After all these days of cloudy skies and bitterly cold rains, we finally did it.

We finally had our first snow day.

This wasn’t much of a cause for celebration for us, though Ephi seemed enchanted by the strange powder falling from the heavens. I guess it was her first time seeing it up close, after all. Sure, we could see some topping the peaks in the distance, but this was our first proper snow in the lower parts of the range.

I couldn’t really fault her for finding it magical, even if it was only coming down lightly still.

“It’s pretty nice out still—just don’t let yourself catch a cold or anything by staying out there too long,” I warned, already busy trying to create some rough clothing that she could wear if needed. It couldn’t resemble any human article of clothing all too much, as her needs were different and her smaller body size meant that she’d lose body heat far quicker than a larger mammal might. In the end, it ended up looking somewhat reminiscent of a horse’s barding, though sewn from makeshift cloth instead.

She was pretty insistent on not wearing it.

“No sweaters,” she shot back with a shake of her head.

Still, with the temperature dropping this precipitously, these next few days would serve as the first true stress test of the greenhouse. While I was certain there were more preparations that I could have done, most of it just felt like busywork for the sake of busywork. The crops were still holding up for now, and that was all that mattered. More importantly, the first tea plant was only five days away from producing its first batch, from what I could tell. The other ones were staggered just shortly behind.

On schedule, though I hoped that I’d actually produce enough.

The fox was knocked out for nearly an entire day, lying motionlessly in its temporary cage. I assumed that having hit it with two ascensions at once had resulted in a compounding effect of sorts. When she finally woke up and staggered to her paws, she struggled to move and bobbed from one side to the other as she walked the perimeter of the cell, checking it for any sort of weakness.

Unfortunately for her, there weren’t any. Nothing but slim stone pillars rising from floor to ceiling, criss-crossed with the occasional horizontal beam every few inches. As clever or agile as any animal might be, there was simply no escape from this place, no exit unsealed.

After a few laps of sniffing at the ground, pawing at the corners of the room, and glancing around the area suspiciously, she made her way to the trough and drank for a long while, before helping herself to the leftover food still in the cage, scarfing it down greedily.

Considering that I hadn’t managed to catch [Forged Sapience] for her, I knew that attempting to communicate wouldn’t accomplish much, but I gave it a shot anyways. At the very least, it couldn’t hurt.

“Hey there—welcome! Can you hear me?”

The response that followed couldn’t even be described as language. Ephi and I had long since gotten used to the ‘empathic’ factor of [Core Link] that shared a hint of what the other party was feeling. What came through from the fox’s side of our dialogue was little more than raw emotion over what sounded like several radio stations all trying to play on top of one another.

But the message got across: ‘confused’ and ‘disoriented’.

At least she didn’t seem like she was actively afraid of the situation.

“Right. Well, if you can understand me at all, try to relax a bit. And make some noise if there’s anything else you need. I’m hoping we’ll be able to talk more easily in two or three days.”

The minnow trap was still in the river at least, so I figured I wouldn’t have any trouble attending to her diet. Besides, foxes were omnivores, I wasn’t too concerned.

Aside from that, it was business as usual. Ephi waved to the fox as she left to go forage, to which the fox just seemed bewildered, trying to stick her nose through the bars to get closer. She was gathering food for two now, and with the snow now starting to fall it was only a matter of time before our main food source dried up. Every little bit she could collect would be a huge help.

I had my own tasks to handle.

For starters, the snow falling onto the greenhouse dome. It was still only a light powder, but even that would blot out the sun if it fell heavily enough. No sun meant no crops, so ideally we needed no snow.

Technically there was a simple solution to this: setting up a new manamite squad to manage the task all on their own, but I really didn’t want to give away another chunk of my daily mana regeneration. Twenty-two a day already felt a bit lacking now that my expenses were starting to mature as well, but nineteen would just feel oppressive. Sometimes it felt like centuries ago that I was getting by with just one coin.

For now, I begrudgingly ‘shoveled’ the snow all on my own. It was a bit frustrating since I had to interrupt whatever else I was working on once every hour or so to clear the entire dome.

Which, in this case, ‘what I was working on’ was an expansion to the dungeon. A new wing, of sorts.

Over the previous night, I’d noticed something interesting.

