Queen Felicia Rosetta, the queen of the elves, was listening to the reports with a stone face. Ever since the incredible message from the gods that the world will enter an era of chaos, she had her scouts figure out the source and it took no time at all to find out.

“Your highness, four of the five dungeons of our nation have been completely upended. Besides the last remaining undead dungeon which has suddenly sprouted forth a catacomb, two which were corrupted, the unknown dungeon and the last friendly dungeon have all self destructed, according to the locals. They suddenly broke from the earth into the sky as mysteriously floating islands. We had a wind mage fly around and have located all the dungeons floating three hundred meters off the ground above their previous homes except for the unknown dungeon.” The scout said bowing.

“It must be Clover controlling the unknown one.” She said as she looked at the map where the fairy metal scrying pendants were floating while only one had a skull and was still planted flat on the table.

Besides Dia’s cloud shaped pendant, the other moving one had a stone base with a tree showing it was a sky island with plant affinity.

It was slowly moving around the nation without any particular path, following the wind but never leaving the borders.

Dia, at this time, was at one of the five marked points that would be dungeon cities for her. Of these five marks, only three were completely built. Those near the borders have already become a center of commerce and trade between the nation and its neighbor.

“What is the condition of the undead dungeon?” The queen asked.

“Ten parties of B rank adventurers were sent inside clearing most of the upper catacomb while locating the pathway underground before an A rank party led them all underground. What they found was the dungeon having one floor directly linked to the dungeon core room on the second floor as if it had destroyed its own dungeon and rebuilt itself. The previous monstrosities that were once present are all gone and only skeleton warriors and a scarce number of skeleton mages are present. The floor lacked any kind of boss monster but reaching the dungeon core room they found a silhouette of a decrepit old man who cursed at them for hunting him like a dog. It was confirmed to be the dungeon conscious.” The scout reported.

“What was his condition? If I remember correctly, this was a dungeon that had once fallen to corruption.” Felicia asked.

“About this, the party asked about it and the dungeon fairy showed herself to the expedition force and explained. It is due to the birth of the newest dungeon, the cloud dungeon, that the entire dungeon system was upgraded. The killing instinct of dungeons no longer exists which caused the soul of the dungeon to collapse and released the old soul. However, this dungeon already hated mortals causing it to still be aggressive. We have reports that he isn’t the only one and many others from other nations are in similar manners to him. Apparently, dungeons now grow the most with the presence of invading parties inside the dungeon instead of just their deaths.” The scout said.

“Just like Dia, so has anyone arrived at the flying dungeons?” She asked.

“Yes, one group has reached them. The report shows that the dungeons are many times more solemn but wish to explore the world instead of being encased underground which is why almost all the dungeons took to the air. At the moment, they are simply learning about their own system once more while rebuilding themselves.” he said.

“Then I wish for negotiators to proceed to these dungeons and see if contracts cannot be made so that they can set up stairways into themselves somehow.” She said.

“We shall send them immediately your highness.” The scout said.

The queen nodded, “How are the knights trained in Dia’s dungeon?” She asked.

A handsome, young looking commander walked forward and bowed, “Reporting your grace, through the training of the wood elf, they have achieved spectacular solo and group coordination and formation. The large boss on the first floor, the group tactics fought against the wolves of the second floor, the swarm tactics on the third floor and battle against the single magic user witch on the fourth floor has ingrained extensive experience into them. We received report that the dungeon has now reached six floors, apparently the island bridges have broken and the islands are now spread out. The safe zones have also increased in number and safe islands are four times bigger than common islands. As of now, the dungeon is in a state of frenzied growth as the new islands are under development and the townsmen have begun to develop water vessels, but experienced shipwrights have yet to appear.” The man said.

“The islands broke off. It was a matter of time really. When I went up, I had already guessed that at one point the cloud ocean would eventually push the islands away from each other and sailing would be required. Send a request to the nearby human nations for sailors who want some adventure and try their luck in dungeon waters as well as for shipwrights.” She said.

“It shall be done.” The commander bowed.

“Your highness, an international conference has been sent by the ‘Holy Land’ to discuss the changes the world will face. It seems even they are taking this very seriously.” One of the queen's advisors said and handed a letter which she read.

“Prepare for me to travel to the Holy Land. Have the Royal Guard ready and prepare for a long travel. This is for seven days from today, so prepare my ship so we can fly at the fastest of speeds.” She said.

