POV Dungeon Core

The child watched as the group of four made their way through their first floor.

They had tried to slow them down with their ice krill. Still, the group seemed to be able to wipe them out by using these glowing symbols that created wind in the water that threw the ice krill monsters into the wall, mostly killing them.

As the child watched, they realized that these invaders were not going through their dungeon to take their core but seemed to be mapping them.

They also seemed very excited about the mana cores within the krill monsters.

This all cumulated to the adventuring group reaching their portal. This was when they stopped and stared.

“Why the hell is there a portal on the first floor?” Called out the man they now knew to be Anes.

“…dungeons normally don’t have portals leading somewhere else on the first floor. There have been a few cases of this, but that is usually when the dungeon has a lot more floors,” pondered Caliso, the man who seemed to be obsessed with their dungeon and how it was laid out.

“I wonder how old this dungeon actually is?”

“I don’t like this.” Said the man who is the leader of this little group. “We should head back.”

With that, the child watched as the group made their way back through the rooms, crawled out of the entrance tunnel and started to row back to the ships.

From what the child observed, their dungeon was either very weak, or the group that went through them was at least decently strong. Either way, they could get to their core very quickly if something or someone wanted to hurt them.

They needed to finish the third floor and change the first and second to be more complex and dangerous.

First, they sent Ivory to discreetly go and collect more living things and objects using the ice bucket under cover of darkness.

Next, they started working on the first and second floors.

They discovered that the change in the blade seaweed made by their mana is called “dungeon adapted.” It gave them the idea to do this with most, if not all, their creatures.

The child grabbed multiple intact blade seaweeds. Then, they started threading them throughout the plants using a water mana string, an ice mana string, and one string threaded with both water mana and ice mana together. Once the threads were in place, the child started circulating them throughout the plants. They continued this circulation until they started seeing the effects.

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The blade seaweed with the water mana string started to turn transparent. Like the ravenous snail monster, it became almost invisible in the water. Along the leaf blades of the plant, little gel-water-type substance started to accumulate. They watched as little moving tendrils, like tentacles, started growing from the gel once there was enough of this gel coating the plant. The child watched as the gel tendrils of the plant grabbed a passing krill and pulled it to lay on the plant blade. Once it was on the blade, the gel dissolved and consumed the krill.

The blade seaweed with the ice mana circulating in it grew thicker and more dense. The plant’s leaves, stems, and roots all grew thicker and appeared to contain these bubble-like canisters that seemed to expand with the more ice mana they collected. The child watched as this plant, over a period of time, seemed to be almost bursting with ice mana before it released it at one time, creating and sending shards of ice around the immediate area of the plant. The plant itself was perfectly fine and, once again, started collecting ice mana in the containers throughout the plant.

The last seaweed with a braided thread of ice and water mana did not turn out at all as they expected. The plant was a lot larger than the other seaweed plants, and the tips of the plants stuck straight out of the water. Among the roots were circular bulbous containers containing a combination of water mana and ice mana. They watched as this plant periodically sprayed out water that rapidly froze into a freezing cloud out of the water.

The child was very happy with how this turned out and started thinking on what to call them and where to place them. Finally, they decided to call the plants the “grasping gel seaweed,” the “ice blast seaweed,” and the “rime seaweed.”

Within the first floor, they made cuttings and grew the grasping gel throughout the second room onwards, and the ice blast seaweed in the third room onwards. Though they were not placed close together and were often hidden within the blade seaweed

They did not place the rime seaweed on the first floor but placed it sparsely throughout the second-floor rooms.

Seeing the success with plants, the child chose a couple more species of plants and animals throughout the floors to do this with.

They chose the long-jawed orb weaver, ice coral, spadefish, spindle crab, cushion moss, bank sea bass, pink sea star, pinfish and drooping orchid.

The child went to work with excellent results using their ice, water, and their own mana strings, or a combination of them.

The pinfish, which was enhanced with water mana, became a faster predator whose favourite tactic was to quickly swim to and rip off chunks of its prey or swallow them whole. The bank sea bass was enhanced with their own mana. It became a bigger but slower predator, with teeth that would be impossible to dislodge its grip on its prey. The spadefish, influenced by ice mana, gains the ability to lighten their scales and camouflage into the ice. It was like they could merge into the ice walls. It also could harden their scales, allowing themselves to ram into their prey without damaging themselves. They called these newly enhanced fish the “swift pinfish,” the “large bank bass,” and the “cloak spadefish.”

They placed the swift pinfish on the first and second floor, while the cloak spadefish were allowed in rooms three and four of the first and second floors. The child kept the large bank bass on the second floor, but they allowed the bank sea bass to be on both floors.

Ice coral was enhanced with their own mana, started to grow into a thin fan shape and produced a type of paralytic venom. They noticed this when a krill brushed up against the new coral and slowly stopped swimming before dying. Though it only really affected the smaller of their creatures. They decided to call this the “fan coral.” The spindle crab that was enhanced with water mana turned into an underwater spider. Their legs were enhanced by the water mana, and they could produce thin water strings, which they used to trap prey. They called it the “weaving crab.” The pink sea star was enhanced with a braided thread of water and their own mana strings. The sea star’s legs grew a lot longer and thinner, while its colour became a deeper red. The sea star was now able to use water mana to propel itself at its prey and smother it in water; they called the sea star the “red sea star.”

The last three plants and animals they enhanced turned out much different than they expected. The cushion moss, enhanced with water mana, became a floating plant, with air bubbles allowing the moss to float and grow on the top of the water without touching the ground. The drooping orchid was also enhanced with water mana, and boy, did they not expect the outcome. The flower perpetually collected moisture in the air creating a fine mist surrounding the flower. The long-jawed orb weaver had a similar adaptation as the weaving crab. The spider was enhanced with ice mana, and instead of the spider producing silk, they now produced a type of silk made out of ice. They decided to call the moss the “floating moss,” the orchid the “mist orchid,” and the spider the “ice weaver.”

The child was delighted with how these adaptations turned out and started placing them throughout the floors.