I managed to descend another 5 floors in just a day.

Moving all the way down to the 83rd. Devouring all kinds of monsters along the way. While the brute did all the hard work for me.

Each break would see me dissolving and absorbing thousands of monsters for a few hours at a time. Each break got longer and longer as the brute began to struggle against monsters that were now approaching his own level.

Good thing he was so stupid, or else he might have realized that I was playing him for a fool.

I was a bit taken aback that he'd spent the whole time weeping and wailing and shivering with barely-contained rage, but I figured he would get over it eventually.

In the meantime, I would make good use of his antics.

I was sure the strength of the monsters I was [Assimilating] and the rate I was devouring them at was speeding up my own growth. But I couldn't tell how much I was improving without a bracelet.

What I could tell was that my experiments were gaining traction.

My first attempt was based on the Saboteurs.

I had figured it would be a good enough start, given that I had created them to be disposable.

I straightened out the unit's spine and spent additional resources giving it extra limbs and extra brains scattered throughout its body.

I improved its nerves and its hand-eye coordination, while also giving it additional redundant organs for its circulatory and respiratory systems, so that it could withstand a certain degree of catastrophic organ failure before expiring.

I even went so far as to remove its attached Bio-weapons and to devote even more resources so that the specimen could use my skills as the Swarm Queens did.

I then finished the experiment by adding a single monster core to the unit's chest.

It died within 13 minutes.

None of my healing magics or its own were able to save it. At best, they merely forestalled the unit's final death for a few minutes more.

Worse, it had been unable to call upon any of the additional magics found within the core.

I created another, similar specimen. Only smaller, with a less developed nervous system and an even more advanced cardiovascular system, with twice as many redundancies.

It died within 6 minutes.

I found that interesting and began to wonder if total mass was a key factor, or if a better nervous system helped to mitigate the issue.

I created a third specimen so that it was twice as large as a Cannonling. With even more redundancies than the second.

I created a fourth specimen so that it was the size of the first experiment, but with a disproportionally large skull and central brain.

I created a fifth specimen so that it was the size of the third, but with the same disproportionally sized skull and brain as the fourth. One that, due to its size, was almost three times larger and thicker than that of the fourth specimen.

The third specimen died within 7 minutes. Unable to use any magic from the core.

The fourth specimen died within 15 minutes. Also unable to use any magic from the core.

The fifth specimen lasted a record-breaking 44 minutes. And what's more, it was able to use the magic from the core.

This last one could create illusory copies of itself through magic. Whenever a monster struck one of the copies, the illusion would dissipate, but it would leave the attacker dazed and clumsy for roughly half a second.

Given how powerful these monsters were, that was an outstanding success.

I named this new variant, the Spymaster and moved on to new patterns.

I created a similarly effective variant of the Swarm Queen, called a High Queen. One that was able to use its [Healing] from a distance and that was able to create localized magic shields over my units.

I created a new kind of Harpy, called a High Harpy, that was able to manipulate air around it in order to create invisible blades of shearing wind.

I created a new kind of Cannonling, called a Bomberling, for its uncanny ability to make its own projectiles explode with the force of missiles after striking their targets, even when the Burrower Roaches had bitten their way into a host's body.

Yet none of these lasted very long at all.

They were even more expendable than my regular units by an order of magnitude.

Which wouldn't have been a problem, if they also didn't require five times as many resources and my direct attention to be born.

If the brute hadn't been doing most of the work ahead of my main force, I would have had to stop my descent altogether.

What's more, I found that the kind of core I used for each individual affected the power they gained after the fact.

Something that I felt should have been obvious from the get go, but that only added an extra layer of frustration.

After all, a High Queen or High Harpy might have been useful when they could serve as mobile defenses or attack mages but their usefulness evaporated when they instead gained the ability to immolate themselves or phase through Dungeon walls and not much else.

I kept trying new patterns with different cores to try and see if I could chance upon a good combination that would justify the expenditure.