“Yes your grace!” The advisors bowed and like that they all began to complete their objectives.

***

“Weeee! Snow! SO FUN!” Dia shouted as she jumped into the snow piles.

With the rapid advancement to six floors, it was obvious that spirits would soon raise to the upper floors. What was curious was that once the spirits arrived, the fire element spirits all cried and shivered before running away back down. The elemental balance on the floor could no longer house them even if they wanted to. Of course, when houses were built with fires and chimneys it would change things as they might seek refuge to advance up to the higher floors.

On the other hand, the water fairies, pixies, nixies and water wisps were completely festive here. One was because the abundant water mana and second because of their more advanced element, ice. The wisps, who were the most susceptible to changes in mana, were the first to change and turned into Ice Wisps or Snow Wisps. There is a clear difference between the two.

Ice wisps prefer to live near icebergs or frozen water usually out on the cloud sea, while snow wisps liked to be over fresh snow usually on the islands. The next one to change were the nixies, pixies and water fairies. Although half of them remained as water types, the other half changed.

Nixies and pixies turned into Frost Nixies and Pixies while water fairies turned into Winter Fairies. Following the line, Greater Winter Fairy and finally Queen Winter Fairy were also born. However, the most unexpected was came when a winter fairy had a variation evolution growing to the size of a dwarf and the Queen becoming a Snow Elf.

The unexpected evolution prompted quite some shock. The snow elf was around 100 cm tall, had ice blue hair, possessed sapphire blue eyes, her skin was white as snow, and of course had the traditional pointed elf ears. As for her clothes, she wore a long sleeve blue dress and a set of white stockings.

Unlike the others who had to use furs to remain warm, besides the water spirits, this elf was perfectly calm in the cold winds. She was very happy when a male winter fairy transformed into a snow elf making Dia really happy as well because they were both very cute.

For the other monsters, the wind, earth and spirits didn’t have as many changes. The flower ones did have a good number of evolutions though. Trees were planted and with Dia guiding them they formed into pine trees. Underneath and parasitizing off these trees were many different winter based flowers that began to sprout and color the trees.

Slowly, these shivering flower spirits would merge with these winter flowers becoming Winter Flower Spirits. For the blue bell flower empress spirit, she planted a blue bell flower and tried to evolve it, just like how all flower spirits did.

What she gained from it was the flower growing as tall as she was, forming two twisted vines that hung down like bells. They turned vibrant red and magically released the ringing of a bell when in the wind.

To Dia’s ears, it caused the memory of Santa to appear where the reindeer bridles would have many bells strung to the sides to jingle with each movement. What was unexpected was that with each jingle of the now Red Bell Flower came a red sound wave that caused the snow within 30 cm around its base to melt and the air around it to feel warm. No one had ever imagined that in a winter land, a flower that released heat would appear let alone for the blue flower empress spirit.

She really wished to touch that flower and merge with it but before she could, Dia appeared in front of her and looked at the red bell flower before touching it. From it, the bell began to glow before releasing a small red light that was even warmer and that lit the area within a meter up. If it was nighttime, it would have lit an area of at least 5 meters around it.

Dia smiled and took that light before taking the other one. Slowly, to the shock and horror of everyone, the bell flowers absorbed a large amount of water and ice mana before the two bell flowers created these fire lights which were in fact their seeds. The quantity of mana drastically dropped with these flowers but their effect was well liked.

Dia flew near her pond that was now 180 cm in diameter, her core was 6 cm big, while Waid’s was only 3 cm big. She then went to one side and put the flower along the edge of the river while on the other side she did the same. From the small red glowing seeds, two new red bell flowers appeared.

As for the original, the blue flower empress spirit touched it and merged with the flower. There was a huge magical fluctuation as the two merged and what appeared was the empress looking exactly the same, not even a bit taller but her bearings were more majestic. Also, now her dress was made of red flowers with the same look. Her wings on her back released the same warm light as the seeds.

What was amazing was the fact that her body absorbed the water and ice mana but she released the same mana as if it was fire magic. It was like a mirage had formed around her making her even more unique.

“I did not change much but now I am perfectly adapted to this new environment.” She said as she looked at herself and spun. When she did so, her dress released the subtle jingle of an enchanting bell and her warm water mana spread out causing the flower spirits to sigh.

