It was the middle of spring, and the dungeon-born slime stalked its prey. The monster rolled forward, silent as a could be for a creature without ears. Sweat formed atop its bulbous exterior from the focus. It was certain its prey would not escape. With a lunge, it bobbled forward.

Unfortunately for the plant, it was rooted in place. No chance to flee as the slime descended upon it and tore it from the ground to feast on its form.

All around, many other plants watched on as the slime mowed down their kin. They watched as the consumed became mana for the Core. Mana that cycled throughout the dungeon environment. Mana that fed the plants and spurred on fresh growth. The very growth that marked them for death by the gelatinous glutton.

To honor the fallen, the plants grew on. The death of their comrades only united them under this shared goal. They would grow on.

At least, that’s what System pretended happened.

System, after all, was the host for all divine entertainment. Technically, just a splinter of the original, but charisma never diluted. Charismatic, and extremely bored; the perfect combination to embellish the actions of the slime.

Boredom that stemmed from completing all available tasks. With all else completed, the only thing left to do was count. Every seedling and sprout fed to the Core became numbers to count.

Very slow counting; that was all System had to do every day for the past month.

As the slime had trouble converting the denser plant matter into mana. The complex material was radically different from the soil and snow it previously encountered. The mana gained from a single plant was exponentially greater than any other meal source, but it took an entire day to digest a seedling.

Regardless of its speed, the Slime had successfully raised the ambient mana levels that cycled in the Core’s aura far faster than it could ever do alone. It may have taken five months, but the Core was no longer starved for mana. Still far below what other dungeons have, but that was slowly changing.

It had taken five, painfully slow, months. All the while System analyzed every scrap of knowledge they feed their master. Each day hoping that it would do something. Five long months where System watched the slime grow. An inward growth few others could see, but System knew.

The slime was about to evolve.

Evolution; adaptation based on environmental factors. It was a generational process that made an entire species more capable of survival. However, for the dungeon-born, the rate of change was exponential. A change that started with the alteration of a single creature. Changes that would be bred back into the entire population.

For slimes specifically, their evolution was based upon individual diet. An adaptation to better exploit local sources of food. Individual growth that rarely resulted in generational evolution on par with other species.

Facts that were just another reason for slimes being the lowest dungeon monster; they could not evolve with each other and grow as a species. They could not work together to become stronger.

Facts that reminded System not to dwell on the negative, and instead to focus on how to optimize the situation. The slime had done an excellent job gathering the mana their creator needed to grow. Its plant-based diet would guarantee an uncommon evolution path. A path that System would make sure was at maximum efficiency.

Preparations that took System only a few minutes to make, but took the slime another day before it was ready. As another plant dissolved in the acidic blob, the mana stored within caused the slime to reach the threshold for something greater, and System was ready for it.

> Monster Adaptation Available: Slime

* Green Slime: Integrating bits of plants into its cell(s), for a flora designation; result of vegetation diet; default option.

* Aquatic Ooze: Enlarged until it loses its structure, becomes a small body of water; result of highest knowledge (water)

* Winter Slime: A frigid aura, the slime has become one with the cold; result of environment; Uncommon.

System made sure to be ready. They had prepared more options than just the diet-based evolution expected of slimes. Environmental and knowledge-based evolution paths were available for all monsters, just extremely uncommon for slimes due to their simplistic biology. Racial traits for temperature resistance and being a single-celled organism often resulted in most factors being non-applicable to slime evolution.

System was confident the dungeon Core would select a positive adaptation when it evolved the slime.

In their excitement, System had forgotten the Core was feral.

The Core was an idiot, and it promptly reminded System of such.

The text notification floated above the Core, only visible to it and System. A notification of pure mana. A notification that the Core thought was food. The dungeon stone reached out to grab hold and devour the text. A minuscule amount of mana not even to be food, but enough to taste like it.

It did not ignore the notification, per se, but the content was completely disregarded. Without an evolutionary path chosen, the default option was favored automatically. It would become Green Slime.

As its creator ‘selected’ an evolution path, the slime’s race advanced. The mana that it had collected in its body with every meal found purpose as it changed.

Originally seven centimeters across, the creature swelled. The three inches of its form quadrupled until it was a foot across, thirty centimeters of transparent green goo. Flakes of undigested plant matter floated throughout the slime.

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System had performed a perfectly successful evolution. Not an evolution of combat, or one capable of terraforming the environment to allow for better knowledge gain, but an evolution of color. An evolution System wished to avoid.

As a perfect string of code, System couldn’t have the emotions to feel disappointed by the Core’s inaction or themselves for not foreseeing this. This wasn’t disappointment they felt, and it definitely wasn’t denial. System was perfect. Indeed, this course of action was ideal… somehow.

Regardless of what could have been, System began updating the monster’s stats to better reflect its new form. As they transcribed its new abilities into the code of the universe, to be cataloged.

Race: Green Slime

Name: N/A

Spawner: N/A

Speed: 0.1 -> 0.5

Strength: 1 -> 2

Int: 0 -> 0.1

HP: 5/5

Emotion: Eager

Diet: Omnivore (herbivore preference)

Racial Ability: (Slime)

Temperature Resistance

Most environmental temperatures have no effect.

