A soothing warmth enveloped me as I woke up well-rested in the early morning hours. The gentle purring of the three-tailed steam and obsidian foxes provided a comforting background melody to start my day. The day before had been filled with accomplishments, from expanding my dungeon with a new, challenging room to summoning two new and powerful foxes to protect me. But today? I only had my basic mana regeneration to fall back on, meaning I was quite limited in my spending.
With a sigh I stood up, making sure not to wake up the two still sleeping foxes. Fren was already wide awake. The ratkin simply sat at the edge of the nest of furs, her blue eyes staring at me with expectation. It was quite possible she had spent hours watching over my sleep. Naturally, I wasn’t exactly sure what to think about that fact. I had taken her prisoner, after all, even though she had volunteered to stay behind.
“Good Morning,” I greeted the woman with some hesitation, before helping her to her feet.
Fren only nodded in reply, before silently following me towards the neighboring slope room, where the lava foxes apparently had settled in quite well by now. The ten monsters were running around chasing each other or sleeping in ponds of lava, others were busy grooming themselves, which looked weird, to say the least - how could lava even get dirty to begin with?
It didn’t matter. As long as the foxes were happy and ready to defend me if need be, they were free to do whatever they felt like in their free time.
Speaking of free time: I still had to summon the weaker food monsters to fill the rooms with.
“I am going to summon a few smaller monsters for my foxes to play with,” I explained to Fren, before starting to search my menu for the possible choices. “Room!”
A green board appeared just in front of me, seemingly invisible to the ratkin. At least she didn’t react to me searching through the white writing.
「Unnamed Room
Add Fauna
Add Flora
Add Traps
Change Size and Shape
Change Weather
Mana: 100, DP: 4525」
“Add Fauna,” I commanded after checking out my indeed full mana.
A large, green board appeared in front of me, listing all the monsters I had access to.
「Available Fauna:
Foxes:
Fire Fox (F)
Weak vulpine monster that uses fire magic to attack enemies. Enjoys the warmth of nearby heat sources and loves spicy foods. Has a courageous character.
Summoning cost: 13 mana
Water Fox (F)
Weak vulpine monster with healing abilities. Enjoys swimming in calm ponds and watching small animals. Has a gentle and nurturing character.
Summoning cost: 13 mana
Earth Fox (F)
Weak vulpine monster that can withstand severe wounds. When it is not currently digging or shaping the earth, this monster prefers resting in its den. The earth fox is as stoic and stubborn as its element.
Summoning cost: 13 mana
Lava Fox (E)
Vulpine monster that attacks its foes with balls of molten rock and its own intense body heat. Enjoys long baths in pools of lava. Has a very adventurous character and loves challenges.
Summoning cost: 25 mana
Steam Fox (E/D)
Vulpine monster that surrounds itself with a hot mist that can both boil enemies alive as well as heal its allies. Enjoys a living space with water features in all shapes and forms. Despite its hot appearance, the steam fox is a very gentle, playful, and curious monster.
Summoning cost: 25/50 mana
Obsidian Fox (D)
Strong and highly durable vulpine monster that assaults its foes with sharp-edged volcanic glass. It thrives in volcanic settings and becomes far more active in the night. The obsidian fox is a deeply loyal and graceful creature that forms deep bonds with others.
Summoning cost: 50 mana
Food Monsters:
Forest Hamster
A small rodent that likes to dig its burrow under the roots of trees. Lives off all kinds of plant matter.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Ash Mole
A small rodent that digs deep burrows in soft, volcanic stone or hardened earth. Omnivore.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Fire Slime
Small monster that absorbs all kinds of organic material. Prefers hot environments.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Crimson Salamander
Small lizard that catches insects in the surrounding of the lava streams they call their home
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Mimicry Salmon
Fish that adapts to its surroundings using color-changing scales. Hunts smaller fishes.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Mud Eater
Small fish that filters soft sediment for food.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Little Fox
Red Butterfly that needs flowers to thrive.
Summoning cost: 1 mana/10
White Ringed Bee
Hard-working insect that forms huge colonies surrounding a single queen. Highly beneficial to flowering plants and trees.
Summoning cost: 1 mana/10
Common Windglider
A small, white bird that is constantly on the search for small insects to feed on.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Pearl Shinner
Small, half-transparent fish that soars high into the sky to search for small fruits and insects to feed on. Needs to wet its gills every once in a while to avoid them drying up.
Summoning cost: 1 mana
Mana: 100」
I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the sheer number of options available to me. With the vulpine circle ready to help me out, who knew how many foxes I would unlock in the future? It could be hundreds, maybe even more!
Then there were the various food monsters to choose from. There were still far from enough choices for a real ecosystem to be established in my dungeon, but as monsters strived on mana alone, there wasn’t all too much diversity needed to begin with. If anything, all those animals were here to fulfill my foxes’ need for entertainment.
Of course, it was cruel to summon monsters just to be eaten and chased around, but maybe, just maybe, they would enjoy the challenge and the attention? Or at least they would be happy enough just to be brought to life? Maybe them being dungeon monsters would even free them from the pain and fear that came with living with my foxes. I couldn’t even begin to guess.
Shoving the issues of morality to the future me, I quickly summoned twenty fire slimes and crimson salamanders into the slope room, hoping those numbers would at least give them some chance of breeding.
The slimes had a shape I knew all too well: roundish with a flat base. They were reddish-orange just like I had expected, with two small, black eyes hiding in their jelly-like flesh. Strange, however, were the two fox-like ears and the long, squishy tails they featured. It was obvious Cilia’s blessing was playing pranks on me.
