As I had been looking the room over, so had 3 of my monsters. Both bats had decided to fly around, using the echolocation to guide themselves. It took me a second to realize the room must be near impossible to see in. Everything looked like day to me, but that was due to my Mana being everywhere inside here. To anything else that used sight, it was a near pitch black room, with just the barest bits of light coming in through the doorway due to the glow of the Mana Pool. My centipede was still doing its sleeping-evolution thing, but my mouse had scurried over.

Even though it was just created, my ecosystem skill was pulling Mana from the pool in order to fill it with life. The insects were scattered throughout the room, already beginning to create nests. The one thing that was different was the mice. In my first room, the mice had only been spawned in pairs, where a few pairs may group together if close enough. My new monster mouse’s original group was one such grouping before the centipede tragedy. But in the new room, instead of spreading the mice around, it had created 4 pairs in one of the corners. Normally this would cause some territorial fighting, but the corner they had been created was where my mouse had been exploring. He had been looking at a relatively large crack, one that opened into a good size hole.

I hadn’t been the only one surprised by this, as my mouse seemed to be frozen as he stared at the other 8 mice. But unlike me he seemed to have an idea on what was going on, or at least what to do. Shaking his head slightly he began to organize the 4 pairs, squeaking orders at them. They began to go around and gather bits of fern and moss, dragging it over to the crack and creating a nest. My mouse on the other hand had abandoned the exploring it had done, and instead went on the hunt. A few centipedes had been spawned in a relatively close area to the mice, and he went around culling them immediately. He left the other insects alone, including the spiders, but in all honesty only the centipedes were an actual threat to them.

Seeing this reminded me I not only had to create some monsters, I should maybe look into creating some creatures to flush out the ecosystem. As of right now the only major predators were the centipedes and mice, as the spiders I had were still kind of weak. They had some real interesting properties I would want to use and work with, but unless one of the spiders got lucky in a fight, it would take possibly years for one to gather the experience required to become a monster. I would love to see one grow naturally like that, but waiting that long wasn’t a viable option right now.

Leaving my mouse to his new little group, I watched my bats fly around. They had finished their own exploration and had decided to just race around the new room, learning how to navigate in the darker room with just echolocation. Since the echolocation had been an addition to their design, it meant that even though they could use it somewhat instinctively, practice just made them better. They were having fun chasing each other, whipping around stalagmites and diving under stalactites.

I was a little envious of their freedom to fly around, but at the same time couldn’t wait to see a whole swarm of them doing things like this. I just didn’t have enough mana for all the things I needed and wanted to do. The Mana Pool helped, but was also very limited ion what I could use it for. Keeping the ecosystem skill active, carving the walls out, and creating plant and metal nodes were perfectly fine. But I couldn’t use it while using my Formless skill, which meant not only in the new creations, but anytime I used a Formless template. That included the bats template, which meant the 20 Mana cost could only be my Mana. Which wasn’t much with my regen rate, but anytime I used my Mana, the pool wasn’t being refilled. So I could create a few bats, but then would need to wait just shy of 15 minutes for both my Mana and the Mana Pool to regen.

All of that was only if I wasn’t digging and only occasionally using the Mana Pool for the ecosystem skill. With now 2 rooms, the upkeep for the skill had increased, so that I was using almost 2 Mana every 5 minutes. Which didn’t sound like a lot but that meant in 15 minutes my pool was empty. So all told, I would be able to create 3-4 bats every 15 minutes if I used my Mana constantly once I had enough for it. Then every 15 or so minutes I would have to wait 15 minutes for a complete refill of both my Mana and the pool, rinse and repeat. But that also meant, no digging, no other creatures being made, no plant nodes being created or added when they were low.

Of course if I had been doing this since day one, I wouldn’t need all these excuses. But the lack of Mana Pool, and me being lazy meant that none of this had been done. And now it was time to fix that. First things first though, I wanted to create a new monster. I needed a way to make experience other than hoping for the random invader, who may be able to kill me, and something was telling me having a new monster would help.

