——— POV: DM Blueberry ———
Things have quieted down a little. The gobs upstairs are probably resting, so I've been expanding downwards and I've finally reached the cavern where the slime's were found. My mana is a little low at this point so I'm forced to do other things.
While I wait for my mana to regenerate, I cultivate using the slime cores. I've got around 7 of them left in my cultivation room (located at the back of the back of my original territory) having already sucked one dry.
What happens when the core is empty? It crumbles into fine colorful sand, which color is possibly dependent on the core's source creature's elemental affinity. Though that has yet to be verified. Either way, it looks fancy. Might be able to use it for something.
I keep cultivating.
I got about 6 wisps from that first core and I'm about halfway through the second core now. I'm sure it's having an effect. I feel more connected to my mana than ever, making it easier to control.
Something changes as I absorb the 10th wisp of energy. I feel discomfort as small blue flakes fall from my core before they too turn to shiny dust. Suddenly I feel soft and vulnerable and I realize that I've become slightly malleable. I'm no longer a perfect sphere as gravity distorts my shape. Using my 3rd person dungeon view, I see that I look like a tiny blue water balloon.
While in this condition, I grow about 20% larger. To fuel the growth, another 2 wisps are absorbed from the core I'm draining causing it to crumble too.
I feel pressure building up inside me until small grey droplets are pushed out of my rubbery body bringing me back to the nice egg sized core I was before. Once that happens, I start solidifying again.
Quickly, I use mana to press myself into a sphere shape before I get stuck as a blob. Holding that position for a while, I finally let out a sigh of relief and bask in the glory of yet another successful breakthrough.
"Ding! New features unlocked!"
Yeah baby!
I check it out. There are 2 things added.
- Share senses: look through the eyes of your minions, hear what they hear, experience the world from another perspective.
- Dungeon map: top down mental map of your territory. Can be toggled to show location of friendly and hostile creatures and other details.
Sweet! Now might be a good time to examine the dungeon's layout and plan for the future. It's been a little hard to wrap my head around the layout of my dungeon while depending on just vision.
We've got entrance 1: small hole hidden behind tall grass, gobs can squeeze through while carrying small loads. Then a snaking "S" tunnel, now covered with spiderwebs and a pit trap containing the trash-digesting slime.
Then we have the main cave space. It's like 2 circular spaces fused together. The smaller one has the pond (water channel brings rain water from outside) and most of the berry bushes. That's where I grow all the food plants like oats (which I haven't checked on recently) and gem and pill berries. I will refer to this space as the pantry.
The larger is where I grow my specialized plants, and is currently the temporary kitchen/dining/sleeping quarters. I also have the Rowan tree there. It's like a studio apartment. A little cramped, but cozy with all the decorations. I'll call it the office... for now.
The office also had a couple offshoots, my winding original crack in the wall and the tunnel that leads downwards. The goblins' old hideout (now collapsed) used to be a collection of small rooms, and used to share a brick wall with the larger cave space.
The tunnel that leads downwards does so at a mild slope as it curves its way deeper into the ground. Using letters to describe it I'd say it has a combination of sharp L blind corners and S curves. Perfect for traps and ambushes.
I haven't seen the slime cavern yet, but according to Trip, it's quite large. Possibly double the floor area of the "studio". Lots of stalactites and stalagmites, and a couple other tunnels that have yet to be fully explored.
I'm feeling energized by my breakthrough so I throw my mana towards the new cavern. Stronk has just reported smashing the last couple slimes there so it's all clear to go now. My gobs desperately need more living space so I push on like an unstoppable tide.
I feel countless small tingles from where the gobs spread spores and seeds. I focus on the closest ones, and soon they sprout into pockets of visible space that I slowly merge into the overall dungeon.
I've soon conquered half the room, but such mana expenditure levels can't be sustain any longer so it's back to the occasional wave until I've saved up more excess mana.
Time to check out the other feature!
This one I'm particularly excited about. I buy a couple more Eybats to attempt my plan of having drones. That's right! Modern machine equivalents using biotechnology.
I activate the skill and select one of the Eyebats in front of me. My mana responds and pours into the creature's eyes, much like what I did in my experiment. This time however, the eyes' color shifted from an orange-brown to a mystical blue-purple.
A few seconds later, I am looking around in multiple perspectives at once as the second Eyebat also is connected. The multitasking required to do use it effectively is a little surprising. It's like focusing on your laptop's screen where you have 2 windows side by side playing different YouTube videos at the same time as you read webnovels on your phone.
Keeping the skill active costs me mana, so I can't have too many connections at once if I still want my mana levels to rise.
With my commands being directly relayed into their mind it's like backseat driving while your younger cousins play a racing game on the wintendo. That is to say, although they definitely aren't moving how I want them to, they are at least going in the right direction.
I send Eye1 and Eye2 outside so I can finally see the surround area.
They eventually break through the webbed up tunnel and out into the open. More like I had to have the spider open a temporary path near the ceiling. Sorry.
Then I see it!
Beams of golden sunlight pierce through the foliage melting the frozen dew as the sun rises from behind the mountains in the distance. The faint white coating covering the abundantly growing mushrooms evidence of the seasons changing and colder days to come. For now though, the yellow-red leaves lead me to believe it is still fall.