FRAGMENT OF COALESCED WILL LVL: 3 NAME: "Boss"

Traits:

Skills:

[Horticulture I]

[Biology I]

[Creator's Insight]

[Mech. Engineering I]

[Textiles I]

[Transmutation I]

[Mining I]

[Core Metalworking]

Features:

[Manamite Creation]

[Self-Synthesis]

[Manamite Specialization I]

[Material Infusion]

HP: 18 / 18 CATEGORY: Elemental MP: 28 / 100 SPECIES: Dungeon Core MP Rate: +22 daily SIZE: Tiny WEALTH: 5 XP: 25% STR VIT DEX INT WIS PER 0 6 0 9 8 8

Nascent heart of a world-born entity, crystallized from soul energy. Exerts control over a localized area.

Manamite Horde (140 / 180):

139 Manamites

1 Managermites (-3 MP/d)

Boiler Squad (5 / 20):

5 Manamites

Criteria for Next Ascension Tier:

Level: 5

Wealth: 25

Employees: 3

Cost: 100 MP

Facility: Prison Virtual Hoard:

➤500.4 Raw Stone

➤418.0 Loose Soil

➤0.1 Biological Material

➤326.1 Raw Lumber

➤28.3 Plant Fiber

➤0.2 Raw Crystal

➤12.4 Iron Ore

➤35.9 Copper Ore

➤[RARE MATERIALS, EXAMINE TO EXPAND]

My next ascension requiring a prison to be within my dungeon wasn’t anything new to me, I’d known that for a while. What had interested me more was the fact that it was still marked as incomplete, despite that cage being constructed within my vault. So, I dug a bit deeper.

❖ Prison ❖

Category: Structure A room or set of rooms created for the sole purpose of the detainment of captured beings. In order for a room to count as a prison cell for the core, it must have a place for the inmate to lie down as well as a door that can be locked from a single side.

While I didn’t see much of a need for a prison for long-term storage just yet, I read and reread the classification a number of times just to be sure that I wasn’t missing anything. It really seemed to be that simple.

So, I began construction of the ‘prison’ wing of the dungeon, taking the unoccupied fork from the greenhouse as the starting point for it and beginning construction on it while waiting for my mana to regenerate.

Now, I didn’t really have much of a need for a prison on its own, but with how vague that requirement was I couldn’t help but feel like I could game the system just a bit. Starting off, I constructed a common area for the ‘prisoners’, trying to use more cozy materials like wood rather than just making everything out of cold, hard stone. It took several hours for this area to take form as I ended up distracting myself with the minutiae of recreational architecture. Thick stone layers for the outer walls to act as an insulator, moonstone lights that rested atop copper lamp poles, and all manner of other tiny improvements to make the area livable.

Hell, I even added a few small artistic touches. What kind of prison was complete without a ‘Live, Laugh, Love’ wall engraving? Not that anyone else would appreciate the joke given that our literacy rate was a proud 33%--and less if we counted the plants.

Truly, this was a place of torture.

The blame for this atrocity could rest with whatever had chosen such ill-defined criteria as this. A door that could lock from one side? Just about every door locked from one side, that was the entire purpose of locks! A bed? Again, something that one could expect from any kind of lodging.

So, once I finished the common area, I began the simple process of creating the ‘cells’ of this dungeon-in-a-dungeon. By ‘cells’, I really just meant bedrooms.

Square room? Check. Wooden floor? Check. After that, I slapped in a wooden platform attached to the wall and tried to fumble together something resembling bedding from my plant fiber reserves. Lastly, I just needed to make a lock: I didn’t bother with anything as complicated as a key or combination lock, as I didn’t want to sweat such a small detail when I doubted that kind of security would actually be needed. Instead, I slapped on a simple knob that would extend an iron rod into a socket in the doorframe, not even bothering to give myself manual control over it. With all that done, I was satisfied enough to call it a day. To make sure I wasn’t barking up the wrong tree, I checked my status.

FRAGMENT OF COALESCED WILL LVL: 3 NAME: "Boss"

Traits:

Skills:

[Horticulture I]

[Biology I]

[Creator's Insight]

[Mech. Engineering I]

[Textiles I]

[Transmutation I]

[Mining I]

[Core Metalworking]

Features:

[Manamite Creation]

[Self-Synthesis]

[Manamite Specialization I]

[Material Infusion]

HP: 18 / 18 CATEGORY: Elemental MP: 36 / 100 SPECIES: Dungeon Core MP Rate: +22 daily SIZE: Tiny WEALTH: 5 XP: 37% STR VIT DEX INT WIS PER 0 6 0 9 8 8

Nascent heart of a world-born entity, crystallized from soul energy. Exerts control over a localized area.

