As the Core watched the Queen move towards the newly enslaved Druid, the Entity couldn’t help but feel a patch of empathy towards the man. It wasn’t his fault that he had been allowed to distance himself from the main room, the fault being at the Core’s confused notions. No harm had been done in the current scenario, sure, but it could have created quite a few issues if the man were to have left the Dungeon without orders to return at some point. If enough distance had been created, the bond not fully formed yet could have broken, allowing the slave to become free once again. Too much work would have been ruined and they would have been left with a need to silence him before anything important got out.

Luckily, boredom and a sense of wanting to live had kept him inside, doing the most extravagant of actions in a peculiar form of throwing away potentially valuable materials. The man had even resorted to throwing some close to the bodies of the other monsters in perhaps the hope that they would pick them up. The Core had grown slightly curious when it saw it working more than it should’ve. The ants were not stupid but neither were they smart enough to realize orders not made by the Core itself. How exactly they had been able to understand the meanings behind the man’s shouting the Entity was much too curious about.

In the future, it would certainly investigate it. Yet the time for such projects was for later, the Queen having neared the man without his notice. The Core already knew the words that were going to be spoken, a few new vows of silence likely being added. Nobody needed to know the Entity could think, after all. But, already knowing half the side of the conversation perfectly, the Core felt no real need to stick around and listen to it too deeply. Instead, it moved its focus back into the inner sanctum, determined to create a new form of creature.

Or perhaps that was an overreaction to what it was trying to do. Perhaps an upgrade of what already was? The Core had no current desire to go back to the base forms of the various creatures it had captured, wanting much rather see if it could use the [Force Evolution] to create improved versions. The [Infested Giant-Ants], as an example, had been wildly underused since the Core opened up, their ability to heal being meaningless as all fights were less than thirty seconds long.

What would be needed if that ability could be improved somehow? The Entity knew of the lacking ability to heal a creature beyond a certain limit, sure, but what about just adding more to the total Health instead of replenishing it? The Queen had spoken about something like that being done temporarily with her spells so it wasn’t too hard to imagine the Core doing the same.

Not that the Core would be attempting something so absurd just yet. It wanted to go a bit more realistic with the first few attempts. Instead of using the [Skills] of the creatures as a reason to improve them, perhaps trying out simply increasing their levels and physical abilities could work? The Entity wanted higher-levelled creatures for the deeper parts of the Dungeon and the current ensemble of available ones were without the requirements. It didn’t want new variants. It only wanted the current ones to have stronger versions.

The standard [Giant-Ant] would work for now. With time as a factor alone, the Core had been able to see a few reach the level of four without issue. None had truly reached five without promptly dying but that was no issue. Four would work as a base for now. Since the full number of creatures hadn’t yet been reached, the Core wasted no time in spawning in a perfectly healthy specimen.

It was a bit peculiar to see no additions to the creature’s pattern. Perhaps the Entity had grown a bit too used to the variants. Yet it was of no matter, [Force Evolution] being done in swift movements. The Mana was filled up and it was all let out in a larger burst as the skill activated. Thoughts had been spent on making sure it all worked fine, the Core having spent a few moments perfecting the area around the creatures. While it certainly wasn’t perfect, the energy should have emulated the Mana Colors of the creatures own energy. Not enough to be indistinguishable but enough that one wouldn’t notice it at a glance.

A [Skill] has been improved!

You have understood [Force Evolution] more deeply

The upgrade of the skill wasn’t something the Core was too saddened about, a few more bits of knowledge floating into its head. It was primarily about how to cultivate a better environment to get the more obscure evolutions. And… a higher presence of [Artifacts] and [Reclis] could increase the chances of an [Mythical] evolution. The Core did not have either of those things but it would certainly try and find some when it had the time.

As was apparent with all evolutions in the current day, the creature was not too happy about it. Ants had never been able to scream yet that whistling noise of theirs was much too high. The Core tried to dampen it to some degree but the two other intelligent inhabitants of the Dungeon certainly heard it.

“What was that?” the Druid questioned quite quickly, the vital signs becoming elevated within a couple of seconds. The Core guessed that some response it hadn’t noticed before had been activated. It wasn’t important at the current moment.

“Nothing you need to think about,” the Queen said with cutting words, though the Mana she was putting out in the meanwhile said otherwise. ‘Little rock, is this something any of us need to think about?’

‘I am just using [Force Evolution] on some of the current variants. I will try to keep the noise down to a minimum,’ the Core assured the ant.

‘Good. If that noise reaches the outside, we both know that they will send in yet another search party to find the source. And if they do that, we are going to have to talk about making decisions without me around,’ the Mother of too many stated with a very serious tone, clearly not happy with the Entity’s lack of control. It was understandable, of course, but the Core did know what it was doing.

