The Dungeon grew once more.

I thought that was fine.

After all, I had made such excellent progress that I was now on the 77th floor, with the brute being on the 81st.

Indeed, my greatest challenge went from digesting all those strong monsters the brute had left for me in a timely manner, to coming up with enough magic between me and my Masterminds to continually dominate each floor the brute cleared.

And it was a challenge, given how quickly the brute was clearing them.

It was to the point where I had to rush without fully digesting my meals, because new monsters would start to spawn in if I didn't dominate the floor fast enough, and these new monsters were far, far beyond what my units could handle. Even with all the tricks I could come up with.

That said, it wasn't all good news.

The brute was going wild with no end in sight, but he was all that kept my conquest going at this level of difficulty. If, for some reason, he calmed down long enough to consider his current situation, he might simply turn around.

Even if he didn't immediately find me, which I doubted was possible, he would still stop killing monsters ahead of me. And so my current bout of conquest would come to an end.

He would probably not be happy with my usage of his trauma either.

As such, I focused my efforts on ways to keep him going as far as he would go, before the Dungeon grew again.

I molded my Subverters and Saboteurs so that they could [Transform] into humans and I did my best to have them crawl along the new floors while the brute continued his rampage.

Every time the brute started calming down, I had one of them turn back into one of the brute's departed friends, while the rest made their way to a lower floor in order to start the process all over again.

I knew these tactics would only be effective so long as the brute was enraged and not paying attention to his surroundings, but they kept working nonetheless.

I was fine with that.

It meant I would have more time to devour the monsters too crippled for the brute's attention.

I ate and ate and ate until I was stuffed and until my core quivered inside my fleshy form.

The concentration of magic telling me, in no uncertain words, that it was close to cracking or exploding with the amount of magic I was constantly feeding it.

Thankfully, the Masterminds and the decoy Queens I left in decoy Pools took care of storing much of the overflow so that it didn't go to waste.

"CEEEEEECIIIIIIILLLLL!!!!!" The brute wailed from below. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU CEEEEECIIIILLL!!!"

The proclamation had been so loud that the sound had shattered stones throughout all the floors between me and him.

I thought that was fine.

It meant he was still ready to keep advancing for me.

Sure, the fact that the brute had gotten this upset about my tactics was a bit problematic when I considered the future, but I was sure that he would calm down eventually.

He and all the other adults had nothing to gain from my death, while also having plenty to lose.

I was certain that, if it came down to it, the old man would intervene.

Therefore, instead of worrying about him, I shifted my focus on something far more important. Such as the developing situation on the surface.

It would seem the old man and the gloomy man had shown up with the brute's son.

They had gathered another 2, 000 or so humans to work on the expanding farms and had sent the humans that had been previously working down to fight on the upper floors in waves so as to finally capitalize on their hard work with decent cores.

All in all, this would mean that another 1, 800 or so people would be fighting against my units, in addition to the hundreds already engaged in battle alongside the children.

The gloomy man thought this was tantamount to sending thousands into a meatgrinder and reminded the old man that no such thing would ever be acceptable in the Dunstonberry Dungeon.

The old man waved his concerns away and kept assuring the gloomy man that I wouldn't kill any of the trainees, so they might as well throw them neck deep into the Dungeon to obtain the best results they could.

I was of the opinion that he presumed too much and took my benevolence for weakness.

I was of the opinion that many of those wastrels would make excellent seedbeds for future experiments. Particularly those relating to natural core formation.

I was also aware that killing anyone would be a black mark against me. One even more problematic than my usage of the brute's trauma.

I could see the old man laughing off the brute's incident, so long as the child showed how much I had advanced us and so long as the farm kept expanding and growing more crops faster than ever before.

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I could not see the old man laughing off even a single death however.

That did not seem like a wise line to cross.

With that in mind, I began unleashing legions upon legions of my lesser units in the upper floors of the Dungeon. Making drones and common Sunflower Brutes by the tens of thousands and having them charge the new delvers from all sides. Pushing them constantly without ever inflicting lethal wounds and allowing parties to escape when I deemed it necessary.

All while I kept a close eye on the ways their internal magics fluctuated without any of them having a core.

No sense in missing out on observational data when it was so freely available.

I also spent more and more attention to sending waves upon waves of Riflelings, Sniperlings, Body-snatchers, Shotgunlings and Cannonlings into the fray of my current floor, but only to bring back whatever monsters the brute left alive.

I would see this play out, again and again. My skirmishing parties coming back with with crippled monsters.

For me.

For the Pool I had become.

Thousands were now being dissolved every passing minute, in several different Pools.

Their cores being put to the side so that neither I, nor my Decoy Queens consumed them.

I had been watching the pile grow with a morbid fascination as of late.

I recalled what effect they had had on the first units the child had created. The bears and the gorillas made up of nothing but vines and moss.

They had been far, far stronger than they'd had any right to be. All thanks to being infused with crushed-up cores.

Yet the old man had warned the child about the side-effects.

