With the Core having a higher Mana regeneration than when it made the Lyn Shade Parasitic Swamp, allowed it to make the other floor themes, but it decided to follow Cie's suggestion, creating the Isolation caves. It costs less to make a floor than expanding its influence during initial creation however once it leaves the floor it will be considered created, and any further changes will cost more Mana, but it can wait however long it wishes for its Mana to regenerate within the floor. Now that its Mana didn't take long to regenerate making other floor themes would be more reasonable because each have different costs with the Unholy Cathedral surprisingly costing the most and even more than expanding its influence. Why this was the case was beyond it. Nevertheless, the lowest costing theme was Isolation caves which would allow it to make a genuinely colossal cave system.
Bringing its sight into what it called the floor cave or the entrance to the cave system. The Core began the creation of the Isolation caves, and immediately linked the exit of the Swamp to the entrance of the Isolation caves making anything completing the Swamp floor end up on the Isolation caves floor. Among the many rock types available from the theme it picked Qert Stone which was dim grey in coloring causing the cave to be very distracting to the eyes.
Next, it created a web of tunnels intersecting each other making it hard to navigate the tangled caves. It also created a single large open cave ten kilometers in radius at the center of the tangled mess, and within this central cave, it created Grob dwellings like it saw in the chasm and made a total of five thousand Common Cave Grobs to inhabit this area. Now, that might sound like a lot, but just its Abomination alone could likely take out more Grobs than five thousand. After that it made smaller dwellings scattered throughout the tangled caves and placed Black Cave Bears within them, each dwelling having a maximum of fifty Bears. Then it made dwellings at the dead end's of six tunnels and placed Storm Hide Bears within them with a total of six dwellings and six Storm Hide Bears for them. The Core had no idea how long had passed since it started making the Isolation caves but it was likely a full day, most of that waiting for its Mana to regenerate.
All the tunnels together added up to a total length of one hundred and two kilometers in length and then add the center cave which was ten kilometers in radius. The Caves looked like a maze from above, all of the tunnels weaving in and out of each other, truly making it difficult to tell where you last turned unless you mark your way, but that too is difficult because Qert Stone can fix and clean itself with Mana. Allowing the Core to set the floor to release one hundred points of Mana across the entire floor to clean and repair the walls every hour.
Escaping the floor didn't precisely follow common sense. Anyone trying to complete the floor would need to go into the Grob dwelling cave and merely kill the Grob in the largest dwelling sitting on the throne, and a door would open next to the throne allowing them to move on. But who would expect the exit to be guarded by the weakest monster on the floor?
Moreover, the hardest thing to deal with on the floor is time. With the size of the floor if you rush. Then there's a higher chance you'll be caught off guard by someone from your group being teleported, or monsters teleporting into areas you just checked. While being too slow would leave you without any food trapped within the caves until you starve. And the swapping of layouts which occurs every six hours would make mapping the floor impossible.
Besides, Storm Hide Bears were the true wild cards of the floor with everything else just keeping anyone within the caves on their toes. The Isolation cave's effect of allowing monsters to teleport near to adventurers. Meant that Storm Hide Bears could come out of nowhere and with their speed and limited size of each tunnel also meant that anyone would have difficulty dodging in time or have room to even dodge. Anyone struck by a Storm Hide Bear's charge won't find their day pleasant, unless they like getting crushed and mangled by a Bear.
"Master, something interesting's happening in the valley below." The Cores' musings were interrupted by Cie's soft voice ring out in its mind, "What?" Cie's voice came not a moment later, "Master, it seems the village below is under attack." Cie's voice seemed to contain some happiness as it said that. However the Core was confused, "Village? And what's attacking?" It heard Cie's voice return seemingly containing even more happiness than before, "Master, those grey and brown things you saw in the valley are the homes of sapients, and the rest of the buildings together make a village. Other sapients are attacking the sapient village in the valley." The Core didn't understand why it had to be told this, but Cie felt its confusion, "Master, the ones attacking the village are what sapients call bandits, and there's a chance they may come up here to check out the news of a supposed Dungeon appearing here. Those adventurers who entered your Dungeon before made no effort to hide the fact they were investigating the supposed birth of a new Dungeon in this area."
The Core was perplexed at hearing other words it didn't understand, and heard Cie's soft voice sigh, "Master, bandits, are sapients that raid and steal from other sapients. Adventurers, on the other hand, fulfill requests, exterminate monsters, explore unknown regions, and enter Dungeons to take on their trials, mostly for treasures the Dungeons usually contain and give as rewards. However, Master you haven't made trials like other Dungeons, you made areas which they must overcome, and you give no quarter to them at all, unlike other Dungeons who are generally honorable, and willing to let those who lost the courage to take their trials leave unharmed. But you don't and shouldn't do that, it'll add an air of mystery to you making monster researchers want to investigate you, bringing even more adventurers to escort these fools, and they'll be drawn even more by the Mana Leeches which are unseen in other Dungeons."