When this mana spread out, it caused the flowers to evolve. Those that could not adapt and were bordering on wilting suddenly absorbed this strange new mana and inside itself learned to make it causing all the mana it absorbed to slowly radiate a warmth. The ice around the flowers thawed and they slowly grew, adapting to the cold.

Slowly the flower spirits merged and like their empress, who was now called a Winter Fire Bell Flower Empress Spirit, they became Warm Winter Flower Spirits. Slowly each of them merged with a cold region flower becoming warm winter flower spirits. Unlike the empress, the smaller fairies don’t radiate warm ice and water mana but keep it within to let them safely live in the cold.

As for the dwarves.

The King Dwarf has claimed the only safe zone on the sixth floor. By doing this, a dwarf town is born. All earth spirits of low grade will slowly grow into dwarf species as time goes by. Other spirits will grow faster within the safe zone as well.

The safe zone island cloud will become a solid earth island.

When this appeared, Dia looked over and saw the island cloud that was the entrance suddenly become a rocky island like the main island. She remembered the notices for Peter and Captain Hook saying the same thing and did not expect this to happen. Suddenly she got another message.

Dungeon Achievement

You have grown to six floors and fully stabilized the first five floors and completely stabilized the safe zone on the sixth floor. All islands between floors 1 to 5 shall become earth islands and shall be able to birth life. All the islands will also be able to possess unique environments should some kind of unique creature claims it as their home.

The floor 1 entrance safe zone has grown to the size of the main island to allow occupants to grow extensively.

As this happened, a large amount of earth mana was sucked into each island cloud and slowly the clouds compressed and turned into solid earth like all the other islands. All the earth spirits within the lower floors cheered and began to reform the islands in different manners to be more convenient to pass through.

Due to the dungeon islands spreading far from the view of the original island, sailing and navigation is required. All islands will now possess their own magnetic field in which one can follow to reach the island. A compass unique to the dungeon will be needed.

Dia blinked confused at all the messages and called Misty to explain. When the cat fairy saw the messages she was surprised for a moment. “Don’t worry Dia, your dungeon just grew more amazing. Now all the islands below will get really unique and make new creatures on their own in separate locations.” She said.

“Misty, what of this compass?” Mir asked while rubbing her hands from the cold.

“Dia, go to the system shop and find ‘Cloud Compass’ then spawn one.” Misty instructed.

Dia did just as explained and once she finished what appeared was an octagon shaped box. Inside it were four compass, pointing towards Dia’s dungeon core and one pointing towards the entrance island.

“This is a cloud compass. It is unique to cloud dungeons and will only spawn once a cloud dungeon’s islands break up and become solid earth islands. The islands in Dia’s dungeon are in constant motion, except for the entrance island, so to reach the main island, you need to follow any of the routes of the compass. There are three compass that point to proceeding islands and one that is constantly pointed towards the floor’s entrance. When adventurers reach an island, the compass will slowly adjust to that island’s unique aura. The compass will then point to an island that proceeds after that one instead of one that was in ‘the same position’ as it. This way it is possible to move along through the dungeon.” She explained.

“Won’t the dungeon be hundreds of times more dangerous with the sharks? Also, how do these even spawn?” Mir asked worried.

“That is true, but the sharks have all moved up to floor three and above. Only young sharks are in the lower floors and aren’t as powerful. As for their spawning method, they can be obtained from pretty much any monsters and have a high drop rate making it one of the more common drops.” Misty said.

Similar to Dia, Misty had a keen connection to the dungeon and she paid many times more attention compared to Dia who played around more. It was why she was alway sleeping, she was focused on the dungeon in case she needed to locate Dia for something.

“I don’t get it but it’s fine Mir.” Dia said. “Let’s go down and see the island then!”

“You don’t need to worry about this floor, we shall properly arrange everything.” The empress said bowing.

With her in control, Dia and the others descended to the warmer floors.

As for Waid, he hadn’t gone up yet and instead was in the lower floors watching the islands.

“Hey Pearl, I'm bored.” He said as he flew around followed by his dungeon fairy.

“Why not go play.” The fairy said.

“Boring~!” The boy dungeon said as he flew. They soon reached Captain Hook’s island and he watched from above. After only several hours, the island was already changing. It was very large already, and most of it was covered in forest and foliage while only at one corner there was a small crude wooden town.

