Chapter 4 – Calming The Mountains And Attacking The Foe

Luckily, I was able to stabilize myself with my mana. This held me down making me unable to tumble off the edge. The rumble subsided and after waiting a while I calmed down.

Though to my dismay, it returned later, even stronger than before. Small cracks began to split apart the smooth surface of my core room. I was shocked and tried everything to calm the earth. I infused my mana into the surrounding stone, strengthening it. Though this only held for a while.

The mountain began to shift again, making the hardened stone burst into sharp projectiles.

One of them hit my core, making me jump in fear. My evolution saved me from my untimely death, having hardened the shell of my core.

I continued to try to calm the earth around me while protecting myself from the falling debris. The mountain began to rumble rhythmically. Stopping for a day or so, only to fall back into its cycle.

While searching for the source of the problem, I spread my influence inside the hardened stone. Once I reached past my last layer of defense, my domain expanded through the brittle and shaking rock. The fine cracks between the stone allowed my influence to spread even faster.

It was now getting precarious. I had to hold my dungeon together for quite some time.

I was slowly getting exhausted. The stone bordering the walls of my dungeon was now very durable. I had infused a large part of my mana into the rock.

It was now slightly black in color and had a reflective sheen to it. Though it was not indestructible. Once or twice a day the rumbling mountain would split off a piece of the stone.

Even though I felt quite safe under the solid shield of the dungeon stone, I still search for the source of the rumbling. After another month I finally reached the cause of my dilemma.

From the depths of the ground, liquid earth was spilling forth. It melted its way through the stone and shifted the mountain. The pressure behind the lava was enormous.

Now that I knew what the reason for my problem was, I pondered a solution. The main tube of magma wasn’t far away from my core room. This fact felt very unsettling to me, but also presented a solution.

If I was to hollow out premade paths for the lava to flow into, it wouldn’t need to split apart the rock. Thus ending the rumbling of the mountain. It was a risky endeavor, but worthwhile if it succeeded.

I build winding tunnels and large caverns for the lava to flow into. They would not only serve to calm the mountain but present me with another habitat I could use in my expansion.

Once I finished building the necessary rooms, I opened the tunnels for the magma to flow into. They broke through the thin borders and ran along the premade riverbeds. Once I first made direct contact with the lava I was invigorated.

The molten earth brought with it large amounts of mana, lying dormant deep within the earth. Not waiting for someone to invite me, I hungrily consumed the banquet.

During my meal I noticed the pressure the lava was under diminish. I concluded that this was due to me absorbing the mana that fuelled its rapid expansion. The mana I consumed also brought me over the edge and I was again ready to evolve.

I looked within me and found the information of what I was about to become. Due to a large amount of foreign mana and the threat of the spiders I had something special.

The evolution from a Zone Dungeon to a Battlezone Dungeon would make me vastly more powerful overall. But it too allowed me some new abilities.

Not only was I able to have 5 more zones but I also had something very intriguing. Attackers. They were a special type of dungeon monster I could use to attack others outside of my terrain.

Starting my experimentation into attackers I send the first willing test subject outside of my domain. Once out it immediately lost connection and even though I ordered it to come back a day later, it did not arrive.

The next test was altered slightly. One mouse was ordered to immediately retreat once it stepped outside. The experiment was successful and provided me with much-needed data.

Once one of my creatures left my domain, its mana would slowly be reattuned to the outside. This was what was cutting off my connection to them.

I tested further with larger creatures and evolved ones. The larger ones showed similar results to the small mice, only taking longer to fully reattune. Only the evolved ones showed interesting results.

Instead of me immediately losing connection they stayed interlinked to me. Their higher-quality mana resisted the transformation for quite a while. After which its connection to me abruptly stopped. With the barrier destroyed the change began, taking roughly as long as the large creatures.

Having finished my testing, I created a special unit I would infuse with the new attacker knowledge. This would not only allow them to be more inclined with my more offensive needs but would increase their deployment time.

To create them I influenced the evolution of one of my creatures. The creature was a descendant of the newly acquired wolf family. The attacker ability I got from the evolution allowed me to heavily modify my attacking unit.

They had the main body of the wolf. Their head was a mixture of bat and wolf, while the carnivorous tooth remained. The ears though changed to those of the bat and their fur turned black. From the creature’s shoulder blades two large furred bat wings made their way down its length. The tail flattened and ended in a steering sail, helping the creature cut sharp corners.

