The days after Laura became my Voice went by peacefully in my town. A certain routine even settled in. In the Morning, Laura meditates and trains her combat skills under my guidance and in the afternoon she either talks to people, answering their questions on different subjects or tries to help those who want to become Citizens. Afterwards, she passes the evening by talking with even more people, particularly with those aiming to become important Citizens.

Since Laura’s big speech in front of the crowd, the number of people wanting to join my Citizenship is growing each day. I must admit that I’m very pleased with the current situation. The more Citizens there are, the more pawns I will have to use in my defence or for my experiments. And they are more than willing to become my playthings.

There are a few people in the process of becoming Citizen that I am particularly interested in. First being Grundy, the big man is almost ready and will be a particularly powerful defender of mine, at least after a bit of training. For now, his usual fighting method is to overpower his enemies with sheer force and absolutely no technique. I plan to teach him how to use his big muscles in a better way, allowing him to fight without exerting his whole energy on movements that are too wide and too powerful to be fully effective.

Another future Citizen I’m eager to have is Clara. The tall and blond woman wants to become the head of the city’s watch. Before that, she will have to establish one though, but with my help, she should be able to do it. Like the other Citizens, she will gain a place to work and establish her dream. I am quite interested in the prospect of having a watch in my town. It means I’ll have a group of people dedicated to my Citizens’ security and well-being and especially mines. Well, they’ll also be assuring the security of normal people, for which I don’t really care that much, but it means I’ll at least have more prospective Citizens and subjects for my experimentations. If nothing else a safe city attracts more people than an unsafe one lures away.

Also, Clara is pregnant and I’m rather impatient to have her in my care. She should be the first pregnant sapient being in my possession, assuming none of the other pregnant women here achieve Citizenship before her. I’m curious to see the effects, my mana flowing through a pregnant woman will have on the child she’s bearing. I can at least guarantee some effects as they are mammals, but sapience is an unknown quantity there.

Unfortunately, there are also people that don’t seem to be willing to become Citizens. While I don’t really care about most of them, there are some I would really like to own. Starting with all the adventurers. I’d like to have all of them under my influence, since they are a kind of people willing to risk their lives and who know how to fight, meaning they can either become a liability or a big asset, depending on if they are handled properly or not. But I am pleased to see that most of the reluctant adventurers are mainly just discussing the subject, with only a handful of them that are openly stating that they won’t ever become Citizens. Namely, they are the group of female adventurers led by a certain Felicia Garth, who also leads the pregnant women who refuse to be Citizens.

There is also the duo Lucia and Stella. While I don’t really care about the decision of the broken baby doll, I’d really like to claim the childlike one. As the one who took initiative first and opened the shackles when the pirates left. Proving due to this to have a certain cunning and the willingness to act. All that lead to her having some influence in town. Although her childlike appearance and her temper limit it.

Speaking of people with influence, I’d also like to claim Helgyra and Melinda. They are the only people with a semblance of medical skill. The first is a doctor, according to herself, and I think I could strike a deal with her, as she seems more interested in her studies than in the wellbeing of her patients. The latter is the complete opposite, with visibly less medical knowledge she cares more deeply about the people in her care than about herself. The amount of time she passes taking care of the few people still in coma or in shock is proof of that. In her case, I could try to steer her onto my side by proposing to teach her some of my healing skills. However, it will take a lot of time to teach someone how I do it, if that even is a possibility. In any case, both the Gnome doctor and the big breasted Human have some weight in the debates happening in my town.

The last being I would like to see become a Citizen is Mililara. Not only because she is one of the adventurers lurking around in my maze or because she’s one of the best fighters in town, or even her visibly superior intellect when compared to the rest of the people here. No, I want her to be mine, simply because there is something strangely appealing about her. I can’t explain it, but when I’m looking at her I feel a strange pulse inside me, something almost sexual. It’s in the slight quantity of mana I can feel escaping from her body. There is something there that I can’t quite define, but it’s making me feel weirdly aroused when I focus on her. Therefore I try not to put too much attention on her, but I’d really like to claim her and finally be able to understand what is happening.

To keep going on about what I would like to have, but cannot have for now. There are issues with my hybridization attempts. For the bugs ones, in fact, the other ones are too early to have any real results yet. But, as the bugs have a rapid growth speed, I can already see some results after the first few days. As such most of the bugs’ hybridizations have already failed, something around three-fourths of the fertilized eggs are already dead or will never hatch. And among the last fourth, I can already spot some heavy malformations that I think will again prevent at least half of the rest to live through their larvae stage. It does not bode well for my experiments on this subject, but I will not abandon them and keep on experimenting.

Classic dungeons are able to produce monsters to defend themselves, so there must be a more efficient way to do it that I haven’t tried yet. Or else, how would those mindless pieces of shiny rock manage to create such fearsome creatures? Simply by infusing their mana in them, as I did with my crabs at the beginning? That could explain the simple monsters that are simply bigger or sturdier variants or the likes of that, but not those showing traits from other creatures. Although, it is a fact that those kinds of monsters are a rare sight and that usually there are no more than two or three of the same kind, even in vastly renowned dungeons. However, that is a matter to think about later.

Now I’m focusing my attention on the reef I’m growing at the edge of my influence. I’ve been growing it steadily for the past few days and now I’m completing the last finishing touches. For the underwater part, it is mainly just a big wall with numerous holes in it to let water and fish through. I’ve also made a lot of corals grow on it. It allows me to permanently claim all the water between the island and the rift as well as all the creatures that manage to go through there. Of course, I don’t force them to stay inside what can now be considered an atoll, they are only required to come back once a week to provide me with pieces of information from around the surrounding islands, just like the birds I have claimed.

