Despite my fears of my immenent demise, nothing even entered my cave to threaten me.

On the bright side this gave me plently of time to gather more information, on the other hand I still lack the resources to do much with it.

I tested my pitfalls a bit, I can't make a pitfall within a pitfall to deepen it, but I can make pitfalls in the walls and ceiling, although that doesn't seem like it'll help much.

I also can't build a pitfall within a foot of another pitfall, nor start the pitfall underground to weaken the floor.

I only actually built 2 more pitfalls in testing as I wanted to preserve mana, even after a week I only barely got back what I spent on my first day.

There is no option to convert mana to dungeon points, the dungeon points have a perk store that I still haven't fully read through, but the gist of it is that by killing things I get dungeon points that can expand my mana pool, upgrade my monsters, increase my versatility, ect...

For example one of the perks will allow me to shape my room more freely, this costs 10 dungeon points.

While no option exists to buy a monster spawn, you can buy new traps for 10DP.

More traps

Cost: 10DP

Gives access to new traps

I can upgrade my pitfall to be deeper, have slippery walls, be harder to notice, have a spiked bottom, have a sticky bottom, and even options to make it "more decorative".

Each of these pitfall upgrades are seperate and cost anywhere from 1-10 dungeon points.

There are also options for elemental pitfalls, but even the least expensive options is just a light flame at the bottom that costs 50 DP.

It seems to be a rule that none of the perks will directly increase the amount of dungeon points (DP) you gain, they will make it easier to kill or lure things to kill for DP, but no increasing the amount of DP per kill or producing DP per day.

I can increase my mana in quite a few ways though.

Increased mana regeneration

Cost: 5 DP

Gain an extra 0.3 mana every day

Increased mana pool

Cost: 5DP

Increase mana capacity by 5

Lesser mana reaper

Cost: 20DP

Gain more mana when killing intruders

Lesser conversion bonus

Cost: 15DP

Converting items from outside the dungeon into mana provides slightly more mana

Weekly mana bonus

Cost: 7DP

Gain 1 mana at the end of each week

Monthly mana bonus

Cost: 10DP

Gain 10 mana at the end of each month

Yearly mana Bonus

Cost: 15DP

Gain 200 mana at the end of each year

Day of the week bonus (There is a seperate one of these for each day, but they each follow the same format)

Cost: 5 DP

Gain an extra 0.4 mana at the end of X day of the week

Lesser mana investment

Cost:175DP

Gain mana at the end of the day equal to 0.1% of the mana you have when the day ends

Lesser mana leech

Cost: 500DP

Gain a tiny boost to mana income when an intruder is within your dungeon

Branch dungeon

Cost: 10000 DP

Creates a subordinate dungeon core that will provide you some of the mana it collects, branch dungeons can produce anything the main dungeon can, but always have a lower natural mana regeneration rate then the main dungeon. If the main dungeon is killed all branch dungeons become independant newborn dungeons and lose everything they had while being a subordinate dungeon

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And with that just being the tab for increasing mana, you can understand just how insanely large the dungeon point store is.

But today is an exciting day, I have my first intruder!

It is a worm.

Not a big worm, not a mutant worm with teeth, not a work with acidic mucus, just a regular boring worm.

Unless it is just disguising itself or secretly knows magic, but it looks to be an ordinary worm.

Which means that I stand a chance at victory! I just need to hope that it rolls down the pitfall, dies of old age, or is killed by another intruder that shows up.

Truly the odds are in my favor.

I stare at the worm for 3 minutes as it crawls slowly on the ground, it tries to burrow a few times but it isn't able to pierce my floor and I don't feel it at all.

This take a turn for the worse when the worm, well, turned around and I start to painic.

I try to gather my mana to shoot it at the worm, but it won't channel into the air, I press and focus with all I have to make even a pinprick worth of mana to shoot at the worm before it escapes, but to no avail.

The worm escapes, and I am once more left with nothing to do.

I spend DAYS afterword trying to do anything with my mana other than expand my territory or make pitfalls, but the only thing I can do with it other than those is feel it move throughout my room's floor, walls, and ceiling.

Luckily moving mana around does't use it up, so I don't have to stop for days for it to recharge. The only real improvement I have is moving several groups of mana at higher speeds or improving coordinated movement of mana.

