Aby readied itself, yet again, for another day of riotous carnage. The barest trickle of light filtered in, entirely invisible against the radiant light shining throughout the halls. Only Aby would even be able to notice this to begin with, its nigh omniscience over everything happening in these halls which meets its attention would alert it to much more than simply this.

And as it had in days past, and likely would in days future, the tide of bodies began, a moderately sized group to kick it off. Immediately, they noticed the difference. Where before, crystals were anchored to the corals, allowing them to be torn free and stashed away, now they sat fused to the ground, a problem which couldn’t be solved by ruining the core’s ambiance. They pulled, yanked, picked, and plucked to the best of their abilities, pulling loose far less than the day prior. While they still tried uprooting its coral at first, they quickly found there was nothing that could be gained in doing so, beyond having the corals beside cloud the water with all manner of substance.

Aby observed as the next few groups went through similar stages of learning, and while they still couldn’t help but thin the colorful scenery, no longer was it entirely destroyed. Well, for the most part. The core was satisfied that its changes had resulted in some positives, something that helped ease the frustration it felt over its sluggish control over mana. Aside from that, however, there was little change to its routine from earlier days.

It partitioned its mind, using a portion to keep tabs on every invader working their way through the halls, as well as rallying, organizing, and directing its creatures to assault and harass them in much the same. It did notice that the invaders seemed at least slightly more organized, suffering fewer casualties in the earlier floors, though the changes it had made to its mazes did hamper their progression through the fifth, and sixth-seventh floors.

The other portion became dedicated to reviewing what little had changed through the night. For instance, Aby was more than a little surprised when, for the first time in his existence as one, the drake was still and calm, yet awake. A bout of motionless that wasn’t very long, but one in which he neither slept, nor rampaged through the floor.

He didn’t remain as such for very long, shaking his head lightly as though he ate something not quite to his tastes before he stormed off once more. The core turned away once it saw the drake return to his status quo. The only other true change which had occurred overnight was towards the kobolds, or rather, their eggs. The two clutches still remained in the centermost building, guarded zealously at all times, but the core could sense, could witness, the burgeoning young life within.

The eggs were decently far along, the accelerated development within its halls had already pushed the embryos nearly to a state where it could discern what was developing inside. Tiny, misshapen limbs attached themselves to a wildly out of proportion body; and Aby could only now make heads or tails of which end was their head, and which their tail. Already, some minor differences began to appear between those sired by the kobolds, and those by the drake-kin, the former appeared somehow more feral than the latter, they had a nearly crocodilian snout in place of the more gnarled mouth which was forming on the few drake kin Aby could see, their developing bodies already appeared more wiry, among other, smaller distinguishing features. However, despite appearing nearly like the young forms of what they would soon grow to being, Aby had not gotten their templates. This raised a question for the core to ponder over; what determines how far along in development a creature must be before unlocking a template?

It had witnessed this sort of development in a great many of its creatures, and never quite knew when it gained the ability to spawn the species as a whole. It knew it to be before a creature hatched or was born, but different creatures seemed to need to reach different stages of development to give the core their information. It was deeply interesting to the core, and yet it was unable to do more than simply observe. Thus, noting that the presumably high or coastal kobold embryos had just barely begun sprouting feathers, it turned its attention away from the kobolds, towards another area of the eleventh floor, watching as another group of eggs hatched.

The focus of its review was deep within the sandy catacombs of its eleventh floor; after kilometers of twists and turns within those coastal halls, a sand dune was visible, much of the sand being disturbed. Under that loosened sand, sat a great many eggs; the round, leathery balls of white didn’t crack, but rather tore apart, a pair of tiny flippers pushing their way out, ripping a hole open for a rounded head to push its way through, then the rest of its heavily armored body. After a few moments of struggle, another group of infant ironbacked turtles found themselves disoriented facing the cacophony of noise and color.

As their instincts demanded they free themselves of their sandy prisons, they found themselves being inducted into Aby’s own personal food chain, and a harsh induction it was. The various crabs, fish, and even a spectating kobold who was simply enjoying her break all ensured that nearly none lived long enough to join their parents. In the end, only two managed to fumble their way into a hidden exit to other floors, searching for a place to grow.

One of those two was the creature which drew its eye to begin with. A little girl stumbled her way into the passage towards the seventh floor, likely the only place she could find refuge until she was large enough, or at least had a hard enough shell, to survive elsewhere. She was an odd little one, being the only member of her clutch to even hatch, she was a hybrid; the offspring between an ironbacked mother and greater-green father. The template unlocked during their development called them Tarnished-steel sea turtles, and should she survive to adulthood, she would join two others in Aby’s halls, spawned rather than born.

It lost interest in her journey shortly thereafter, turning its mind to the dungeon at large, where such scenes were occurring in spite of the intrusive sapients. Creatures of all kinds were birthed, and very rarely did anything new come about from this breeding. As such, rarely did it watch the development, or even birth of creatures which had already seen so often before. It knew vaguely of each developing life, but to know anything more than that, it would have to make an active effort in much the same fashion as its mature creatures, the unfortunate reason it often missed out on natural evolutions and variations.

It had decided to inspect the lower floors again, and began to investigate how two of its more powerful creatures were developing now that they had moved away from much of the action. For instance, the wyvern had once more resumed growing larger, and had reached four meters in length recently. He continued growing faster too, reaching rather obscene speeds once he had figured out how to create and manipulate heat outside of his body, however rudimentary that control seemed to be compared to some of the grander spells and magic the core had seen. He was little more than a blur of emerald green and violent red when he decided to push himself, and the floor he resided only helped to obscure his vibrant color palette. Reds and greens adorned his scales haphazardly, losing any semblance of the former orderly trim at some point after he took to coiling around the flame spirit coral.

His temperament too began shifting; he’d lost his penchant to toy with his prey, instead doing his best to strike it down swiftly. Of course, he’d not yet been able to show this off on anything outside Aby’s own creations during the few days he’d been down there, but the core knew this would not always be the case. As such, Aby did its best in order to make sure he wasn’t ever too idle, ensuring that he would be prepared for the inevitable time when he was staring down a sapient and able to bring his best in his new residence.

The wyrm too was experiencing change in the thirteenth. She grew fast, already fourteen meters in length, and scales changing ever darker as time wore on. Where the wyvern had little in the way of company, far too prideful to associate with the fish and turtles of the floor, much less the invertebrates; the wyrm ruled over her serpents and dominated her opposition through size and muscle alone. It was helpful, too, as she spent much of her time contending with the uppity Humboldt squids who contested her ever growing stake in the floor. What time wasn’t spent feuding was instead spent sleeping and posturing, with a few instances of needing to repel those invaders who find their way in via the ninth. It was currently the only way the floor ever found a semblance of peace between the two sides, when another played the interloper.

That day was the first time Aby had seen invaders escape from them, using more of those items to simply leave its halls rather than even try combating the gargantuan snake and her writhing band of loyalists, along with the masses of muscular limbs adorned with rapidly pulsating colors that were sizing them up. The core was a bit upset at the loss of their knowledge, having seen them perform remarkably well up until then, but didn’t fret too much. There had already been a great deal it had acquired from those which had fallen up until this point.

Thinking on this, it had realized something and gathered its consciousness together to confirm. It was certain the day hadn't yet ended for those invaders, it could tell there was still quite a bit of light pouring in from its entrance, but something was odd; nearly an hour had gone by without any new group making their way into its depths, and a few of the ones currently within seemed to have left rather frantically earlier.