The crimson salamanders on the other side were dark red with black markings on their backs and tails and golden eyes that were quickly darting around, looking for possible prey or predators. They, too, had Cilia’s markings in the shape of a cute white tip at the end of their tails.
Both the slimes and the salamanders made their way into nearby lava pools, hiding there from the foxes that were already watching them with wagging tails. The hunt would soon begin.
Stolen story; please report.
I almost fled the room together with the dazzled Fren, not wanting to deal with the aftermath of my actions just yet. Instead, I made my way towards the geyser room, which itself was in desperate need of some upgrades.
This time around I summoned both windgliders and pearl shinners, ten each. The windgliders were small, white birds with long, narrow, black-tipped wings they would use to glide through the air using the upstreams of hot air, their small, black beaks quickly snapping for any insect that dared to cross their way - not that there were any.
The pearl shiners on the other hand were small, half-transparent fish that used their mana-infused wings to lift their bodies out of the water in search of food, spending many minutes outside of their natural element. They were pale blue in color, with the name-giving white mana pearls waiting just behind their heads. As herbivores, they would search for berry bushes or fruit trees all day. They, too, had black tips on their makeshift wings.
Of course, this search would result in a failure this time around. The room had neither the space nor the room to support groups of berries like the volcano room had them. Once again I could only comfort myself with the thought that none of my monsters needed any actual food to thrive, meaning they would probably increase in numbers even without actual food.
I left the sole steam fox alone with its new friends for now, promising myself to soon summon a few more foxes to the room to keep it company. Instead, I focused my attention on my biggest and most important room for now, the volcano itself.
With a meager forty-two mana left, there wasn’t a lot I could do once we reached the place. So instead of going big, I simply summoned ten mimicry salmon and mud eaters for now, knowing that this number would be enough to spread throughout the whole room sooner or later as none of the water foxes would really want to hurt the fish. By their descriptions, they were just curious creatures that loved watching aquatic life, after all.
The salmon itself were pretty beautiful monsters. They shined in all colors of the rainbow when I placed them into the lake surrounding my volcano, only to quickly change their colors into a soft brown - the same as the sediment on the ground below them. Before long, only their shadows and amber-colored, fox-like eyes could still be seen dashing around.
The mud eaters on the other hand were a little bland to look at. They were almost entirely beige in color, save for the white tips on their fins. Only a few big and shiny scales were decorating their sides. At least their eyes seemed somewhat interesting, being a vivid emerald green.
The water foxes liked them both equally. With wagging tails they chased after the fish, spooking them quite a bit. It would probably take a bit of time before the fish would realize there was no danger coming from the much larger monsters.
Satisfied with my latest summons, I greeted the remaining foxes of the main room, at least those who weren’t too busy doing fox things to meet me. In the end, I was surrounded by three earth foxes and two fire foxes. None of the lava foxes had left their homes. It was probably too cold for them at the foot of the mountain. I would need to visit them later on to make sure they had everything they needed.
Fren once again shied away from the fire foxes, instead searching for protection at the side of the much calmer and far less dangerous earth foxes. She petted and scratched the three of them, actions which were readily accepted by the seemingly very needy monsters. It was only after minutes that the five foxes let go of us to return to their daily routines, mainly eating and lazing around.
With the foxes taken care of, I instead summoned the last of my additions for now. First, I selected the bees, summoning a total of a hundred of them. They came out just like they were described: each one had a honey-brown base color with white rings coloring their bodies; only their wings had received a major change in the shape of white tips. Ten of the bees were much larger than the others, indicating that these were indeed the queens. Luckily enough, there were just enough trees waiting for the insects to build their nests in.
After seeing the bees fly off, I instead summoned butterflies, once again a total of one hundred. They came out way different than I had expected. Instead of having brown, red, and black markings as I knew them, the so-called little foxes had a fox’s head painted on each of their wings, making the two monsters kiss whenever the insect closed its wings. I could only smile seeing this happen right before my eyes by the dozens.
Fren seemed to like this summon the most of all she had seen today. She stared at the tiny monsters with wide eyes, seemingly wanting to see every single detail Cilia’s blessing had changed. When I explained the blessing to her, the ratkin excitedly nodded her head before searching for all the changes the goddess had brought to my dungeon. Before long, the water mage was already on all fours, closely examining each and every type of flower I had summoned to the dungeon.
I readily helped Fren by telling her which flowers the foxificated ones had started out as, the ‘summon fauna’ screen helping me out a huge bunch. It was only a few dozen flowers and plants after all, so the mage soon found them all. She even took quite a few notes in a tiny book, even adding little drawings to them, something I had not seen her do ever since she found her way into my dungeon.
We were just about to check out the mighty elm tree for its changes when a green board suddenly appeared, spooking me quite a bit. Cilia had a new task for me:
『Quest 11: Dedication
Task: Within your dungeon bounds, construct a prayer room or shrine to dedicate your dungeon to Cilia, Light of Life.
Reward: Become the Chosen Dungeon of Cilia, Light of Life
Let’s make it official, shall we?~』
A wide smile grew on my lips as I read through the lines, causing Fren to look at me puzzled. It was only when I told her about my new task that she stared at me in awe, before dropping down on her knees and starting to pray, now more than sure that Cilia was listening in on us.
It was only self-explanatory that the ratkin mage was reacting to the news in such a fashion, as while all dungeons served the gods to some extent, very few of them had a connection to one god or goddess specifically. Dedicating mine to Cilia meant I was going to follow her wishes and ideals to the best of my abilities. This was by no means one-sided, however, as Cilia in turn would help me grow and flourish until I would become something like a second right hand - next to her champion, that was.
Gods had one such dungeon at best, even the major ones, which meant this was more than just a huge deal - it was a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing! It was obvious I would accept it!
I could barely wait to get building~