None came up.

That was, none until I began experimenting with Masterminds.

That was when I realized my folly.

In humans, the cores formed naturally, in the chest area.

I had been treating my units the same way, figuring it wouldn't make sense for them to be elsewhere.

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Only, the brain tissue was clearly more conductive to magic and it also served to stabilize the foreign energy.

Therefore, a being that was mostly made up of brain-tissue would have a much easier time handling the strain.

My new units could survive as long as three hours at a time with a single core and they were able to reliably use their intended magic, with more flexibility than the other variants I'd created.

Better yet, having them connected to the nearby experimental units created a stabilizing effect, where they would also be able to handle the magic more easily. More or less splitting the strain through the connection created by [Over-Mind].

That, was when I began getting greedy again.

I placed two cores inside the new unit, instead of one.

It died only slightly faster. And it was able to use wo different kinds of magic.

Strangely enough, this seemed to siphon even more of the strain from the nearby variants. Allowing them to use their magics more easily and to live even longer.

I placed three cores after that.

Followed by another.

And another.

And another.

Tweaking little details about the new variant here and there, such as the overall size of the being and the complexity and energy allocation of its main brain.

In the end, I more or less perfected a working prototype.

One I called the Swarm Sage.

If the old Masterminds had been the size of small hot-air balloons, these new units were the size of blimps. With most of their bulk being composed of brain-tissue.

Each one was a risky investment, as they were both fragile and short-lived while also being prohibitively expensive.

Yet, the devastation they caused was beyond my wildest hopes and dreams.

A single one could create blasts of magic powerful enough to disintegrate hundreds of lower floor monsters outright. Each blast containing several dozen combined spells in a single attack, with each core acting as a booster for the others.

It did come at a cost.

Each unit could only handle 2 or 3 blasts before expiring and each blast consumed all the cores I placed within each unit, so that they would have to be replenished between battles.

What's more, they could only live up to half an hour when fully loaded with cores.

However, all of that was worth it, given how fast they could clear the leftovers the brute left behind.

Given the disparity between our levels, I had begun to encounter clusters that could savage my forces, even on the brink of death.

That was no longer an issue.

So, I feasted and grew larger and fatter.

Now focusing my attention on the Decoy Queens I had left attending the Decoy pools all along the floors I had already conquered.

They had been busy devouring what monsters they could get their claws on, before my magic fully settled a floor and it began spawning my units instead of the usual monsters.

I could tell that their bodies were on the brink of bursting with all the magic they had absorbed.

I could tell that it wouldn't amount to much, as they all worked off my own magic. Without having a core of their own to feed, the magic they drew in would stagnate and disrupt their usual functioning.

Ordering the Queens to grow the pools and themselves had slowed the issue, but only up to a point.

I would have to absorb that magic myself or else waste all that progress.

Yet I was already at the limits of how much magic I could absorb as it was.

Where a normal child might take months and months to reach level 3, I felt as though I would reach the limits of level 2 in one or two weeks.

Even then, I was afraid that keeping up this pace would lead to more trouble, rather than more benefits.

Hardly a minute passed by without my core shivering violently now. The gem-like organ almost vibrating with exertion within the pouch of meat it was contained in.

Clearly, I wasn't taking as many precautions as I should have.

I needed to slow down the rate of consumption, but I also didn't want to waste this sumptuous meal the brute had so kindly left for me.

That was when I thought back to the farmers and the children up on the surface.

While none of the former had formed cores since yesterday, both the ones on the upper floors and the lower floors had made amazing progress.

As for the latter, quite a few had levelled-up.

The child's friends being among those who had improved themselves.

Moreover, some of the older children had made it to level 4. With the older leader girl breaking into level 5.

The sudden rush of power had allowed them to crush all resistance until the new 29th floor. A laudable achievement.

Granted, I was no longer going all-out as they would never catch up to me, but I was still impressed.

And inspired.

