Once she fully awoke from her upgrade, Ira took the time to look over new notifications. In addition to the additional Trait Point she had acquired, she saw that her mana had increased as well. She also had some improvements in her general stats.
With the increased core level, her Intelligence had increased greatly, to 15. Her Strength and Agility stats had both increased to 8. She still wasn’t entirely certain how those would come into play. Her Constitution Score was now 12. It seemed to track more directly with her core level. Now that she had creatures under her control, she knew what the stats meant, but was uncertain how they applied to a living crystal.
Through constant use, her skills had all gone up a bit as well. Mana Sense, Mana Manipulation, Absorption, and Interface were all rank 7 now. She had also unlocked the Possession skill, but it was still sitting at rank 0. She could use it, but she wasn’t very good at it yet.
Her status screen now had a section dedicated to dungeon specific stats as well. It indicated that she had absorbed one creature, the garden snake, and learned its pattern, and that she had two creatures, both snakes, currently under her control.
The section describing creatures she had absorbed, and thus knew how to create, was divided by type as well. That didn’t mean a lot yet, but she suspected that it was significant.
Another significant stat was listed alongside her core level of 2. Size < (less than) 1. As she focused on that stat, she felt her Akashic link trait activate, and the information began to form itself in her mind. She understood that this was information that would normally come to her at higher core levels, but size had to do with the internal area of her dungeon. It was effectively a combination of the number and size of rooms and hallways that were a part of her and her controlled space.
For a moment, as it dawned on her that she was very much an infant, she felt very alone. She was literally small and alone in this world. She realized that she would need to grow and get strong. She would be slow at first, not wanting to invite danger until she could protect herself, but she needed to grow.
She spent some time thinking through her next move. She started by absorbing the stone above her, collapsing all of the small tunnels above her into a single open area. She wasn’t reaching out to her new range just yet, but rather consolidating the space that was in her range before her most recent transformation.
With the materials she collected from this, she filled in the tunnels immediately bellow her, creating a firm foundation for her pedestal before she began to consolidate the tunnels in the rest of the area around her as well. She took it a tunnel at a time, and was careful not to harm her snakes in the process, but she slowly converted the tunnel system into a single cube shaped room, lowering herself as she went, by shortening her pedestal.
As she finalized the structure of the new cube shaped room, she heard a trumpet sound and a rush of energy flowed through her. A notification was flashing brightly in her vision. Flashing in bright gold letters, she saw the words “You have reached a milestone.”
She focused on the notification and was taken to her status screen, where she received the message that she had reached Size 1. This had pushed her Mana Pool up to 21, and her Energy Pool to 36. She was amazed. Her mana and energy pools had been rather vague before. Now that she had reached Size 1, she had much more access to her mana. It was as if she had needed more space for her mana to flow effectively, and of course her energy was tied directly to her mana.
As she looked at the space around her, she realized that the room was now long enough on each side for one of her snakes to stretch out entirely. She understood that she was still small, but she was larger than she had ever been. She decided to create a third snake. She created a snake-sized tunnel leading north and up from her core room.
She ordered the first two snakes to guard her core. The third one, she focused on until she was able to take possession. She could feel that the possession was not perfect, but it didn’t have to be. Her mana constructs would do their best to follow her orders anyway.
Watching through the snake’s eyes, she sent it through the tunnel to the north, causing a section of the tunnel to close behind it to ensure nothing could get in without her control. She understood that the snakes she could create could not dig naturally, but that was ok as long as they had enough mana to continue existing, she could activate her abilities in their presence.
While the snake was moving through the tunnels she was creating, heading in the direction of an open area just beyond her reach, she encouraged her mana to flow into it. She suspected she could pack enough mana into the creature, as small as it was, for it to be able to last for at least several hours once it left her area of influence. She also understood that exercising her abilities through the snake, once it left her sphere of influence, would expend that mana more quickly.
