After his talk with Sek, Gorm had new things to think about. A lot of things he didn’t understand were now clear.

Thanks to his new realizations, he decided to try and cultivate his father’s cultivation technique one more time. If he hadn’t achieved anything after five years he would continue and create his tenth floor and the connection to the outside world.

But first, he would follow Sek’s pointer and checked his status and his notifications.

Status

Name

Gorm

Title

Natural Dungeon

Race

Dungeon Core Oak

Floors

47

Rooms

923

Age

655 years

DP

142

Level

9 (47)

Mana

3.9 m / 3.9 m

Affinities

Nature

Mana Regeneration

500 per min

Specialties

One with Nature

Abilities

Natural Dungeon

Perfect Environment Creation

Complete Cycle Creation

Natural Seeding

Growth Spurt

Creature Maturation

Clear Headed

Ecosystems

Endless Wilderness

Riparian Forest

Common River

Light Oases

Common Forest

Ocean Archipelago

Monsters

148 k

Sapients

27 k

Lesser Beasts

-

Humanoid Animals

1,8 k

Beasts

2 k

Divine Beasts

-

Humanoid Beasts

-

Bosses

Melia (Elder Ash Dryad)

Bonded Creatures

Seker (Death ??? Spirit)

Intruders

-

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Gorm didn’t find anything too special on his new status, only the new ability, Natural Seeding, stood out a bit. But like the other changes, it was easily explainable with the special state he entered.

But he still was surprised, when he saw the number of beasts and humanoid animals. Especially in comparison to the number of monsters and sapients. Gorm knew he had quite a few monsters in his dungeon but he didn’t know it were that many.

Next, he concentrated on the changed abilities. The only difference they had from before, was that they were now able to recreate any cycle or environment perfectly. Creating a perfect replication of nature.

Gorm thought that the new ability was relatively self-explanatory, but decided to take a look nonetheless.

Natural Seeding:

This ability allows the dungeon to seed plants and animals in a more natural way.

Despite the fact that he already thought that the ability was self-explanatory, Gorm was disappointed. Especially because he had the feeling that it wasn’t that easy of an ability. If that wasn’t the case, why was it a separate ability and not included in Natural Dungeon or Perfect Environment Creation? But for now, he wasn’t able to find out the reason.

The next thing he did was to look what the description of the One with Nature Specialty was. Because he had achieved the state before, Gorm believed that he already knew what it did.

One with Nature:

Advanced state only creatures with great understanding of nature are able to achieve.

Due to achieving this state you have the option to make any floor a perfect recreation of nature.

If used, a floor won’t cost any upkeep as long as nothing has to be respawned.

After opening yourself to the world the mana you will give off to the outside will be almost indistinguishable from the natural Mana.

Gorm was shocked. He already knew that normally one’s mana would become similar to the natural mana, but he didn’t think that as a dungeon core he would still gain this effect.

What was even more shocking, was that he could have floors for an upkeep of zero mana, as long as no intruder destroyed anything. If he really couldn’t find a way to increase his mana regeneration, he could use the effect to still get more floors.

With his status out of his way, Gorm focused on his missed notifications, but he soon discovered that they were mostly about the changes that he had done unconsciously.

He also found out that he got the 100 DP for having all his floors perfected and with complete cycles. He even got a free pick for an up to rare magical plant. But Gorm wanted to wait until he got the first natural magical plant before he introduced new ones.

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After reviewing all his notifications Gorm decided to visit Melia before he entered the five-year seclusion he had planned.

Melia was still playing with the little beaver but when Gorm made his presence known she immediately told him: “Oh, finally! I know what I want. I want to take little Bea with me and show him my tree and pond.”

Gorm was confused. “Then take her with you. I won’t stop you. Why shouldn’t you be able to take someone to your tree?”

“But I can’t! I tried and I can only take them to the outskirts of my forest. If I take someone deeper into the room he will have a lot of pain.” Melia retorted.

“What? Why? Can you take someone with you right now?” Gorm was stunned if what Melia said was true, he would have to find out why.

“I can take Bea with me. But if she hurts I will take her back out!” Said Melia and Picked the small beaver up and headed towards the forest cavity.