The top of the rift is just one meter under the water level for most of its length with some rocks sprouting out of the water at some places. The idea is to allow small boats, like the fishing boats of the Marms, to pass over the rift easily while blocking bigger boats. Of course, I don’t want to block potential merchant ships from coming to the shore and I know that sort of thing will not be able to block the pirates. Well, it could block most of them, but not the Seconds or higher tiered ones, who are the real threat. So I also installed a total of four entryways through the reef, one at each of the cardinal directions. Those entries are marked by two pillars, larger boats are supposed to go between those pillars to enter my waters, I even put some glowing crystal on the pillars to allow ships to see them even at night.

This will prevent too many big ships from entering my waters at once and at the same time still allow them entrance. I only want to regulate their passage, make sure they can’t easily rush my shores and thus reduce the dangers of a frontal assault against me. Of course, I’ll have to build a better maze to lure the assailants into after they boarded the coast to weaken and ultimately kill them. Unfortunately, mazes such as the ones I can make for now is useless against opponents that can easily destroy their walls, jump across big holes and swim underwater for dozens of minutes unscathed, allowing him or her to go straight to my core. I have to find a way to strengthen my walls. How do other Dungeons do it? Do they simply put metal in them? Is it a special kind of stone that I do not know of? Or is just permeating the walls long enough with an adequate amount of mana enough? I’ll have to experiment on the subject and luckily I have the perfect help for that. Bertrand’s body. With the daily training I’m doing with this body, it’s now almost ready to undergo the strange half Evolution that my creatures can have.

Speaking of creatures, I have three new noteworthy ones that I claimed in the depths of my waters. They are the biggest creatures I have seen there until now. The first is some kind of sea tortoise, I believe it is called a turtle. The second one is a shark. While it is not a big one, a fish armed with sharp teeth is a potential weapon of great efficiency in water. And lastly, I have an octopus. Unlike the other two, who aimlessly wandered into my waters, I found this one living in a hole in my seabed.

Those three animals could become a great line of defence once grown or even turned into proper monsters. Unfortunately, I have no way of making them reproduce for now, as I only have one of each and wasn't able to successfully hybridize creatures of this size yet, though not for a lack of trying.

Anyway, I return my focus to other topics, ones I can work on at the moment. Like making more powerful animals out of the ones I have.

---

In a faraway land, several beings are talking among themselves. They are discussing a matter of utmost importance for their people and for the whole world at large, even if the later does not know anything about it.

“It is too dangerous.” Says a feminine voice.

“But we still have to do it, it is our duty.” Answers another one.

“We can’t risk the life of a young one for this.”

“We have always done it, Tina. That is the mission the Mother and the Father gave us. We have to send someone. And the youngs know what they are risking on those missions.”

“But look at this!” Melan points to a crystalline ball settled on a pedestal in the center of the group. “Do you see the colours, Melan? It has never shown as many of them and with such brightness.”

“Yes, I see it! And it does not change our duty.”

“Only.” A third and crooked voice interjects. “It is not the first time such a thing has happened.”

“Really? You’re the oldest of us, Dorni. Will you explain what is happening?”

“It was when I was younger, barely ten years after entering the Council. The crystal shined with the same brightness as now, but not quite the same colours. Although it did have all the colours of magic in it, red and purple were clearly more dominant. The other members of the Council argued about sending someone or not, they were afraid of the reaction of the core.”

“It is known that purple or red dominated cores tend to react more poorly than others to our actions.” This voice comes from a fourth individual and causes a few to roll their eyes.

“Yes, but the decision that was made at that time was to send two of our best students to it.”

“Two?! We never send two young. Why did you do that?” Asks Tina.

“Because it was not the first time either. It was actually the second time.” The old one makes a pause to look at all the Council’s members. “The first time was another fifteen millenniums earlier.”

“Wait! You’re in the Council since fifteen thousand years. Does it mean the first time the Crystal reacted so strongly the Mother and the Father were still awake?” Exclaims the one who stated well-known facts earlier.

“Yes Kirya, and they went asleep a few centuries after this event. Long before I hatched.” She lets her voice trail off.

“So? What happened?” Asks Melan.

“Alfæ. It was her that was sent to take care of the first one. You know the rest of this story. As for the second one, the two young that were sent were the very best of our students, but we never heard of them afterwards and the Dungeon was destroyed just a few decades later.”

A long and dreadful silence engulfs the Council room.

“That settles it, we cannot send anyone.” Says the careful Tina.

“You are right, we cannot allow a new event like Alfæ. The risks are too high.” Agrees on Melan, the other Council members murmuring their consent.

“We have to send someone.” Resumes Dorni. “Before going to sleep the Mother and the Father specifically told the Council members of that time to carry on the mission they chose for our people, especially in this sort of cases. That is the exact reason, despite the possibility of a corruption like for Alfæ, we send someone fifteen thousand years ago. And that is why we will also send someone to this core.”

“But how can we send our youngs on such a perilous mission? It is not the same as just risking their lives, they are risking far more there.”

“That is why we will only send volunteers, who know of the dangers of this particular mission.”

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

“The right thing? No, I’m not. But I’m certain that it is necessary. Now sisters, go fetch your best students and meet me at the archivist’s study, we will choose those we should send with his help.”