Chapter 13 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

As I was about halfway done with my playroom, both goblins and horned rabbits had become real creatures. I could already see how the high mana concentration was starting to influence their bodies. At this point, something happened on the 3rd Ant floor. There was a standoff between three guardians of one empire and a guardian from another empire, who was the strongest guardian to have ever existed.

This guardian was one of the oldest ants alive and someone whose power had enabled their empire to become a major power. The three guardians from the opposing side were young but they had as much potential as the older Ant. However, youth has always been eager and tends to overestimate itself. The older ant champion was an ant about four times bigger than a regular Ant. That was on the smaller side for champions but that never stopped her.

The older champion's empire had been in decline for a long time now and the only thing still keeping it up was the champion itself. On the edges of the battlefield that was going to be used by the champions were armies and leaders from both empires.

This was a battle on the third floor and if the older champion's empire lost, they would lose all territory on the third floor, which would cut their empire in half and they would officially fall from being a major power. This battle might be a turning point as a whole as it might spark a grab for territory that every empire would participate in and start the first Ant realm war.

The tension in the air was palpable even for me. More and more of my mind was concentrated on this point in my dungeon as the fight was about to begin. The three younger champions, assured of their victory, gloated in front of the older champion who remained silent.

Looking at the older champion, I was mesmerized by how she was presenting herself. There was no fear even though there was only a slim chance of her winning, yet she stood tall and was an example that every champion should learn from.

Eventually, the younger champions realized that they were being childish which made them a bit mad. For the outside world, the battle began without sound but for the ants they all sensed the younger champion’s battle cry. Their enhanced bodies covered the distance quickly but the older champion didn’t stand still and started to maneuver so that none of the three champions could surround her.

The older champion started to receive bites and blows but she gave back twice as much as she received. The fighting was brutal and as time went by, the older champion, with her immense amount of experience and incredible power, was able to not only survive but actually start to win. Even the younger champions realized that, so they decided to back off and reevaluate, which the older champion approved of.

"Magnificent display. I am proud to call you champions and my opponents. However, it's time for me to write myself into history and never be forgotten," the older champion communicated. This not only confused the younger champions but every Ant that was close enough to sense that. Even I was confused.

This champion would already be written into history, but this battle wasn't going to make her someone that will never be forgotten. My confusion ended in the next moment and immediately so much of my mind was concentrated on this point that I was barely keeping the rest of the dungeon functioning.

All of a sudden, the older champion's carapace started to glow a bit and in the next moment, so did her pincers. The other ants were confused as to what was happening but I wasn’t. It was something that I had seen before but because the delvers were difficult for my senses to see through, I had never figured out how they were doing it. They called it skills or abilities. These skills or abilities allowed them to use their bodies' mana to manifest different effects that greatly enhanced their fighting ability.

While the older champions' skills were basic, the shift of power was immense. She was now on the attack and wasn't letting up. It was like she was teaching new recruits. To my surprise, she didn't kill, just incapacitated, claiming victory over the younger champions one by one. The entire crowd was silent. My mind worked overtime to understand what had happened so I could replicate it for the creatures I created. But that process was slowed down when the champion started to communicate.

"It has taken me generations to understand and learn the skills that I just demonstrated. I have spent my whole life fighting but I feel my end coming near. This power that I have learned, I do not wish for it to disappear with me. I am willing to teach it to any champion, but only if every empire agrees never to attack my empire again and claim its territory. Of course, my empire will not attack and claim other territories," the champion communicated. Her speech continued, but the next part was more about her trying to prevent the next huge war.

It didn't take long for the news to spread and soon the council of empires was convened. It took about a week, but the older champion got what she wanted. Her empire would stand forever and so would her legacy. She started to teach what she knew in the academy and with every new champion learning skills, they started to change their skills to fit themselves better. Every time I received new information, I could use it to make my monsters stronger.

The ants didn't know it, but they fixed my biggest problem of not having stronger creatures for my floors. The 7th floor playroom now seemed a bit meaningless, but after thinking a little bit longer, I had to disagree with myself. While giving skills to creatures would fix my problem, it might not in the future and overall, I found it a more elegant solution to actually make the creature better through evolution, then by me making it stronger.

The possibilities, however, made me giddy. While I did test giving out skills, I destroyed the experiments afterwards and reabsorbed their mana. It was a success and while it was hard to manipulate what skills did, making them stronger was easier.

However, I couldn’t make them too much stronger as that destabilized the pattern. Yet one more reason to make the base pattern stronger. The variety of skills that I had access to was low, but that will be fixed with time as more and more learn ants start to develop their own skills.

It took a while, but my seven-floor minimum amount of dungeon rooms was done and the playroom was done as well. The creatures' population continued to rise. The horned rabbits were able to eat plants and they bred quite fast. The horned rabbits were the main food source for both the foxes and goblins.

It was interesting to see all the creatures start to form their own societies and the constant need for survival hastened their evolutions. Slowly but steadily, their patterns became stronger and stronger, but reaching the required strength would still take a while.

For the dungeon rooms, I once again started to make a second path. So delvers who wanted to improve themselves could continue to do so. The combination of goblin and wolf was a good challenge for the floor, but the higher numbers and coordination of my creatures made fighting them difficult and many delvers who challenged my latest floor without being ready lost their lives.

I found it interesting how much more mana I received when they died compared to when they fought. It made me contemplate on using traps and I could finally understand why I had so many inherited memories of different traps. Other dungeons probably used them to advance faster. For me, while it was still a boost in mana, it wasn't too significant thanks to my playrooms. Even if I didn’t do it for mana, it might still be a good idea to place traps.

I contemplated on this for a good while but in the end, I deemed it necessary. However, I wasn’t going to use traps to just kill, I was going to use them to help delvers get better. At first, I only looked at the deadly part of the trap but eventually, I made it to the things called triggers. Now those could be quite complicated and difficult to notice and disarm. Someone who wanted to bypass them needed to be knowledgeable and skilled which seemed appropriate.

I was going to start adding traps to the new path but I wasn’t going to make them deadly immediately and at first, they would be easier to notice. I started with a simple pit trap that wasn’t too deep and I added it to the new hallway between my latest dungeon room and the new one to come.