She noticed that the snake grew slightly as it absorbed more energy. When it reached the edge of her territory, it kept moving forward. She continued channeling energy to tunnel ahead of it, but didn’t create dungeon stone as she went. Shortly, the snake broke through into a large open area. Looking around, it was larger than any place she had imagined, and the area was surrounded by stone.
It was a massive cave, or at least massive to her. She couldn’t wait until she had enough power to absorb this cave and make it her own. She focused on linking her mind to the snake’s other senses as well. She heard dripping, and she smelled the damp air. She heard creatures skittering around, and looked to see what it was.
Though the source of the sound was not immediately obvious, Ira could tell that the snake was in an entirely different environment from her small home. She took a bit of time to actually adjust to her snake’s senses. That would be more effective now that the snake was outside of her normal sphere of influence and she couldn’t just “look” easily from the snake as a part of her dungeon.
Her snake’s eyes were not great in the low light, but as she approached the sound she heard the sound of dripping water, and the ground became soft and cool. A soft glow could be seen in the distance.
As the snake came closer to the glow, she could see soft glowing moss covering the ground, as well as glowing mushrooms of varying sizes. There was a pool of water there, that had various creatures swimming around in its depths. One of those creatures leapt from the water’s surface and caught a flying creature that was buzzing above it.
Ira was in awe. She decided to try something. She had the snake dig its snout into the glowing moss, and bite off a mouthful and swallow it. It took several moments to swallow the moss, but it eventually made its way to the snake’s stomach. Next the snake slithered up to a glowing mushroom, slightly larger than its head. It opened its mouth wide, and took the mushroom into its mouth. It was an odd sensation, feeling the mushroom go down the creatures throat. Ira knew not to panic though. She understood that this creature could swallow things larger than this mushroom. It had simply never had the need to do so before now.
The creature looked up at the sound of movement. A large beetle with a single large horn on it’s head, was coming towards it. She wasn’t sure if the beetle was dangerous or just curious, but she didn’t want to take the chance, or pass up the opportunity. With a surge of energy, she activated the snake’s “swallow” ability, and pushed the mushroom instantly the rest of the way into the snake’s stomach. This wasn’t the creature’s natural ability to swallow large things, but rather a dungeon creature ability that was able to carry out the task much more quickly. It had come at a cost, however. The snake would have to return to her territory soon, or it would effectively evaporate, and she would lose not only the items it carried within its belly, but the mana she spent in creating it as well.
She could get away with using the ability again, though, before it returned. So, that is what she did. When the glowing rhinoceros beetle came to investigate the new creature in it’s realm, the snake lunged out and swallowed it. The creature was caught by surprise, and didn’t even have the chance to dodge.
It struggled within the belly of the snake, but it was futile. The snake was already making its way back to the dungeon’s territory before the beetle stopped moving.
She led the snake back to the tunnel it had exited. Once it made its way into the tunnel, she closed it off behind it and then reopened the tunnel leading to the core room. Ira was rather pleased with herself. Not only had her idea worked to allow the snake to safely leave and return, but she had collected samples as well. As the snake made its way back to the core room, the beetle in its belly finally stopped struggling. When it did she received a notification. The notification text flashed in green within her vision.
“Notification. Glowing Rhinoceros Beetle has died. +1 Experience.”
Oh! She had gained experience for the kill.
Moments later another notification appeared. “Your garter snake has swallowed unfamiliar items. Absorb them? Yes/No?”
The answer was obvious. She chose immediately to absorb everything the snake had swallowed. Green notifications appeared on her screen for each of the absorbed organisms.
“Notification, You have absorbed [Glowing Rhinoceros Beetle] .”
“Notification, You have absorbed [Glowing Mushroom]. ”
“Notification, You have absorbed [Glowing Moss].”
Once she dismissed the notifications, a new gold notification caught her attention. Glowing gold in the corner of her vision was the message “Notification. You have gained a dungeon feature.”
She focused on the notification and it brought up a features window within her status interface. On the list was [Glowing Dungeon Stone] . It gave her the ability to create dungeon stone, and thus dungeon walls, that had a soft glow to them. This would allow creatures that needed light to see to function more efficiently within her dungeon.
