Day 84

It's a glass and copper maze with dozens of balloons and tubes. I can make all the potions and alchemical creations I can imagine.

I added a door to my core room which is a large garden that I started to provide with medicinal herbs. Thanks to mana they should develop faster and be of better quality.

I am satisfied with my job and return to my first floor, the animals have adapted well and the rats and bats are more deeply settled, they seem to be at turf war. I decide to continue their paths of evolution as before. Larger snakes can now reach 4 meters, rats the size of a big cat, and bats look more bloodthirsty, black and purple with 1m wingspan. I am creating a rare evolution for rats, a rat leader, he is about three times bigger but has little combat ability, he stimulates troops and most importantly is smarter and can train simple strategies, he is still far from humans but it's a start. Improving his intelligence cost me dearly and I had some difficulties but the result is good. I am extending the first floor to 30 rooms.

Day 85

I then shift my attention to the ant room, my servants have returned, there are only three, the last three. I wonder if they didn't do it on purpose because they are stronger than the others. I have lost two more servants and I will have to find a stable source of souls to keep in touch with the outside. They brought back several medicinal plants from the mountains and I am adding them to the alchemical garden. They also collected mountain animals, chamois and goats as well as several species of birds, there is also a snow wolf which will make a good defender. I am a little disappointed because there is nothing exceptional. I turn my attention away from my servants to focus on the ant room.

The colonies have grown widely, surprisingly one of the favorites, the black ants have disappeared, they were not numerous enough and too big. There are only 7 colonies left and I unlock the level 2 evolutions for the insects. The ants are plentiful but they haven't unlocked an evolution yet so it will be a challenge for them.

The room is swarming with ants and a marked path, there are few insects that remain alive and the food begins to become scarce with the proliferation of ants, they will soon be forced to fight with each other.

I asked my servants to bring me humans, I gave them some gold to buy slaves but if they can capture some in the village without being noticed I prefer.

Day 86

When they left, two colonies started a turf war. Colonies are not made up of just one type of ants, but suddenly many. In front of the larger ones and behind them the war ants finally ants with pockets of acids can project it on 1 or 2 meters.

The war was rather impressive and lasted for several days; eventually one nest was defeated and the other colony was able to gain a good chunk of territory.

In the days that followed I built the enchantment room while keeping an eye on the ant room.

I also added a door to my main room, making it the ritual room.

Days 91

There are only two colonies left, the dwarf ants and the red ants, the dwarf ants are 2 or 3 times smaller but far superior in number because they have several queens per nest unlike the red ants, more intelligent but less numerous with only one queen per nest. They each occupy half the room and have about twenty nests each. There are several wars but no decisive winner and there is no further evolution of territory.

So I took two warrior rats from the first floor and put some in each territory controlling them to destroy the nests.

Very quickly the red ants organized themselves and tens of thousands of ants appeared to kill him; they had heavy losses but nothing irreparable.

The dwarf ants took longer to react but a wave of a million ants was enough to kill the rat, however they lost a nest.

I didn't expect the problem to be fixed so quickly so I did the same thing again but with three level 2 warrior rats for each colony. Everyone's strategy has not changed, but the losses have multiplied, the red ants have lost a third of their nests and the dwarf ants half. It seems that the dwarf ants are at a disadvantage against large enemies.

Surprisingly just after the battle the red ants attacked and took over a good part of the territory of the dwarf ants before being stopped by tides of opposing ants.

By the time the ants built their territory, I finalized the ritual room. By creating a soul circle and a huge soul crystal. I hope my servants can bring me a good specimen. The alchemical garden is also well under way but I cannot harvest the plants without damaging them so I await the return of my minions.

Day 92

The first floor has stabilized and I feel the limit for my 2 floors will be released soon.

I continue to meditate and produce stores of ingredients to enlarge my heart as I will need them for my second stage.

Day 93

When the two ant breeds have stabilized, the red ants occupy two thirds of the area but are unable to penetrate the dwarf ant area, which has become very densified. There are about fifty mounds of earth and a network swarming underground that allow them to proliferate. Fertility and birth rate per day have evolved further, luckily they are partly nourished by mana or they would not have food for a long time. Conversely, red ants pay attention to their food source and leave areas of greenery while building stronger and taller structures, their tunnels and rooms seem structured. Their intelligence has improved slightly and a real system of leadership has been put in place. Normally the ants are not led by the queen, she only lays eggs but it is the colony that makes the decisions and sometimes the queen is eliminated. But in this dungeon, it looks like the first queen has become the supreme ruler of the colony.

