As the child started thinking of what they wanted to do with their sixth floor, they couldn't keep that tunnel in the ground out of their mind.

For every second that they did not try to explore the tunnel, it bugged them.

The child was already quite curious about what they could obtain from the tunnel and just what the tunnel was, so they stopped thinking about their next floor and explored the chamber and the tunnels connecting to it.

Even though they reached the edge of their territorial expansion when they discovered the tunnel, they decided to try and expand just a bit into the tunnel, enough to reach the stone.

So they grabbed a couple of their mana strings and pushed a tiny bit of their territory down.

It was easier than they thought it would be. There was only a bit of resistance, and the child realized that it was probably because they were only increasing their territory in one place by half a metre.

They were able to push their territory downwards to the bottom of the tunnel, and when they did that, they found something unique.

In the rock, there was this dull red long mana string. But it was different than any of the other mana strings they had ever encountered. It wasn't circulating, and the child couldn't really feel any active mana. It was like the mana was hibernating and not moving at all.

And that was not the only thing they found in the stone. Throughout the stone were these red eggs, about five centimetres in size, and the child wanted them no matter what they were.

So the child cut into the stone, grabbing all of the eggs encased in the rock they could find in their area of the stone and the hibernating mana string and dragging the stones up.

They made a hole through the rock into the tunnel and quickly dragged them up until they reached the sand before closing everything up and pulling the stones through the iceberg and into their portal. They then created a small room to place them before returning to their tunnel exploration.

The child wanted to explore more of this tunnel, so they devised a plan.

Like most explorations outside of their territory, the child would use one of their creatures. But as most of the creatures in their territory are aquatic in nature, the child chose one of the male water shrews to be their exploration partner.

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Forming an air-filled ice bubble around the shrew, the child pulled the bubble down into the sand and through the tunnel that they opened back up again to the chamber.

Once the bubble with the shrew reached the chamber, the child gently placed it on the ground and released the shrew from the ice.

The child knew that the chamber may lead to areas where there was danger, and they knew that they were risking their water shrew in this endeavour, but it was worth it.

To find, explore, and gain new materials, plants, monsters, and creatures sent a shiver down the child's spine.

Inserting and wrapping multiple mana strings, the child sent the shrew down the left part of the tunnel.

Slowly, the shrew scampered over the stone, and soon they were out of their sight.

It was then that the child discovered something very interesting. As soon as the shrew disappeared from their sight, the child could "see" what the shrew was seeing through their inserted mana strings. And what they saw, the more the shrew travelled down the tunnel, amazed them.

As the shrew travelled further and further down the curving tunnel, the environment started to get hotter and hotter, and the further they travelled, the more difficult it was for the shrew to continue. But they were able to survive and continue with the amount of mana they were sending down their mana strings that rejuvenated the shrew.

At this point, the shrew and the child noticed something moving at the very edge of their vision within the tunnel.

The shrew froze. It instinctively knew that whatever that movement was, it was a predator and dangerous. His prey instincts went haywire, but with the child in control, they made the shrew stay still.

The movement got closer and closer, and it was then that the child and shrew could see what was hunting them.

It was a large insect, about ten centimetres long, with six legs and two large circles that made up its body.

As the insect stalked towards them, the dark red bands circling the bottom circle of their body started to glow a brighter red. Then, finally, it got close enough to the shrew that the child recognized that it was going to pounce.

With a tug, the child moved the shrew to the side as the bug lunged at their previous location. It lunged at them again, but the shrew ran to the other side of the tunnel as the bug smashed into the wall.

Taking advantage of the bug being stunned, the shrew lunged at the bug, using its sharp teeth to almost completely sever its head from the rest of the body. The blood and liquid that flowed from the bug's wound slightly injured the shrew. Gaining slight burns did not deter the dungeon-directed shrew from their task, bringing the bug back to the dungeon core's territory.

The almost severing of the bug's head did not kill the bug, but it severely wounded it. The child knew that the bug was still alive because of its constant twitching and wriggling, but it did not get out of the shrew's grip.

Slowly, the shrew dragged the bug to the small part of the chamber that was their territory. It dropped the bug and laid down panting, licking the increasingly worse wounds. As the shrew dragged the bug to them, the bug's blood dripped on the animal, creating more and more injuries of different severity.

As the child let the shrew rest and heal with their mana strings, the child acted quickly, made the bug part of their territory, and healed it once it became theirs.

It was strange, this bug. While it was an insect with two oval shapes as the main parts of its body, with antennae, two clawed toes on its six legs, and the strange part, the bottom oval. The bottom oval seemed to be filled with this clear liquid with a tiny, two-millimetre bright red mana string.

It had the same feeling that the hibernating mana string that they found within the stone had, but for now, they wanted to continue with their exploration.

After the male water shrew finished being healed by their mana, the child again directed the shrew down the tunnel to where they found the bug. The bug came from that direction, so something must be down where the bug came from.

With a feeling of anticipation, the child and the shrew pushed forward.

But little did they realize that a storm was brewing far off on the horizon, far outside of their territory.