Within the city were now lots of wandering wind elves, but they were dressed with a pair of long baggy pants, thick leather boots, a striped shirt and a bandana. They also had a cloth sash on their waist like a belt and some daggers. Hook’s previously tiny sailboat was already a Sloop Pirate ship. It was a common and popular pirate ship because of its fast maneuvers. The number of max crew usually is 75 for this kind of crew, but the ship currently only has about 20 true wandering wind elf pirates along with the captain. Of course, the ship moves on its own through the captain's control and the crew is mostly a fighting force.

The small village was already forming the many unique buildings pirates had from taverns to shops and so forth. What was unique was the ‘smith’ shops. Unlike common smiths, this one was run by a dwarf and to smith they would gather earth mana until they formed metal ore to then forge metal in the rustic forge they had.

The ship already possessed very mediocre cannons (which were rather advanced for this era) and was something that left Waid confused as to what it was but he did not mind.

Walking through the town, he watched the many spirit type creatures laughing and drinking the honey ale brew that had been made by the dwarfs.

“What are pirates, pearl?” Waid asked confused. The concept of pirates wasn’t something he knew. To him as long as it could kill, it was worth making.

“Pirates are usually bandits of the sea among a sentient species. Humans are the most common race to become a bandit. Pirates are simply skilled bandits of the sea who sail the waters attacking other ships.” She explained.

“So even though they are humanoid and intelligent, they are like monsters. Can other monsters be like this?” He asked.

“Probably, why not make them? Since Dia already made pirates, you can definitely make monsters like these which are much stronger.” Pearl said.

Waid’s eyes sparkled as he gripped the air. What he had gripped was actually part of the island’s aura and isolated it within his fist.

This unique aura was the same as Hook’s pirate aura and by isolating it he could transfer it to another creature.

The two flew off and down to a floor below where he called upon the sky sharkmen he had once created. He split the aura and placed a portion within the strongest sharkman.

“This is your island. Make your home upon it as pirates of the sea.” He said.

Waid then began to change the sharks. He knew he couldn’t make them stronger than the boss. If he tried, it would throw the stability of the dungeon off. He was forced to weaken the muscles of the savage shark men making them smaller but more humanoid. The fins were changed into arms and legs, the crooked body was changed into a proper human torso and the head was made only slightly more human. Mainly the structure of the head was made humanoid with the eyes in front of the head. The nose became small and under the eyes while the large jaws of sharks were kept. The long shark tail and dorsal fin was left on the sharkman that was now very humanoid. Finally, Waid perfectly merged the pirate aura with the sharkman causing the black shark eyes to gain white sclera and black slitted eyes.

A pair of baggy pants held by a red sash also formed on its lower body but that was it.

As Waid let go, the sharkman began to transform and formed the perfected sharkman. It was much weaker than the original shark beast that had formed naturally. They were still fast swimmers, but their overall muscular body had decreased to match the fourth floor.

“You are now a Pirate Sharkman.” Waid nodded.

This island is now occupied by pirate sharkmen. The captains of each crew will be made into a unique monsters only found one per group. Pirate sharkmen will only spawn in islands owned by the same.

With a smile, Waid watched as the pack of 30 sharkmen came ashore and began to hunt and clear out the living enemies of the island while gathering mana to evolve. The aura of the captain who was the first pirate sharkman was released upon the island, claiming it for his own.

Seeing it all done, Waid went down to the second floor where he found an island with several gnomes lazing about while some pulling pranks. “Hey Pearl.” He called.

“Yes?”

“What kind of effect does corrupting spirits have?” He asked.

Pearl looked at the spirits. “Although I want to go against it since Dia might not like it, still this dungeon’s spirits are rather weak looking but are still strong in comparison. The environment is rather perfect for their development, almost as good as the spirit world itself.” She said.

“Not what I want to know. What do spirits become if they are turn into evil spirits?” He asked.

She scratched her head. “Well evil spirits, in all sense of the word, are killed on sight. We fairies will never allow such a thing to exist.” She said pausing for a moment, “Not even in our own dungeons.” Waid frowned but she lifted her hand to stop his complaint. “What you can do is make a nice spirit turn extremely bad but not evil. The original goblins were all fairies that were corrupted by either greed or lust depending on their affliction. The lustful ones are even more despised than the greedy ones and were almost killed off before escaping into either hell or the mortal world.” She said.

