I found most of a rabbit.

Now, to be specific, I did not find some mangled corpse of a rabbit. It was a living creature that walked straight into me. It just happened to be most of a rabbit. See, It had a cute face with perky and long ears and a soft bushy tail. Everything you would describe a rabbit as.

But... It wasn't a rabbit. Eye length, body proportions...

Scales...

It was not a rabbit. It also seemed to not be a threat. See, it was just bordering the front entrances, munching down on grass that had grown down into my little hole. I was munching too, claiming the mana and recipe of some grass. I didn't bother trying to consume the "rabbit." The worms fought back just a little bit. I don't know how much struggle something much larger would put up.

So, I let it be. And, while keeping an eye on the intruder, I carved away at the stone opposite my hole. My plan was to dig myself a deep pit, drop myself in there, then fill it with water. You know, give whatever intruder may slay me at least a small amount of difficulty.

I had the water already, that stone I had absorbed was some sort of conduit for mana. It converted ambient mana into small amounts of water. I happened to learn that right after I made a much smaller version next to me out of curiosity. It created a nice little puddle that rested upon the stone under me.

It worked pretty quick too. Most likely because I pour out mana like a fountain. That meant it had plenty to work with. Turns out I can also turn it off. Well, less turning it off and more making it inert and incapable of functioning. After poking away at the stone with my essence, I found I could overload the stone, releasing all the mana and making it inert. Doing that would cause it to lose its blue coloring and stop taking in mana.

It also happened to be quite easy too.

Reactivating it was just as easy too. Just charge with my mana, and voila! Blue and pouring out water.

After my experiments on it, I reabsorbed it. Disappointingly, I received no huge rush of soul originating pleasure. Likely because it's made with my own mana. Honestly, I am just a little bit disappointed about that. Rather than dwell on it, however, I continued to chip away at the stone, idly drawing my attention to the slabbit at my front entrance.

Slabbit? Scalebit? Hmm...

A meter into my mindless dig, a thought came to me. Why was "it" eating in MY dungeon. There was a vast field of grass outside, from what little I could see from my own hole. And then it struck me.

Ambient mana. This isn't earth and I don't know many of the effects of mana. For all I know, that "rabbit" being here is some sort of steroid. Or soul-based cocaine. Or some other third thing. I have no honest clue, so I guess I ought to experiment on more worms.

But for now? Maybe, just maybe... I could claim this creature for myself. It was much bigger and less likely to explode. So, I reached out with my mana and begun to envelop the creature. Unlike with the worm, I could see different mana resisting my influence. Pressing on my envelopment, I watched as my mana began to overtake its own.

And then? The bugger skittered right out of my dungeon.

Fuck.

Well, that was mostly a waste. At least I know whatever I try to claim can just walk away. So I need to trap or outright kill my targets.

For now, however, I need to worry about myself. So, I continued digging.

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I had a horizontal path five or so meters behind me. Slowly, I started to dig down. I was digging a slow gradual slope with a pit at the bottom to fill with water. Something to give some sort of defense...

And it took a solid forever before I reached my ideal depth. And I still had to dig out a wide area for a wide pool of water. It had taken so long that the sunlight had started to shine down into my dungeon once more.

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Working through the night, I learned that my grass doesn't need sunlight to grow. Whatever the light or nutrient needs of the grass, it can be circumvented with the little ambient mana I produce. As far as I can tell, there is no reason to try to meet the normal basic needs of plants. There are benefits, however, seeing as how the grass which received the least amount of light before it became night was obviously smaller than the grass receiving sunlight and mana.

So mana can be used as a growth stimulant and sustenance. That is likely why the rabbit chose to eat inside the borders of my dungeon.

So... I too can use this as an advantage. I summoned floppy promptly, and just as it had been happily digging it happily came over to greet me. He had dug a solid three by one and a half meter hole just on the border of stone and dirt. Honestly, I am a little surprised at his performance. Thinking about it, however, I realize how much it is possible to get done without worrying about food, shelter, and sleep.

Now the hole itself? As a path, it's a start. He did a good job digging it, however, he was now experimenting fodder.

Well, not exactly fodder. I don't really want to cause his death, be it inadvertently or not, so I will only conduct "safe" experiments. I know about the side effects of mana which is why I won't pour in too much mana, rather instead I will do just a constant trickle.

And so I did. And he grew at such a quick pace that it was...

Barely visible to the naked eye. By all means, he was growing. And the speed was fast, but, it's not exactly impressive when it's just a worm...

Sigh.

I need bigger creatures.

At least, however, maintaining the trickle is quite easy. It seems becoming a sentient rock has improved my multitasking to an extreme degree as I can dig or create and still maintain the mana link. Sweet!

So, before I got back to digging myself a new pond, I decided to set up some experiments. Creating four dirt piles atop the stone near me, I planted some grass. Under the dirt of two, I created small water stones. The other two were merely dirt. I also channeled a trickle of mana into two; one water stone and one control.

So, now there is a control, control with water, mana infused and infused with water. This should help me divine some sort of rate of growth based on the various possible factors.

Then, with my experiments begun, I continued to dig.

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I finished my pond. As I etched away the last of the stone, the light had begun to shine through my hole once more. And with that done, here's me with the news.

Floppy is about half the size of the rabbit, a full thirty centimeters in length and seven in width. His once brittle pincers have strengthened and two more now adorn his mouth. A small membrane of skin connects all four together. All in all, he is on his way to becoming a real monster.

His digging ability also improved, and he can dig through the stone. Albeit, at an extremely slow pace. He basically just scrapes away at the wall with his pincers and it chips it off in small chunks.

At least he CAN dig stone, however. Just so he had something to do I sent him to dig more into the side path. My plan is to cover the direct way to me with stone as soon as I have an alternate route. For mana reasons. I doubt I could feed my grass and floppy without surface access at this point. And speaking of grass, it seems my experiment has bloomed in a way I did not expect.

It... bloomed. The grass with both a stone of water and my source of mana grew a small flower bud. It was white and un-bloomed, its petals still puckered together.

But, even un-bloomed, it was a flower; a reaction I had never expected. The other grass had acted as I had expected, however. The grass had all grown at different paces; the grass with nothing but ambient mana grew the shortest and the grass with a direct source grew the longest.

It seems that if I maintain my creatures and plant's with their basic needs, I can cut down on raw mana cost.

Speaking of mana, it seems expanding increases the passive mana that trickles through me, as well as how much I could store. Before I had opened myself and some space up, it seems like forty worm summons would be my limit. Any further would risk damage to myself. Whatever mana I was gaining at that point was irrelevant as well. The only fast source at the time was turning rock and dirt into mana itself.

Now? I can look inwards and sense that my limit would be sixty worms. Additionally, every ten minutes I regain enough mana to create another worm.

So, if I were to put it into a numerical sense, I have a current maximum mana of "60." That is, of course, if one worm would equal to one mana point. Additionally, that would mean I gain .1 mana per minute from my passive generation. There is also the passive mana I release, which seems to increase once I have reached my personal storage cap. Plus, as far as I am aware, I can convert anything into raw mana. And, if I go over my cap, it is just released as excess mana.

Which can be then absorbed by my creatures and creations.

I guess that would make me a "mana factory" in a way.

And in a world where mana can mean growing in size and strength, being a mana factory is my biggest danger.

I need to get in my pit now. Luckily I have floppy to push me down in.

And so I ordered him to do so.

And then I rolled. And bounced. And smacked myself down a ten meter hole onto cold stone.

Of course, I would forget to fill the hole with fucking water.

Sigh.

At least I know I won't die to gravity.

Just disappoint myself...