Valens groaned, it was almost painful to watch but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. The most recent batch of adventurers had set up a net for his boss. The core could understand taunting the hobgoblin into charging at you to crush the boss monster with superior numbers but wasn’t a net a little over the top? His boss had fallen for the trap of course it had, running straight into the ambush without a moment of hesitation. Valens watched as his hobgoblin finally stopped thrashing and various bags fell to the ground as loot. It was all bronze coins, not even one gold or silver in the entire bag.

The core took a perverse delight as the adventurers complained bitterly about the quality of their loot. Well, if they wanted something better maybe they should actually try fighting the boss for a change? The humans continued down further into his dungeon to face the swamp floors. Valens frankly had mixed feelings about so many people being down in his tier two floors. On the one hand, it was nice to have them out of his tier-one floors which were smaller, and it was nice to see his creatures advance more rapidly as the occasional human died on the tier-two floors. On the other hand, the only reason that there were so many people down on the tier two floors was because of how weak his newest boss was.

Magnus are you sure that there’s no way to make my hobgoblin even a little bit smarter? Please, this is driving me crazy.

The drake scratched divots in the stone as he stretched. Not going to happen I’m afraid. The goblin evolutionary line is just really stupid in the beginning, it takes a while for that to change. They’re more a brawn-over-brain sort of race, but on the bright side since it's a boss the hobgoblin should get smarter marginally faster than other goblins.

That still means it's not going to be very bright for the foreseeable future, right?

The correct but once it gets a little stronger most of the tricks the adventurers are pulling will be less and less effective. Even if they are pretty dumb the goblin line is still good for their raw strength and resilience. Valens still wasn’t very happy with the boss, but the reasons he had picked it still stood, and it really was his best option as a boss, for now at least.

Alright, anyway I’m going to check on the tier one floors. There have been fewer humans sticking around those floors, but I want to make sure that the ecosystems are doing fine. They are a lot easier to disrupt because they’re smaller. He didn’t need his tier-one ecosystems nowadays anyway, the experience they produced was a drop in the bucket compared to the other floors or the killed humans. But he liked the aesthetic and it just felt wrong letting the floors languish just because they weren’t useful anymore. Not to mention that he wasn’t sure how the humans would react if there just stopped being monsters to fight on those floors.

As he looked around nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, in fact, the floors seemed to be doing quite well compared to the last time he checked. The monster populations had bounced back from near depletion to more abundant levels. It seemed like the humans had taken its lesson seriously, the core noticed that several tier two parties making their way through the upper floor intentionally avoided attacking any of his monsters unless they had to. That was probably a big reason for upper floors’ recovery; he remembered quite clearly that most of the upper-tier adventurers used to slaughter their way through his dungeon even if there wasn’t a real point for them to do so.

Valens noticed that several of his various monsters were getting close to evolving which was always welcome. The stronger creatures would move deeper into the dungeon if they could bear it and would probably be killed eventually by another monster in turn. The core shrugged such was life, it would all help him in the end which was all that mattered. Looking over a lone hawk perched in a tree something caught his eye. The core knew every creature in its halls, and it could clearly feel the connection to the monster before it but he had no idea what in the world the animal was.

It had the head and eyes of an ant, but it also had another set of what looked like bird eyes parched above the ant eyes. It had a mostly insectoid frame, but it was also covered in a layer of armor-like scales. Its final pair of limbs instead of being spindly ant legs were the hindquarters of a wolf. The core had no idea what the monster was and frankly, it looked a little ridiculous rather than terrifying to it. Apparently, the humans didn’t agree though, as one group caught sight of the abomination and ran screaming in the other direction. The weird ant thing threw itself forward with its lupine limbs and caught the last adventurer in the back. The human had been just a little too slow and giant and jaws came down on his head in a sickening squelch.

Taking a quick look at the creature’s status, Valens was surprised that the monster was tier one, level nine tier one but still. The core also was a little confused on what a chimera was, it didn’t remember making a chimera and he definitely didn’t have a chimera template so what was going on here. Magnus, would you happen to know what a chimera is?

The drake had been sipping delicately from a massive teacup when the core spoke and promptly choked. Valens hadn’t known that Magnus liked tea, he filed the information away for future reference. Chimera? Where? Is it a dungeon creature?

I’m pretty sure it's a dungeon creature, it seems to have a bond to me, but I don’t ever remember seeing it before. The thing is over on the seventh floor chasing after some adventurers.

The drake eyes shot to the ceiling, that wasn’t necessary for him to tap into Valens’ aura sense, but it was a habit that he had fallen into. I see, well you were complaining about the hobgoblin being too weak, you've managed to find the perfect candidate for its replacement. Chimeras are incredibly versatile and adaptable; she’ll make a great boss.

Valens took a second look and sure enough, the weird ant thing was female, like almost all other ants. I can do that? I kind of thought that once I chose a boss that was kind of it, they would always be my boss.

Magnus shook his head slightly as he stopped staring intently at the ceiling. That’s not true, to replace a boss you just need to undo the link that you have with them. Once the link is destroyed, they go back to being a normal mob and then you can make a new monster the boss.

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Mob?

It stands for monster, it's a bit of shorthand humans like to use sometimes, I find it convenient on occasion. The drake tapped his claws impatiently on the core room floor, getting up and pacing back and forth in excitement. Chimeras are also a rather unique type of monster; they can shift their body around to adopt the attributes of other creatures. The higher tier they are the better they get at it. They are usually rather cunning and if you make one the third boss it should eventually adapt to be quite the vicious fighter.