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Listening to Cie, the Core understood more about the sapients and the outside but had something in its mind which it couldn't shake off. "Cie, why can't you use History Transfer on me?" Cie voice seemed to inflate with smugness and pride, "Master, History Transfer is a spell created by the Nifilim to only work on Nifilim minds. Making it impossible to transfer everything we know to sapients or other creatures unless we rework the entire spell."
It understood why Cie's voice was filled with smugness and pride. After all, this made Cie more precious to the Core, although the Core had taken Cie in, instead of killing it for this exact purpose. To provide knowledge, it didn't have or would take too long to understand.
Turning its mind back on the Caves, it decided to add four more Storm Hide Bears, just to make the floor a little harder for these 'adventurers.' It also added a bat den and a thousand Shade Wing Bats within the ceiling of the central cave, making it harder for the adventurers to get to the Grob on the throne. The Core also placed pit traps like the one it had used against the Storm Hide Bear, but these were a little different containing spikes made of Qert Stone at the bottom, adventurers who step on the thin floor will fall into the pit and get impaled by the Qert Stone spikes within. The Core recognized the pit traps might work against the Storm Hide Bears, but it added them nonetheless deciding that the potential damage and time adventurers might waste to be worth the risk. It also began asking Cie about traps and learned how to make different more advanced traps. The ones it used in the Isolation caves were the pitfall traps from before, separation traps, and flood traps.
The separation traps were quite simple when someone stepped on a Mana plate in the floor. The one who stepped on it would be teleported a few meters forward, and a wall would drop down behind them in front of their group whom they've been separated from. While its possible the trap might fail to separate someone from their group, it also served to delay and tire adventurers by forcing them to backtrack and go down another tunnel.
The flood traps were similar but different to the separation trap. When someone steps on another Mana plate, the walls in front and behind them will drop down. On the ceiling, a hole will open, and from there two hundred and fifty Shade Wing Bats will flood into the room attempting to kill those trapped inside. If the Bats fail, the walls will lift allowing the adventurers to continue on their way.
The Core was satisfied at the difficulty being high but not too high that adventurers would avoid the Dungeon. It left the floor ready to see the details.
Floor Details Created Floor Theme: Isolation Caves. Created Floor Name: Weaving Caves of the Lost. Floor Size: 165 km in total size. Number of Monsters Present on Floor: 6510 Mana Points Used for Creation: 12706 Dungeon Size Used for Creation: 16.5 No Monsters are automatically created for this Floor Theme. Monsters Automatically Created: None.
Looking at the details, the Core felt dumb for forgetting the floors still used Dungeon size, but it was content with the size it had left. Finishing the check, it moved to the Titan core to ask Cie about those bandits.
Arriving it saw Cie touching the Titan core, it was curious as to what Cie was doing but decided to watch instead of disturbing Cie. "Master?" It seemed however that Cie had noticed the Core's arrival, "Are the bandits coming?" Clear excitement could be heard in the Core's voice, it hoped to kill the bandits and level up, but Cie's news ruined its excitement, "Master, it seems the bandits have been subdued by the hunters living in the village below." The Core was a little gloomy but knew the one outside would leave soon to alert the 'guild' as Cie called it, and more adventurers would show up soon after.
Just as it was about to turn its sight away, it saw the pond below the Titan core flash bright blue, before fading away as if nothing had occurred. "Master!" The Core heard Cie yell into its thoughts excitedly, "Master! The Mana Spring it's been created!" It was surprised at how little time it took for the Mana Spring to be created, "Already? Also, what can you even use a Mana Spring for?" Cie visibly puffed in delight, "Master, the Mana Spring isn't going to be helpful to you at all, but to sapients? That's a whole different story. The Mana infused water from Mana Springs isn't as deadly as Pure Mana nor as volatile. Making it an excellent way for sapients to enhance their potions and regenerate their Mana!" The Core could certainly understand why the Spring would be useless to it and listened to Cie finish. "Master you should hide the Titan core now that we're done with creating the Mana Spring." Before the Core could move at all, it heard Cie's voice drift into its mind again, "Master, I'll be going outside the Dungeon to find materials and creatures I can kill and bring their bodies back to the Dungeon for you to assimilate." The Core sent a mental, "all right" and began hiding the Titan core. It was quite easy for it to hide the Titan core, all it had to do was open the wall and create a twenty-meter room to the left of its own Core room.
It was quite impatient for the adventurers to arrive but knew it could only wait. Before leaving the Titan core area to go and try something it had meant to do for a while, it told the Abomination to return to submerging itself in the pond turned Mana Spring, hoping the Abomination's immersion in the Mana Spring might unlock some evolution conditions.