Valens sighed as another rattling snore shook the core room, he didn’t know why the drake was snoring but it was really annoying. As soon as Magnus had made it back down to the bottom of the dungeon he crashed, passing out right in the middle of his room. Maybe the reason for the snoring was that he was sleeping on the stone ground.

The core shrugged to himself and moved on doing his best to ignore the occasional tremor. The first ten floors were doing okay, it was always a bit of a battle with the number of adventurers around killing anything that moved. Regardless, the dens he had set up for the mice seemed to be working, mostly at least. If he could figure out how to stop snakes from getting and eating the occasional mouse would be great. That would be great but nothing was perfect, and at least the humans couldn’t get at them. He had started to expand this sanctuary idea to the birds and rabbits next, hopefully, that would keep him ahead of the adventurer population.

The tier two floors were perfectly fine and didn’t need any help whatsoever. There were significantly fewer tier two adventurers, and also a higher death rate than for the lower tier humans. That was probably because a lot of people cheated their way through the first tier hunting helpless critters that still gave tier-one experience. That worked fine for the first tier but as soon as that type of adventurer had to face a real fight they tended to run or fold like a deck of cards. Also, the tier two floors were three times the size of the tier one floors which let them absorb any losses to their population much more easily.

His latest floors couldn’t quite be called tier three yet with still only a scattering of tier three monsters but it was coming along. It looked like the wolves were going to end up being the first to have a steady tier three population. That surprised him a little, to be honest, he had been betting on the goblins being the first to make the jump, tenacious little buggers that they were. But none of the goblins had even managed to evolve yet. The foxes had even managed to get a few individuals to become tier three dire foxes. The main problem was probably the goblins and hobgoblins would wander away from the rivers and oases and then get lost.

They couldn’t die of thirst since they were dungeon mobs but being lost out in the sand made them easy targets for the greater and dire hawks. The slightly solitary birds looked like they'd be the second stable tier three population, they thrived on the third floor with its relative lack of terrane or cover. To be honest, if the hawks were a little more social or cooperative then they would probably be tier three chicks on the floor already. Valens sighed and shelved his frustration. He had decided a long time ago to just let his creations behave according to their instincts and he wasn’t about to change his mind now.

Magnus was lucky that he had actually gotten a fish pattern from the random assortment of species he had been given. He chuckled at the thought of the drake’s horrified expression if he was asked to go get more of the aquatic creatures. In any case, he had acquired two different species of fish patterns. The first was what he was imagining, the trout were about two to three feet long and were quite the omnivores. They preyed on just about anything they could stick in their mouths from insects to the smaller fish he had gotten. At first, he thought the second pattern was a mistake as it just looked like baby fish to him. It turned out for the best though, it gave his trout a steady source of experience so he wouldn’t be too upset with the bait fish. If their pace continued a few trout might even start evolving in just a few days.

All in all, Valens was quite pleased with the result and his ruthless bullying of the vastly more powerful drake. Magnus just needs to stop being a baby about it, seriously wasn’t a he centuries-old supposedly wise sage? Defeated by a helpless tier one, the core chuckled to himself as he examined his various floors. He had spread out the fish into all the bodies of water he had created so far, not that many but just enough to get a population started. The fish reproduced quite so he didn’t feel the need to fully stock every stream on his own.

The fish were starting to be a popular prey item too, especially among his birds. Apparently, goblins and hobgoblins tasted bad because even the higher-level hawks would come around for some scally snacks every once in a while. Incidentally, the twenty-first floor was also the source of his highest level trout despite the predation. Magnus had mentioned that the lower floors should let stuff level up faster, it was nice to see the effect in practice though.

Valens cast a glance over the tier one floors and sighed in annoyance, there seemed to be a constant stream of low-level adventurers. Granted there were more and more tier two humans as time went on but there seemed to be even more tier one. That would level off eventually as more of them tiered up or died but it was still a little annoying. The core shrugged and turned his attention back to the deeper floors, not much he was really willing to do about it at this point. He’d just leave it alone and get back to his actual work of expanding, floor twenty-three wasn’t going to finish itself.

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Arthur stared in a horrific sort of fascination at the dancing flame above his palm. It took all of his concentration just to maintain the little flame but apparently, even this was a fantastic achievement. That thought sank like a rock in his stomach, he should be proud of himself, he should be pleased with his progress, but he couldn’t quite put the past behind him. He still remembered the screams of his friends and the horrible crackling snap as the forest burned all around him.