Manamite Horde (149 / 180):

139 Manamites

1 Managermites (-3 MP/d)

Boiler Squad (5 / 20):

5 Manamites

Criteria for Next Ascension Tier:

Level: 5

Wealth: 25

Employees: 3

Cost: 100 MP

Facility: Prison Virtual Hoard:

➤716.9 Raw Stone

➤418.0 Loose Soil

➤0.1 Biological Material

➤281.4 Raw Lumber

➤21.6 Plant Fiber

➤0.2 Raw Crystal

➤12.4 Iron Ore

➤29.9 Copper Ore

➤[RARE MATERIALS, EXAMINE TO EXPAND]

Wow, that might have honestly been one of the jankiest things I’d run into yet. Hell, even though I’d followed the tooltip’s guidelines exactly, I’d still been convinced that I would run afoul of some kind of secret, undocumented requirement and have to modify the structure.

But nope.

Maybe dungeons just generally didn’t have much need for bedrooms and this was some kind of oversight. Either way, I wasn’t going to question it.

For now, I left it at a single ‘cell’. I really wanted to continue adding features like a bath, but decided against anything that might waste more of our water. We could make it work with what we already had: the zen waterfall and the aqueducts.

I spent the majority of our first full day that our ‘guest’ was staying with us tidying up this living area and tending to minor issues in it that, more than likely, were simply a result of massively overthinking it. Still, it would serve as a comfortable place to rest.

The bottles were turning out nicely, as well. Since I had a bit under three days of wait to be able to ascend the fox, I had an awful lot of time to kill on other work as well, though I had to try to limit my mana expenditures as best as I could. For the most part, this meant building and excavating were my main outlets.

So I broke down the bottles that I’d created, reclaiming the crystal I’d used to make them before building them again, iterating on their design again and again with minor adjustments each time. A broader, shorter neck would allow for easier drinking and also be less fragile. A handle protruding from one corner of the bottle meant easier carrying, regardless of the temperature of the liquids inside.

It took nearly every last bit of my focus, but I even managed to make something of a copper filigree against the outside of the bottle. It was useless for the most part, simply a flashy decoration I’d used as a test of my own precision. I was getting better at least, and it was in a way that I wasn’t sure I could just attribute to some skill or stat on a tooltip. No, I was tightening my control over my manamites, even if only slightly. When I really narrowed down my focus, I could create some fine, delicate work—but only for a short time, given how draining it felt.

It almost felt like a waste to use such nice bottles for something like mass-produced tea, but maybe I could market it to the noble class.

On the subject of marketing it—I found that while I lacked any way to create paper so far, I could add etchings or protrusions into the surface of the crystal. They weren’t very easy to read from a distance, but they did have the plus side of not requiring any additional resources.

Glancing down at the bottle, I had something of an idea. I wasn’t quite sure if it was a good one or a bad one yet, but I went with it regardless simply to test its feasibility.

Going from memory, I took the sigil I’d seen in the adventurer’s camp, the one above their great hall, and I carved it into the side of the crystalline bottle. After all, if I could disguise my goods as their own, I might be able to get them to buy from me without ever knowing they were funding a dungeon.

If I made it look official enough, maybe that might just work.

I had a few ideas on how to potentially build a vending machine—the easiest way I could think of to take payment anonymously without just running on an honor system. Still, I’d need to actually find a way to even introduce the concept to them—assuming that such things were unknown to them. Letting my mind wander, I began to construct a simulacrum of a vending machine in my icebox-made-workspace, trying to keep it as true to memory as I could even with my limited materials.

It was huge, and far too bulky to transport; I’d need to construct it on-site wherever I needed it. I also lacked any way to give it color or to power it for lights or cooling, and the fact that nearly all of my mechanism slots were spoken for meant that I’d have no kind of manual control over it. So, it was clear that I needed some kind of custom-built solution to this problem instead.

First, I’d need a chassis to contain the drinks within—big enough to hold an assortment of products and heavy enough to resist anyone just stealing the entire bloody thing. I chose copper as my primary building material for this reason, creating a fairly-basic rectangular shape about three feet tall and three feet wide, entirely hollow on the inside. Next, I added a crystalline window to the front of it, to allow any potential customers to actually see the goods within. I used up what little crystal I had remaining on making this as thick as I could.

