Chapter 27 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Just a few hours ago, I got my first creature around the size of a bear, but I kinda feel cheated. It wasn't even a predator, just a big deer. It was called a moose, and I do have to say that it's an impressively large animal and it has some good features, but against a bear, it's nothing.

There will still be room in the ecosystem for it. Perhaps I will even use them for a few dungeon rooms, but that would currently be pointless unless it is able to find some interesting evolutions for itself.

I have already gotten all the 10 creatures larger than a dog, but like I expected, there wasn’t anything too special. However, I did like the variety, and that’s why I asked for them anyways. For the smaller creatures, that's where things have gotten really interesting.

Different people bring new creatures, kill them, and I especially like one that’s bringing bugs. I have gotten so many different varieties that I’m actually planning on making a whole floor for simply bugs that are ants, just to see the madness that would follow.

There is also another group of four that have been bringing different types of birds, and just yesterday I heard them mention that this was the last type of bird they needed to bring. They would start with water creatures next, and I couldn’t wait until they came back.

They have all been doing this so carefully, sometimes spending days in the dungeon before killing the creatures and returning to the surface. It kinda makes me wish that I already had a better gateway system, but ants are still working on it. However, they have been having some successful tests, so it shouldn't take too much longer before they can start working on the progress, ensuring adventurers won’t have to start the floor all over again when they leave.

The birds, however, have been a real menace to the ants. Especially on the 11th floor, they are a true danger to any ant that isn’t a champion. An interesting thing has happened with the ants focusing on flying technology. The birds have really halted their progress simply because of how dangerous they are, yet the resources a dead bird provides has pushed their technology ahead by leaps and bounds.

I will be truly interested to see what they come up with, and I've noticed ant champions have started to appear that are a lot better at aerial combat. The nations of ants haven’t yet figured out how important air superiority is, but from the other floors, I have seen what birds are capable of, and I know that it would change their world and how they wage war forever.

I made about 20 moose and released them into the forest for the wolves, but I don’t think they will survive for long. The other new creatures that I've tried to fit into the existing ecosystems are just too weak to survive. I will need new floors so they can have their chance to start evolving. Perhaps in the future, this problem will be mitigated simply because the new floors will be so big, but currently, the only truly big floors are the ant domains.

Birds were another story because they were mainly missing from my environments, so they didn't have to compete as much. The same will happen with the fish; because the waters are simply empty, they should have no problem surviving.

Things were normal until I noticed the four people returning. They were acting the same way they always did, which meant they had new creatures. It was agonising to wait until they reached the 11th floor and went to one of the waystations that was not in heavy use.

I needed to wait another day before they started opening their packs, which were bigger than they seemed. I so wanted to know more about them, but that would need to wait. When they started to pull out creatures I hadn’t ever seen before, I got excited. They killed the creature inside, and almost all of my focus was on it so I could capture its pattern with only one kill.

I was lucky that I'm able to do it now because otherwise, my deal might have brought me nothing. It seems I should still consult with my ant politicians anytime I need to make an agreement. Luckily, this time I didn’t mess it up.

The first fish was something called a bluegill. It was quite fearsome, that was until they took out something called a pike, and I had to start reevaluating how dangerous the waters could be. There was also something called a river lobster; its claws looked formidable. Then came something very interesting: a small creature called a frog. I delved a bit deeper into that and figured out its species name was 'three-spotted river frog.'

What was so interesting about this creature was that it could live both inside the water and out. That was a concept I hadn’t ever considered. I could see some of the wolves that were much better at swimming than others, but could they really evolve so much that they could survive in both environments like this frog?

And what about flying creatures? Could they also go underwater? That seemed a bit more of a leap, but who knows. Everything just got so much more exciting. Wait, what if ants could evolve to live underwater? Just think: underwater colonies with their farmers growing underwater plants.

Shit, I forgot about plants. I would also need underwater plants and a greater overall variety of plants than I currently have. I need to remember never again to make contact without the help of ants. Is there a way I can fix this? I wanted to contact that person again, but this time I did consult the ants.

They made it quite clear that doing this so early would be a bad idea and I will need to be patient and wait until the annoying person had need of us again. They did recommend that I delay any future breakthroughs if possible, so that way we could ask for needed things every time it was time for a new floor.

I’m pretty sure I would have thought about that as well, but perhaps not right away. Perhaps it's not necessary for me to be super smart at everything; I just need creatures who can fill those roles for me.

I looked at the goblins at this moment and saw the similarities between them and adventurers. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make them evolve even more. That way, I won’t have to come up with my own ideas for future loot; I could just have the goblins make it while they are building their own nations. I am having more and more need for new floors, but I'm a dungeon core, and one thing I’m certain I can do is just wait, especially when I have so many interesting things to watch.

Into every water system that wasn’t on the ant floors, I introduced every kind of water creature I had. On the ant floors, I only put bluegills, but for ants, they were already terrifying predators. To ensure that every fish had something else to eat besides the ants, I also added more spawners of different bugs and grubs into the water.

However, it didn't take long for ants living near water to learn of the new horrifying monster in the water. They started to call them the 'terrors of the deep,' and when the first hunting ship with many champions killed one and brought it onto land for everyone to see, it was news that traveled throughout the ant nations to the very first floor.

It was a very interesting few weeks, but there was a big problem once again caused by me because I didn’t ask for breeding pairs of creatures. Fortunately, I found a way to fix that, but it's quite costly. Literally, I need to spend a floor's worth of mana to make it happen, but I think it’s worth it.

Thanks to me finding out about how deep the patterns can actually go, I found a way to reverse time on a creature's pattern and make them younger or older. Now, this doesn't help me change the gender, but if I make the pattern young enough, changing it from male to female is incredibly easy. Doing the opposite is a bit harder, but when you have a female, I think there’s also a way to do that.

So, when they are young enough, its quite simple. They only have the basics of the basics building blocks developed. Then I just have to find the gene pair that has an X and Y, and just copy that X and replace the Y with it. Then, I just have to age that pattern, and I will have a female. Now, I’ve only done this successfully for a tiny field mouse, and it took a stupidly long time to just change the one; but it is possible.

I think to get the Y gene that I need for males, I have to go even deeper into the original building blocks to find it. But even being as deep as I currently am is extremely exhausting, and if I do it for too long, it makes my core hurt. Now, I don’t know if I’m just lucky, but every creature that they have brought in here has been male, so luckily I don't have to worry about finding the Y gene anytime soon.