When Gorm came back to himself, he felt great. There was still the bugging feeling that something was missing, but other than that he felt great. He instinctively knew he had gained back the one with nature state, he didn’t know he had lost.
But this discovery could wait first he wanted to find out if anything in his dungeon had changed. Gorm wasn’t sure how many years he had spent in the wondrous state of enlightenment, but the tiny bit of his soul strength that was still spread out gave him the feeling that the dungeon had undergone enormous changes.
As he started to spread his soul power through his dungeon again, he discovered that he suddenly had four new floors. Perplexed he started to scan over them, he discovered that except for the ninth floor there weren’t any new ecosystems. But still, where did these floors come from?
The only explanation Gorm could think of was, that in the state of enlightenment, they got created by his subconsciousness. He knew that when he got into a similar state when he was human, his body got cleansed and strengthened. Maybe this was the dungeon version of that phenomenon. To learn more he would have to ask Sek. First, he wanted to inspect the new floors a little closer.
Gorm liked the design of the interwoven fifth and sixth floor. It almost felt like it had to be like this. He couldn’t understand this feeling and decided to come back to it when he had less important things to do.
The seventh floor was like a darker but more resource-rich version of the second floor. Only after some deeper investigation did he discover that when it was night, the moon stones would shine and give the room a magic feeling. It was also then, that he discovered that he found microscopic small elemental stones all over the walls and ceilings of the floor.
At first, he thought that was floor specific, but when he checked the previous floors, he discovered that they were everywhere. Gorm would have to find out what they did as soon as he finished inspecting the new floors.
The eighth floor was even more interesting to Gorm than the two before. Not because it had some kind of special ecosystem or an interesting deviation. No, it was the layout of the floor that fascinated him. Especially due to the different forms of fortifications that were built, the entire floor seemed like a huge Fortress. All possible entrances to the ninth floor were tightly guarded.
This fact was a bit strange to Gorm. What reason was there to do so? If intruders should reach the ninth floor he would notice the entire private part of the dungeon. Even more importantly: It was impossible for intruders to reach the ninth floor because, without a connection to the outside world, it was close to impossible to step foot into any part of the dungeon. After pondering for a bit without finding a reason, Gorm continued his investigation of the new floors and focused his perception on the ninth floor and the last floor.
The vast water scenery stunned him at first. When he was alive he had never seen any body of water that was even remotely as big as his ninth floor. Gorm had only heard of the sea, he had never left the Endless Wilderness. Now he could roughly imagine what an ocean would look like. He even made the resolution to make an ocean floor when he had a big enough space later on.
After a bit of sightseeing, he didn’t use his usual approach of sending the bulk of his unused soul power into a floor to investigate, he discovered that it was quite clever to have this floor as a barrier. Most of the beings that would visit his dungeon wouldn’t be able to survive in water for extended periods of time. The only problem he found, was that he didn’t know how to connect to the next floor.
With a bit of deliberation, he decided to create the future connector as far away of the place where he planned to make his entrance. When he arrived at the point where that would be the case, he discovered that a huge island, the biggest he had seen so far on the floor, was there.
The island seemed special but he couldn’t figure out why, so he used his usual method of floor inspection. Thanks to the new information he found out that the island was only inhabited by ants. That was the first time he had seen something so clearly unnatural in all the new floors. After a closer look, he figured out that the ants were restricted to the island and couldn’t leave. Relieved he focused on the island again but couldn’t find out what was special except for the ants. Only after he focused on the part of the island that was almost 100 meters underwater, did he find what he was looking for.
Deep under the island, there were eggs in a huge chamber. When he inspected the eggs he wasn’t able to discern what they were there for, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with the connection to the tenth floor.
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Despite him focusing every ounce of expendable soul power on the eggs he couldn’t figure out what they were there for. Dejected he left. First he would visit Melia and then ask Sek for advice.
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Gorm found Melia playing with a small beaver, despite being new born it already was sapient, or it had at least reached that evolution level.
“Hello Melia, how are you? And who is your little friend here?” He greeted her.
