Day 25
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I stare proudly at my newest creation. It's another plant. What can I do, I work with what I've got. It's a variant of my newest edition to the shop, and it's edited beyond recognition.
After the brutes dropped off the second half of the small tree last night I finally unlocked it in the shop:
- Rowan tree: a common tree that bears clusters of red berries. Believed to provide protection from witches.
To start out I bought a couple small saplings. The first grows at the center of my early cave area right outside where my first boundary was. It grows rather slowly, but nothing some mana can't help!
It soon grows up to the top of the cave, somewhere around 3 to 4 meters tall. Clusters of flowers bloom before they give way to small red berries.
Nice. That'll feed my entire bird population and more.
I move to the second tree and pull up the editor. It's currently reached a height of 1.5m but I shrink its max height down to the size of a small shrub. The extra energy is absorbed and stored as EP as the tree shrinks down to about only half a meter tall.
Time to cull useless features. Flowers and berries, don't need it. Selecting the ability to propagate through cuttings instead is cheaper anyway. Leaves seem good for the most part so I only edit the leaf at the tip of each stem. Already long and serrated, I double down on those features and boost the length up to around 15 to 20cm long. I only keep 1 edge serrated and sharpen the other edge.
Some people might guess what I'm going for by now, so I'll go ahead and say it. A dagger/spearhead plant. That's right, it's time to arm my little gobs.
Each plant will only grow a single weapon each cycle, though 'ripe' ones attached to the plant will not hinder new growths even if they remain on the plant.
The rest of the EP is funneled into hardening and strengthening the leaf blade. It took a few tweaks to get the stats balanced right. Some ended up too hard and were brittle, others were too flexible and floppy.
The first successful prototype that grew is already in use in the kitchen. Stewbag poked his head into the room right as it matured as if intuitively aware of it happening. The rusty old cleaver was tossed aside and absorbed by the dungeon after he confirmed that the leaf blade was indeed superior.
Yesterday was really productive, but something has been bothering me.
It's not the lower cave systems, the slime extermination project is going great. I purchased another gob this morning to help them. I want Trip and Trap free to help me with some proper scouting soon.
It's the hunting team. Stron'kest and his 3 goons have yet to return. I know a hunt can last for days, but ain't nobody got time for that.
While I still hope for their success, I prep for the worst and summon an extra 2 goblins using the DP gained from whacking slimes. I arm them with leaf daggers before having them climb a tree outside to keep a lookout. Now that I've got citizens that would actually cost a lot to replace, I've got to up the security.
It's times like these that I wish my vision extended further outside. Currently it drops off really quick after reaching the surface. Although my mushrooms have spread and propagated into the surrounding woodland, my dungeon is struggling to conquer the outdoors. It's like my mana is just evaporating and dispersing when outside of the cave.
Any new territory outside costs me about 10 times as much as 'indoor' expansion does, and that's not even permanent. The extra land slowly reverts back to its independence over time as my mana just dissipates.
Trip and Trap finally finish training the newest slime smashing gob and are free to help me out.
I give them some charred sticks and paper before sending them into the forest asking them to carefully scout out the surroundings and make a rough map. I need to know what we're dealing with here and what resources are available.
As they head off I'm once again struck with the realization that only the gobs are slightly useful now. The other critters are having a hard time competing for contribution, most only ending up as part of the food chain supporting the gobs' diet.
Well that's got to change. I start with reworking my favorites.
Ants, my only reliable workforce for a long time. They are already bigger and stronger than originally but I decide to edit them anyway. I take 1 of my several queens along with her entire colony and have them gather in one place for a bit.
Covering them with my mana, I infuse them with evolutionary potential. What I can add through mana soaking is not as efficient as what they gain from eating so it's better to let them naturally build up potential before spending it.
I spend the EP available on size and strength. Soon they have reached he about size of a small beetle. I upgrade their mandibles, legs and other parts in a well rounded overall boost.
The new ants have tripled in size, becoming 3cm long disciplined chomping machines. Ratface the first invader would have been shredded if I had these earlier. Finally different enough from the base species, they are listed as soldier ants. Cant wait until they eat enough for the next assisted evolution.
"Noice!" I send them back to work. I chuckle as the newly buffed queen leads her troops to conquer the anthill currently closest to the berry bushes. The fight is completely one sided. The losers soon bend the knee and the smaller queen abdicates, leaving in exile to the empty anthill by the entrance.
Shredder worms are next on the agenda. I gather a mound of Gem berries and pill berries and feed the 4 worms I've called to me. Infusing them with mana, I start editing them. The pill berries are extremely effective as the worms' EP effectively multiplies. I guess all they ate before was dirt and rocks so I shouldn't be too surprised.
Size and ability to dig is what counts here, though I do make sure to spend a little to increase their rate of laying eggs. By the time I'm done, they have grown until the tunnels they carve are large enough for my mice to use.
"Excellent!" I set them to digging again, but remind them to eat some berries regularly.
Spiders also get a size upgrade. I decide to split their evolution at this point by having them focus on either venom or web weaving.
Blueberry bushes are also not spared in the editing session. As the foundation of my ecosystem, I boost the nutrition levels and amount of EP stored in the berries along with a faster rate of growth.
Whew! I do a few minor tweaks on other things but I'm feeling a little fried so I take another long slurp from the slime core.
"Ahhh!"