——— 3rd person ———
Mana swirled furiously around the tallest mountain peak. Purple and gold clouds gathered as thunder shook the heavens. Forked lighting smote ruin in a 5 mile radius.
Two people stood on a castle wall watching it all from a safe distance. A wise looking old man, stroked his long grey beard with concern, as the person next to him watched the natural phenomena without blinking. Her piercing eyes full of confidence and pride.
"Something has happened!" The royal seer cautiously started.
"You don't say!" The queen furrowed her brow as she turned towards to face him, her strong gaze causing him to squirm nervously. "Is that all you can tell me?"
"No your highness, I believe we are seeing the birth of something magnificent! A powerful being whose existence threatens the natural order!!!"
"Of course we are! My dragon egg is finally hatching!" The lady scoffed, "I'd expect no less from my pet! What do I even pay you for?!!"
——
Simultaneously, in the corner of a crevice, within a little cave, near the base of a small hill, at the edge of a different and much less magnificent mountain range, on the other side of the continent, a light breeze was causing some pine needles to rustle and a faint spiral of dust could be seen. At the center of that insignificant dust spiral was a berry sized magic core.
"Crack!" Hairline fractures covered the small gem, the whole thing would have collapsed if not for the vortex of mana compressing it and holding it together. Slowly the fractures were mended until it looked like a beautiful blueberry again and the breeze calmed down.
——— POV: DM Blueberry ———
The hour long absorption process is finally done! I feel stronger, like I can move more mana and control it easier. I give it a try right away.
Gathering mana from the dungeon, I compress it around my core. Holding it there is easy for me now so I just let it float around me like some amorphous blob. This should make it quicker for me to move. Just rotate the mana to roll forward!
Zoom! I speed through the dungeon.
Oh right, new shop item! Come to me! I check it out in the menu:
- Bunnyrat: a rat with abnormally developed hind legs and ears.
Sounds about right. They are a little pricy though... like I could buy a whole bunch of upgraded ants for that price... tsk tsk... I'll consider it an investment. I buy 2, and I'm out of DP.
I look at my glorious new workers. They are looking around inquisitively.
Go eat some fresh berries from the bush. I send them to eat their fill.
Gotta fill them up before sending them out. Don't want them eating all the loot before they return!
I remember the poisoned berries still lying around so I get my ant cleanup crew to take care of it.
My lack of DP has become glaringly obvious so I send out almost all my minions. Just keeping a handful of spiders for defense. I task my 1 of my new star recruits to focus on bringing back some new plants and seeds, the other to try to catch a whole bug.
While they are out its time to put my mana to good use! I roll over to where my worms are working. They've made good progress but they need a boost. I call one out and have it lay on the ground nearby. I focus my mana and surround the worm in a thick blob of it before calling up the adjustment menu!
Since basic worms are almost free I can visibly see the amount of points available for adjustment increasing. As this is used to improve and change my creatures and plants, I'll refer to this a evolution points/potential or EP.
EP can be increased through absorbing mana so I soak the worm while I work. The worms have contributed a grand total of 0 DP to the cause which is a little underwhelming even for practically free goods. I need to fix them up a little.
First I give it an all over stat boost, increase its size etc. Easy! Then I get to the important part. Teeth! I remember the story of a dry planet where massive worms dominated the deserts, their gaping maw filled with blade-like teeth like som kind of blender of doom. Shrink that worm down from the size of a train to about the size of a finger. That's what I'm going for.
It takes a little work, fiddling with settings and adding new features, but soon my creation is complete. Good thing too as the mana drain was a bit much. I save it under a new name and check it out in the shop.
-Shredder worm: a worm that has been optimized to dig through almost anything.
Looks good, I buy 4. They cost as much as a spider now, ouch! there goes my newly gained DP again. I put them to work. I'm pleased to see that they are multiple times faster than the other worms and can even dig through rock.
Moving on, I quickly tweak my Gem Berry plant, toning down the flavor and smell and set it to storing the excess EP and mana it absorbs in its fruit. This was my original plan, and now that the thief has been caught I don't need it to smell or taste that good.
I finally set my eyes on the only remaining bat. Yeah it's the fat bat. The others went out to work while this one just hid in the corner to sleep. wow what a slacker! Congrats you can contribute by being my guinea pig.
As if sensing danger the bat scrambled before it flew away pretending to be diligent.
Luckily another bat returned at that moment and dropped another pine cone onto the ground for absorption.
Stay where you are. I give order before manipulating the dungeon mana to move towards it. It's a little harder relying on the 3rd person view but if I think about it I am the dungeon in a way so it should work just fine.
I pull up the adjustment tool. I love this thing. So much potential! Unfortunately bats are expensive so the amount of EP I can add through mana is minuscule in comparison.
Let's see. Size and weight, decrease, wingspan, decrease, basically I'm making it slightly smaller to free up some EP. Then I work on making it faster and more agile. Hopefully it can catch me some flying bugs. The final result isn't different enough to warrant a new name. At most it's become a variant that will occasionally appear if I buy bats from now on.
I feed the speedy bat some blueberries and send it out again.
Time to sit back a wait for the DP to roll in!