‘I have already taken measures to make sure that it doesn’t happen,’ the Core said. While the sound isolation constructed around the room was certainly primitive, the tests previously done had shown that most of the noise was automatically sent back into the cave. Did that still leave something to be cleared manually? Yes… but not enough that the Entity had any real need to mention it. Though, that did remind it off one thing that it needed to mention to the Queen. ‘Also, when you have the chance to ask, figure out what exactly the Druid knows to do. He did something while you were dead with his Mana that I haven’t been able to recreate.’

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

‘Something you can explain in more detail?’ the Queen inquired.

‘The main Mana-Pattern in his body left his body,’ the Core answered, knowing it likely made less sense with that addition. ‘I don’t truly understand how it works or what the function for it is but he was able to move a large part of his energy outside his flesh. He didn’t get more than a few meters away but he was most certainly not connected to his body while doing it.’

‘...right. I will let you know what I figure out,’ the Queen said after a few moments of deliberation. ‘And I repeat. Try to keep the noise down in the future. We don’t want to be shut down before we even start up again.’

The Core once again sent affirmation that, no, it wouldn’t do anything like it again. It even made a few more barriers inside the inner room to make sure that the noise was reduced even more. It was only superficial yet it would keep the complaints down.

Anywho, the [Giant-Ant] hadn’t stopped screaming for four minutes straight. Not a single moment had been spent gasping for air so the Core assumed the noise was being made in some other fashion. It had a small desire to look inside and see for itself yet knew that doing such a thing would manipulate the balances currently used. It wasn’t a fun thing to be forced around with but it was needed for now.

And it wasn’t like a previous couple of minutes had been spent without improvement. The creature had certainly shown increases in size and mass, going so far as to put on several more kilos. At the current point, the ant was well closer to the middle of the intruder’s stomach in height. Perhaps even the chest if it was looking upwards with its head. However, after that point it hadn’t shown any real sign of growing higher, the thickness being the next step. The exo-skeleton had been cracked in a few places as the flesh within kept growing outwards.

Damage was healed, yes, but those on the outside became more jagged. The Core was decently sure some parts could cut another creature. Not that many would have the opportunity to do such a thing on the inner-top side of the legs but who cared about such details? It had more weapons on its body and that was an important addition to note.

Then the improvements stopped, the higher density of Mana in the area equaling out into the surroundings, and a new creature was left to stand where a much smaller one had stood before. Not feeling any real hesitation anymore, the Core used [Appraisal] to look at the stats within the thing.

Character Screen

Name:

-

Gender:

Male

Level:

6

Class:

-

Race:

Giant-Ant

Title:

Dungeon-Born

Health:

220/220

H-Regen:

0.21/sec

Mana:

-/-

M-Regen:

0/sec

Stamina:

150/150

S-Regen:

0.14/sec

Cost:

XX MP

Basic Stats

Strength:

25

Wisdom:

6

Vitality:

21

Intelligence:

5

Dex:

14

Willpower:

5

Resistances

Fire:

-10%

Earth:

15%

Water:

0%

Arcane:

0%

Lightning:

5%

Light:

0%

Wind:

0%

Darkness:

0%

If there was one fact that the Core needed to note above all, it was the fact that the strength was more than a little high. Twenty-five might just have been the highest seen at all since it matched the Queen’s previous one. The Core had never been able to see what she had been able to do with those stats but the Entity knew that it would with this one. When combining that power with the sheer size of the creature, it understood well that it would be a foe worth fighting against.

The [Resistances] were still quite unclear to the Core. Some meant different things than it remembered and some were peculiar overall. It was quite resistant to [Earth]. Was that due to the Brown Mana that its body was created of? Or was it something else entirely? The Core would need to ask the Queen if she knew because it had no real idea anymore. The data gained from the different creatures made it too hard to get a clear answer.

Letting the new high-level ant move from its position, the Core prepared itself for the replacement business. Those closest to the inner room would be taken out and the new, more powerful versions would be added in. Not that such an action was needed yet, with how the Dungeon currently operated on an intruder-based system.

At the current time, it was impossible to let the Dungeon be filled with monsters at all times. With the [Willpower] stat at sixteen, just as many normal creatures could be had at one time. Since there was no way only sixteen could fill up a nearly-two-hundred meter cave, the Core had been forced to do something else. Instead of filling the Dungeon up with creatures in places where intruders weren’t, it only did it in the needed places. There was no reason to have a large group of monsters in one single spot if nobody would ever go there. Instead, they were only spawned when they were needed, such as when an intruder would be able to come upon them.

The system itself would be quite hard to operate on when more intruders would come in at once, and much more hard when several groups in different locations started up. It would either force the dungeon to separate the encounters into time-slots or separate the accepted size at which creatures could attack. It supposed it would soon have to-

‘Little rock, I think we’ve just hit gold,’ the Queen sent to the Core.