A new floor held so many possibilities.

The only problem was that I wasn’t sure what to do.

I knew I would keep up the kind of, abandoned ancient temple vibe I had going, at least for a while - but that was about it.

I suppose sticking to that theme, I would make floor two, at least partially, a sort of inner area. Once adventurers get past the labyrinth, they would be allowed access to the “temple's” inner region - or at least the first inner region.

This would be a space of offering and ritual, I decided. At least, that would be the theme of the puzzles and aesthetic.

The first step was a grand entrance.

On the wall of the stair room, I began to carve a massive door, 20 feet tall, 12 feet wide. Two thick stone slabs that would separate for the door mechanism itself - a larger version of the doors I had elsewhere.

Past the grand door, I created a large room. Another 50 foot by 50 foot chamber.

It was much easier this time, with the increased mana gain from my size - and the experience carving away the earth that I had amassed.

At the far end of the room, I raised a semicircular section of floor upon which I would place some kind of altar. I created pillars along a path leading to it, and created fire holding bowls on top of the pillars to provide light to the room.

What would this altar do exactly, though?

I wanted the altar to be some kind of puzzle, or thing that adventurers can interact with.

The theme of this floor was sort of an offering space, so I suppose I could play with that.

The altar could be a place for offerings.

The offerings would be to me, of course - who else could they be for anyway - so I would need them to be offerings I could use. Offerings of mana came to mind.

I set about enchanting the altar.

When something with mana, a creature or object, was laid upon the altar the enchantment would activate. Any mana within the subject, the enchantment would attempt to rip out, and set on a course towards my core. I spent a frankly ludicrous amount of mana on this enchantment, making sure it was powerful enough for my liking.

I tested the new enchantment by enchanting some small rocks with basic stuff, and infusing some others with small amounts of mana - and instructing one of Mogala’s spiders to move them to the altar one by one.

For the mana infused rocks, the mana was simply pulled out of them.

The effect on the enchanted rocks however, was much more interesting.

Enchantments are, as I understand them, basically mana given purpose. When the enchanted rocks were placed upon the altar, it deconstructed the enchantments upon them - breaking them down into the mana used to create them.

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I wonder, though, if this would work on any enchantment, or if there was some threshold of either power of the enchantment, skill of the enchanter, or something else, that would prevent my enchantment from working.

No matter, I had basically created a disenchantment altar that would feed the mana it released to me - so I was pretty happy.

I attempted to make the purpose of the altar vaguely clear, with the general shape and design of the altar itself. It seemed, to me, fairly obvious that something was supposed to be placed on it.

I was satisfied with the altar for now, and could link its activation to something later.

I created doorways on either side of the altar room, and began to carve out rooms.

To the left, a 30 foot by 30 foot room with a tall ceiling. In its center, a large raised circular section with a pool in its center.

I could fill it with water by making pipes and enchanting them to push water along, but I wanted to try something.

I waited until I had some more mana, and then poured my focus into an enchantment.

It was mentally torture, but I had to see if I could do it.

When I was done, I felt as though I was going to black out, if I even could - but I was left with something truly phenomenal.

Inspired by my ability to carve earth away in one place and place it in another, this enchantment moved things from one place to another. In this case, water.

With my dungeon enhanced spatial awareness, I was able to craft an enchantment to teleport water from the river my waterfall feeds, into the pool. It would teleport water whenever the pool wasn't full, until it was full.

I placed lesser life fruit around the pool, and on the walls - the vines spreading and giving the room a more lively look.

I turned my attention to the other side of the altar room, across from the entrance to the pool chamber. The pool chamber would essentially serve as a rest room, with some life fruit rewards. The chamber across from it would serve as the entrance to the second floor of the dungeon proper.

I would create more spacious floors and rooms further down, and once I had both more range and mana to work with. For now, though, I would stick to a similar design to the first floor.

I began to carve out another labyrinth, though this one would be more sinister than the first.

I created an expansive maze with multiple pathways, and larger rooms dispersed throughout it.

I wove enchantments into the walls, in a myriad of locations. For each group that attempted to traverse the maze, its layout would shift. Door would close, creating dead ends, and new paths would open. Dead ends would be visually indistinguishable from an unchanged passage.

I made sure, and then made sure again, that the maze would always have a pathway that worked.

I would have spiders roam the second floor’s labyrinth, and in fact I decided to relocate Mogala to the second floor as well. I placed traps like in the first floor as well.

Weaponizing the flame creating enchantment I devised earlier came to mind.

In the tunnels I created flame traps. Like the spikes I had previously created there would be a slight delay to allow for reaction. Once they triggered, they would create a jet of flame in whichever direction the trap faced. Like the spikes, as well, they were triggered by proximity. Of course, I placed normal spike traps through it as well, I wasn’t about to abandon my first trap design.

I focused on the rooms I had created dotted throughout the maze. These would be places without traps, where people could rest a bit. I didn’t forbid the wandering spiders from going into the rooms though, I couldn’t make it too easy.

At the very end of the maze, I created a larger room. This chamber would serve as the entrance to the next floor, eventually…

I had one of the spiders move my core through the maze, to the end chamber. I had gotten bigger.

I seemed to be roughly the size of a baseball, now.

Progress feels good.