Aby's thoughts seemed to jolt, a burst of information being relayed to the gem that sent it out of its half-conscious state of background running. It took but a second to review this information, finding that whatever mental blockade kept it from expanding had crumbled, allowing it the option to create two large new floors. It excitedly relayed this news to Sela, who came rushing to its core room shortly after.

It had been a few days now since anything noteworthy occurred, the invaders that had arrived hadn’t been enough to warrant any actual attention, and the most interesting thing to occur was a Giant Reef Moray who had decided to try and attack what it thought was a shoal of normal yellowtail snapper, only to be met with a very rude and very yellow correction.

So when they had news that something would bring this dull monotony to an end, both were excited. Aby had a few ideas for its next few floors, each a proof of concept to determine if it could have a little more variation moving forward, and so it picked the two it most wanted to try. The first would be a space truly resembling the open seas, a place Sela had told it stories of.

The entrance shaft would be much deeper, nearly twenty meters down, in order to have a thicker layer of “ceiling” and minimize the chance of collapse. The entire space would be vast, almost four kilometers around and fifty meters deep, it was by far the largest floor it had ever made, only possible so early on thanks to its perpetual mana. It wanted to make the floor even larger, but found that it couldn’t muster up enough mental power to cover that entire area as well as the rest of its dungeon.

It was dejected, but knew that as it gained more floors, it would be able to make areas that put that to shame. As it thought of this, it cheered up, and set about making the lighting for this floor. This would be the first time not using mana coral for that purpose, instead deciding to make use of something that dungeons are naturally capable of; mana lighting. Deciding to make a singular source of light in the center of its room to mimic the sun, it now had the appearance of a stretch of open-ocean, along with the lack of anything that seemed to be alive to go along with that.

It would correct that later, using the few creatures it had gotten that it knew to be open-water. For now, though, it was onto the tenth, and it wanted to do something even more special for this one. It made another deep entrance shaft, and hollowed out a space roughly a half kilometer wide, and ten meters deep. It filled the bottom around the edges with a few different species of coral, forming a small ring, and then lowered the temperature drastically.

The water started freezing, crystals of ice forming on the branches or folds of the various corals, breaking off and floating upwards, some melting whilst other clumped together at the surface. The corals, for their parts, died rapidly, but Aby was prepared for this, splitting its attention between freezing the waters and continually regenerating the corals a little faster than they could die.

As it continued doing this, the clumps of ice on the surface became sheets, and those became a thin crust across the entire floor. The coral too underwent changes, the vast range of colors started to change, becoming various shades of blue to white, the hard corals tended to be a dark blue, while the soft corals were a frosty light blue, or even a snowy white. They stopped dying as quickly, then entirely, as they became something entirely new.

Congratulations! You have created an entirely new Biome! Termed “Arctic Atoll”

You have earned the title “Adaptive”, and can now allow creations to adapt considerably to your new Personal Biome.

Congratulations! You have created your tenth floor, a large milestone in the life of every Dungeon!

Congratulations! Your tenth floor is a Personal Biome, something never before seen!

You have earned the title “Ambitious.”

Due to this being your first Personal Biome, your core has gained an affinity with a secondary transformation of water, Ice, and all future evolutions can be potentially influenced by this!

Aby wasn’t quite prepared for the influx of notifications it had received, though they were welcome just the same. It had wanted to try doing this for some time, ever since it saw that Frosted Moray, in fact. The fact that it worked had surprised the core slightly, but the deluge of benefits it had received for this success was entirely unexpected.

It gleefully shared this information with its faithful Fae, who was also rather shocked, however, her surprise stemmed from the fact that it had actually created a Personal Biome. She knew from her memories that most dungeons, or rather almost nothing at all, would never have one, although she supposed that having an entire ocean of biomes to experiment with could have tipped the scales slightly.

Aby was still pondering over what to do with its tenth floor even as it used the templates it had obtained from some Ocean fish eggs and larval stages that had washed in to scatter around its ninth. Unfortunately, it hadn’t received anything larger or more varied that it could use, but it would make do with what it could get, and allow what she had to make up for the rest.

It spawned a large number of baitfish like herring and a few predators like sailfish and tuna, and even some man-o-wars, something it had obtained entirely by chance when a turtle dragged one in. Both met their end soon after, though Aby now had something it was entirely unsure of what to do with the thing before now.

It also sent an intention to the barracudas, both the unevolved great barracudas and their silvery cousins found a large portion of their numbers making their way downwards, as did most of the rather limited numbers of reef sharks. They fit in well enough, though the name would have one thinking otherwise.

The now populated ninth floor remained sparse, with large empty areas, something that Aby knew to be the case even in the real open seas. There was no specific challenge to this floor, no mini-boss level creature, rather, it was a case of having to find the shaft downwards in the comparative darkness at the bottom, as well as actually being able to reach there with the little air on the floor, should the invader be of the lung variety.