After a little while, they arrived in the huge room and Melia started to walk towards her tree. A few hundred meters into the room Gorm could feel that the little beaver was behaving strangely. When Melia was over half a kilometer in the beaver started to cry out in pain.

“Melia you can take her back out, I will investigate this, I don’t have any way to change it for now. Please be patient, I promise you I will try my best.” Assured Gorm Melia.

Because Gorm didn’t feel anything strange before, he decided to try the same with another animal, but the situation was the same.

A few unsuccessful experiments later he decided to come back after his seclusion and after he had built the tenth floor.

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Back in seclusion he started to think about his father’s technique again. He tried to cultivate with his core, his entire tree and the entire core room as seed. But to no success.

With only a few months left until his limit of five years was over, Gorm decided to raise his core room into the forest cavity. He didn’t believe that it would change anything, but he was running out of time and he really wanted to succeed. So he did the only thing he hadn’t tried yet, except for taking his entire dungeon as the seed.

Raising his core room was surprisingly hard if he didn’t do it in a way that would leave the entire room intact it wouldn’t move. Only after two months of hard work did he succeed, but he still had the problem that the core room was still intact.

Nothing he tried was able to destroy the room. Gorm only found out, that reasons were the runes and formations on the room's surfaces. So he had a crazy idea, what if he recreated the runes and formations of the core room in the forest cavity?

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Recreating the core rooms runes and formations came out to be harder than Gorm ever expected. But after fifteen years he was almost finished. He had worked without pause and had forgotten time. So Gorm wasn’t aware how long it really took him.

When Gorm completed the last rune of the last formation something incredible happened.

The walls around his core oak started to fade away. And he could feel how his roots finally were able to really take root. They tunneled down and expanded. Only when his roots started to appear on the ceiling of the eighth floor did he stop.

But not only the roots were growing, without the restraint of the small core room the trunk and its branches grew. Soon he reached 100 meters in height. But only after reaching 250 meters did the speed of growth slow down.

After his growth spurt was over, Gorm stated to take in the changes. Obviously, he had grown bigger, but what else did change?

Only after he scanned over the forest cavity turned core room, did he discover that he finally had the same feeling of omnipotence he had on all his floors in the cavity as well.

He felt more connected to his dungeon than ever. Even with the minimum amount of his soul force spread over the dungeon, Gorm knew at least the rough situation of every floor. Before he had to expend a significant amount of soul force to achieve the same result.

Reveling in the new sensations and feelings, Gorm sensed that something or someone was running panicky towards his core room.

When he focused on the person he discovered that it was Melia. She had tears in her eyes and a panic-stricken expression. Seeing her like this hurt Gorm in his very soul. Only now did he truly realize how much she meant to him. He would do anything to make her happy again. And so he talked to her. “Melia, what happened? Why are you crying?”

“Boohoo I lost connection to my tree.” Melia cried whilst still running.

Gorm instantly shifted his perception to Melia’s ash tree and found it completely fine. Right at that moment, Melia arrived at one of the waterfalls into the new core room. Just as she wanted to jump in direction of her tree she suddenly stopped and looked confused.

When that happened Gorm got a notification and unlike his normal notifications, this one wasn’t ignorable.

Warning!

Someone is trying to intrude into your core room.

Do you allow your boss Melia to enter your core room?

Yes / No

Gorm hastily chose yes. As soon as he did so, Melia darted towards her tree.

When she saw that her tree was ok and her connection went back to normal she started to cry in joy.

A little while later Gorm made himself known and asked Melia to visit him.

“Woah! You are so big!” After knowing her tree was fine she quickly went back to normal, and now, that she was finally looking around she noticed the huge tree that suddenly stood in the middle of the room.

After a little talk with Melia, he had her bring little Bea and Gorm, again, got the warning that Bea wanted to intrude into his core room, as soon as he accepted he was able to enter.

After a bit of searching Gorm found the option to allow all of his dungeon creatures entrance into his core room.

With the changes dealt with and Melia’s wish fulfilled, Gorm decided to try to cultivate his father’s technique again.