When I came out of my “sleep” several of my creatures were ready to evolve and the population had spiked significantly. The only cause for worry was Mary’s absence. She was working on a time limit given her [Creature Core] but I know she isn’t dead... Named creatures can be respawned for a large mana cost yet the option is grayed out on my [Dungeon Status].

First of the evolutions were the Fanged Shiners. The little guys had proved themselves surprisingly bloodthirsty against the armored men. Perhaps for attacking targets so much stronger than themselves, most of the fish could evolve.

*YOUR FANGED SHINER HAS REACHED THEIR EVOLUTION THRESHOLD! 3 OPTIONS AVAILABLE. PLEASE SELECT AN EVOLUTION OPTION.

RED BELLIED PIRANHA: A fish commonly known for sharp teeth and feeding frenzies. They react quickly to blood in nearby water which sends them into a frenzied state. BLOOD LETTER: A scavenger fish that is able to release a chemical similar to blood all around them. They use this to create swarms of stronger fish that kill their target and after the dirty work is done reap the rewards. PIRANHA QUEEN: This female only variant of a piranha is capable of controlling other piranhas. They imbed other piranhas with one of their parasitic teeth. These teeth then connect the piranha to a hive mind that lives only to serve the queen.

I’d been curious if I could get piranhas. Back on Earth piranha swarms are often dramatized but the Fanged Shiner’s behavior was obviously comparable. Of the population around 85% could only evolve into Piranhas. Fitting considering the other species are likely support.

Every other Fanged Shiner capable of evolution had access to Blood Letter and only 5 had the chance to evolve into a Piranha Queen. These numbers were divvied with the last 15% become Blood Letters and only a single Queen.

My reasoning for only 1 Piranha Queen was because she sounded dangerous. If multiple queens were present on the floor, then surely all the piranhas would be put under their control eventually. This would kill all the Blood Letters since without untamed piranhas they couldn’t hunt by creating frenzies.. And if multiple queens started turf wars then my usable population would dwindle. For now, it would be safer to just wait and see how 1 queen fairs.

All this evolving left me with 42 Piranhas, 7 Blood Letters, and 1 Piranha Queen amongst the hundreds of original Fanged Shiners still present. The Piranhas quickly spread out as best they could amongst the large floor and began breeding to replace the Shiners as the standard fish. Each one of the black scaled red bellied fish was just under a foot in length making the waters appear much more crowded than they really were.

Blood Letters as a species are slightly smaller than the piranhas at around 8 inches to hide within the schools. Most of their scales were entirely black except for the loose chemical releasing red scales around their stomachs and behind their fins. Behind every one of these activation scales were several hundred more ready to be displayed next. The whole system reminded me of a pack of red sticky notes.

Ordering one of the Blood Letters to create a frenzy ended in a stellar success. Within moments of the red scales dissolving into the school every single piranha went mad. A switch was flipped inside their brains and the water quickly became a torrent of fins and fangs. Eyes rolled back, and jaws snapping at a feverish rate, this manic behavior was what the legends of piranha schools consuming entire cows in minutes were made of.

Compared to the mundane at first glance Blood Letters the Piranha Queen was downright regal. Easily surpassing 3 feet long, deep purple and wine red scales surrounding her ghostly white eyes. Inside her open maw I could see hundreds of pointed white and purple teeth, each surrounded by purple veins wrapped in a chain formation. These were obviously meant to bind the piranhas to her hive mind. Along her back several large spines paved the way down to her scythe shaped caudal fin.

Despite being blind herself, soon as the Piranha Queen was gifted her first subject she began swimming around the floor with ease. I had no way of confirming but to me it seemed she could see through the eyes of all her subjects. A skill that seemed useful at first until she started ignoring me. For whatever reason the Queen would disregard my requests and just continued expanding her forces. The only rule she did follow was leaving some of the population free. Whether she did this because piranhas under control couldn’t breed or because I asked remains to be seen.

Overall I was pleased with the new fish. Like the Shiners before I enhanced their reproductive abilities and granted them [Creature Cores]. I doubt I’ll ever send the piranhas out of the dungeon but my gut told me to leave the option open. My only grievance was that the other species of Shiner didn’t fair as well as the Fanged. Only 1 Long Tailed Shiner had been capable of evolving and their evolution, the Long Bladed Shiner, didn’t last long in the newly piranha infested waters. I could still summon the new species after the first but I decided to hold off.

