With a graceful flap of its wings, the Lure Butterfly lifted off into the sky before landing on the ground in front of Dylan’s ‘form’. Despite the fact that it was merely the size of a palm, the butterfly greatly stood out due to its beautiful cyan wings, which seemed to glimmer and reflect the light around it. Dylan had finally recovered most of his mana, and the clawed spider which had won the fight against the horned hare had already arrived, munching on its quarry. Dylan activated [Forceful Evolution], focusing on the Lure Butterfly. Dylan chose to make the butterfly’s exoskeleton tougher and thicker, then increased the size of its body and wings to balance out the change in weight. The butterfly now had a foot-wide (0.3 m) wingspan and a slightly larger body compared to previously. Dylan then evolved the organs within its wings, expanding them until they were basically fat sacks growing out of its sides. He then spent an absolutely massive amount of mana enhancing the effects of its drug-like powder, making the butterfly’s hallucinogenic capabilities much higher. It took over half of Dylan’s mana to upgrade the butterfly surprisingly, making him feel a bit of regret over the amount of mana he had squandered.

Ding!

Please name the new species of monster.

I’ll call it the [Danger Butterfly], since it’ll lure dangerous monsters to my enemies… I guess it could also lure my enemies into danger too so that’s a pretty good case.

Congratulations, you have created the [Danger Butterfly] species.

You can now [Summon]: Danger Butterfly (D)

…Eh? Dylan’s ‘form’ slumped for a bit before regaining its posture. The foot-long butterfly in front of him was a rank D?! HOW THE HECK DOES THIS COUNT AS D RANK BUT MY BEAUTIFUL WHISTLE WOLVES DON’T???!!! Dylan cried towards the sky. Suddenly, a ding! Sounded in his head, and his vision began to fill with a white screen once again, indicating the Voice of the World was speaking to him.

Monsters in this world are calculated in rank through a combination of multiple factors including their threat to all non-monster races, their stats, and their characteristics. Simply put, the Danger Butterfly may not have the capability of physically defeating another (D) ranked physical monster, but its capabilities make it on par with a (D) ranked monster.

Dylan had no choice to accept that explanation, so he chose to turn the other lure butterfly into a danger butterfly before letting them go to a breeding cave. He turned to the Heavy Bombardier Beetle and called it over. The fat insect crawled over the grass before arriving before Dylan. He decided to use the remaining mana to evolve the beetle, then carefully focus on the clawed spider and Kuraura after. He started by increasing the size of the beetle, pushing its size to three feet (0.9m) long. He then greatly increased the beetle’s shell’s thickness and toughness, and increased the insect’s musculature underneath its shell, so it could support its new size. He increased the bite strength of the beetle immensely, and the increased the thickness of the shell covering its abdomen, head, and thorax. The antennae of the beetle were made to have higher sensitivity, and Dylan spent the last of his mana to form another gland within the beetle’s mouth, allowing it to spray its acidic gas from its mouth as well. The beetle would no longer have to aim an acid spray to the front if it could spew it from its mouth. After naming the species [Acid Spray Bombardier Beetle] (E-), Dylan sent the beetle towards a breeding cave before regaining his mana.

After about an hour, Dylan was ready to go again. He had to admit that his high levels of mana regeneration seemed pretty cheat-like even to him. It was probably due to the effects of [Natural Order], as having tons of insects being born and dying at nearly every moment definitely helped with his mana regeneration. Thinking about it, he should increase the fertility and lessen the gestation periods of his mammal-type monsters, as they would take too long to replenish large amounts of numbers whenever Dylan needed them. Maybe he would have to increase the growth speed of the babies too, as the babies were vulnerable until they grew old enough to fight effectively. Luckily, it appeared as if eating the corpses of other monsters helped to facilitate the growth of monster babies, although it did leave Dylan with less mana to absorb later, not that it mattered much.

Anyhow… Dylan turned to the clawed spider which patiently awaited him, horned hare corpse in its claws. It looked comically cute, staring at his ‘form’ with its eight large eyes. Dylan immediately channeled both his mana and the mana within the spider to facilitate its evolution. He started by greatly increasing its body size. As of right now, the spider had stood at a height of about 5 feet, but he boosted its height so it stood at nearly 7 feet tall on its stilt-like legs. The body of the spider and the length of its claw-limbs had increased in proportion too. Dylan then greatly increased the thickness and musculature of the spider’s legs, so they were similar in size to the trunk of a young tree. Dylan then decided to use a new aspect of his [Forceful Evolution], which would allow him to imbue items or ores into his monsters during evolution. Dylan didn’t have any ores he had absorbed unfortunately, so he decided to imbue stone into the spider’s exoskeleton, specifically, granite. The spider’s exoskeleton was now as durable as granite. Of course, Dylan needed to spend an immense amount of mana to strengthen its musculature even further so it could move with the same speed as usual. After increasing its strength to a reasonable amount, Dylan did his best to upgrade the spider’s cognitive and memorization skills in its head, using up almost all of his remaining mana. The last of it was used to give the spider the skill [Twin Strikes]. Even considering the amount of mana he had used and the amount he had absorbed during the evolution, Dylan must have used nearly 500 mana to upgrade the spider alone.

