Gorm waited a few more months before he finally declared the first floor as finished. He got a message that he now had a complete first floor and that abilities got unlocked. To find out what abilities he had he only had to open his status.

Status

Name

Gorm

Title

Natural Dungeon

Race

Dungeon Core Oak

Floors

47

Rooms

27

Age

531 years

DP

23

Level

1 (47)

Mana

278 020 / 300 000

Affinities

Nature

Mana Regeneration

500 per min

Specialties

-

Abilities

Natural Dungeon

Advanced Environment Creation

Cycle Creation

Growth Spurt

Ecosystems

Endless Wilderness

Riparian Forest

Common River

Monsters

27

Sapients

-

Bosses

Melia (Elder Ash Dryad)

Bonded Creatures

Seker (Death Spirit)

Intruders

-

Naturally, Gorm first checked his abilities and he was very disappointed that he only got four. He figured that the Natural Dungeon ability was from the natural dungeon package, so he only had three skills he earned himself.

To calm himself down, he looked over the rest of his status. The new title interested him the most, but when he inspected what it did, he was disappointed to find out it only listed the restrictions and rules that came with purchasing the natural dungeon package. The only thing that appeased him was the fact that it had a tag that said that it was evolvable under the right circumstances.

What shocked Gorm was, that he only got 26 new rooms. He had created at least triple that number. After calming down a little, he inspected the first floor again and discovered that some big tunnels that connected counted as extensions of rooms. For example, the entire ring of rooms that had the main river in them was one big room. So 26 rooms were quite impressive. In the process of finding this out, he discovered, that he could inspect the entire floor and comprehensive information would be displayed.

1st Floor:

Rooms: 26

Ecosystems: Riparian Forest and Common River

Size: ~ 6 000 km²

Sapients: -

Monsters: 1

Appearance:

The entire floor is shaped like a gigantic torus. A circular river with lots of tributaries builds the center of the floor. The land area is filled with forests. There are a lot of side rooms to the big center room.

Gorm focused on the rest of his status again and noticed that he had more than the 17 DPs he should have, then he remembered that he got some messages for rewards while he was building the first floor. But what he saw next made him happy and helpless at the same time, his mana pool had increased to 300 000 but his regeneration was still 500 mana per minute. After only one floor his mana capacity had already increased two times, he now finally saw the real problem he would have in the future. The only positive that he could win this situation was that the upkeep for the dungeon didn’t strain his mana.

That Melia and Sek where in the boss and bound creature section respectively didn’t surprise Gorm, but only three ecosystems did. Only after rereading the description did he remember that it only showed active ecosystems.

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After looking over the status and investigating how the system classified rooms, Gorm found Sek. He wanted him present when he found out what his abilities did. In case he got any questions.

First, he wanted to know what he got from the package he had bought.

Natural Dungeon:

This ability is the summary of all standard dungeon abilities and some of the abilities included in the natural dungeon package.

It enables the dungeon to use all included abilities with great skill.

Included abilities:

Absorption

Matter Creation

Life Bestowal

:

:

Creature Evolution

All abilities included were reworked to be more natural in their effects.

Different from what Gorm had thought, the Natural Dungeon ability also included skills he had earned himself. Another surprise was that all basic dungeon abilities were included in it. So Gorm didn’t have to buy them later. This was a pleasant surprise.

Now the next three skills had to be good also and Gorms luck would be complete.

Advanced Environment Creation:

This ability allows the dungeon to create any environment with great ease.

This is the advanced version of the rare ability environment creation.

Due to the ability Natural Dungeon, it includes an option for a more natural creation, for example, terrain.

Cycle Creation:

This ability allows the dungeon to incorporate different cycles in its design. For example, day and night, weather phenomena; like rain and wind; and seasons.

Unique ability that got created because the first floor includes a cycle (day and night).

The next two abilities had surprisingly simple descriptions, but Sek made clear that it was quite the feat to have an advanced ability. More so if it was a rare one. It was rare to find a dungeon with 100 floors with an ability like this, let alone a unique ability. Despite being bonded to a dungeon for over 2000 years and it having a lot more floors than Gorm, his old dungeon didn’t have a unique ability.

Now only the last ability was left to examine.

Growth Spurt:

This ability is inherent to Dungeon Core Oaks.

It passively boosts the growth of all plants by 100%.

It also allows boosting of the growth of a target plant to 1000% of its normal growth rate.

It sounded a lot like the description of his race, so Gorm thought that it was only there to represent his innate trait, but Sek informed him that it wasn’t a representation but an ability which effects were additional. Short, it was one hell of an ability. It seemed like the other abilities were way better, but due to its passive effect, it outdid them. Gorm learned that passive abilities were very rare and dungeons seldom had them. They worked even if there was no mana left or intruders on a floor.

------------------------>

Sek and Gorm discussed Gorms new abilities a bit longer. But Gorm wanted to rid himself of the urges he experienced as soon as possible now that he stabilized his soul and core. So he urged Sek to begin the procedure. But Sek told him he needed a bit of time to prepare.

With nothing else to do, Gorm created a system of small cavities and tubes on the second floor similar to what he had done on the first floor. Then he filled them with water but different to the first floor, he only moved the water in the part he wanted the main river to be. He then proceeded to connect the second floor to the first floor. He made a waterfall on one of the many tributaries of the first floor. It then dawned him that even if land was created on the second floor, nothing could grow there because there was no light.

The solution he came up with was to randomly spawn sun and moon stones all over the second floor. When they got dug out plants could grow around them. He hoped that would create an interesting scenario. He would probably get a lot of monsters.

Normal animals only became monsters if they had to fight hard to survive and bested a lot of dangers or they were extraordinarily clever. The beaver on the first floor that became a monster fell into the second category. With only limited light sources animals would have to fight for these oases of light. And animals would become monsters more frequently.

Because he could automate the flowing of water, thanks to his new abilities, Gorm had decided to let his dungeon develop freely in the next 50 to 100 years.

The only rule he set, another new ability he had gotten, that nothing in his dungeon was allowed to attack Melia, Sek, and the monster beaver. Melia and Sek were a no-brainer, but the beaver was more out of curiosity. He wanted to know how far the beaver could go without fighting.

------------------------>

Sek had finally finished his preparations, Gorm had said goodbye to Melia and everything in the dungeon was settled.

Gorm withdrew his entire perception back into the oak tree and Sek started to chant words in a strange language. The last thing Gorm thought before his conciseness faded, was that his dungeon would develop nicely and Melia and Sek could live in peace while he was asleep.

------------------------>

Sek had just finished the ritual to start Gorms soul trial. Now he could only wait.

He returned to the forest room. Sek was fascinated by this room. It shouldn’t exist. He didn’t feel anything artificial about it, but how could nature create something like it? No matter how he thought about it, it didn’t make sense.

Sek wandered through the forest room and the first and second floor. He felt strange while watching the lush plants and healthy animals. Before he came to Gorms dungeon he only felt safe with death around.

While there certainly was death around him, it wasn’t what comforted him. Everything did. The cycle of life and death could be observed and Sek felt comforted by this fact.

Walking aimlessly, eventually led him to the beaver room. He watched Melia play with the beavers. She was trying to teach some young ones to swim. But because beavers can’t swim like humanoids, she kept failing. Despite that, she never gave up.

While Sek watched her he felt unlike ever before. He knew it didn’t have anything to do with Melia in particular, but he couldn’t pinpoint the reason.

Sek continued to walk aimlessly and observing his surroundings. That he couldn’t figure out what had changed didn’t bother him, he had at least 50 years to slowly figure it out.