3 Silver Darters had been capable of the same evolution. Now they were dubbed Gold Darters but they still seemed largely useless. Still only 4 inches long and without any changes other than their new gold scales I was left wondering what to do with them. The only change that that gave me hope was their ridiculous speed. Anyone standing on the shore would be lucky to glimpse a flicker of gold as they swam past. Also of note was their [Loot Control] options. Each of the 3 was worth more than everything else in the dungeon at 1,000 Rhilos each. Maybe they are supposed to be a rare mob?

My Solar Salamander experiments have also paid off. Both of the breeding pair were ready to evolve and the female even had a new option thanks to her special fire affinity.

*YOUR SOLAR SALAMANDER HAS REACHED THE EVOLUTION THRESHOLD! 2 OPTIONS AVAILABLE PLEASE SELECT AN EVOLUTION OPTION.

GREAT SOLAR SALAMANDER: A greater solar salamander is an improvement on every aspect of a normal solar salamander especially size. VOLCANIC SALAMANDER: An evolution granted only to solar salamanders that fully commit to their fire affinity. They become larger and gain even stronger control over fire.

Since my breeding pair had already laid several batches of eggs, totaling around 13 future Solar Salamanders each, I decided to get one of each evolution. The physically enhanced male became a Greater Solar while the magically superior female became a Volcanic Salamander.

The male largely became a bulkier version of a Solar Salamander. He had grown to almost 5 feet in length and his already searing jaws would occasionally ignite mushrooms just for being in his vicinity. Along his back the black coal spots had spread across his entire back and tail. If the heat distortion always coming off his body in waves was any indication then touching them would easily result in 3rd degree burns.

As for the female, she grew to over 4 feet in length and her previously red and orange skin had turned into red and black. Her body was covered in an ash like black substance that would flake off behind, her while the red skin underneath flowed like lava cracking to the surface. Compared to her partner the Volcanic Salamander’s skin was much cooler, except for where the magma flowed which was 10 times the heat. While lacking the muscle of a Greater Solar her claws now glowed like ingots resting in a forge. The differences ended with her eyes, which now had the appearance of bright glowing orbs of liquid metal.

Inspecting each other as they came out of the evolution lights I felt happy knowing they were still compatible. Out of all my breeding pairs these two had always been the closest. While technically different species the salamanders were still close enough to breed. Maybe I could get some cool hybrids in the future? Just another experiment to run eventually...

The last group of dungeon natives ready to evolve were the Lunar Axolotls.

* YOUR LUNAR AXOLOTL HAS REACHED THE EVOLUTION THRESHOLD! 2 OPTIONS AVAILABLE PLEASE SELECT AN EVOLUTION OPTION.

GREATER LUNAR AXOLOTL: A Greater Lunar Salamander is an improvement on every aspect of a normal lunar axolotl especially size. TIDAL AXOLOTL: A Tidal Axolotl is a Lunar Axolotl that has gone beyond simple water affinity and now commands the waves as easily as breathing.

Very similar to the Solar Salamander evolutions, which made sense given they all stemmed from Sun Salamanders, one evolution would lead to physical prowess while the other elemental affinities and magic power. Given the roll I intend for them to play in the dungeon I chose to evolve all 3 Lunar Axolotls into Tidal Axolotls.

My vision never places the axolotls in a position of melee combat. They would instead act as support mages for the other floor denizens. Creating choppy waters, ranged magic attacks, and overall disorientation seems a good fit for them. The most combat they should see is picking off stragglers amongst enemy ranks.

Once the orange glow faded from their bodies the Tidal Axolotls had become completely white and much larger. Even bigger than the Greater Solar Salamanders the new Axolotls were a massive 6 feet long mostly encompassed by their bulky tails. Their 6 previously blue tipped facial feelers had grown to over 9 inches and seemed even better magic conduits. Whenever magic was used the pink hue from before would still appear albeit to a much deeper shade.

Just as I’d released them into the floor and ordered all the uncontrolled piranhas not to attack Mary returned. She’d taken so long the pond, or really more of a lake now, was 8 feet deep. Little problem for the Apparition though who simply slid up the ceiling inside her shadow and eventually reached our new island.

Popping into the mushroom grove the black form of Mary was tattered and bloody. The injuries of her semi permeable body manifesting like glitches to a character model. Given enough time she could heal from basically anything but seeing my first and strongest monster so beat up made me very worried about what lay outside the dungeon. Regardless to my worries though she came into the shack beaming.

“Master! I have returned!” she panted.

“Yeah, I can see that, but more importantly are you okay?”