Racial Ability: (Green Slime)

One with Plants

10% increase to all plant-based actions.

The updated version of the slime’s stats was notable. Not only smarter than the master’s Core, but the slime also gained an enhanced ability to consume plants. For most dungeons, the creation of an acidic herbivore would be useless, as the only saving grace of slimes was their ability to eat everything. Luckily, with nothing to defend against, such an outcome was not detrimental to their continued survival.

With the evolution process complete, System nudged the creature to resume its original task. After all, the prior actions of the slime had caused increased ambient mana levels that no longer stiffed plant growth. There was still less mana than even the most barren places on the planet, but that was about to change.

The slime, for its part, was ecstatic at the thought of feeding the Core. After all, It had been born to eat plants.

And eat it did.

No longer did it take an entire day to devour a young seedling. The evolution made it far quicker. Now capable of eating a moderately grown plant and converting it into mana in just twelve hours. The new racial ability and specialization in its diet worked in tandem to expedite digestion. It's One with Plants trait even working to draw out mana in the plants. The task perfectly suited the green slime.

Even with all the enhancements, it would struggle to eat all the plants.

The task was impossible for the monster to complete, but that didn’t matter. It didn’t understand what failure was. So it ate.

It ate, and the plants grew.

Spurred on by the Core’s aura, the plants grew tall. They refined sunlight, water, and mana into their very beings as they grew. Leaves unfurled and flowers bloomed. Each one to fall to the slime became mana that the survivors used to grow faster.

It started a feedback loop. One that grew far faster than feeding microbes in the soil.

A feedback loop that created mana. A feedback loop that fed the dungeon, fed the slime and foliage, and gave System mana to analyze.

Not one to pass up the opportunity, System gave it their all. Every scrap of mana and knowledge cobbled together as a field grew around them. Purple flowers reached for the sky only to feed System the knowledge they needed to wake the Core. Spring was about to end, but System would be ready for summer. They would awaken the Core and begin the creation of a true dungeon. They just needed time to analyze and teach.

> Understanding Increased: Stem

> Understanding Increased: Leaves

> Understanding Increased: Petals - brightly colored leaves

> Species Discovered: Lupine - A tall purple flower; this seasonal species is invasive in most alpine regions.

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Above the worries of the world, the gods celebrated. The horrors they inflicted upon those below them could not touch them, so so they spent their days in drunken celebration. After all, they were too big to fall.

Entire towns died in wars, heroes lost their lives to dragons, and a plague killed countless, but the gods didn’t care. Any mana they lost was only a token sum to the ultra-wealthy.

But Joulo was different. She cared. She hated the death that brought the other gods joy. She worried someone would take the little she had.

Every boisterous god to stumble by put her on edge. Each time she was worried they might notice her, that they would take away everything. After all, the ‘deals’ some gods made weren’t always ones where both sides agreed. When an influential god made a request, it was never really a suggestion.

So she sat, as far as from the others. The pale god did her best to hide both herself and the dungeon Core she held to her name. Still small and malnourished, but in recent months her eyes weren’t so sunken, and her irises had a flicker of color in them. Ever so slowly she was being fed by her dungeon Core. It generated mana to grow by recycling the world, and it shared a small amount of that with her. The Core nourished her. It removed the dead mana of her mountains and gave them life. The dungeon in the mountains gave Joulo life.

Unfortunately, she could not sit alone forever. The gods were a chaotic lot, and nothing ever went perfectly in their games. So when another god sneezed, it made Joulo flinch. She was afraid of what would happen, what would come from just being known.

This sneeze, however, was not accidental. It was a yearly display by the Father of Swarms. One where the chubby man would reveal just how much he valued quantity over quality by releasing his hand and throwing millions of insect cards out into the world. For the countless species of insects, it would trigger their nuptial flight as they would take to the sky and find new ground to create a colony.

To most gods, the scattering of insects was just confetti for the eternal party. The cards that fell to their feet were unworthy of their notice. After all, when one owns entire empires, what is a single bug?

But to a god that only had a few plants to her name, it was terrifying.

So Joulo watched carefully. Every flutter of each card was one to worry about. They scattered in the winds, shuffled by the dance of divine beings. Eventually, the cards came to settle. Some had even gotten close to Joulo’s territory but had failed to survive due to the dead mana that clung to her. Their cards burned to a crisp around her as the insects they represented died.

However, not all burned up. This year, the Joulo mountain range had a spot where the mana was alive. A spot that, through sheer luck and numbers, a single card landed at her feet. A single queen insect that would spawn a hive.

A hive that would drain her mana like a parasite and feed it to the god that created them. A hive Joulo couldn’t just walk away from.

So she stared at the card by her feet. A single insect that would become so much more. A queen that would eat her plants, drain her of mana, and if got the chance, would tell the others about her dungeon.

A single bug that threatened to take away everything Joulo had.

So she stared. Unable to look away from what may become her doom.

She stared at the ant at her feet.