The expansion of the dungeon continued at a good pace, the core had even developed a new strategy for expansion aimed. First, it would push its aura out away from its protective rock wall, it would then regrow the rock shell around the border of the dungeon and finally finish by removing the old layer of rock and expanding new tunnels out into the new region. This new practice made expansion painfully slow but it would keep the core safe so it persevered.

On the minions' side of things, the core was getting very close to unlocking the mouse template. It felt like one maybe two more kills and it would have the pattern that would go a long way to make the core feel safer. The core had encountered the huge slithery creatures two more times, they had never made it into the dungeon proper, but it was still unnerving for the core. It wasn’t looking forward to one of those things actually looking for its core.

The core had noticed that it was attracting increasing numbers of mice as time went on. At first, there had been huge gaps between each mouse entering the dungeon but now there were more and more coming and there would often be two or even three mice in the dungeon at once. This wasn’t too much of an issue for the core as its increasing size meant that it could set up more ambush chambers and create more scorpions. This was pushing it towards unlocking the mouse template a lot faster than it had previously assumed which was good.

The core watched the three mice that were currently in its domain. One was approaching its second ambush chamber having evaded death the first time around. This didn’t worry the core too much as it would have before, it was quite common for its trap to fail sometimes. One extraordinarily lucky creature had avoided six ambush chambers while traversing the core’s dungeon, six! It hadn’t even died to a successful ambush instead being worn down by the accumulated venom from the core’s botched attacks. However it looked like this particular mouse had run out of luck, the mouse thrashed around in pain as the scorpions scuttled back having successfully dealt the death blow to the invader. The core shuddered in anticipation as the template of the mouse filled in a little more, still not enough that's no problem though there are more victims to be had surely it will only take one more right?

The second mouse was annoying the core, it was just wandering around the tunnel without a care in the world. It was still trying to descend further into the dungeon, but for some reason, the stupid creature was incredibly skittish about entering an ambush chamber. Maybe this one was smarter than other mice? Well apparently not, the mouse proceeded to finally stick its head into one of the chambers and promptly got an eyeful of scorpion tail.

The core waited impatiently as the mouse thrashed around on the tunnel floor, it was only a matter of time now. The core almost felt safer already as it considered all the applications of its soon-to-be complete mouse template. Hopefully, it would be able to create it without draining all of its mana like with the scorpion at first. The core was optimistic about being able to create the mouse reliably, its mana capacity was through the roof and its core had grown an enormous amount. It could even make three scorpions in a row without completely draining its mana at this point.

The core froze as the mouse finally died, delicious food flowed into the core, and the final piece of the mouse template finally slotted into place. Success at last. The core looked over its defenses, the number of roaming scorpions was a little low but they had never really been for handling the mice and more geared towards killing off any of the lesser creatures that found their way into the dungeon.

Checking its mana to find it full, the core decided that it would try testing the new pattern immediately. However it first sealed off the tunnel leading to its core, it felt like a physical blow to the core as its mana regeneration tanked but it ensured the core’s protection even if it passed out making its first mouse. Double-checking one more time on its defenders and the third mouse that was still wandering around the dungeon entrance, the core felt satisfied with its preparations.

Slowly it brought forth the template from the depths of its consciousness, gently it guided mana throughout the beautiful tapestry of the mouse. In a magnificent display, only the core could see the very basic structure of the mouse took shape. It mana raced along blood vessels and etched the shape of bones, carefully outlining each hair of the massive mouse. With a tiny pop of displaced air, the completed mouse sprang into existence. The core’s sight flickered black creeping around the edges, its mana was dangerously low but it had just enough to pull it off.

As the core’s mana slowly recovered it admired its newest creature, the mouse was far larger and stronger than its scorpions. It would have to remake the dungeon again to make proper use of the new creature’s strengths. Although the core liked its scorpions it was pleased to be moving forward in its creature strength. It wouldn't destroy its existing scorpions for no reason but they were no longer needed at this point. Come to think of it, the core still had a few ants around from its early days. The core kind of just let the old ants wander around and do whatever, most of them hung around the patches of grass that popped up periodically around the dungeon.

The core’s incredible slow regeneration finally recovered to none critical levels, and it carefully removed the plug of stone from its tunnel opening itself back up to the rest of the dungeon. Mana immediately started to flood back into the core, and it took a look to see what the final mouse was up to. The last invader had almost made its way to one of the first ambush chambers, considering for a second it ordered its scorpions to retreat from the approaching mouse and allow it further into the dungeon.