While it might take her time to understand the full implications, she was pleased with this achievement.
Once she was finished looking over her new achievements, she took a look at her dungeon.
She understood that if she was going to grow, and become stronger, she was going to have to open herself up more. She had gained a bit of experience from her outing, but she was uncertain if that would have happened if the beetle had not survived until returning to her controlled zone. Something in the back of her mind also told her that her power was somehow muted as long as she was closed off.
Her tiny, one room dungeon was a pristine and safe place, where she could control everything that occurred, but its growth was slowed and its power was limited. She would not move too quickly though. She was still fearful of the outside world, and suspected she had room to grow still without putting herself at too much risk. But, as she grew, she would need to take more risks in order to move forward.
To start, she understood that she needed more materials and energy to grow. She allowed her mana to flow into the ground around her one small room. She manipulated the mana into the form of a larger space, doubling the dimensions of the room on each axis. Once she was satisfied, she began to absorb all that her mana had soaked into, forming dungeon stone walls around the new larger space. It was now twice as wide, twice as long, and twice as high. She got a notification informing her that the size of her dungeon was now 4. She understood that the size of her core room before this expansion was significant. It was clearly the base unit that the dungeon would be measured by. Though, it seemed likely that the height of the room was not as big of a factor as the other dimensions. Otherwise her growth would have been greater.
She focused on the notification and her status screen appeared before her. That was when she noticed a new statistic.
Size: 4 (Rooms 0, Tiles 4)
She was confused. She had one room. It was a large room at that. She wondered what the system thought size of a “room” was. She allowed her energy to refill over time, and once it neared full she expanded her mana out once more, planning the new boundaries of the room. She would add a unit to each dimension. Soon she had allowed her mana to flow into an area that would raise the size of the room to a cube, three units to a side.
As she absorbed the stone she had been gathering, and formed the walls allowing the space to settle into a room, she received a notification:
Notification: Milestone Achieved. First room.
Notification: Milestone Reward: Blueprint Store Activated.
Notification: Dungeon Construction Category added to Blueprint Store.
Notification: Blue Print Learned: Square Archway.
That was a lot of information all at once. She focused on the concept of Blueprints, and her status screen came up to a new section. She was looking at a listing of blueprints that she already knew. The list was short, only five items. [Garden Snake], [Glowing Rhinoceros Beetle], [Glowing Mushrooms], [Glowing Fungus], and [Square Archway]. The square archway was a feature to help control the appearance of her Dungeon. It would open a tunnel, one unit wide and one unit deep, leading from one of her already controlled spaces.
The listing didn’t have any apparent organization yet, but that was likely because she only had five items. There was a tab at the top of the Blueprints page for the Blueprints Store. She focused on it, and the screen changed. There was only one category available, and that was [Dungeon Construction]. Here she had access to purchase blueprints for various types of archways, stairways, ladders, doors, and other things that she could create from stone. Additionally, there were blueprints for bioluminescent light sources as well. She suspected that those were available because she had gathered various glowing organisms.
When she focused on the [Shops] tab, she was taken to a mostly empty screen informing here that she had access to a single shop, and she zero dungeon points with which to purchase things from the store.
She had no clue what dungeon points were, really, or how to get them. So, lacking any better idea, she focused on the [Dungeon Points] entry, and sure enough, it brought her to another screen.
It seemed she could convert materials and experience points to [Dungeon Points] . Creatures and items as well. Once her mana pool was larger, she could also use mana. She suspected there would be limitations though. After all, if she could just expend mana to get [Dungeon Points] then she could grow very fast with few limits. Or maybe she was overthinking things. After all, as her mana pool grew the time to refill it would grow as well.
Things she made now mostly used energy, and only one or two mana to make them more real. That was probably why she could use creatures to get [Dungeon Points]. They represented a real mana cost. She suspected that using them in that way would forgo the mana she would normally receive when a creature died in her dungeon, even one of her own.