The first thing I decided to do was create a hole to send someone in to scout. I was torn between sending one of my bats or maybe the centipede. Ultimately I figured the bats would have a better chance with their echolocation, but I sent one of the newly created ones instead of my two main. I felt bad playing a little favoritism, but I hadn’t quite made the same bond with the newer bats as I had to my first 2. Not even mentioning the fact that my female bat was my first creation ever.

Opening that hole had let me peek into the room as well, though I was limited to only a few feet beyond it. It was weird to say the least, as I could see anything within my Mana control clearly, but beyond it was just blackness. This was different from when I first came to, as I could see the entire room I was in clearly, even without my Mana being everywhere. But for now all I could do was chalk it up to being magic rules that I didn’t yet understand.

Once I made sure the immediate coast was clear, I let my bat through. I watched as it flew beyond my vision, hoping it would come back safely, and with some good information. Waiting is always hard to do, especially for unknown results. And then I felt it, a brand new feeling that I never wanted to feel. Pulling my status page up I looked at the number of monsters and saw that it was one less than before. My poor little bat was gone and I wasn’t able to help it or do anything for it. I tried to use my magic to bring it back when a message popped up.

Due to the fact that the monster died outside your territory, you are unable to bring it back at this time. To do so would require you to bring back its body to be within your territory.

So not only had I let this bat go, I had let it die and was unable to revive it unless I recovered its body. At first I felt guilt, then rage, before finally a calm collected feeling rolled over me. The emotions had rolled over me so quickly and yet had disappeared just as fast. It would seem that being a dungeon core meant that I could feel emotions, but nothing extreme. It was somewhat terrifying to feel so calm after what had just happened. But I didn’t have time to deal with it right now, as I needed to see if I can save my little bats body.

I now knew there was something in this cave that could at least catch and kill my bat. Now they weren’t very strong, but the bats were pretty amazing fliers. Plus echolocation was pretty good at mapping things out, so it should have had no issues there. Unfortunately their weakness was that they couldn’t distinguish new things quite so easily from the sound patterns they got.

Either way it was time to send not an expedition, but a war party to claim this new land. So I pushed my Mana through, using almost everything in my Mana pool to destroy a large enough hole to send my kobolds. I was worried about sending them all, so I kept two back to be rear guards. I also sent my two centipedes and half the bats with them. So 4 Kobolds, 7 Bats, and 2 Guard centipedes left my zone of vision, leaving me waiting for a response.

I had hoped opening the hole would help increase my range, but it would seem that it wasn’t just weird rules stopping me from seeing everything. Now that I had a larger hole open I could push more Mana through, which told me that the wall of darkness was actually a wall of Mana. At first I feared I had somehow been born next to another dungeon, one much older and more powerful. But I felt that the mana wasn’t being controlled by anything. My next thought was some kind of artifact or something that was making the wall, but once again felt that wasn’t quite right. Something was creating Mana, enough to stop my Mana from pushing further, but wasn’t actively trying to take over my area or Mana itself.

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And that’s when it hit me. There was another spot that felt similar to this Mana wall that I couldn’t break through. The crack in my original cave. I had tried pushing through it myself before sending any expeditions out, but I couldn’t budge it. The Mana wall blocking my vision was the world’s Mana. I don’t think the cave I had entered was outside, but because it was such a large area, the Mana of the world was able to keep hold here.

Did that mean I would never be able to claim it myself? No, something instinctually told me that wasn’t the case. Instead I felt that to claim the area I would need to be in control of it. But if I couldn’t use Mana Integration to push my Mana in, how do I gain control?

The entire time I had been going over this I had kept close watch on my monster list. So far nothing had happened and for that I was grateful. But then I watched as part of the darkness fell away. Suddenly I could see much farther into this cave I had entered, almost another 5 feet. I couldn’t quite make out the other wall just yet, meaning the room was over 7 feet wide as of now. But I could see a creature lying dead on the floor.

Or at least I had thought it was a creature, before looking closer revealed that it was some strange deformed plant. Since I could now see farther, I decided to send my Mana deeper, in order to encompass the plant thing and maybe get a template or status page to tell me what it was. My mana was flowing into the room, but unlike with my cave, I had to truly push to get it to integrate with the Mana in the air.

It took a few minutes, but I finally reached the plant and began to push my Mana into its dead body to get a template. Meanwhile I tried analyzing it.

Carnivorous Cave Crawler

In order to survive in the dark, this plant has forgone photosynthesis for a more gruesome way to gather nutrients. Using its roots to crawl and grasp cracks in the ceiling, this plant hangs itself upside down like a stalactite. It then uses tiny whisker like tendrils to feel the breeze within its cave to search for prey. Once it notices something close by, it coils a long sticky tendril within it, before lashing out at its unfortunate victim. Much like a frog, this tongue shoots out and sticks to its prey, before reeling them into its large mouth. It then uses sharp serrated thorns like a grinder to cut and bleed its prey before filling its mouth with digestive fluid to eat it.

Average – Uncommon

Chances to evolve – Very Low

Reading the status made me shudder. This thing was about a 1½ feet long from its base to what would be the pointer tip. But lying dead on the floor revealed that is “mouth was four petals that opened up to a circular hole filled with 1 inch long serrated thorns. The thorns were shaped like a sharks tooth, and if they spun like the status page mentioned, they were basically used like a blender to rip apart anything it got a hold of.

My Mana had filled the creature at this point, giving me a template for it. 35 Mana for one. This thing was more expensive than any of my current creatures. It cost more Mana then I currently had, not counting the Mana Pool. It also had the same rating as my best creatures. Unfortunately this was not the creature that had killed my bat. The fibers it used to feel air flow were thin, but not that thin. It was about the size of thin spaghetti, meaning that if my bat was paying attention, it would see them with its echolocation.

But this answered at least one question, albeit slightly. To gain more vision and control, I was going to have to have my monsters defeat the monsters within the cave. Except I couldn’t do anything but to help, or even watch.

Then my total monster number dropped 2 more.