After the snake's demise, it melted away leaving a magic core behind. Ive noticed a clear difference between a magic core and a mana stone. One increases my mana capacity and density, the other just provides a lot of mana. Both good and needed effects.
Knowing how those work, I quickly buy a snake and restock my supply of critters. Need a good defense while I lvl up.
I approach the magic core, and sure enough it starts rolling towards me like I'm a magnet. Good! Follow me!
I quickly roll to the back of my dungeon and enter my small room with the magic core hot on my heels.
I have a few seconds to start rotating my mana, then it hits me.
——— POV Shift ———
The ground trembled!
Dust clouds rose!
A dry wind swirled and sucked the sand high up into the clouds dying them a dirty beige color.
Oracles, prophets, and seers dropped what they were doing and watched it all unfold.
The sign!!! Something they had only read about during their training! That it should appear again during their lifetime...
Some trembled in fear, others scrambled to tell their masters, only one stood proud and faced it without blinking.
Sighing he rubbed his temples before muttering.
"The sign of change... of upheavals and the erosion of ancient foundations..." He had been waiting for this.
Standing atop his circular tower at the edge of the city he had a clear view of the desert. Built around a large oasis, it was a key trading hub for the southern lands.
As he watched what was happening in the distance, his eyes sharpened. The great seer of the south frowned when it finally revealed itself. It was bigger than anticipated.
Sand flew in all directions as a giant toothed maw burst through the surface. An entire carriage along with the horses pulling it was swallowed. The giant worm rose to the height of the seers tower before rotating its head In search of more prey. It's gaping revealing layer after layer of razor-sharp teeth dripping with acid.
The seer watched in grim silence as the rest of the merchant group scattered. Most would not escape their dreadful fate. Thankfully the beast only roamed the dry sandy desert and disliked water. So the city was safe for now.
The beast eventually disappeared again, diving into the depths of the sand dunes. The seer turned and returned to his study.
Somewhere close to the northeastern coast of the continent, a small dungeon pulsed with mana. The epicenter being a tiny room where an egg sized blue dungeon core was stabilizing.
The quality and density of mana in the dungeon increased at a steady rate, causing all dungeon inhabitants to feel extra comfortable. Some grew others reproduced. An oversized bat just stuffed his face with Gem Berries.
Finally the dust settled and the core flickered back to consciousness.
——— POV - DM Blueberry ———
Level up! Woohoo!
"Ding! New features available!"
I pull up the menu, and there it is. Biomes. Currently only have one: forest. Due to creating a semi-sustainable ecosystem using shop items from the forest category I can just designate an area of the dungeon to be forest and the critters, plants and mushrooms will be automatically purchased. I can obviously edit and customize, but this lets me easily get the ball rolling.
I set my whole current dungeon as forest, already was really.
With the higher mana quality I can actually expand again!
I decide to just naturally expand, that means all I need to do is gather mana and then push it outwards until it reaches the boundary. This has the added benefit of strengthening the walls.
I send my creatures out to gather again, including my snake. I buy another snake and send it out too.
Time flows by as the dungeon expands. I decide It's time for me to absorb all the goblin's treasures. My DP shoots up like a rocket! I spend a bunch of it on snakes, before padding out my other creature populations a bit.
"Ding! Chests and Loot unlocked"
Ah! I was wondering when I could start using that... This option showed up after I evolved, but was greyed out.
Dungeons are known to be places of danger as well as opportunity. What kind of cheapskate lowlevel noob dungeon doesn't have anything of value for those who enter it. Oh right. Me.
Time to change that.
I browse the menu and check out the new tool. It's got a very limited selection for what I can put in my chests. Mostly just coins.
I buy a chest and hide it in the goblins treasure room. Coins will slowly accumulate inside it until it is full. If emptied, and taken out of the dungeon, it can slowly refill itself over the course of a day. It's just a small chest after all.
As I'm fiddling with my new features I feel a slight nagging sense at the edge of my vision. Like twitching muscles, or an itch just out of reach. It's familiar. It beckons me to pour out my mana in expansion.
So I do.
Soon my vision, and therefore territory, gets a few islands added to it. Looking at them I see some things that makes me pause.
The first few are mushrooms growing in darkness. I buy and put down glowshroom next to them. Ah, turns out they are colonizer shrooms. Well that's fine. I'm assuming this is deeper in my cave, but it seems pretty empty for now.
Next are a few colonizer shrooms that are growing in an oddly bright place. There are pine needles and small plants everywhere. To one side I see part of a tree's root system breaking through the topsoil.
Is that? The outside forest?
I focus my mana in that direction for a while. It's hard to expand just with mana, I seem to need anchors to physically bind the space to me.
My mushrooms seem to fill that roll quite well. My mushrooms can take over this area by sending out spores. I buy more mushrooms of all sorts and place them at the entrance. Go forth and conquer!
As I take over more of the immediate surroundings, I can actually see another type of mushroom nearby that none of my critters have brought back yet... sigh.
I get a bunnyrat to fetch it. It's different because unlike my other mushrooms, it grows out horizontally like a shelf. It grows on trees and other locations. The bunnyrat spends some time gnawing on it before managing to remove it from its location. It melts after being tossed into my cave.
-Shelf mushroom: A polypore mushroom that forms a woody fibrous fruit.
Of course I need that! I buy a bunch and spread them around.
The final group of views that have been added to my dungeon are also in a cave. These however seem to be due to the meatshrooms. They are growing in a line from where they were first plucked, going deeper into the goblin lair. I remember that the spores from the meatshrooms are in their red "blood".
Ouch! One view got snuffed out, a goblin just picked it. It was a slightly uncomfortable experience, like plucking a hair from your eyebrows.
How dare you!
I'm feeling confident due to my snakes and recent level up... so I invest a good chunk of DP into colonizer shrooms and glowshrooms, and put them all in the goblin treasury.
Then I begin gathering as much mana as I can.
This should be fun.