It was a temporary booster, with far too many consequences attached for it to be worth it. Those units had been made to die from the outset and their last moments were filled with unimaginable power for that very reason.

I knew that eating the cores would be stupid.

I had my instincts to thank for that.

But I could not help but think about what the monsters down here could do.

I had seen them teleport short and long distances.

I had seen them breathe clouds of poison or acid or fire or freezing mist or arcs of lighting.

I had seen them split themselves into identical clones. Sometimes into groups of three or four upon the death of the main body. Sometimes on account of a sudden surge of power driven from desperation. The identical clone sacrificing itself so that the main body could attempt to flee.

Those were always the most interesting, because I could not fathom how the magic worked, since both the clone and the original would remain infected, almost as if they had cloned the worm and the growing units the worm had spawned within their bodies while the magic took hold.

Not only that, but I was starting to notice more complex and esoteric abilities from the newer monsters.

Some could freeze time in a localized area.

Some could alter the way kinetic force worked so that the Burrowing Roaches and worms were sent right back to my war parties.

Some could cause all the other monsters to explode around them at the time of their death, a fate shared by my own units.

Some could pretend to be my own units. To the point where they could mimic the skills the Queens had been endowed with. Spawning smaller armies of their own and sending them my way.

I saw a particularly strange creature that looked like a solid, plastic cube with one eye on each of its sides.

When one of my Riflelings shot at it, the cube creature opened its eyes and shrieked with mouths it did not have.

The space around it was de-pressurized and I lost two hundred units in one fell stroke.

And yet, none of it seemed to register on the brute, who kept slaughtering the monsters without a second thought.

The more I saw of the phenomena, the greedier I felt.

Until I found myself formulating plans to make use of the mountain of unused cores.

My first test subject was a still-living monster. A gnome of some kind who had been saying something or other about the child's parents after touching my own mind through my units.

I wasn't paying attention.

I inserted a second core into its body. One that gave off about the same amount of magic as a 5th Stage core in the case of humans.

I had taken it from a boss monster on the 73rd and I was eager to see how the smaller, comparatively dumber and weaker creature would fare with the influx of power.

As soon as I closed and [Healed] the wound, the gnome had started screaming.

I did not think this was unusual, given the other things I had done to it until that point, so I continued watching from behind the eyes of my Swarm Queens.

First, the skin around the healed incision grew red and warty. Almost as if the gnome was having an allergic reaction.

Then, its eyes bulged out at the same time as its tongue. The gnome looking as if it was trying to cool itself in the same manner as a dog would.

I watched the gnome make a raspy, gargling sound and peered in a bit closer to judge other features through the bodies of my Queens.

I saw that the gnome's throat had closed shut.

I heard the beating of its heart beating like a drum against its ribcage.

I smelled that the gnome's bowels had emptied themselves at once.

For a second, I could have sworn that I could see steam coming out of the gnome's ears.

Its eyes had started to turn from their usual red to a glowing green. Traces of power sputtering out like diseased embers from the sockets.

An apt comparison, as its eyes soon melted.

Then the thing's body melted. Flesh sloughing off like hot candlewax.

The gnome did not stop screaming the whole time.

Yet it also refused to die.

Not for another hour of direct observation.

I noted the relative resilience and prepared to compare those results with other, more impressive lifeforms.

Perhaps their own stats had something to do with how long they survived? What would be better? Vitality? Endurance? Fortitude? Or perhaps Precision to better control the flow of foreign magic?

So many possibilities.

I determined to keep working.

My next experiment was performed on a larger creature. A mountainous goat centaur reminiscent of the ones I had fought and eaten on the 47th floor.

It too struggled violently.

Looking more and more ill by the second.

I had my Queens hold the writhing, mostly-dead monster down in its death throes and through them I could sense that the monster's very flesh was rotting and giving way. The monster having aged 10 years in the past 10 minutes.

I believed it was an obstacle that could be overcome.

I did not think it would be easy, but I had plenty of time.

I would first make it so that my units could handle at least one monster core at a time. Then, I would make it so that they could handle three or four cores at a time.

It didn't matter if I was met with constant failures. A single success would justify thousands of units spent.

Not to mention the fact that such experiments would no doubt stir the greed of the old man on the surface.

I was still watching the farmers, those new hordes that were smashing themselves bloody against my lesser units and those hundreds that were fighting alongside the children. None of them had obtained cores as of that moment, but I could feel that those on the lower floors had reached an average of 3.5 on their stats.

Their prospects seemed very bright to my eyes.

Now, if I could somehow figure out how to secure late-stage cores for them, as well as my own units.

Well...

The old man might very well see this as a net positive, regardless of what the brute thought.

I might even be able to negotiate the release of some humans into my care.

After all, what was a few hundred lives, compared to the old man's ultimate goal?

With such ambitions in mind, I focused my mind on the experiments once more.

Toying with the idea of taking a few farmers to the side as subjects, while I left my latest Pool so that I could descend at the same time as the brute.

It would not do to lose sight of my ultimate prize, after all.