Now that Gorm had moved his core room and had melded it into the huge forest cavity, he decided to try to cultivate his father’s technique again. He thought of the entire new core room as the seed, and while it felt like he was doing something right, he still didn’t succeed.

So he decided to investigate how a tree grew. He picked an acorn and planted it while fully concentrating on it. He then accelerated its growth. He watched as the first rootlets sprouted. He watched on until a fully grown oak tree was in front of him.

After some deliberation, he figured that he had the wrong approach. Gorm always imagined the seed as attributeless, but what could grow out of a seed without any attributes?

Gorm rethought his entire approach and decided to make the seed an acorn, he felt that fitting as he was an oak tree.

Starting to cultivate again, Gorm immediately felt the difference. Energy he never knew existed started to gather right above the crown of his tree. It started to mix with his mana.

Gorm tried to figure out what exactly was happening, but the more he tried to understand, the more his control slipped. Soon, without him noticing all free soul energy and perception was sucked into the vortex in his core room.

As Gorm’s very being was mixed with the foreign energy first changes started to appear. His already huge tree expanded further, albeit very slowly. As the amount of energy and mana increased the speed of growth of the core oak started to accelerate.

This acceleration of growth wasn’t focused solely on the core room, the entire dungeon experienced the same benefits but in a weaker form.

When the vortex filled the entire core room, it stopped growing. But at this point in time, a plant that would normally need a year to mature would mature in only a week, an animal that needed three years to reach adulthood would need three weeks. And the dungeon core oak that had grown to a height of a bit over 250 meters in 650 years was already almost one kilometer high. While that sounded high, it hadn’t reached the halfway point of the new core room yet.

When the core oak finally stopped growing its height was almost exactly half the height of the core room. The only problem was, that only the height grew, its roots were still underdeveloped.

Just when it seemed like the crazy growth acceleration in Gorm’s dungeon had stopped, it picked up again. But this time around it the acceleration didn’t target physical but rather spiritual growth. Only the core oak was different, whilst everyone and everything gained in spirituality, it finally grew its roots.

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While the whole dungeon was in a growing frenzy, roots started to spread. Soon they had spread all over the existing floors. With no room left to grow into, the roots dug deeper.

Just like when Gorm achieved one with nature, a new floor was made, but unlike the first time, this time roughly one-sixteenth of the new floor wasn’t as spacious as the rest. This small part almost seemed disconnected from the rest of the dungeon. Only a few, well-hidden passages connected it to the rest of the dungeon. Its structure was also simple. The rest of the floor was normal.

Another difference was that there was only one traversable connection between the ninth and the tenth floor. It was exactly under the ant island.

The flora and fauna of the new floor were also different. While the bigger part of the floor had a perfect recreation of a forest. The smaller part only had rudimentary plant life and so far no animals.

If observed carefully, it was possible to see that anything that came near to one of the passages, would be unable to pass through.

But even with the new floor, the roots growth didn’t stop. Soon what would become the eleventh floor was created. It was almost completely the same as the tenth but for the size of the disconnected part of the floor. Said part was a bit bigger and the plant life seemed a bit more complete.

The tenth and the eleventh floor had numerous connections, but the separated parts only had one.

With the eleventh floor completed the roots slowed their growing speed. And while only the part with floors was densely packed, the entire mountain was crisscrossed with roots. The roots continued growing with vastly slowed speed. But unlike before the only grew in circumstance and not deeper into the ground.

When the growth almost stopped one root in the separated part of the tenth floor experienced a sudden energy boost and shot through the stone, opening a narrow entrance into the dungeon.

Soon after the miraculous energy-mana-vortex started to dissolve. The dissolving energy would give anything it touched one final boost.

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Because the vortex was situated in the core room almost everything in it got said boost. In the rest of the dungeon only few had that luck. Among the lucky few was the very first monster ant queen.

But the luckiest of them all was a small Barbary macaque. Barbary macaque only occurred in the core room, they never had even a monster emerge from their ranks, but nonetheless, they were still the smartest non-humanoid animals. For this reason, dryads liked having them around, they would normally tame them and have them help grooming their trees. Probably for this exact reason had Melia’s mother put some of them with Melia. So far Melia hadn’t discovered them, otherwise, they would suffer through a similar fate to the beavers.

The small Barbary macaque was playing in the crown of the core oak when Gorm succeeded in cultivating the technique his father left. Through the almost 50 years it didn’t leave. This was rewarded with a much better boost, be it physical or psychical. When the energy vortex stated to dissolve it got the boost from it.

Only then did he leave, he decided to travel the dungeon. The first floor he visited was the sixth. He was shocked by the wide and open spaces. He started to travel the floor but by the time he was had spent five days there, he still hadn’t met any animal intelligent enough to talk to. Like most barbary macaque he learned to speak the dungeon language at birth. They were one of the few that were able to do so despite being only normal animals.

Frustrated he decided to head back home, on his way back he, again, encountered a bit of the dissolving energy. Almost immediately after he absorbed it he felt tired. But knowing the dangers of sleeping unprotected in the dungeon, he mustered all his strength and continued his journey.

When he finally arrived back at the core room he didn’t know where he should go. He hadn’t been at his colony in over 40 years. So without much further thought he headed to the core oak and went back to the nest that was his home during his stay. He soon fell asleep.

While the small Barbary macaque was sleeping the vortex was in his final moments of dissolving. When only a few wisps of energy and mana were there, it was possible to see a colorful mix of soul strands. They were what made Gorm Gorm and also held all of his dungeon abilities and specifications.

All, except for one wisp of mana and energy, went into the core oak. The last wisp was also about to head into the tree when it suddenly turned around and headed for the sleeping monkey.

The small monkey was his in evolution phase, if nothing unexpected happened he would become a humanoid animal after he woke up. But now, with the addition of the last wisp, he would become something different.

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When Gorm woke up, he felt like good. Or more exact, he felt better than he had ever felt before. He knew had gained back what he was missing. This feeling alone would be enough the make him feel great, but with the success in his father’s technique, everything was different.

For the first time did he feel like he was in total control in his dungeon. He felt everything, he knew everything, he was everything.

Gorm was instinctively aware that he now had an entrance. The place where the single root had punched a hole through the mountain wall was almost exactly on the place he had planned to make it in the first place. From the outside, it looked like a normal little cave. Which was what Gorm wanted. He didn’t need any unnecessary attention. Even the two new floors were like he had planned them. This made him wonder how this automatic building feature worked.

Now that he had an entrance he could finally sense his connection to nature again. But unlike when he was still a human, he didn’t perceive it like he was a part of nature anymore, or at least not entirely. A feeling of loss washed over him and his great mood from before vanished. He started to feel abandoned. For almost his entire human life he had lived for nature, to protect it. And now, it abandoned him?

Just when he was about to give in to his dark thoughts he remembered what his father once said to him. “A dungeon core is part of the world, yet separated. A dungeon is separate from the word, yet exists on it. Imagine being a dungeon core. How confusing is its world? It would be easy to become deranged and abandon the world. But remember, no matter if the world likes you or not, if nature likes you or not, as long as it is part of you, you are part of it.”

The words seemed to be made to help him in this specific situation. Gorm felt that if he lived by them, he would be able to become stronger and make the world, or at least his world, the dungeon, a better place.