back to 14,800 metres in height. This floor was mostly going to be water. Luckily I could use crystals that I just directed mana into to make the water I wanted, which should make making this playroom a lot faster.

I would still need an above-water area, but I decided with only 500 meters; everything else was going to be water up to the bottom, except for a few thousand pillars that would extend from the surface all the way to the bottom and would be this floor's pits. This farm playroom was going to be the water variant, but I’m going to need to work on the pattern a bit to add the skill changes and finish it up properly.

About a month in, I got my first platinum-rank creature from the farm one playroom. It was the rhinoceros-looking creature, but its last moments in that playroom were not easy, as basically every gold-ranked creature was trying to kill it because it had the most dense mana, meaning it would advance them the most.

I looked closely at the fight, and when I saw its eyes kind of clear up after the breakthrough, I could see the panic in them a moment later, but before anything else happened, she was gone from that floor.

I watched as she panicked a bit at the new surroundings and took a defensive stance when another one of my creatures approached the edge of the clearing she was in. "Hello there, I’m speaking directly to your mind, can you understand?" She hesitantly nodded her head. "You are safe now. You don’t have to fight here. I don’t know exactly how much you remember, but I can tell you anything you want. Can I come a bit closer?" She immediately shook her head.

"That’s all right, I will sit down if it’s OK with you." To that, she nodded, still quite unsure about what was happening. There were quite a few platinum ranks in this peaceful playroom, and many of them were quite willing to do the job of welcoming the new platinum ranks that were coming from the farm floor.

It took a bit of time for her to calm down. As she did the more excited she got. Her eye constantly looked at things now in a new light. She looked really happy by the end. I hoped that the new platinum ranks from the farm floor would take up the call to help their fellow brethren adjust to their new life, as there would be quite a lot of them coming up in the future.