Sorting through my current templates was a little disheartening. Other than my bat and the new mouse, I only had 2 plant templates and 3 insect. A gnat, a cave beetle, and a species of web producing spider. The gnat was literally the most basic, annoying little creature found all over the world. So basic it didn’t even pull up a table when I scanned it. The cave beetle was the exact same, a brief definition popping into my head, but no actual status page. I glanced at the spider template, wondering if this was going to be a third strikeout.

Tasmanian Cave Spider

A spider found both in and out of caves, this spider creates intricate, horizontal webs nearly 3 ft. across to capture prey. Though the bodies are generally only 1/3 of an inch long, its 8 legs are around 7 inches long. These spiders do have an exceptionally long incubation period of 8-10 months, but also tend to live for several decades as a bonus. Their egg sacs can also be used for medicinal purposes after hatching,

Weak - Common

Chances to evolve - Mid

I looked over at the template again, taking note of the incredibly long legs on it. It would seem these spiders were actually quite special, though the fact they had a name distinctly from my old world was suspicious. Deciding it wasn’t worth investigation I tried focusing in on the template to get a better idea on how to use them. They only cost 1 Mana, but for an insect that was actually relatively high. The gnat was not even a 1/100th of a mana point, and the beetle was on 1/10th a mana point. This meant that I shouldn’t ever really have to worry about the bottom of the food chain.

I put the spider template aside and decided to “liven” up my current level. First I spread more cave ferns and moss, focusing the moss over on the western side where the moisture came in the most. The ferns I basically used to create foliage spots, bunching them up almost like a min forest so that my smaller creatures had places to hide on the floor. I noticed as I planted the fern I could slightly alter the look, allowing me to create taller ferns throughout the small batches so my future spiders had places to build the web.

I released small gnat swarms to fly around, as well as making beetle pairs sporadically on the floor and walls. Once again I noticed that just like the ferns I could slightly alter the beetles I placed. But unlike the ferns I could feel some restrictions. The first restriction was based on how close to the entrance it was, while the next few were based on the environment and light levels. Placing them in the darker areas created beetles that were slightly larger, with their eyes being small or non-existent. The bodies and antennae also became more elongated, allowing them to “see” in the dark.

It would seem that even though I hadn’t actually created the template for the things, my Formless ability allowed me to mold them to better fit the environment they were placed in. Seeing this I took the spider template and tried to see if I could mess with it as well. Though I tried to see if placing the spiders did anything, it would seem these more complicated templates could not be messed with. Seeing how I had gained this template when a spider died, I tried messing with my bat template instead. Immediately small things popped up informing me I could make very basic changes, mainly cosmetic. I was able to cause small changes based on gender and the color of the fur but was unable to try and add the vampiric abilities I had been looking at before.

Instead an entirely new template was formed, using the original fruit/vampiric bat body. But this one only had the body, it did not include the increase in size, the echolocation, or even the mana core I had placed in my first one. So it would seem that if wanted a general outline I could pull from past templates, but I would still have to personally add any changes and modifications myself.

After finishing up on placing the spiders, beetles, and gnats I noticed a few other insect templates had popped up. Once again more like the beetles and gnats, I had a bare basic template for a cricket, a fly, and for mites. Looking at these basic templates made me realize keeping up with the ecosystem may be harder than I thought. Even though I could technically feel and see everywhere with my Mana Integration and Mana Control skills, it was more like background noise. It wasn’t until I focused on an area that I saw a more in depth scene on what was happening.

Ecosystem Tutorial

The System would like to offer you a quick tutorial on dungeon life ecosystems and how to manage one in the background.

Yes/No

A blessing in timing, I quickly tapped yes. An increasingly familiar flash of white and entry into the grey room greeted me.

Thank you for accepting an ecosystem tutorial. By doing so you will learn the basics on how to set up an ecosystem and create a diverse living area for your creations.

We know that keeping track of the small but important parts of an ecosystem can be demanding and as such offer you the Dungeon Ecosystem Skill to help you in managing your new world.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

This skill will allow you to input creatures, plants, and other life sustaining systems into effect by just adding them to a handy-dandy chart. One placed, let the System work out the rest, as We are able to keep up both in the goings on with life, thanks to our exceptionally high Intelligence and massive amount of experience watching the world.

The system was lucky I didn’t have eyes to roll or a face to palm in the blatant display of superiority. Though obviously it had experience it seemed it also had an ego to match.

Thank you for following this brief and easy to understand, for even the biggest dummies, tutorial. We hope to see you again in future tutorials as well!