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He exhaled with a slight huff as his mana ran out and the flame on his hand winked out. He stared at his bright red palm in compression for a second and then groaned as the pain finally lanced through the limb. Cursing himself for his stupidity the young mage raced to the trained yard and submerged his hand in a bucket of drinking water. His cursing reduced to grumbling as the pain lessened, he couldn’t believe how stupid that had been.

“Arthur are you alright?”

The young mage jumped and whirled making sure to keep his hand firmly in the water bucket. “Oh hello Vance, I may or may not have made a fool of myself and burnt my hand with my magic.” He still couldn't believe how careless he had been, fire was dangerous. What if he’d set the tower alight? Someone could have gotten seriously hurt before someone came who could put out the flames.

“How’d you burn yourself? You are still tier two right? You’re not a super secret tier six or something waiting in the wings for your moment to shine are you?”

Arthur snorted in amusement and saw Vance was grinning as well. “Nothing quite so exciting, I seem to have a natural affinity for fire. Silas is having me train to start controlling it now. I think one of my eventual classes will be fire-related or something.”

The noble nodded his head in understanding sheathing a small sword at his side. “Probably your tier four class if I remember correctly. That’s still quite a ways off but every little bit helps. You must have quite a strong affinity though to burn yourself so badly by accident.”

Arthur sighed and then winced as his hand brushed the side of the bucket. “More careless than strong, I'm afraid. I just started daydreaming without paying attention to what I was doing but anyway that looks like a different sword than usual, what gives? Have you finally given up on that impractical lump of steel you usually use?”

Vance scratched the back of his head looking slightly embarrassed. “Well, my grandma told me off about my normal greatsword being impractical as well so I’m trying out a few other swords. This is a shortsword which I thought might make a good off-hand weapon along with a larger sword, even if I don’t end up keeping my greatsword.” The noble slumped a little looking frustrated.

“Is it that big a deal to change weapons? Surely there’s some cross-over between different types of swords even if you have to retrain yourself some.”

Vance waved his hand back and forth in a so-so gesture. “That’s not the case, as if they’re different enough, different types of swords can have very different uses. I did receive some training in a few different weapon varieties but that hardly means I can just pick up a new sword and be a master at it.”

Arthur lifted his hand out of the water to examine the raw red flesh and quickly plunged them back underwater. “Okay, I can see why you were practicing then. It does seem like the normal hunk of steel you use could be a touch impractical in some situations.” In a lot of situations if he was being honest, like a cave or indoors or anywhere with limited space.

Vance tried hard not to wince before continuing. “That may be true but it seemed like a good idea to use at the time. Besides, my greatsword is one of the best quality swords you can find for miles, I don’t really want to switch to something inferior.” The young noble trailed off as he got a look at Arthur’s incredulous frown. “Okay fine that might be a little unreasonable.” The young mage laughed softly to himself as Vance strolled a short distance away and began swinging his training sword. “I am trying a different sword so there is that.”

Arthur didn’t bother concealing his laughter at that. “Not like you had much of a choice from what I’m hearing. You said your grandma had you change swords? As in Sophia Storm? Yeah, ever since she got here Silas has just been full of some interesting little stories.” Vance scowled over at his friend, who laughed even harder until sucking in his breath as he knocked his hand against the side of the bucket.

“Well anyway, you’ll probably want to get Kira to look at your hands. I’m not positive but I think she can do a little bit of healing. You could also ask Silas but I’m not sure he’d be able to help.” Vance played it cool while changing the subject as much as possible.

Arthur nodded his head in appreciation. “Yeah, I think Kira did get some minor healing stuff going on with her new class. I’m not sure if it's just self-healing or what though, she’s still figuring out how her new powers work. As for Silas, I mean maybe he could help but never mentioned any healing power to me.”

“Hopefully you can get some magical help. Burns are not fun to deal with, especially with how slowly they heal.”

Arthur shrugged and tried to keep it nonchalant. “It won’t be the end of the world if I can’t get someone to snap their hands and fix the problem. There are quite a few normal healers around if I remember right. I can just get a salve and some bandages if worse comes to worst. It's not like I swing around chunks of metal all day. This won’t stop me from practicing or fighting, not too much at least.”

Vance opened his mouth to respond when a small boy ran across the training field whispered something to him then darted off again. “It looks like my parents are here, I wish grandma had warned me about that. No way she didn’t know they were on the way. Anyway, good luck with your burns Arthur.” The young noble put away the practice sword and then walked stiffly away, like someone going to their own execution.

“Good luck to you as well Vance, seems like you might need it.”