Is the shapeshifting thing the reason that I can’t seem to find a chimera template? It kind of made sense, annoying as it was for him to be unable to understand or use a constantly shifting template.

Magnus shrugged his shoulders. That’s probably true as far as I know. Something to keep in mind however is that what chimeras do isn’t true shapeshifting. It's a lot slower, so it can’t be used in combat, and it's more of them altering their base form instead of taking on a different form temporarily.

Alright then, so why should I replace my hobgoblin with this thing? Sell me on the idea.

The drake gave him a look to show the core that he wasn’t fooling anyone. Come on Valens you were just complaining about how useless the hobgoblin is, but if you really must be sure just have the two of them fight. It should become abundantly obvious which should be the boss.

Valens was a little skeptical, after all the chimera was still only a tier-one creature, but he would give it a shot. If it looked like the hobgoblin was going to kill off his chimera, he could always stop the fight. Checking that there weren’t any adventurers around right now, the core sent the chimera down to fight the current boss. So where did the chimera come from by the way? What creature evolves into them, and why didn’t you mention them before if they’re so useful.

That’s the other tricky part with chimeras, I wasn’t sure if one would show up ever in your dungeon. They evolve when a creature whose evolution is halted by the system itself, finds a way to evolve anyway. In this case, it looks like an ant is the creature it originally evolved from. No one’s sure why certain individuals manage to evolve into chimeras and others stay stuck at the predetermined ceiling of their race. The drake tapped his chin thoughtfully as he pondered the puzzle of the odd monsters.

Does that mean I could eventually have a stable population of chimeras if these things start popping up more regularly? That sounded good to Valens, more monsters were always welcome, especially now that he wasn’t gaining any new patterns with any regularity. The few new patterns he had gotten had all been plants, or busts anyway, what in the world was he supposed to do with a butterfly? They looked rather nice, he supposed, but absolutely zero combat capability there.

That’s never going to happen. Magnus’ words shook the core out of his daydreams.

Really why not?

Two very simple really, for starters chimeras are a lot more unusual than you seem to think. This one chimera could conceivably be the only chimera that ever evolves in your dungeon.

The core looked nervously down as the mob made its way through the tenth floor. Are you sure I should be having it fight the hobgoblin to the death then? There is a level difference you know, I’m pretty sure I could stop the hobgoblin before it kills the chimera but there’s a chance that I mess up and then the chimera would be dead for good. Valens didn’t want to lose this monster if it was as rare as Magnus was making it sound.

The drake shook his head with amusement. Don’t worry about it. Also, the other reason that you’ll never have a lot of chimeras around is that they are all sterile, something about shifting around their base biology must mess with certain things I guess. The core shrugged, despite creating creatures on the regular, he had no idea how extreme body alterations would affect a creature’s reproduction systems. He quickly decided that the topic was best left as it was and moved on. The chimera was almost at the hobgoblin’s boss room, at the very least Valens was pretty sure this would be a quick fight, one way or the other.

I have a few more questions Magnus, but I need to watch them fight for a second, do you mind? The drake bobbed his head agreeably and then focused on the ceiling, once more tapping in the Valens’ aura sense. He had to make a quick adjustment to allow the monster to enter the boss room instead of passing by it. The boss room was rather confusing, but some actions with it seemed very intuitive, and Valens could usually figure out how to do what he wanted very quickly.

The chimera scuttled into the room on its massive ant legs, chittering and gazing around with both sets of eyes. The core wondered if that gave the creature a headache, well he could be everywhere in the dungeon almost constantly with his aura, and he didn’t get headaches, he also didn’t have a head though. The hobgoblin, predictable, spotted the enemy intruding on its domain and charged with reckless abandon.

The chimera sprang to the side on its wolf legs, which it had tucked close to its carapace while walking. The other monster charged by, and the chimera lashed out with a pointed leg and carved a furrow in the side of the hobgoblin’s leg. Those must have been sharpened, as he didn’t remember ant legs being that dangerous. The boss monster hollered in pain and limped after the chimera.

The ant monster jumped forward again, this time bringing its mandible down around its enemy’s ankle and biting down. The boss roared more in anger than agony this time and brought its fists down on the back of the chimera with brutal power. The core winced slightly, the hobgoblins were really strong and a blow like that would have shattered bones and caved in the skull of a normal human. However, the chimera was tougher than Valens had given it credit for and its scaled insect carapace held up admirably under the assault. It wasn’t going to hold out forever though and the insectoid monster apparently knew that.

With a quick yank, the monster toppled the boss onto its face and quickly scuttled onto its back. The chimera wasn’t the heaviest monster in the world, but the unexpected weight still sent the hobgoblin face-first into the dirt. The chimera’s mandible came down on the back of the boss’ neck, and the core was ready to say game over in the fight. The hobgoblin surprised him though struggling to get up and shake off its attacker before the crushing mandibles could finish their deadly work.

The chimera was having none of it though, sharpened spine-like legs pierced through the arms of the boss, sending it crashing back to the floor. To the hobgoblin’s credit, it struggled long and hard to get loose, but the chimera had it dead to rights. The core was impressed with the green monster’s sheer stubborn strength, and he resolved to reconsider the goblinoids as a future boss, maybe. If he could eventually teach one of the goblin’s evolutions to fight intelligently and with weapons, it would finally turn into a worthy protector. Valens brought his attention back to the fight as the boss monster finally expired. The chimera clashed its mandibles in excitement and the core smiled excited to see what his new defender might one day become.