The new functionality was completely alien and undecipherable. It was like he was looking at an excel sheet instead of a game menu. Ahhh… He felt his metaphysical eyes burn. He was born after the turn of the millennium, he had no idea how people could interpret such a barbaric system.

Seriously, looking at the blunt, soulless thing on the screen hurt his soul. He forced his eyes to just try and understand the unintuitive mess. Slowly, he managed to understand what was going on. The attributes that he needed were listed, along with other numbers and things he hadn’t quite determined the meaning.

One of the columns represented his dungeon core level - he could tell this because they were whole numbers, below 12, and every attribute with a number above 2 was grayed out. There was a column of numbers, all decimals with six or seven digits after the point. He had no idea what that column was.

Finally, there was a plus sign encased in brackets. He pressed this symbol for an attribute at his level and a description appeared for the attribute. After he was done understanding the menu, he looked around to try and find the place to use the attributes. After some more time, he discovered that the list of attributes was the replacement for the templates.

He escaped to the now ugly editor for the mold and spent more time learning it. After some trial and error, and some coerced help from the dungeon fairy, he managed to understand the ‘upgrade’ enough to begin his plan.

This goal was to create a fungus that grew on corpses, but the templates gave him an idea. Instead of neurotoxic venom, why couldn’t he just make the rats hosts and carriers to a fungal pathogen. That way, he could simplify his dungeon and finally get his ecosystem up and running.

It could also help him understand if his mind parasite idea could work. That was for later though. He scoured through the attributes available to him, picking the ones that he wanted. Creating truly magical organisms wasn’t available, the attributes required a higher level. That didn’t mean he was done though.

His goal was to create a mold or fungus that his rats carried and infected through bites. The infection will happen quickly, killing the monster or human. After death, the fungi will bloom and fruit, providing nutrition and energy. However, like the dungeon grass, the majority of these calories will be from magic.

The fungus will have the properties of healing and satiation, a very basic resource but the only thing he can do at the moment. Cooking the fruited bodies of the fungus will prevent any infection, though there is a chance that this fungus can’t grow outside the dungeon anyways. The enhanced satiation will help feed the rats, the healing will help him save soul points and attract people, and it could be used as a great weapon.

Like the dungeon itself, organisms are a collection of systems. Attributes were only pieces of a puzzle, he had to put them together to make it work. He didn’t have the level to develop magical organisms, but that wasn’t the same as lacking magical properties. For an organism to be magical, it needs to get its power from mana and itself. That was the explanation from the game.

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There was, however, an attribute he could use to circumvent this. ‘Life Drinker’ gave an organism the ability to consume mana and life force from their targets. This was a tiered attribute, meaning that he could use a stronger version of this attribute at later levels. Combined with ‘Fungal Infection,’ ‘Parasite,’ ‘Host Dependency,’ and many others, he started to assemble his first, true dungeon organism.

His experience and imagination guided him. How this fungal parasite spread sounded a lot like a reproductive cycle. The rats can store the spores from eating this fungus then secrete it like a venom. Consuming life force will give it the magical qualities he needed. The rats can eat the fungus raw and have adapted bodies to use its unique properties.

He connected attributes like a flow chart, having certain attributes lead to and support others. As he didn’t have any animals left, a slight oversight on his part, he can make it so that this fungus can grow on already dead corpses, but they will take a lot of time and only have very minuscule magical properties without life force to feed on.

The fungus will be red because blood-red mushrooms were cool. It will have long, thin stems like sprouts and the fruit will have a ruby color. Heat will destroy the spores and prevent further infection. The fungus will target the nervous system and hormones to secure and neutralize targets, preventing action or escape.

He further customized the creature, even detailing the shape of the bulb and taste. After all of this work he was done. He was ready to create this much needed weapon and pillar for the dungeon.

Creation of Custom Dungeon Organism Cost - 27 Soul Points

It was more than a little pricey, but there was nothing else for him to do. He accepted the cost. Around the bit of flesh the white and gray mold grew on, a bubble of radiant, almost primordial light appeared. The mold seemed to melt and reform under the light while the air vibrated with orange electricity and energy.

After it was complete, the meat was still the same but the gray and white mold was replaced with rusty hair. Alex did not dare let any of his animals touch it, at least not yet. He forced his animals to start sorting the corpses in the cave to create a pile to nurture his new fungus.

What is the name of this new species?

Alex thought for a moment, then he typed in ‘Blood Rot’ as the species name. A bit edgy but he liked it. Now that he was done with that, he needed to create the first host for the animal. He floated away and found the best specimen.

He only had enough soul points left to modify one - he still needed to keep some soul points left, just in case. That rat needed to be whole enough to be usable, yet not have neurotoxic venom. He needed every weapon he had. He found one that had a broken leg but the digestive system was intact.

This would be the first host.