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Dungeon Novel: Chapter Eight
🕑 Added 2021-01-05 13:10:07 +0000 UTCUnbound quickly moved onto killing the other skeleton, he created a large boulder in the ceiling above the trap it was trapped into before slowly removing the ceiling to drop it. The large boulder dropped, crushing the trapped undead beneath its weight.
The new absorption levelled up the one new pattern but revealed no more for a description or even a name. Unbound and Elvinia discussed what it could mean but understood that they could only wait for more incursions and similar undead.
The next point was Unbound had levelled up twice in the battles, he had doubled his mana pool and earned twenty-five shop points. Unbound saw them add to his previously earned 10 from an achievement.
More importantly was that he could soon level up to five and gain a new floor. Elvinia asked him to wait for the new floor before spending the points, stating that the new floor may unlock other options.
After waiting an hour expecting a new incursion, he moved back to his fighting pit to start evolving mobs. This time he changed the way, instead of large defenders to stop people attacking his core he moved to small insect hives. Their fast method of reproduction was unique in the dungeon, already developing tiny life force auras. Only a few wildcat kits had been born and only a single spider had eggs, Unbound was slightly disgusted seeing the male spider being devoured.
The rats were more populous but a lot of them had died being to close to the zombie which had reduced their numbers. So, Unbound had moved onto insects in the fighting pit, he spawned one nest in a far wall and slowly set up tiny gobblets of zombie flesh, increasing the amount as it spread towards the wall furthest from the ants nest.
He had idea to slowly try and build up his weakest creatures poison tolerance and resistance. If he could build a stable ecosystem that was largely immune to the fallout to battles taking place in his floors he would not have to constantly recreate the hives with his mana pool.
He set up small pieces of rat meat through the zombie flesh along with moss and mushroom pieces to try and push the nest to consume it or leave the poison alone and starve. He pumped small amounts of mana into the meat and moss as well, hopefully to spur the ant’s evolution.
It took several days, the ants moved towards the food and dragged it back to their nest, many workers died again and again and twice it was close to the entirety of the hive was wiped out, leaving only a queen and fewer than ten worker ants.
Slowly newer generations of ants changed, stronger shells, tougher pincers and stronger bodies, everything useful for the ants to survive but useless to Unbound until the fifth day when an ant walk over to a scrap of zombie flesh and started eating it. The ant’s carapace was a mottled purple, similar to the zombie and it excreted a small pool of paste as it ate the flesh.
Unbound was shocked, he expected the ants to become immune to the poison, not create a new type of ant to remove it. Several other ants joined the first and the zombie flesh was consumed at an accelerated rate. Unbound absorbed part of the excreted paste curiously and was surprised, instead of excrement it was a nutrient rich slurry. The pattern that it formed was completely different to the flesh pattern it started as.
Unbound kept the experiment going, several different types of insects, and they developed immunity to the necrotic poison whereas the ants changed themselves to make a new ant ale to change the hive’s environment.
He used a different hive and placed them in a new room with near microscopic pieces of food and bare rock. After finding the right level of food for the adaption to take place he watched as fewer and fewer ants left the nest. He looked inside the nest and saw several worker ants clamouring over larger ants that ate mana and produced food.
“Elvinia?” He called feeling her shock. “Isn’t that what I do because I am a dungeon?” He asked. She nodded dumbly. Unbound felt excitement and the next two weeks were filled with experiments.
Two weeks later had several different ant breeds, resistant to near everything he had access to. Weight, hunger, poison, heat (from the fire affinity gem) and a species of water dwelling ants that swam and ate algae.
The strangest species though was the one he placed near the void elemental. The tiny pieces of void residue that the being left when it erased something had been absorbed into Unbound’s pocket dimension. He placed them gradually in larger quantities before the actual elemental and watched.
Elvinia disbelieved it could work and it didn’t at first. Then Unbound started pumping his own mana into the ants as they neared the residue. As the void residue was formed from his mana it couldn’t destroy it and the ants changed.
The workers could carry immense loads without ever showing it, no leaves held, and no dirt held in their pincers. Their carapace developed a greyer sheen and became far tougher too. The soldiers lost their own mandibles, and their natural weaponry was replaced by blades of void, they also developed a high regeneration rate to counteract the damage caused by the residue.
The queen held the largest change. It required a new Queen ant to be born before the voids influence showed upon her. The new queen was twice the size and egg production were exponentially growing, able to produce both the newest workers and soldiers it wasn’t a big change compared to what came next.
The queen ant could project the void residue, form small shields and blades with it, useless unless the queen was attacked put showed for possible evolutions before Unbound could try to put it to action Elvinia’s word brought his thoughts to a screeching halt.
“You can’t put those in the dungeon yet.”
“What? Why?” Unbound asked incredulous. “Nothing could destroy the ecosystem then; I wouldn’t have to worry about it for a long time.”
“And nothing will be able to eat the ants.” The fairy said simply, her face staring into his core calmly. “Your affinity isn’t fully able to be used by YOU yet and every other creature in the dungeon, excepting your core and the elemental will die upon contact.”
The remembrance that the void was so deadly brought Unbound’s plans to a halt. It was true. He had seen from the elemental that the void was stupidly deadly and while the ants had adapted with his help even, they were still harmed by it. The soldier’s massive regeneration was centred around where their new mandibles met their face for a reason.
With an unhappy mental huff Unbound moved onto the next order of business. Trying to create other elementals with his newest affinity gems.