Sending its newest minion scurrying through the dungeon the core watched as the invader slowly poked around the ambush chamber. There were no scorpions anymore, so there was no real danger to the mouse at all, but this one remained cautious. Carefully examining the new chamber, and scurrying around agitatedly. Normally this sort of behavior would have annoyed the core, but this time it gave its new guardian just enough time to reach the intruder.

The invading mouse didn’t react to the new mouse at all, to begin with, this changed after the core’s minion attacked the intruder with savage ferocity. The core wanted to see how its creature would stack up to an invader in a one-on-one match, they should be about evenly matched and if so the core wanted to know now so it could arrange its new defenses accordingly.

However, the fight was turning into more of a one-sided beatdown than an even desperate struggle. The invading mouse had been taken completely off guard by the attack, and even now struggling more to get away than do damage to its opponent. The core’s mouse on the other hand was tearing into the enemy with reckless abandon, it was ignoring injuries in favor of inflicting as much damage as possible on the enemy. The fight ended rather quickly with the core’s creature tearing the enemy to shreds.

The core’s mouse had been slightly injured but the injuries were nothing more than scratches. The core was a little surprised by the actions of the invader, if it had stood its ground and fought it might have been able to severely injure and maybe even kill the core’s minion. Regardless this meant that the core’s creatures were completely superior to the invading mice and by the looks of things the core would be able to take them down without having to worry about losing any of its minions.

It was going to take the core a while to fully change over its main guardians into mice, the core’s mana was still not full from creating the first mouse. Regardless there were other changes it would need to make once it had enough mice, primarily it would be expanding the tunnel sizes again. The current tunnels were constructed to constrict and slow the movements of invading mice as much as possible, however, they would also happier the movements of the core’s minions. The core also didn’t need the ambush chambers anymore but it decided to just leave them for now, they might be useful eventually.

The core felt something entering its domain, that's rather disappointing another beetle. It had three different types of beetles already and none of them were useful. Preparing just to send the scorpions and forget about the useless creature, the core stopped as the beetle was brutally crushed and yanked out of its dungeon. What was that thing? It hadn’t gotten a good look at the creature but it had seemed distinctly different from what the core had seen before.

It waited with bated breath hoping that whatever it was would enter, and suddenly it did. The strange creature hopped inside of the dungeon fluttering and twittering in place, the thing was bigger than a mouse but smaller than the strange slithering creature it had encountered before. This new invader also had an oddly shaped nose and mouth that seemed melded together and rather pointed and dangerous looking. The creature awkwardly hopped further into the dungeon, its legs seemed strangely proportioned to the rest of its body, completely hairless and rather bad at moving the creature around. The tunnels were extremely tight for this creature, and its stubby little legs weren’t doing it any favors either.

Apparently, the invader agreed with the core’s assessment as it began to shuffle its way back out of the narrow confines of the tunnel. Thinking quickly the core hurriedly took command of some of the defunct ants still in the upper dungeon, sending them to the entrance of the dungeon.

The invader halted its retreat when the ants came into view, twittering it lunged forward striking at the ants with its oddly shaped mouth. It made a hollow thunk as it missed by a lot, the ants weren’t anywhere near its reach. Carefully the core directed one of the ants forward, having it hover right outside of the invader’s reach, hoping that this plan would work.

Success, the interloper squeezed its way forward trying again to peck the core’s ant, craftily the core had its ant retreat little by little making sure to give very clear instructions not to run away completely. Gradually it lured this new creature down the too-narrow tunnels until they finally reached the first ambush chamber. The interloper seemed pleased to have more room hurriedly exiting the cramped confines of the tunnel chittering skittishly at the other major occupant of the room.

This concern soon proved warranted as the core’s mouse pounced on the creature’s head. Vaguely it struggled to peck at the mouse, but even though it was larger than the mouse the creature seemed a good deal weaker, its struggles even more pathetic than the earlier mouse. The core’s mouse eventually ended the fight with a solid bite to the back of the neck.

Examining its latest template the core realized that this… Bird ...was similar to the mouse template but not the same. There were some pretty big differences that the core could see even without the complete bird template. For one something seemed different about the bones of the bird, the fur covering the bird also wasn’t exactly fur either. The core couldn't quite figure out what these differences meant but hopefully, it would eventually. For now, it decided to set about expanding the tunnels, it was a little early for the change but the core didn’t want to have to use its ants as bait every time a bird showed up. It began slowly expanding the tunnels giving its future mice and invading birds enough room to move about. Looking at all of the tunnels it had to change it felt a little exasperated, a core’s work is never done.