I hope it was worth it… Dylan sighed as the Voice of the World’s prompt appeared before him again.

Please name the new species of monster.

It’ll be called [Stone-Clawed Spider].

Congratulations, you have created the [Stone-Clawed Spider] species.

You can now [Summon]: Stone-Clawed Spider (D+)

WOOHOOOOO!!! Now that’s pretty good! Dylan was greatly excited by his new beast. If he was able to gather a large number of Stone-Clawed Spiders, he might be able to combat all of the (D) ranked wolf type monsters using his sheer number strategy. Currently, he was on track to gathering hundreds of weaker monsters, and could hopefully swarm most of the wolves. The thing which Dylan feared the most, however, was the [Fireball Wolf] mentioned in the quest. None of his monsters were particularly resistant to fire, not the mention the fact that his whole forest could burn down if a large blaze went off. I’ll deal with that later, but we must deal with the final evolution.

“Come here, Kuraura.” Dylan called Kuraura over while he planned out Kuraura’s evolution. Kuraura happily stepped over and kneeled while Dylan thought for nearly an hour in recovery. Dylan decisively decided to keep the Stone-Clawed Spider with him for safety purposes due to its high rank. Although inadequate, it was his strongest trump card as of now.

After refilling his mana, Dylan jumped into the evolution without a second thought. Without warning, he began to evolve Kuraura, startling the poor goblin in the process. He increased Kuraura’s height, from his initial feeble height being smaller than a normal goblin, to being nearly as tall as Grotho, growing to 5 feet tall. His muscle density greatly increased, and his previously skinny body became a lean, muscular shape. His severe underbite was lessened by a degree and his bat-like ears grew in size. Dylan then granted him the skill [Twin Strikes], [Skin Clench] and [Danger Sense]. Using the rest of his mana, Dylan greatly improved Kuraura’s cognitive abilities and memorization, similarly to the Stone-Clawed Spider, except Dylan decided to focus more mana in Kuraura’s mental capabilities instead, using up all of the remaining mana, as well as the extra he had absorbed during the course of evolution, to increase his intelligence to as similarly to a human as possible. After Dylan finished with Kuraura’s evolution, he named the new species [Aberrant Goblin], a new (E-) species. Despite having a much higher intelligence than the average goblin, the Aberrant Goblins had similar strength, so even their skills might not be able to make up much of a difference. In addition, their reproduction would take significantly longer than that of an average goblin due to the need for the baby’s brain to develop during pregnancy. Dylan ordered Kuraura to go to a breeding cave while Dylan would prepare more mana to summon a mate for him, causing the goblin to joyously bow down and praise Dylan.

After finally shooing Kuraura away, Dylan decided to get down to business with the expansion of his forest cave. Being only a mile in diameter, even if the wolves were careful, they wouldn’t take longer than an hour or two to reach Dylan’s core, even with the river running through the middle. Dylan wanted to push it to its maximum size. He did not know how far he could expand into the mountain, or even how big the mountain was. All he knew was that he needed to expand, and move his core to the farthest possible point from the entrance. Also… Dylan had found out a little trick while he had been waiting for his mana to refill to evolve Kuraura. He had always been curious to see if he could check back on the quest he had started and now he would be able to.

Quest. Dylan said in his mind, and the white screen popped into existence with its trademark chime.

Current Quest!

Challenge: Defeat or Survive Encounter! The goal of this challenge is to destroy all incoming enemies, or survive for an allotted time without having your core destroyed!

Enemies:

‘Maxin’ the Werewolf Mage (C+)

‘Uruga’ the Werewolf Warrior (C )

2x Fire Ball Wolf (C )

10x Ember Wolf (D)

10x Wind Wolf (D)

10x Iron Spine Wolf (D)

10x Dire Wolf (D-)

24x Wolf

OR

Survive for One(1) day after the enemies entered the Dungeon!

Please Note! You will not obtain the ability to summon anything you don’t kill! Also, regardless of whether or not you kill the Werewolf Mage or Werewolf Warrior, you will not acquire the ability to summon them! Lastly, the more floors you have within the Dungeon at the time of entry, the more days the enemies have to conquer the Dungeon!

Rewards:

2x Human Prisoner

[Summon]: Psychoceros (C+) (Rare)

[Summon]: Rampant Lesser Raptor (C ) (Rare)

[Summon]: Long-Necked Lesser Drake (C ) (Rare)

[Catching Gehennia’s Attention] (Skill)

One(1) Random animal [Summon] of a species which would be unavailable to you now

Enemies arrive in: Six(6) days Three(3) hours

…Wait… Why’d it change?!