I release a huge snake 5 meters in length and 10 centimeters in diameter in each territory. The strategy used remains the same but its hard skin impenetrable by ants gives a clear advantage to red ants, conversely the extreme concentration of dwarf ants gives them speed. There is no clear winner at the death of the two snakes.

Day 95

I start to get impatient and order a bloodbath between the two colonies but not between the ants.

Immediately a black tide rises several centimeters and sweeps over the red rows. The carnage lasts 2 days and ends with the exhaustion of the dwarf ants, the redheads counter-attack and kill all the enemy queens. Intelligence will have won over numbers.

Day 98

I hesitate to start the evolution of the main queen, but I feel like I can start my 2 floors. So I'm focusing on that.

I start by lowering my top floor and use the same style as for the first floor for the second. With 50 rooms and a maze of corridors and small passages for the inhabitants of the dungeon. I put in dungeon moss and bright vines but I also mix ferns and some simple herbal remedies. I then add the insects and animals of the first floor before adding a hundred goblins in free circulation. I add a hobgoblin to the last piece. I give the goblin a simple knife with a loincloth.

I also create the 4th evolution for insects and the 3rd for animals. If an insect or animal from the first floor reaches this stage, it will descend to the second. The first floor is dangerous for peasants and villagers but not for adventurers. I want to make my 2 stories for beginner adventurers. This work takes me a month. I had to upgrade my core at the start and I spent a lot of mana. My servants have returned several times bringing something new, but less and less. However, there are about fifteen villagers that they brought back the first two weeks. After that the village defended itself and didn't let anyone go out so they had to go to the city to buy slaves. The nearest slave market is only a three day walk away and they have made the trip twice, each bringing back 20 low quality slaves.

Day 114

The ritual hall is prepared and I harvest all their souls. The crystal has reached one-fifth of its capacity. Among these souls there is one who has an affinity with air.

Affinity relates to magic: it is estimated that 5% of humans have an affinity, it is 0% for dwarves, 20% for elves and up to 90% for demons. Monsters all have one since that's what differentiates them from animals.

There are 6 elementary affinities: air, earth, water, nature, heat and cold. These elementary affinities are the most common, there are two rarer affinities light and darkness and then even rarer life and death. Light is highly valued and it is the basis of the majority of churches in the world, darkness is little appreciated but tolerated in the majority of kingdoms excluding the holy empire which occupies the central and northern part of the continent. Life is very powerful in support but little in power of attack, they are monopolized by the various churches finally death is very powerful but hated by the majority.

This is what earned me my exile when I researched the subject. The reason is that the power wielded by one person is enough to destroy an entire region if given enough time. Dungeons with these attributes are often eliminated by Inquisitors of the Holy Empire.

Finally there are two legendary affinities: time and space. 1000 years ago the demons unified and the gods would have invoked heroes, among them a sage would have had the power of space. It is he who would have created the only space objects, ten in number in the world. But since then, there is no record of these powers. The latter affinity is pure mana affinity, not uncommon when low but very rare when high like me when I was alive. The pure mana affinity changes when it becomes more important and deviates towards any affinity.

His soul is more powerful and I wonder what I could do with it. I'll think about it later, I have to take care of the main queen of the red ants first. She's built in empires all over the room. I send it to the biology laboratory to give it a new evolution. With my full mana I start by increasing its size to 12 inches long, I grow its abdomen and give it sturdy legs to support its weight. She doesn't need combat skills so I'm not improving her mandibles. I strengthen his brain as much as I can. Then, I move on to her abdomen, the most important and recreate the breed she is going to lay, they are ants of 10 cm, all workers, they will take care of the colony, they can evolve into minor ants to dig the rock but without any other combat capacity, as an ant 20 cm long soldiers intended for attack and combat or as artisan ants who cultivate and organize the colony.

Finally, I build a soul for her because she doesn't have one, I compress my mana and recover a soul that I tear apart without keeping anything as a model. I use a dark gem, it is a mana crystal with affinity, gems are quite rarer than mana crystals. The gem blends into the soul in creation and gives the queen an affinity with darkness. She can't do anything with it at the moment but I will continue to make her evolve. She doesn't have enough mana in her body to further upgrade her soul.

I release her into the ant room and feel her mind barely forming. I allow him to dig galleries in the rock but not by approaching the keep. Finally I rest, I spent a week creating it and I have not stopped spending mana and meditating, for the first time I sleep.