I am just so powerless to do anything to kill the intruders, the only weapons I have are time and luck.

A few days later and it rains, and with rain comes water inside my dungeon.

I quickly absorb some of the water, I am careful not to absorb all of it as it could drown insects that may be inside or attract creatures later.

And absorbing the water leads to a new option.

Create water

Cost: 0.1MP/Liter

Makes water

 I can feel that I gain some MP when absorbing the water, but it isn't even enough for 0.1 points and doesn't show up in the menu.

Water occasionally flows in, but it isn't like a steady stream. The rain blows in the wind toward my cave sometimes and a small amount of water will fall off tree leaves in a small stream the ends up in my dungeon.

I am also very annoyed, because even after absorbing the water, I cannot spawn any microbes.

So many microbes must be dying, but not even 0.1 points of DP and no microbial spawn options, granted I may not be able to spawn the lifeforms I kill, but I still feel cheated in some way.

 I am pulled out of my inner thoughts by another intruder, this time it is a bug.

I actually don't recognize the kind of bug it is, but it kind of looks like a tan beetle and is slightly larger than an ant.

I filled my pitfalls with water, except the one in the wall and the one in the ceiling, and am overjoyed that the bug stumbles into one.

The bug struggles for several minutes as I am glaring at it with my full attention, I try to spawn more water over it, but get an error message.

Dungeons cannot modify floors with intruders present.

 Maybe it is a good thing microbes don't count as intruders after all.....

The insect finally dies after a grueling struggle, and I get my first dungeon spawn.

Egg grazer bug (Ordinary insect class)

Cost: 0.1MP to spawn, 0.002MP per day to maintain

A predatory bug that relies on stealth to eat insect eggs. Has weak pincers and is overpowered by most bugs in a direct confrontation.

Gained 0.01 DP, gained 0.05MP

 YES!!!! I am not going to complain about having a weak first monster, there are so many things I can test now!

And I confirmed something increadibly important, killing intruders allows me to spawn them, I would hate to have to rely completely on traps to defend myself.

I quickly spawn my first monster. My mana channels into the air and I very carefully observe the process, I don't want to experiment on my first try so that I understand what the baseline should be, but it all happens in a fraction of a second so there isn't much I can notice.

A tan little bug appears, it doesn't list itself as a boss monster, there is no stat screen, and I cannot see a list of possible evolutions.

I try to feed more mana to it, but there is some force preventing me from forcing more mana through, I try to push harder and harder, but nothing happens, the bug doesn't even explode, at least that would be interesting.

I try communicating with the bug, but it doesn't respond to speak and will only follow basic tasks like "go there" or looking in a direction that I mentally indicate.

 It is worrying that the full extent of monsters I can currently field is 50 bugs, and not even venomous ones, but at least I can kill worms now.

I won't forget you worm, you may have won the first round but next time you won't be so lucky.

I spawn another 4 bugs, each time I try to adjust the mana as they form, but nothing changes.

It is a bit worrysome that these bugs that are supposed to be stealth oriented still have a leafy pattern which doesn't mesh with the cave walls, but it isn't like my room has anywhere to hide yet other than within the pitfalls, which they can still do to ambush as they will be out of site.

I don't want to use up all my MP generation so I stick with these 5 for now and tell them to hide in pitfall walls or on the ceiling, one of them blatantly ignores me and direct just crawls into a corner of the room, and most of the others end up wandering around after a while of waiting in position.

I suppose this is the defiant title taking effect, they understand what I want them to do, but will only do it for as long as they feel like it.

I just hope I can stack up enough insect kills before something like a squirrel manages to plow through everything I have, my only hope in such a situation would be to bait it into a watery pitfall and hope it drowns.

I tell one of my bugs to try and leave the cave and immediately come back to see what happens, it leaves just fine and does decide to come back to me.

I also notice that after it left the dungeon, the small mana drain it takes from me went away, but when it came back so did the mana cost.

The menu did say that the mana cost was to maintain it, so maybe it doesn't need to eat as long as it has mana, that would give it enough incentive to want to stick around in my frankly bland cave.

I encourage my bugs to go out and drags some plants back for me, but only 2 of them obey me this time.

Insects and water might not seem like much of a difference at first glance, but I do believe it is enough to get the ball rolling.