Next came legs, to raise this box up and off of the ground, as well as cross beams between them for stability and a stone platform at the bottom to lower its center of gravity. With the basic shape finished, I began work on the inside and the mechanisms within.

Given that I was planning on selling something at risk of shattering upon dispense, I came upon a very simply idea: the drinks would be dispensed through a hole at the bottom and fall into a woven hammock hanging between the legs. From there, I’d just need a way to validate payment… which I was perfectly capable of doing manually, given that I never needed to sleep and I could maintain awareness over everything attached to myself. So I added a coin slot near the top that fed into a closed chamber.

And that just left how to manage ‘selection’ as well as actually getting the drink to the dispensing slot. I added a number of buttons to the exterior of the machine, along with a set of currently-blank wooden plaques I could emblazon the product names upon.

From there, I figured that I just needed a way to shove the drinks into the exit and it just might work. The only issue with that was I could only see two options: having my manamites drag it out manually, or using mechanisms for each one.

Having a bunch of magical blue bugs working the inside of the machine seemed like a very bad idea for laying low, especially given that they already had some knowledge about how dungeons worked.

Heading back to the drawing board, I iterated on the design some more, swapping around some pieces and trying to add some additional mechanisms until I came to a workable solution.

Instead of setting up rows of drinks, I set up a wheel.

This framework of a wheel would have the drinks set along its circumference, with the ‘tube’ they were stored in being slightly angled downwards. By rotating the wheel to a certain position and leaving it there, the drink would slide out and roll down the front side’s slope and through the exit.

Convoluted, but it would work. For restocking it, I’d just have to figure something out later. Still, not bad for a single mechanism slot.

I gave it a few test runs, leaving the back side of the device open to allow the manamites to haul the bottle back into place each time I ‘bought’ it. While it wasn’t a fully-automated process, it worked decently, though I’d need to fine tune it quite a bit to really get the best of it.

It took the better part of three days to get it all properly working reliably and sturdy enough that I felt comfortable creating a duplicate of it somewhere to take for a proper trial run.

As one last flourish, I added the sigil from the human camp onto both sides of the machine, attempting to add an air of authenticity to the device.

Satisfied with that bit of work, I daydreamed about how to possibly improve it while simultaneously trying to devise a best place to deploy it. It needed to be somewhere close to their camp, in an area that would see frequently travel while also not being close enough to camp to warrant constant investigation—we needed to be able to restock it with drinks and empty it of profits, after all.

Maybe the road leading into the camp would work; long, winding, and uphill. Perfect for creating some very thirsty travelers.

But we’d need tea for that, and we’d have that in just a few short days.

For now, I had the mana to continue onwards with taking care of the fox, so I moved ahead with that.

She’d behaved herself well enough during her temporary incarceration, and I’d gotten something of a better idea of her spirit.

While she wasn’t quite sapient yet, I could see her testing at the limits of her cage every so often, a few times actively trying to squeeze herself through the bars or even beneath them via the water trough but never managing to breach through with more than just her muzzle. She napped frequently and tended to pace back and forth along the perimeter of the cage, at times even doing what seemed to be some kind of stationary trot.

High energy or low energy, with very little in between.

The few attempts I made at giving her another nudge via [Core Link] were met by less of a response than I’d even gotten from Ephi back in our first days together, so I did my best to move onwards and flushed my mana down the drain like it was a minimum-wage paycheck going towards an overdue rent bill.

Experience Requirements Bypassed.

FOX KIT has increased to LVL 3.

FOX KIT has gained 2 skill points.

INTELLECT has increased by 1.

DEXTERITY has increased by 1.

I didn’t bother spending her points just yet—we’d deal with that once we saw what her ascension came with.

FOX KIT RESYNTHESIS IN PROGRESS

Please choose one of the following paths of ascension:

➤ Ocular Heat Tracking*

➤ Enhanced Jaw Musculature

➤ Poison Resilience*

➤ Forged Sapience

➤ Adaptive Camouflage*

[Biology I] options are marked by *.

That was a relief beyond words. Considering that her next ascension would likely be a primal one just like Ephilia’s next one was, the last thing I needed was to have another hundred mana reserved before I could even attempt this again. Besides, I would feel guilty favoring the fox that much and skipping over Ephi for the honor of getting to experience something like that first.

The fox stumbled for a moment, legs shaking as she tried to fight off the encroaching sleep, before finally giving way beneath her as she dozed off.

Tomorrow would be a big day for her.