In what felt like and even brighter than normal flash of white I was returned. A quick peek at my skill page showed my newest addition.

List of Plants

Cave Moss, Cave Fern

List of Base insects

Cricket, cave beetle, gnat….

List of 0 Tier Insects

Tasmanian cave spider, Amazonian Giant Centipede

List of Tier 1 Creatures

Fanged Field Mouse

The table filled itself with the current templates I had. Looking at the 0 Tier showed a new insect that hadn’t been there moments ago. I search around, only to find my bat had flown down and killed an exceptionally large centipede that had been hiding in the corner. At just under a foot long the creature was almost double the length of my bat. I stared at my bat, watching as it hopped along the floor to the headless corpse of the centipede. I focused on the area and found the head was laying an inch or so away from the body. My bat stopped a bit away, letting the body thrash around a bit, before pouncing onto its back and using its talons to ride it like a bull. Timing the moment it bit down into the body, before wrenching its wings apart, tearing the centipede in half.

At this point it seemed to have finally died, the body only twitching slightly as my bat began to tear off chunks. Though I hadn’t looked at the actual status page, I knew that centipedes were aggressive, fast, and venomous hunters. The fact my bat had torn this thing apart with what seemed no effort was surprising. I noticed that it had used a decent chunk of Mana so maybe it had used its screech skill to stun it. Like many insects centipedes don’t have ears, but use vibrations to “hear” things in the air around them. The fact that the skill was basically an amplified sound wave, I imagine it actually caused quite a bit of internal damage to the centipede on top of the stun.

Amazonian Giant Centipede

A creature that can grow up to a foot in length, these centipedes are aggressive hunters. Hunting not only other insects, but mammals, amphibians, and even reptiles, nothing is off the menu for it. This centipede is known for its quick speed and capable hunting skills. One known hunting skill is to hang from the ceiling of a cave and catch bats that fly by it, using its many legs to grab onto the bat before injecting a paralyzing venom.

Basic - Common

Chances to Evolve - Low

Seeing the status page specifically mention it hunting bats made the fact that mine had killed it so easily even more impressive. Looking back at the Ecosystem Skill table I noticed my bat wasn’t even there. It was also surprising to see the mouse was a tier 1 while the spider and centipede were 0. I figured the centipede of all things would be tier 1 at least, but it would seem the fact it did not have a Mana core was the deciding factor.

As I closed the table I noticed a slight tug on my Mana as the Ecosystem skill came into effect, slowly creating the creatures on the list in reasonable numbers for them to grow and hunt each other. I felt an instinctual tug, which gave me insight into tagging possible creatures that may evolve. This meant any of the tier 0 or 1 creatures that was doing exceptionally well would get tagged by the table, informing me when they had reached the needed criteria. This meant I didn’t have to try and go around scanning each creature myself, making my new life so much easier.

I wasn’t too worried about the centipede, but spiders had several mythological stories based on them, meaning I wouldn’t mind seeing if I could get one or more of these to follow down specific trees. Watching the life pop up around me I looked over at my bat as it finished its meal. I noticed I still hadn’t checked its gender, and figured that maybe with one more level I could hopefully create a mate for it. Right now I was still a little tight on Mana, with my max pool needed to create just one. The Ecosystem wasn’t a constant drain, but it tugged at my pool every once in a while to keep the balance inside the cave. It also latched on to some other insects templates as they appeared, adding them into the fray as needed.

Though the insects were following the law of the jungle, I was receiving near 0 experience for their deaths. These were technically my own creations so they used mana when created and gave back mana when they killed or died. The amount on both sides was near perfectly even, though the occasional kill of an insect naturally found was in my favor. But focusing in on it showed that it could take months to gain enough mana from this to reach the next level and would only grow longer as I grew. In fact I figure if I only gained experience this way, in only 1-2 levels the amount gotten would be so inconsequential it would take actual years to grow.

I looked around my cave before I noticed something missing. Though I hadn’t added any more copper nodes myself, it would seem that when I had created this room, dungeon magic had come into play and created several more nodes in the walls that were barely visible. But what I didn’t see was a Mana Pool, something that was supposed to serve almost like an overflow, allowing me to store excess Mana when needed. Or to soak items in, in order to possible cause changes or mutations. It would seem in my original excitement to make a room I had put off the creation of a pool and then continuously got sidetracked.

With cost of 2x2 being 20 Mana total, I fell into the same predicament as my bat. I needed at least one more level and I just wasn’t sure how I was going to get that. Until I felt movement in a small nest, where the surviving mice still lived.