Layla

Book 1 - Into the Wilds / Chapter 3 - What's Outside?

Kalila was sent on another expedition after a few hours of rest. And Layla's instructions to her were to be traceless and not draw attention to herself. Only when her target was dead without her even showing herself could she be considered to have had a successful hunt. It was challenging, but the little one was learning.

Mushrooms were next on her agenda. Doing the same monotonous work as she did with the mycelia and the worms with the mushrooms. The good thing was she was faster than before, and the hard that she had to remember more. She was doing a good job, she thought. Keeping track and mapping everything. And imagining cute little mushroom people running around was worth the effort.

After the shrooms came the ants. They were one of the most versatile and adapting creatures around. They were just everywhere! These little buggers would become a great workforce under her as they were one of the most socially organized groups out there. So she found their queen and started pumping mana into her.

Bevicorvec Formicidae Queen Level 0

HP - 1/1

MP - 1/1

She didn't give any instructions to the queen. She had only one colony right now. She didn't want to specialize the queen into one aspect. But she did diversify her impressions into her spawns. They could be anything from carpenters to warriors to whatever they wanted. They didn't have that much thought at the moment, but Layla passed her thoughts on all the same.

However, she did divide some of them the way she did with the worms and the others. Layla would need more; she needed variety. But these were all she had at the moment.

So she switched to making traps. She expanded her cave and cleared out more space in front of the path that led to her entrance. She would just try to weave whatever traps she could to increase what she had on the dungeon trap list.

First, she made a pitfall trap just at the entrance of the pathway. Then, she molded stone into walls at a distance of half a meter around the pit. The walls would be part of a deadfall trap that would be triggered as soon as someone jumped over the pitfall. She was going to make it a kill zone. She didn't want to give chances to people to come over one by one nicely.

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Adding on the poison that already filled the cave, it was an excellent place to die. It was only not going out into the pathway because Layla wanted it that way.

She took a break to fill up her mana reserves and started gaining territory again. She wanted to see her place of residence. It took her some time, but when she broke ground, she saw towering trees and hardly any sunlight reaching the ground. It looked like she was deep in a forest.

An actual map of the place and distance from civilization would have to be drawn later to see if any humans were nearby or not. If she was lucky, they were so far away that those pesky little busybodies didn't even know there was a hole leading to her that they could stick it into. She really did not want to deal with them right now. She already had a lot on her plate, and they would only add to her bothers.

Deliberating to herself was good as she didn't even realize how fast the time went because of it. Kalila, the assassin spider, was back while she was zoning out.

It was a slow, pleasant, peaceful life but fun and fulfilling. Oh wait, it was too soon to give such a verdict. It hadn't even been that long, and she was already reaching conclusions. That would not do.

Her monotonous routine of expansion, ants, worms, mycelia, and mushrooms continued while Kalila also hunted on her own. The spider was getting better at staying hidden and camouflaging.

One week passed like that, and her mind-mapping her experiments with the shrooms and others gave her a reward.

Skill [Records] Gained.

Records: Efficient and effective keeping of notes, data, and more.

It was simply a memory bank.

The skill was a surprise. Nevertheless, a much-needed and welcome one.

Layla was growing, and everyone in and with her was growing too.

Black Umbra Level 3

HP - 9/9

MP - 15/15

Soon, two more weeks passed, doing the same chores day in, day out.

She was level 2 now! And the spider level 5.

Dungeon Core Level 2

HP - 3/3

MP - 300/300

Her HP was growing at a snail's pace. Was there a pace slower than snail's pace?

At least the spider grew faster. It was so cool and gratifying to watch.

Black Umbra Level 5

HP - 15/15

MP - 25/25

She had even gotten some vast trees on her surface territory. The trees took a lot of time to assimilate, be that as it may, it was definitely worth it.

Vadnum Creektum Level 27

HP - 5000/5000

MP - 2700/2700

Poplum Templum Level 20

HP - 3000/3000

MP - 1100/1100

Besiktalat Level 0

HP - 100/100

MP - 100/100

Raven's Tower Level 15

HP - 1500/1500

MP - 570/570

Flamma Silvae Level 18

HP - 1100/1100

MP - 2500/2500

Sequoia Gigantum Level 1

HP - 100/100

MP - 150/150

There were just too many trees to name. The number of lifeforms even in the previous world was simply immense, what more so for the world Layla was now in. Magic was a wonderful, mystical force. And it brought unseen changes to the world. At least, that's how she felt.

And she would think that way until proven otherwise.