Gorm confronted Sek with his changed race, but Sek still tried to avoid the subject. So Gorm could only let him be. If someday he wanted to talk about it, he would tell him. But Gorm still stayed a bit and observed Sek. He discovered that Sek wasn’t emitting a pure death aura anymore. It felt more complete. A bit like a nature aura only purer, which shouldn’t be possible, as nature was the highest level element possible.

Gorm shelved the topic for later investigations and went back to observing his dungeon. He let a few floor wars pass but kept the main part of his perception trained on the third floor. He had learned to keep his entire dungeon in his perception. Only to observe things in more detail did he need to concentrate.

After the few floor wars, the inhabitants of the third floor started to catch up to the inhabitants of the other two floors in terms of intelligence. Which indicated that he could replicate intelligent animals in his entire dungeon. This, in turn, made him think about the implications of using them as cannon fodder against adventurers and other invaders. Before he opened his dungeon to the world, he would need to find a way to create creatures with normal intellect, or he would feel bad.

This new problem was hard to solve alone so he asked every sentient being in his dungeon for help. These talks, especially those with Beabea and Keeper, cemented his resolve to not use his intelligent animals as his soldiers. Or at least as long as no one found his way into the upper part of the dungeon.

After countless fruitless days, Gorm turned to the system store for a solution. After a bit of searching the ability and creature store without finding anything, he was quite upset. Then he thought that if he couldn’t find a way to make his animals stupider, he still could search for ways to make them more intelligent. Maybe he would feel better with them fighting for him if he made them more capable of defending themselves.

The new search under the parameter to increase the intelligence of the creatures in his dungeon was also fruitless. When he was about to give up, Gorm remembered that he still was allowed to pick a sentient monster species.

After going over the different options he picked out three of them.

Animal Evolution (humanoid):

Animals can now evolve more easily to monster and sentient. They now are able to evolve even further.

Option to become a humanoid animal unlocked.

Animal Evolution (divine):

Animals can now evolve more easily to monster and sentient. They now are able to evolve even further.

Option to become a beast unlocked.

Option to become a divine beast unlocked.

Animal Evolution (open):

Animals can now evolve more easily to monster and sentient. They now are able to evolve even further.

Animals can now devolve.

Option to become a lesser beast unlocked.

Option to become a beast unlocked.

Option to become a humanoid animal unlocked.

Option to become a divine beast unlocked.

Option to become a humanoid beast unlocked.

Gorm would ask Keeper and Beabea what they thought was better. But he was inclined to pick the first option.

Humanoid animals were rare in the outside world. Despite Gorms more than 3000 years of life, he had only ever seen one humanoid animal. It was a mouse and one of the wisest creatures he had ever met. Humanoid animals were vastly more intelligent than sentient animals and normal beasts. They were able to build flourishing communities with different species and were able to use the same methods as most other humanoids to increase their strength. Their only disadvantage was, that they normally had very poor talent when it came to practicing.

Beasts, on the other hand, were very talented and strong, but had no human form and needed their own methods to increase their strength beyond their bloodlines. Divine beasts were as intelligent as humanoid animals and way stronger, but almost no chances to advance significantly after reaching that level. Only animals with the natural potential to become divine beasts, they were called divine animals, could become really powerful. But only very few races and species were this lucky. Dragons were one of them and among the most powerful.

Gorm had never heard of humanoid beasts before and the description of them was not very helpful. It only stated that they were beasts that appeared almost completely human. That wasn’t really enticing for Gorm. If someday he would need to send someone to investigate he would simply buy the ability to summon them for 20 DP. He remembered that he saw that option when he was looking through the store.

The main reasons he didn’t look favorably on the open animal evolution, were that it would enable devolution for his animals. And more importantly, make it possible for lesser beasts to appear. They were way stronger than any normal beast or monster and were completely instinct driven. They would attack anyone. That wouldn’t be that bad if he could command them to not attack anyone or go to the lower floors to act as defenders for the public part of the dungeon. But the information told him that wouldn’t be possible. They would obey no one.

Gorm would have Beabea and Keeper make the final decision, they were the ones that would be affected by said decision.

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

Beabea was in favor of option one but in general he didn’t care. As long as he could get more intelligent.

Keeper on the other side wanted to become stronger to protect even more helpless animals. So he favored option two. But he too didn’t really care.

Without a real decision, Gorm found Sek and asked him the same question. Sek almost exploded. After calming down a little he made sure that Gorm hadn’t made a decision already. Then he explained why he was so worked up.

Humanoid beasts are the absolute pinnacle of animal evolution with great power. They were able to do anything a human could do, were supremely talented and were able to switch between their human and any animal form. Or better any animal from they ever had. That meant that if a normal mouse could become a humanoid beast, it could transform into any form it ever had. They were so rare that even Sek had only heard stories about them.

So despite the less than desirable chance of lesser beasts occurring, the third option was by far the best. Sek told Gorm that it shouldn’t be possible for such a good option to appear bevor 500 floors. Gorm didn’t hesitate anymore and selected the open animal evolution.

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

Since Gorm picked the animal evolution 13 years had passed. In that time Gorm had created two more floors. They had similar themes to the second and third floor, as they too had a lack of needed resources. After this concept worked so good in the predecessor floors Gorm decided to use it again. The fourth floor had a powerful sun stone in the middle of each major room and only moon stones everywhere else. The fifth floor was a steppe with only a few smaller rooms that had forests and a reliable water source.

In the last 13 years, the decrease in difficulty to evolve into a monster and basic sentients showed itself. Especially the first and second floor were crowded with monsters and sentients. But the three new floors also profited and developed at a much faster pace.

Keeper had been the first to break past the sentient stage and evolved into a beast. Gorm had also expanded the operation of his organization to all floors except the first. Beabea followed Keeper closely, just one month later he evolved into the first humanoid beaver. Much to the distress of Melia. She disliked his new form and searched for a new beaver to cuddle with.

An indirect consequence of the higher evolution rate was the introduction of a general language. Keeper and Beabea had developed it together and thanks to the high amount off sentients were able to spread it everywhere. Gorm found it so convenient that he made it compulsory for anyone that could learn it, to learn it as soon as possible.

In arrangement with Sek, Gorm introduced some other rules too. The most impactful one was that everyone had to do anything in his or her might to stop or kill a lesser beast should there ever be one. To their luck, in the entire 13 years, there never was one. Another important rule was that criminals would be sent to the tenth floor, or a floor under it. If they could survive, they would be allowed to come back up.

He also designed a few of the rules that would only be used on floor ten and under. Like that no one could ever divulge anything that had something to do with the upper floors. Unless Gorm specifically allowed it. He also forbade leaving the dungeon. Sek had told him about some cases were dungeons got destroyed because monsters wandered out. If a dungeon started to spill creatures it normally was corrupted. And corrupted dungeons were terminated as soon as possible after they got found out.