DC

I turn my attention to the mole people, who have grown in number but only slightly, they breed far slower, and mature far faster than the rats, The rats age about 4 years for every 1 real year that passes, but when they turn 3 they are fully mature, but at the age of two, they are considered, and treated fully mature by the rats, and are usually forced into labour, or combat, or some other thing, and they usually die of old age around 30 years into their life, but few besides the wealthy, or powerfull make it that far.

The mole people, on the other hand, age at the same rate as humans, but they can live to almost 200 years of age, they will usually be considered mature around the age of 19-20 which is about accurate to their biology.

These fellows instead of fighting for power, they spoke, and the ones they deemed the most intelligent were placed in power over the others.

They quickly directed resource production, they mined coal, to create furnaces, to heat the copper, and small quantities of iron. They used rudimentary wooden, and stone tools to remove the iron, and copper, and pound them into the rough shape of a hammer, and tongs. Two important tools for iron working.

As they had those made they continued to innovate, but less industrialized than the rats, and less militarized, as they had no need for combat, as far as they knew.

They also started farming fungus, such as certain mushrooms I had sprinkled throughout the cavern, and even collecting, and breeding insects like livestock.

They began to procreate, and one of the mole people was with a child. She is yet to give birth, but I believe it should be soon. Nearly 11 months have passed within the sped up time of the evolution floor, while only about 3 weeks of regular time had passed.

I also found I could speed up the time on the evolution floor even more, as I grew stronger, and invested more mana into said endeavor.

Above the ground of the evolution floor a small village of goblins formed, where the 30 or so goblins I dropped have also born children, not nearly as many as the rats but they have swelled in number, and are nearing 3 digits of population, but they are having problems feeding themselves.

Their most prevalent supply of food are the stallhorns, but that's a problem, because stallhorns are strong, and extremely dangerous, and require a lot of effort to catch, and eat. This did seem like it was mildly my fault so I decided to introduce… Some crops! Specifically, crops like blackberries, potatoes, and corn. This was a… Problem to say the least. They ate all the corn immediately, and so were unable to re-plant them. They did try to replant the corn though, but couldn't fathom the idea of putting food into the ground to grow more food, they just didn't understand. I'm sure they would have tried if I explained it to them, but I didn't want to, so those disappeared, but the blackberries…

The blackberries were perfect! Instead of just giving them blackberries i let a couple of the plants grow on the craggy patches of dirt they could find, and they did understand that if they left the bushes for long enough they would grow more berries back, so those worked very well. I also included my little sub-species of blackberry vines, and put them inside or near the entrances of the cave, so as to draw them into the caves, and hopefully maybe even find some of the other species prevalent in this floor.

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I Also added some stuff like squirrels, so as to have a smaller, less dangerous animal to hunt. Which they liked a lot.

Milo

Over the next couple days, and weeks, I watched as the church/monastery was built. They had gotten their goal of 3000 square feet, and had built a 2 story monastery with a basement where people could live.

The top floor is only accessible by a staircase on the outside of the building, leading up to a series of 15 apartments for monks, acolytes, or others to stay, each is roughly 200 square feet, or so, including an attached bathroom, and small dining area for each apartment. As well as a kitchen, dining room, and tiny little library/study for books to be stored in the basement floor. The central floor is a church, where people could come, and worship, be converted, or baptized, or whatever people do in a church.

They even had hand pumps in the bathroom, so as to pump water into an overhead pipe, and clean themselves as if it were raining. They could also use those same hand pumps, so pump their waste out through a series of pipes, which dropped it into, what Auschwitz called a “fertilizer bin.”

The whole place was rather pretty, made with rustic bricks, and more of the dark shaded wood that was used in the creation of the tower.

Anytime Alistair, or one of the necromancers walks by it they glare at it though. I chuckle, and turn. Recently with Luther guidance I broke through into D-0, apparently the D rankings are different from the F rankings as you have to start reinforcing your body with mana. Basically it's like weaving a tapestry of mana through your body. Luther told me, I could weave it into my muscles, brain, skin, organs, or apparently there were other options, but he explained what each did first.

The muscles would make you stronger, the brain would make you smarter, the skin, would make your skin more durable, and less likely to be pierced, the organs, would make your whole body run marginally better, and this apparently was one of the really big keys about living far longer as a cultivator.

I also asked about that to Luther about stuff like undead creatures, or beasts who didn't know what to do, and he explained it to me. “If something is purely necromantic, i know that all they do is mimic what that person already did with their mana, which is why into the D ranks, and longer, you can't raise anything higher ranking than you, because you have to be capable of doing what they did, but constructs, where they raise the rank of the creatures, well… I just don't know enough about that shit to really explain. Ask Alistair.”

He also explained that once you started weaving into one part of your body, you could stop until that part was done, and while you could strengthen your body more like this later on, it will be less effective than in your growth period of being in the D ranks, and you will only be able to upgrade three parts of your body before you break free from the D-ranks.

He then explained about weaving into your “Aura.” Apparently aura is the mana that levitates around you, with your influence on it. That is how people can literally just control the element of their affinity within a certain range of them, because it is within their aura. Outside of your aura if you want to influence your element you have to weave a “spell.”

“So if you upgrade your aura it will grow bigger, and you can control more stuff around you?” I ask confused.

“Correct.” He responds, with a nod.