“So the method to get goblins are lust or greed. Then for pirates I need greed.” He said grinning as he flew down. The fairies and spirits noticed him but looked away. They all knew of him, the dungeon who actually made monsters. “Hey, can I make a new monster from one of you?” He asked.

“Wut?” The gnomes were surprised and frowned. If it was Dia, they would jump at it but Waid had said ‘monster’ instead of spirit. “Wut monsta?” one of them asked narrowing their eyes. They were loyal to Dia, not Waid after all.

“Pirates, like the boss of the fifth floor.” He said.

Gnomes were the only spirit that came directly from wisps with conscious thought and ability to speak. Skillful with their hands, they liked shiny gems and such but the dungeon lacked a lot of this. Being smart, they had an information network where they connected with their cousins in the floors above. They knew about the creatures from above and the set up so after a few hours after the boss was made, they would hear about it. Of course, they had no good impression of the boss. In Dia’s dungeon, the bosses were all evil creatures, so when they said he would make them similar to the boss they all frowned.

Pearl sighed and whispered, “All the boss monsters are looked down on in the dungeon for being bad creatures. It won’t do to say something like that.” she said.

Waid frowned not understanding why the bosses were hated while creatures like the empress spirit were loved. Dia was the strangest dungeon because of this. Bosses were supposed to be the strongest on the floor, yet Dia always had an enemy that could partially control the boss with similar strength.

“Pirate? Dem is roge of de sea?” The gnome asked another who nodded. With a frown the leading gnome frowned “Why de ell da we wan somen like dat!?” The gnome said.

“Don’t you want to freely sail the sea? When invaders come they will definitely hold money and shiny items you can’t get on this floor. Also, being a pirate will give you a unique evolution path that other spirits will not have.” Waid said in a tempting voice like a devil holding a cursed fruit to a naive little girl.

When the words, ‘unique evolution’ were said, the eyes of the gnomes widened. Even though they are intelligent, it wasn’t as high as a dwarf or runt who were at the level of humans.

The looked at each other and huddled up chatting causing Waid to find it comic. However, he avoided laughing as he needed the three gnomes to make the captain goblin.

“Aight, weh accept.” He said.

Waid grinned, “So which will be the base?” He asked.

The three looked at each other and the leader didn’t even need to say it and walked forward.

Like that, Waid grinned and touched his head. He imagined the three merging but then he added the pirate aura into their merging bodies as well as the nature of greed.

Very quickly the merged gnomes grew to the size of dwarves but they weren’t cubby or cute. Instead he had green skin, a large hooked nose, a mouth full of sharp teeth. His articles of clothing were comprised of a pirate hat over a bandana, black leather pants that had many pockets, a pouch of throwing knives and a dagger. The shirt was leather and had many hooks but it looked like it was made of old rag leather, as did the pants. The hair of the goblin was black, messy and in some places braided. The face had a short shaggy beard and on each long pointed ear were two earrings.

When all was done, the gnomes began to transform with a loud ‘kekekekeke’ laugh sounding out as the aura spread and infested the island. In nothing short of a moment, the aura of the island turned dark, the trees began to wilt a bit and the flower spirits were scared and began to flee. As for the island residents, the treants that could not move slowly corroded into dark treants, the animals ran and hid themselves. Finally, the other gnomes who lived on the island felt the disturbance slowly begin to affect them and they began to climb out of the ground.

As they came out, they saw the goblin finish evolving and turn to look at them with its yellow sharp teeth shining in the light. “Ye trashy scallywags! Ye git ta maken ma boat! Tis mah island and tis my crew!” He roared as his aura flared.

The gnomes became scared instantly. The effect of the aura flared and infested their bodies rapidly affecting their thoughts, filling it with greed. Slowly they fell to the corruption of the goblin and soon one-fourth of the gnomes began to absorb a large amount of mana. Their bodies grew to just a little smaller than the captain, looking similar but with less armor and clothing like poor pirates.

The rest of the gnomes were beaten into place as they were made to build the village of the goblins before they start to construct the pirate ship.

In the eyes of both Waid and Dia, a screen appeared.

Goblin pirates have take over the island. The branch of goblins has appeared in the dungeon and goblins can now spawn from gnomes.