Sela finally finished imparting what her new racial memories termed “basic dungeon knowledge”. She found this term insulting, how any dungeon fae manages to teach an infant core without losing some hair was beyond her. That said, she was pleased with the changes Aby had made with her help. Having gathered two new creatures, made it possible to have kobolds, and collected a few more types of mana coral, the caves finally started resembling what she knew of dungeons.

The walls were illuminated by a soft prismatic light, mana coral shining the usual myriad colors, despite being wholly disconnected from any sunlight. How it managed to grow without natural light, or produced Abys apparent endless mana supply was beyond her, though she was anything but upset. Even though she had her worries about accidentally overloading itself with mana, she had seen Aby playing around with quantities of mana that put some of the fifty floor dungeons in her memories to shame. This was very good, as once some of the other creatures in the reef take notice of Abys cave, they’ll need every chance they can get.

Oddly, when Sela suggested making its dungeon more than three floors to start, Aby had vehemently denied her. She knew from her memories that dungeons tended to make floors in batches, the number created growing larger as the dungeon ages, but she had assumed this to be due to mana limitations; something Aby does not suffer from in the slightest. Instead it appeared to be an instinctual process, where some threshold must be met before the dungeon adds more floors, that threshold being something that Aby either withheld or itself doesn’t know.

For now, Sela was content with wandering up and down the various caves, interacting with the various creatures on display and weaving around through the different corals. Giving the kobolds a wide berth, despite them appearing to be nothing but respectful toward her, she went to the entrance of the cave system, enjoying the true sunlight coming through the shaft, despite the shadows that was cast down the center of the light, and Abys repeated attempt at communication.

Only after realizing the shadow was in fact not a cloud did she pay attention. Turning around slowly, she saw something that made her blood run cold.

Metallic grey in color, the toothed jaws on either side appeared to have a wicked edge, antennae stiffly waving around as it swam slowly downward. A body that stretched the entire four meters of the entrance shaft and still had more body that had yet to make its appearance, the Bobbit Worm had decided to investigate the rich amount of water mana coming from the hole when it spied her. Turning around and bolting as quickly as her body would allow, she felt the centermost antenna brush against her tail, only to have the fins at the very bottom of her tail lose all sensation, the searing pain of having a fin severed nearly causing her to lose consciousness. Not daring to turn around, she kept swimming, even if her speed was greatly reduced.

Through her bond with Aby she could make out many things, Curiosity to the worm, anger at its bold attack, and what drove her forward, a genuine concern for Sela. Feeling its pursuit, she dashed through two fan corals, hoping to lose it in the patch of seaweed. She turned around just in time to watch one of the seahorses she passed be cut in half, the worm not even bothering with the carcass as it dissolved into motes of light.

She continued forward, rushing toward the next floor, or to Aby, or anywhere that wasn’t the serrated maw of the monstrosity behind her. That’s when she heard the splashing ahead and to her right. Almost giving into despair, she stopped to turn and face her demise, only to see a muddy yellow scaled hand dart past, and grip the worm behind its head. Skittering past, she looked down at her tail, seeing a diagonal cut remove almost a centimeter of the end, her blood still seeping out.

She turned back to the fight just in time to watch the worm struggle out of the kobolds grip and attach itself to her wrist. The other two were only a moment behind the first, clawing and grabbing at the multi-segmented demon, yanking it off the first only to have her hand cut down to the bone, a gnarly wound that made Sela almost grateful she came out of it how she did. Once all three kobolds had arrived, the worm gave a mighty struggle, lashing and snapping and cutting, drawing blood more than once, but it was all for naught once the first kobold had ripped off one of its jaws. Swiftly after, the beast floated lifelessly on the surface in the middle of the group of kobolds, wounds still oozing their green blood, as they howled and celebrated.

The revelry was infectious, and Sela found herself clapping and cheering for her heroes, the stress and adrenaline keeping the pain at bay for a moment longer. Even the lone remaining seahorse seemed invigorated, lashing the worm as its life slowly faded away, the final spasms giving way to it finally going limp, and then dissolving into light, most of it making its way to Aby on the third floor, with but a small portion being split by the survivors. Even Sela got a portion, feeling her tail tingle, then the missing fin slowly regrow, though a much lighter color than the rest of her tail. Once all of the creatures got a bit of that light, they dispersed, the kobolds going back to sparring. Sela began to turn around and make her way to Aby when the seahorse started shining once more. Knowing what this meant, Sela rushed up to its glowing figure, curious and excited for Abys first evolved creature.

Aby heaved a metaphorical sigh of relief, watching all its kobolds finally put an end to that Bobbit Worm, as it now knew the name. The beast’s demise was confirmed by the voice of the world, and Sela escaped it, even if she couldn’t avoid the damage to her tail.

You can now spawn “Giant Bobbit Worm”

Congratulations! Your creature “Common Reef Seahorse” has reached the threshold for evolution! Options available:

Greater reef seahorse:

A common reef seahorse resides at the bottom rung of its habitat. The greater reef seahorse improves on this only barely, remaining slow, and mostly helpless.

Giant Reef Seahorse: A common reef seahorse in everything but size, its strength and durability have both gone up, though still negligible at best. Moreover, both its speed and hiding capability have been reduced drastically.

Aby was contemplating both options, though neither appealed to it much. The greater option seemed to be the option to go for, but just as it was finalizing that choice, one more notification appeared to it.

Congratulations! Due to your titles “Randomizer” and “Invasive”, along with the hidden conditions “Consume blood with a trace of the dragon bloodline” hidden evolution has been unlocked!

Greater Scaled Seahorse: Dragons are widely acknowledged as both some of the strongest, and the most diverse beasts, with their blood being compatible with most any existing beast, strengthening it vastly.

Aby wasn’t sure exactly what it meant to strengthen a seahorse “vastly” but that sounded much better than both of the other options, and as such, Abys first evolved beast came to be.

Aby was very curious to watch this process occur, it appeared a little different than what Sela experienced. Once the light enshrouding the seahorse reached its brightest, it started to be drawn inward into the seahorse, until all that remained was a common seahorse that seemed to glow. It remained that way for only a short time, however, before it started to grow slightly bigger, its pasty matte pink skin shifting color to be a vibrant green as scales began to grow in definition. Its body began elongating subtly, its tail growing thicker to match the width of its midsection, as well as growing its fins out slightly bigger. Its long snout slowly changed shape as well, thickening and changing length until it appeared more similar to a gars mouth than anything one would find on a seahorse. The changes finally ended, leaving Aby and Sela both intently inspecting the new creature. Slightly more streamlined, and vaguely more menacing, it seems less a seahorse and more a newly hatched predator.

Both Aby and Sela were pleased with this, as Sela cheered once more, and Aby created a common seahorse for the new one to test its mettle on. The results were mostly as one could imagine, ending up with the second seahorse of the day being cut in half, and the new creature moved to the second floor.

Additionally, Aby got Sela to join it in the core room, telling her its plans to expand once more, adding an additional three floors, and hopefully gaining new creatures and evolutions.