My birds are back.

Starting just after the sun rose on the 7th day after sending them out, my avians started straggling back in throughout the day, bringing all kinds of little prizes for me. Strangely enough, I wasn't even the one most excited by this development.

"Yeeeees. Manning look at all these tree seeds, our forest is going to be so amazing!" Ash got this look in her eyes every time she talked about our future forest. Looking at her I couldn't help to think that even if this wasn't the path I preferred, I would have ventured down this forest road just so that she would look the way she looked now. "Ok so this is where we are going to get a little tricky. It's time to start cross breeding our plants to see what kind of magical tree monsters we can make!"

Right, easier said than done as far as I am concerned. Alas, the gleam in her eye was all the motivation that I needed.

"Want to explain that one to me Ash?"

"Well Manning, finally we are venturing into the dungeon building phase that I am most familiar with." She was positively glowing. "Normally plants cross breed when they are pollinating, by exchanging pollen with a plant of a different species. This is how most farmers back in the day come up with a veritable range of peppers or tomatoes for example. Trees are a little different but much the same. Our trees will pollinate naturally when they flower, or we can co-locate the seeds and use a bit of mana so that they merge while they grow. The latter is more expensive, more unpredictable, but overall much faster. Lucky for us your core emits a very solid amount of purified nature mana, and that will expedite the growth process."

Taking inventory of my new seeds, I had to admit that I was feeling a little underwhelmed. Over the course of the 8 hours since the birds started returning 17 had showed up so far. Three of the birds brought back a fruit called a Fig, another the rotting core of an Apple, and another yet brought me something called a peach. Ash told me that these trees were the most likely to cross pollinate, and all of them created a fruit that was both edible and enjoyable.

The other 12 birds brought me spoils of black berries, nuts, dogwood seeds, two teak seeds, something called a pinecone, three willow seeds, and a strawberry.

I discussed it with ash and we decided that the best course of action was to plant these and let them grow naturally so that I would have more seeds to spread them. I had my hedgehogs carry them off to various areas and plant them a bit father from each other, in case I wanted to have the purer version of each plant. Ash told me I didn't really have to worry about it too much when it came to the trees, and that they rarely crossbred without direct intervention.

I didn't want to risk it just yet.

I was more annoyed than I cared to admit about the amount of duplicate seeds I had received, but as Ash told me, they called it a bird brain for a reason.

I watched as the seeds started sprouting and sprung upwards at a belligerent rate. I ventured to guess that they'd be fully grown trees in under a month, whereas Ash was predicting closer to two and a half weeks. According to her as they grew into a forest, they would amplify the amount of ambient nature mana. She called this effect a forest aura, which was one of many naturally occurring auras that would pop up in certain habitats, and the fact that it was located in a dungeon would severely ramp its effects.

She cautioned that we likely didn't have too much time until adventures located us, and that I should start working on traps and beasts. With that in mind, I started trying to evolve my small wildlife.

I found that my birds, who I'd decided to not send out again, were much harder to evolve than the hedgehogs had been.

"As a Nature based core, you have access to mostly Earth and Water in addition to your Nature mana, with a very slight Air affinity. Added to the Dark that UI left you with, and we have a very large range to work with Manning. "

That was Ash's advice after I'd complained about how hard it was to evolve the birds after the third black bird died. I started trying to convert the type of mana I pumped them with to one more compatible to what the beasts naturally cycled.

I found that working with Air mana was far more difficult than anything I was used to. It had the tendency to either fizzle out, much like the breeze slowly pushed through the branches in my trees, or to explode into the animals causing an explosive reaction.

I benched the birds after failed experiment number 5 and had them start nesting instead. My bird population was getting lower than I wanted, and the newer birds tended to fly out of my influence before I could snag them. At a loss for what to do, I started looking through all my different animals.

The insects had such short life spans and such low mana capacities that they were better off left alone to evolve on their own from ambient dungeon mana. Really, I had no clue how Cara managed to evolve the beetles she was calling Crunchers without killing all of them, it was very impressive. The birds were on hold until I got a better grasp on wind magic. For a very brief second I thought of my Horned Owl, but I wrote that off almost immanently. The Owl was currently the prize of my beasts, and I did not want to risk it.

Finally, I settled on another rodent species, after all that is what I was most comfortable with. My eyes settled on the squirrels that had moved in the copse of oak trees near my stream bed.

My owl had killed and eaten one of the squirrels previously this week before I'd managed to claim them, and I learned a couple things as he consumed his meal. First and foremost, I learned that when a living creature that isn’t bound to the dungeon dies within my boundaries, I get a nice burst of mana as its soul leaves the corpse. Second, I discovered that I learned about a species with a far more in-depth view after a death within my boundaries.

For example, I knew more about squirrel anatomy than I did my hedgehogs. I knew how its little bones were supposed to work, what kind of mana the species generally cycled, and even the preferred diet. Using this knowledge, I decided that the squirrel would be most susceptible to earth mana, as many of the beasts around me were.

I spent a few minutes thinking about how the rodents traversed the trees, flying from branch to branch. I picked one of the strongest squirrels I could find, the one closest to naturally evolving itself, and started to analyze it. I realized the reason that this one was so much farther along than the others were because its diet consisted of primarily of insects, whereas the other squirrels had been eating the acorns.

It made sense. Ash had already told me that the sapient races loved going to dungeons not only because of the ambient mana and loot, but because with each death of a dungeon creature a small amount of their mana was absorbed directly into the core of it's killer. Apparently, it worked the same way for other races, and this one had been feasting on dungeon boosted insects for the better part of a week.

I ordered it to descend the trunk of the tree it was sleeping in, I was afraid of it thrashing about during changes and falling, and to stand still at the base of the tree. I'd been trying to sharpen the beaks of my birds and elongate them, to allow them to better attack from above when they dived. Using this same theory, I concentrated on slowly permeating the squirrel with earth-based mana, focusing it on its claws, its teeth, and in a fit of inspiration, it's tail.

As it passed the cusp of evolution, I watched as it elongated to point that it was almost 50% longer than the other members of its species. Its claws lengthened and sharpened, and a new joint popped up on opposing sides of its front paws. The part I was most excited about however was its tail. I kept special attention on this and directed the growth as best as I could.

The result was a tail about the same length as the rest of the squirrel's body like most squirrels had. That was where the similarities end. Instead of the tail being furry, my super squirrels were coated in hardened spines that flowed along the tail. He could still curl his tail like other squirrels, but when it was straightened all the spines would align into one very hard, very sharp point.

Although I would have to see it in combat, I had the feeling I'd created a new predator for my forest. All they would have to do is wait in ambush and fall upon the heads of creatures who walked beneath their trees, stabbing them through the skull. At least, that would be the ideal situation.

I ordered him to start breeding and to practice hunting. The other male squirrels I strictly forbade from mating and sent to bury acorns to expand the forest. Eventually I'd have a nice hybrid tree unique to my forest, but for now I'd settle on having a forest.

As the sun set, I looked upon my domain. My new trees were already thin saplings almost a meter tall, the first litters of drones were almost ready to make an appearance into the world, and my new Alpha squirrel was hard at work following my orders.

I watched Ash as she snoozed in the branches of her tree and started cycling mana for the night, claiming the older trees still in my influence and trickling a bit of my mana into the stream to lure in beasts who drank from down river.