Waving away my concern she eventually coughed out “I’ve never felt better! Hunting is so much fun! Especially out there in all those tree things you told me to get!”

Realizing she wouldn’t calm down for awhile I decided to put my fears away and asked “Alright, so what was it like out there? Obviously something dangerous lives out there.”

“Well you were right about being in a “forest”. Around us are some more small hills but most of the forest is flat with rocky dirt and enormous trees! And its huge! Took me at least 4 hours to find more of those humans. Of the 3 creeks near us I followed the one to the north and it brought me right to them.”

“How big of a town is it? Well I guess you wouldn’t know how to judge that...”

Crossing her arms Mary smugly replied, “Well I counted 2,000 people during the few hours I was gone since I knew you’d ask!”

After praising her for the smart thinking I began thinking aloud “Well that’s much better than a city at least. A town that small should have to request capable help as planned meaning we have some time to expand. Best case scenario they won’t be considered a priority by whomever they get help from. Did you see anything else nearby?”

“No, Master.”

“Alright we’ll leave things as they are for now. You can’t exactly march into town with your appearance. Want to show me what you found?”

Clapping excitedly Mary reached into her shadow and began pulling out dead plants and animals she’d hunted. This was a new ability she’d picked up after becoming named meaning normal Apparitions couldn’t store things like her. This had come in handy during the guards invasion when she hid a Lunar Axolotl inside herself to shoot out a torch.

It took some time given just how many there were but eventually I took in all the corpses.

*ABSORPTIONS COMPLETE 427 MANA COLLECTED

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED. “TIMBER WOLF” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “SCREECH OWL” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “WHITE TAILED DEER” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “OCELOT” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “RED-TAILED HAWK” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “WOODPECKER” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “GRAY RABBIT” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “CARIBOU” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “RACOON” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “BOA SNAKE” ADDED TO CREATE CREATURE LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “PINE TREE” ADDED TO CREATE FLORA LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “CONIFEROUS FERN” ADDED TO CREATE FLORA LIST.

*NEW CREATURE HAS BEEN ABSORBED, “RED CEDAR” ADDED TO CREATE FLORA LIST.

“Jesus... Mary how many did you hunt down?”

Licking her blood stained teeth she answered “Once I caught that first gray thing I got a little carried away... It was just too fun to stop chasing them. Though I did have some failures. Those bigger fish swam too fast for me. There was also this giant black hairy thing I couldn’t take down. Now that was a worthy opponent.

“Black fur... Wait. Did it have small round ears and roar a lot? Maye stand on it’s hind legs?”

Eyes going wide she answered “Why yes it did! How did you know Master?”

Mentally facepalming I answered “Mary. That was probably a black bear. One of the most powerful terrestrial predators where I’m from. How in the world are you alive...?”

“Where are you from Master?”

“I’ll tell you later. Go get some rest for now while I figure out which of these to use.”

Yawning Mary nodded and slipped into her corner while I opened up my free selection lists.

*APPROPRIATE LEVEL REACHED PLEASE SELECT A FREE BASIC FLORA TYPE ORGANISM. NEXT FREE SELECTION WILL BE OFFERED AT LEVEL 10.

*MANA GRASS

*MANA KELP

*MANA LILY

*MANA CORAL

*WHEAT

*OAK TREE

*SPRUCE TREE

*MANGROVE TREE

*SAKURA TREE

*COMMON BROWN MUSHROOM

*COMMON CAVE MOSS

*APPROPRIATE LEVEL REACHED PLEASE SELECT A FREE BASIC CREATURE TYPE ORGANISM. NEXT FREE SELCTION WILL BE AT LEVEL 10.

*KOBOLD

*SLIME

*COMMON EEL

*COMMON BASS

*CAIMAN

*SMALL REEF SHARK

*GOBLIN

*IMP

*COMMON SPIDER

*COMMON BAT

It took me no time at all to make my decisions. “Mangrove Tree” and “Caiman”.

*MANGROVE TREE CAN NOW BE CREATED USING “CREATE FLORA” SKILL

*CAIMAN CAN NOW BE CREATED USING “CREATE CREATURE” SKILL

With my choices selected I got to waiting. And while I waited, I thought. I thought about my new creatures that Mary had brought me, and the creatures the voice had awarded me for surviving. I thought about my current creatures who had come so far. I thought about my new space and the outside environment.

By the time my mana was reaching 1,200 I had fully developed my idea for the first floor. Henceforth I would be calling it, the “Mangle Bog”.