It had been a relaxing couple of days, of balancing the dungeon ecosystem to the invasion of the local fauna. The floor had balanced itself enough that it was time to begin digging the second floor. And so he had begun the arduous task of digging the second floor. As he dug through the rock, he pondered what kind of floor this was going to be, what focus should this floor have for the creatures.

The first floor was a generalist with a focus on defence, with the centipede’s hard carapace, the tough scales of the kobolds and the badger’s thick hide. Maybe this floor should have a greater focus on stopping power, sheer destructive force, or it could focus on speed and general manoeuvrability. Or he could go a different direction, doubling down on what the previous floor was good at and then cycle to a different focus. So many different options that would culminate in greater beings later on, when the surge event happens.

It was there in the middle of digging out the next floor when the dungeon felt a peculiar sensation. Something was happening on its first floor, a weird sort of energy radiated through the dungeon. He searched through his first floor and found the interrupting surge of energy emanated from an almost hidden corner of the first floor, close to one of his regenerating ore veins. While focusing on the source of the energy spike he received a notification.

Alert!

New Evolution path available in [Badger] Specimen.

Ecstatic he opened the evolution option.

Tier 2 Evolution:

Giant Badger (Common)

“It’s big and it's mean, there's nothing more to say.”

The most common evolution of the badger species. What they are already good at gets improved, but nothing special is added. They are just bigger and stronger badgers.

Deep Badger (Uncommon)

“I was just walking through the mines, minding my own business when suddenly all types of monsters just started charging past me. I thought they had gone crazy or something. But then I saw the badger, and before I knew it, I had joined them.” - Some unknown Dwarf

A badger that has made its home deep underground. Its already great claws for digging have adapted to dig into harder stone. Its already bad sight gets worse and it gets an enhanced sense of smell.

Greed Badger (Uncommon)

“A badger who is not content with what it has, would not be content with what it would like to have.”

This badger has seen the glory of shinies. Its wrath has been focused on anyone who gets too close to its hoard. It actively seeks out objects of interest to add to its hoard never satisfied by what it has.

Wrath Badger (Rare)

“Do you wanna play? Everyone's dead, so I got bored. Do you want to play with me?” - Demonlord of Wrath

Swimming in a sea of wrath, this badger has been consumed by the demonic plane of [Wrath].

It draws an increased strength, endurance and stamina from this plane, in an amount that directly corresponds to how angry it is. It never stops being angry and therefore can never sit still for long.

Badgermole (Rare)

“I heard rumours but didn’t think it was true, a calm and friendly badger. It boggles the mind.”

One of the only peaceful creatures in the badger species. The badgermole is an enormous, blind mammal that lives deep underground.

Living so deep underground it does not need sight, and substitute it with a sharp sense of smell and the ability to sense the vibrations in the earth around them. The manipulation of the surrounding earth is intrinsic to their existence and they use it as an extension of their body.

Draconic Badger (Rare+) [First of its kind]

“The forbidden one.”

Some dragon species are known for being promiscuous creatures. But even they know never to breed with one of the badger species.

The greed and wrath of a dragon multiplied by the already existing wrath and ingenuity of a badger, enhanced by dragon scales and a badger's almost impenetrable hide make for a scary combination.

As it is the first of its kind, its future potential is unknown.

Draconic Badgermole (Rare+) [First of its kind]

“The calm badgermole, corrupted by draconic essence.”

This badgermole distinguishes itself from other badgermoles by possessing a draconic bloodline. It retains all the traits and abilities of other badgermoles with increased capabilities.

Its dragon blood allows it to break the mould from its more common brethren and possess highly functional eyes. It possesses dragon scales and love of hoarding treasure. It searches for metal veins to consume to strengthen its scales. Once it has found an ore vein of sufficient quality, it will protect it with extreme prejudice.

What a selection of options, he thought to himself. He had already experienced a few other badger and kobold evolutions, but they were nothing special: [Thickhide Badger (Common)] and [Kobold Scavenger (Common)]. This though was different, there was a first of its kind option among the selection.

Starting from the top, the dungeon looked through and evaluated the options.

[Giant Badger (Common)] was immediately thrown off consideration, for though it was a solid choice it brought nothing new to the table.

Reading through the selection of the options, there was no contest in the selection, it was between the two [First of their kind] options. Although the other options looked interesting, they just weren’t viable. The [Wrath Badger] was too self-destructive to live for very long, [Greed Badger] was just kinda weird, the [Deep Badger] was just a worse [badgermole] and the [badgermole] didn’t bring the same oomph as the [Rare+] version.

All things considered, it was a very short evaluation of the options.

Now for the final selection, it was between the [Draconic Badgermole (Rare+)] and [Draconic Badger (Rare+)]. This was an extremely difficult choice, both of them had incredible potential. The badgermole would fit right in on its current floor; it epitomizes what he was trying to achieve with it, and with his recovering ore veins it had an inexhaustible source of material to strengthen its scales.

But maybe it was a little too specialised in its current environment, it would forever have caves as its natural habitat. Because while it could live in other places, it would never be able to unleash its true potential anywhere else.

The [Draconic Badger] was the more versatile option between the two. It possessed the potency of [Draconic Essence], and it wasn't limited to a single environment. It possessed the [Badgers] environmental adaptability with increased capability. This would allow the badger to grow stronger in whatever environment he creates in the future. Also in contrast to the [Draconic Badgermole (Rare+)], which was just a corruption of an already existing option, the [Draconic Badger (Rare+)] was an entirely new evolutionary branch.

Having convinced himself of his choice he selected [Draconic Badger (Rare+)] evolution and focused on the affected badger. As he focused on the badger it seemed to be consumed by ethereal energy, for an instant, it seemed as if it was made entirely out of energy. He watched as this shaped energy was moulded into a new form. It grew in size from its humble 23 cm tall and 69–106 cm long to 1 m tall and 2,5 m long. It was covered head to toe in miniature grey scales. At a distance they were almost invisible, it could therefore easily be mistaken for a slightly bigger badger. Its eyes had changed to a reptilian look. The metallic grey sheen over the Badgers scales radiated with draconic power.

With excitement in his core, he looked at its status.

Status:

Name: N/A

Race: Draconic Badger (T2)

Level: 1 (11)

Hp: 1600/1600

Mp: 1100/1100

Skills:

Active:

Crushing Bite lv. 10

Excavate lv. 1

Draconic Claws lv. 9

Draconic Roar lv. 1

Sprint lv. 1

Passive:

Draconic Scalehide lv. 10

Draconic Vision lv. 6

Devourer lv. N/A

Draconic Will lv. 7

Draconic Rage lv. 5

Draconic Strength lv. 3

“Strong, “ he thought as he looked at the Badgers new status. All its skills had been affected by its new Draconic Heritage, having received a qualitative increase in power.

Rising from where it had been sleeping the evolution off, the badger surveyed the cave with an inquisitive look.

The Core looked at the newest evolution in his dungeon with great interest. What was it gonna do? How was it gonna do? If he had lungs he would be holding his breath in anticipation.

The Badger, having found nothing of note in its inspection of the cave, took a stance tensing all of its muscled while it drew in its breath. The newly formed [Draconic Badger] opened its mighty jaws, let out a yawn and went to sleep.

The core looked at the now sleeping monster in shock. He didn’t know what he expected but it most certainly wasn’t that. At the very least he expected it to declare its superiority to the rest of the dungeon. That sounded like a very dragon thing to do. But instead, he got a sleeping badger. What was the world coming to?

Not knowing what else to do he went back to constructing the second floor.