I considered [Spawning] a new creature to slow them down. One that carried tiny bits of broken monster cores within themselves and injected them into the children as they passed.

I wondered how that addition would fare for them.

I got as far as designing an insect capable of jumping vast distances and camouflaging itself. A near-weightless bedbug that would latch onto skin and bite deep into the flesh, with an anesthetic solution for saliva so the children would not realize they were bitten until later.

Then I hesitated. Considering the old man once more.

I didn't feel confident enough to experiment on live humans without killing them yet. I could not say for certain those experiments wouldn't result in death or crippling injury. That closed off many avenues of inquiry regarding the core-formation process.

But there were alternatives.

I had created human copies before, yes.

But what if I could create a true human from scratch?

Surely the old man wouldn't begrudge me making such experiments, right?

I decided that was the case and moved on to trials. Stopping briefly to release the core-less bedbugs on the children.

They would not be part of any experiment.

They would only be annoying.

Very, very annoying and irritating.

I asked myself why I had done it moments after.

I figured I was feeling petty, after they turned my units against me. That and I figured the other children would think twice before harassing the child or myself, if they were made aware of the consequences.

I wanted them to know what I was capable of.

I wanted them to know it could be worse.

Now feeling more satisfied, I created a new kind of unit for my next experiment. One that would be as close to a regular human as I could possibly get with the knowledge I had. Keeping a bit of magic in order to kickstart the process of life.

The first one was born from a womb I grew on my real body.

I allowed her to crawl away from me.

I allowed her to cough as her lungs drew in her first breath.

I did not allow her to live, after I realized she had the same core as me.

I would, of course, be reproducing in the future.

I was the perfect lifeform after all.

The universe and all its wonders belonged to me. To my seed and my ilk.

But I was not strong enough to cement my supremacy as of yet.

And I would not suffer competitors.

The old man might get dangerous ideas, if he believed me or the child to be anything but unique.

She did babble some nonsense about help and please and mercy towards the end, but that was inconsequential.

I re-absorbed her and vowed to do things differently to see if I could draw out different kinds of cores.

To start, I focused on all the dried human blood my units had spilled onto the higher floors. Some samples were merely droplets. Others, small congealed puddles that had since turned black.

None of the wounds had been lethal, but the evidence of wounds was still there.

I drank I what I could through newly-born drones and scrambled the DNA sequences.

I figured this would allow me to create new blends of humans, from a variety of samples belonging to both the children and the farmers.

I then determined to have my Queens birth the new experiments instead of me, in order to ensure a greater degree of separation.

I even went so far as to remove as much of my own magic from the new creations as possible, so that they became as close to the image of a regular baseline human as possible.

The first three proved the folly of that idea.

Without any of my magic to power the life within them, they died as soon as they were past the Queens' wombs.

Leaving nothing but corpses to show for my efforts.

I then shifted my own focus to add a bit more magic right at the moment of birth. Not a lot. But merely enough to kickstart their own lives.

Two more died soon after being born, but a third lived on.

She was a bald female, who resembled one of the copies I had sent to distract the brute in the past.

She was born stout of body and stout of mind. Her panic and terror coming across very clearly through our connection.

A connection I soon severed, so as to have a genuine sample to work with.

Then, I left her alone to cry out and beg for help. Knowing that none was coming.

I left her like that for two hours. The Queen that was her mother watching from close by, in addition to the now hundreds of thousands of units surrounding her.

Then, when I was certain that no magic was flowing from me, I ordered her mother to re-capture her and to connect all the digested magic into this new vessel.

Based on the old man's information, this might have led to a sub-par core, as I was pumping this vessel full of high-grade magic that even I could not easily digest.

I didn't care overmuch, since she was but an experiment.

Even a sub-par core would have been a massive step in the right direction.

So, I tinkered and waited and grew new humans from other Queens in other floors.

All while ripping myself off the ground and following the brute down to deeper parts of the Dungeon.