Melia looked around, then she grimaced and tried to make an angry face: “Oh hello Gorm. You still remember me? Did you only visit because the first creature; in your dungeon; that is born sapient is with me? Humph!”
Seeing Melia’s fake angry face Gorm almost started to laugh. “Yes! The only reason I haven’t talked to you in a while was that I was busy. I just exited my seclusion and the first person I visited was you. I didn’t even know I had such a beaver in my dungeon.”
“Liar!” Despite calling him a liar, Melia seemed very happy and started to smile again. “I like the winter you made! I had so many fun snowball fights with my beavers!” Whilst saying that she made a very serious face. It seemed like she thought that snowball fights were something adults did. Melia obviously didn’t know a thing about what it meant to be a grown-up. Gorm could still remember when she grew three centimeters and was proud because she was even more grown up. In Melia’s world being grown up meant to be old and tall. Gorm very much hoped that it would stay this way for a long time.
Even when he was still human he never met someone even remotely as cheerful as Melia. Now that he had met someone like this, he wanted to keep it. So he said; “I made them only for you. Do you like the other seasons as well? Do you want me to make you something else?”
“Really? I knew you would remember me! Yes, but spring is my favorite.” She made a pause, “I don’t know I have to think about it.”
“Ok, I’ll come back after I talked to Sek.”
“Promise?” Melia asked with wide eyes.
“Yes, promise!” Gorm made a mental note to remember to visit her, then he left to find Sek. He was currently on the third floor. It seemed like he was observing a clan of badgers and a clan of lynxes.
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The two clans that Sek was observing were quite interesting. They both seemed exceptionally strong, albeit in different ways. The Badger clan had a lot humanoid animals and the lynx clan had an almost equal amount of beasts. They both had a bloodline too, both had the most basic forest bloodline.
They seemed to discuss how to expand their cooperation. The two clans were ideal for each other. The forest badgers needed protection and the forest lynxes needed skilled craftsmen and shamans.
Because Gorm didn’t know what a shaman was, he approached Sek with his perception.
“Hello Sek, could you explain what a shaman is? And why the lynx clan needs them so desperately.” Gorm came straight to the point.
“Finally! I thought you’d never leave your seclusion. A shaman is a primitive mix of an alchemist, a doctor and a priest. That is at least here in the dungeon. In the outside world, they are also able to use magic to heal. But more importantly, what in natures name did you do while you were in seclusion? You somehow created four floors and perfected all your existing ecosystems. Your dungeon is now as close to nature as you can get without an opening to the outside world.” Sek started a, for him, uncharacteristic rant. “And even if you had an entrance you shouldn’t be able to get so close to nature before a long process of adaptation.” Sek didn’t stop talking for quite some time. When he finally stopped he had already talked almost half an hour. More than he had spoken in total before, or so it felt to Gorm.
“I’m also not sure what happened, but I think it has something to do with the state I entered when I regained the one with nature state. At least…”
Sek interrupted Gorm rudely. “You regained what?”
“One with nature.” Answered Gorm, he was confused. He had never seen Sek react to something so violently. “What is so special about that? I reached this state when I was just a few hundred years old, back when I was a human.”
Sek took a deep breath and started to explain. “Gorm, you have to know that you were probably one of the youngest humans ever to achieve that state. But you are definitely the youngest dungeon core, even if I include your human life, to ever achieve one with nature. And you are the first dungeon to achieve it before even opening to the world.” After a short break, to let what was said sink in, Sek continued. “When a dungeon core achieves any form of enlightenment it always affects the dungeon. But what happened here was insane, maybe it had something to do with you being a core oak and a natural dungeon. Still, it shouldn’t have had such a big impact. You got four huge new floors, perfect ecosystems for all ecosystems currently in the dungeon and two new functions. The functions are what really bother me. You shouldn’t be able to have them. You were missing key components to creating them. The only kinds of elemental stone you had where water, sun, and moon. I don’t understand this. I need some time to think! If I don’t come to talk to you before you start to create the tenth floor, please visit me before you do so. Oh, I think you should try to look at your screens, maybe they can explain what happened to you.”