Aby smiled internally, ready to play with its tenth floor. The ring of iced and frost corals, what the many varieties had come to be named, lined the edge of the floor, hugging the steep walls. They had retained the properties of the mana coral they had been birthed from, not only did they generate ever more mana, they were glowing with a soft, yet radiant blue light. The entire floor seemed to sparkle, lit by a pale blue. This ephemeral quality was only further when the polyps that composed them all began to release icy crystals intermittently, making the entire edge of the floor appear to be snowing upwards.

Moving past the edge, the seemingly barren center of the atoll became naturally deeper than the edges, reaching nearly twenty meters in depth at the very center, where the shaft to the next floor would come to be. For now, there was nothing there, Aby had put its core room off to the opposite end of the entrance shaft, and had no intentions to move it closer.

It brought down some of the Reef inhabitants from above, each seemed rather reluctant at first, but most of them began visibly changing to match the new environment. Some did this simply by gaining a new coloration, as well as becoming slightly fatter. Others went through more significant changes, with a few outright evolving.

Congratulations! Your creature “Greater Reef Seahorse” has fulfilled a hidden condition(s), allowing it to undergo a special evolution!

Conditions fulfilled:

Creator titles: Randomizer, Invasive, Adaptive, Ambitious

Special Evolution Available:

Frozen Crystal Seahorse

Crystal Seahorses are rarely seen in the reefs they inhabit. Not due to scarcity, or even to where they reside. Rather, they are simply incredibly adept at avoiding notice, having gained moderate illusionary properties on top of their transparent bodies. Being found amongst the ice and frozen reefs, this variant is even more elusive.

Aby chose the option, watching as the orange seahorse it had taken from the seventh floor swiftly lose all pigmentation, and then, definition. It appeared to simply become fuzzier, at first the internals were visible, but even that changed shortly after. It truly appeared like a piece of high quality crystal shaped into a living being. Then, the light around it seemed to twist, and it was truly difficult even for Aby, with its nigh omnipresence within the caves, to spot visually. Aby thought it truly unfortunate that it had the offensive capability of a seahorse.

Congratulations! Your creature “Silver-Streaked Barracuda” has fulfilled a hidden condition(s), allowing it to undergo a special evolution!

Conditions fulfilled:

Creator titles: Randomizer, Invasive, Adaptive, Ambitious

Special Evolution Available:

Icicle Barracuda

The Silver-Streaked Barracuda is a specialist at hit-and-run tactics, the minor illusionary properties of their scales and the high speeds they move make them hard to track and harder to stop. Taking this a step further, the Icicle Barracuda becomes translucent, allowing it to seemingly “melt” into the surrounding waters. Furthermore, their strikes now are frigid cold, bringing a new meaning to the term “frostbitten.”

Again Aby watched as the creature seemed to lose all hints that it was once solid, its body appearing to be the same as unblemished ice. Once it awoke, it truly did melt away, hard to discern against the frozen waters that surrounded it. For this creature, however, it was not to simply hide away.

Congratulations! Your creature “Aquatic Kobold Tamer” has fulfilled a hidden condition(s), allowing it to undergo a special evolution!

Conditions fulfilled:

Creator titles: Randomizer, Invasive, Adaptive, Ambitious

Appointed as a Floor Boss

Partnered with a highly compatible Creature

Special Evolution Available:

Frozen Waters Dragonkin

An example of what a moderately awakened draconic bloodline manifests as, this specific Dragonkin rules the frigid waters of the north with a powerful body and potent magical ability.

Aby felt the aquatic kobold to be the most suitable for its tenth floor, and that appeared to be the proper choice. The kobold got taller, its former hunched posture and nearly crocodilian features giving way to a being of two-point-three meters with a straight back and human face. A downy mane of feathers grew out from its formerly bald scalp, colored in a light blue, and its scales became a stark, frozen white. Its tail changed once more, a smaller version of the wyverns own, though lacking in the quill department. As it grinned, enjoying the newfound power it had access to, it showed off jaws lined in razor-sharp, dagger like teeth.

The moray, too, showed changes, though not through an overt evolution. Instead, it seemed to take on some features of the dragonkin it coiled around, its light blue skin showing a faint, scaly texture, and the fin that ran down its back growing spines at regular points. Its teeth grew more menacing, and it completed the image of a truly fearsome duo.

There were more changes, though these were the only three to gain access to a new evolution spontaneously. The kobold now became a force to be reckoned with, presumably on par with the brittle star overall. The addition of a partner to fight with only made it obvious the outcome, should they fight.

Now, Aby just had to get things back to running smoothly.