So with that I brought up my Formless skill and got to work. First I focused on the base I wanted. I had decided to go with a Kobold, but slightly changing it to my own ideas. I wanted small hominid creatures, but wasn’t sure what creature to use as its base. Canines were what I was thinking about earlier, but that felt like I was limiting them to just that evolution tree. Humanoid beast creatures were prevalent in near every mythology, legend, and fantasy around the world. Werewolves, were-bears, were-rats, basically were-anything. Plus you had half human half animals such as lamias, minotaurs, mermaids, harpies and more. You even had creatures that were basically all human except for the head, like Anubis from Egyptian mythology.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Eventually I just settled with the original idea of a canine creature. I didn’t want to limit them, but having to provide the myriad of dietary needs if I created a smorgasbord of creatures left me with little choice. I would definitely be coming back to this template though to use it for a whole Kingdom of creatures. Focusing on that I watched as the original oval shape changed to that of a small hominid canine. Standing at about 2½ feet tall, the main base cost about 18 Mana. This meant that the Mana core was going to have to be an Average core, which cost 6 more Mana. At 24 Mana for just the base and core, I now had 7 Mana to play with.

I spent one Mana to give them the ability to use Mana for dark-vision, much like my mice. My goal for these guys was for them to possibly use weapons and tools to create their homes in one of the outer caves I was going to build. But I knew with only the Average core, at most they could use rocks to throw at enemies or if they had access to a big stick, they could have a club. Until they evolved their core, they were going to be pretty basic in what they could do. In that case I needed them to be able to defend themselves. Currently they had small claws at the ends of their hand like paws, plus a mouth full of dagger sharp teeth. They also had claws on their feet, but since they were canine like hominids, their balance would be different. That would make it near impossible to kick an enemy unless they were holding on to it or on top of it.

So I gave the dogs an ability only cats normally had. I made the claws on their hands sharper, harder and slightly longer, plus the ability to retract them to a more manageable length for later tool use. This cost me another 4 Mana, so I used the last 2 Mana to try and toughen up their skin. I couldn’t do too much, but they were just skin was now just a tad harder to cut through. It also had a slight benefit to retaining heat, which would help since my cave was probably not the warmest place to be. None of the other creatures seemed to care, but I had plans for this creature. If possible I wanted to send it outside into the world.

Finishing it up I could feel the template form, using all of my Mana to create itself. Taking a look I read the description.

Lesser Kobold (Canidae Family)

A kobold is a semi-sapient creature found mainly in tribes around the world. Lesser Kobolds are their distant ancestors, some of the first creatures to take the more hominid shape. The Family a Kobold comes from defines their physical features and traits. Those of the Canidae Family will take traits from any dog-like carnivores of the three sub families. Until Lesser Kobolds evolve into Kobolds, they are not considered sapient in any way.

Average-Common

Chances to Evolve – Mid to High

Looking at the status, it would seem that these were not quite unique to the world like my bats had been. The fact they could gain traits from any of the sub-classes was different, as on Earth, two of those were extinct. But I guess in a world of Magic extinction was probably a tad different. Technically I could create a dinosaur if I wanted to, which on Earth only exit in fossil form or in theaters. But for all I know, dinosaurs not only existed here, there could be a whole dungeon of them. In a sense what was the classical western version of a dragon but a flying, fire-breathing dinosaur.

Either way it would seem that these Lesser Kobolds already existed elsewhere. Plus they had evolved and been given the label of sapient by the system. But what did it mean to be sapient. On earth it was to be wise, or be related to the species human being. But who was to say that Humans even existed on this planet. There were obviously sapient creatures, as the status board had shown me. So I guess the real question was what determined you were wise enough to be called sapient. Other definitions also mentioned being self-aware on top of being wise, but again who was it who judged that.

I guess in this case it was the system, but how did it know. Was the system fully sapient? In the first tutorial I had realized that the system was talking directly to me, making jokes about my intelligence and reacting to me being annoyed by said jokes. But was that the system itself, or was there something behind the system, reacting to my emotions and feelings. I mean in all honesty, the true God I had met when I was being reincarnated could totally pull something like that off. But I felt that he wasn’t dictated by any emotions or feelings that I could label or categorize. The whole reason I labeled him a true God to begin with was that I could feel the power on him, to create something from nothing, but that seemed to be all he was interested in doing. Even the meeting with me was probably held with an innumerable amount of other souls simultaneously, meaning I wasn’t some special chosen one.

In fact the entire brief meeting of reincarnation I had said nothing. God had been the only one to speak and then I was reborn. It had asked a question, read my mind for what I wanted first, and said so be it. Then I was here.

All this thinking about sapience and my encounter with God was causing my core to hurt. In fact looking at my status showed I had taken a point in damage. Seeing my pitiful health of 3 drop to 2, scared me enough into dropping the whole thought process.

No more trying to contemplate the meaning behind sapient life or questioning the acts of the system or God. At least until losing a few points in health could possibly mean my immediate death. Either way I now had a new monster template.

Now it was time to actually bring it to life.