I named my new attackers the minicugas. They were streamlined for efficiency, speed, stealth, and power. Their summoning process was significantly costlier. They were a very rare first evolution of the wolves and used a lot of mana. To make them longer lasting, I infused them with tier 2 quality mana, instead of the normal tier 1 mana. This made them more resilient to attunement and protected their overly large mana pools.

Having finished the creation of my new attackers I concentrated on the new hot environment I got access to. The lands of molten earth, volcanos, magma, and lava were welcoming me in.

This new environment also allowed me greater control over fire and lava mana. I used this knowledge to further finetune my existing zones. Infusing some of the stone with lava mana and increasing the heat of some of the zones.

With the new environment also came a rush of information regarding the habitat of fire and magma creatures. Now that I had embraced the element of lava and fire, the mountain had calmed down. I had an iron hold over the magma tube running into my domain. I also had some ideas for the long tube into the depths.

I created a new zone after the fifth and experimented around with the newfound knowledge. I rerouted the lava to fall down as hot rain, boiling any intruders, similar to waterfalls. Or I created large lava lakes dotted with obsidian stone.

The lavafalls planted an idea inside my head. What if I used the environment to defend myself against the intruders, instead of letting them fight against my inhabitants. I quite liked this idea and tried out different possibilities.

I created a brittle floor, which would break on contact. The falling intruder would then be submerged in the lava pool flooding the bottom part of the shaft. Another trap, this time not magma-themed, had me rebuild some of my tunnels.

I would order my defenders to push a large stone over a small ledge. The stone would then begin the roll down the sloped tunnel catching the intruders by surprise.

While testing different lava traps, I created a new creature. I tried to infuse a glob of magma with mana, to make a lava bomb, when I felt the mana condense.

The mana flew into the center of the glob and formed a small core. The lava around it fell under the core’s control and started to form a shape. It looked like a miniature hill, moving around similar to a snail but certainly faster. It hunted by camouflaging itself in the lava lakes and jumping any creature coming near the edge.

Using this magma glob as a basis I carried out some tests. While some of the resulting abominations were not meant to be, others would certainly further the strength of my defenses.

A particularly large glob I infused with the information of a wolf. It then transformed into a small lava pup. A fast and agile predator of any fire attuned ecosystem.

I put my experimentation to a temporary halt to have a look at the increasing number of intruders. I did expect the number to swell due to the increased mana quality, but the intruders nearly overwhelmed my first zone.

To circumvent this, I redirected some of the earliest tunnels directly to my second and third zones. This lets the first zone’s ecosystem calm down and flow back into the masterfully crafted equilibrium.

To get behind the reason for the many intruders I had a look at their memories. While some of them, as predicted, sought out my dungeon due to the high-quality mana, others didn’t. They were relocating, being chased from their habitats by the invasive spiders.

They had already crossed the river and now pressed forwards, towards my dungeon. I thought of a plan to delay the spider’s inevitable arrival and found several solutions.

My most radical one involved using my newfound skill in the manipulation of magma to transform the mountain into a volcano. This would certainly halt the spiders’ advance but was too risky for me.

Not only would I destroy the environment around me, stopping the steady flow of mana from the intruders. But I would also risk collapsing my tunnels or causing cave-ins because of the mountain resuming its rumbling and shifting.

Having thoroughly destroyed this possibility I took a closer look at my second one.

An obvious and easy solution, I could just send my attackers in. Honestly, I just looked at the first possibility because of how absurd it was. I send the minicugas out for their first mission.

They would push the spiders back heavily at first and then immediately return.

I send them out thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Even though my time flow was significantly faster I couldn’t await their return.

At the next daybreak, they returned. A quarter of their forces died in the initial strike and only 15 of them remained. I looked through their memories and experiences while fighting. I then used the information to finetune my next batch and make my dungeon an anathema against these spiders.

The large squad of, now 30, attackers were sent out again. They now should only slow the spiders’ advance and gain important information. Once every day they were ordered to come back and renew their mana barrier.

I was happy with how my second solution turned out and relieved I didn’t have to use more radical means. I let the daily routine continue. The minicugas would return every morning, being a nice change to the now normal intruders. During this time, I planned out my next floor and tested new lava monsters.

Once per week I would take a detailed look at the current clashing point of the two forces. Occasionally improving and optimizing the minicugas.

Mostly the coming months were peaceful. Until this morning.

One squad of my attackers was wiped out, the spiders had begun to push forward. The day the spiders would enter my domain was closer than I thought!!!