Valens took another look over his new floors, he was rather pleased with how they had turned out. It had been a while since the adventurers had come by, around two and a half months if Magnus was to be believed. He hadn’t been getting invaders this entire time except for a few insects that managed to slip inside. The core hadn’t been idle though, he had finished four entire floors, and had made a start on the sixteenth. Unfortunately, he could feel the amount of space he had left slowly running out, he would be able to start and maybe finish the sixteenth floor but then he was going to have to wait as experience slowly accumulated from his ecosystems. That was fine though, his new swamp project had been a much bigger success than he had thought it would be, the creatures, in particular, were fascinating.

For starters, the creatures born on the floors had gradually adapted more and more to the soggy environment, some of them at least. The wolves didn’t do very well on these floors, maybe the next few he had planned would suit them better. However the snakes and lizards had thrived on the floor, the tier one snakes that Valens had adapted to the floor had been better at swimming but not much else. However, when they evolved into monster snakes they had developed gills and an entirely new pattern. Granted the pattern was still for a monster snake but Valens still couldn’t wait to see how the creatures would develop differently from their land-bound counterparts.

The lizards on the other hand had been a bit of a surprise, they hadn’t grown gills like the snakes but they had still changed pretty drastically. The tier two monster lizards on this floor were even bigger than Sora, massive reptiles that tended to lie still just at the surface of the water waiting for prey. Magnus had called the creatures alligators, or maybe it was crocodiles? Regardless, the system still referred to the creatures and its new pattern as monster lizards, and Valens was starting to question how accurate its naming system was. It already had issues with the system not distinguishing between different types of plants.

The core had noticed that even the snakes and lizards he hadn’t adapted to the floor himself still changed when they evolved. He was actually slightly concerned that Sora would evolve into a water-based creature, but Magnus commented that this was highly unlikely. Her dragon blood would keep her on a set evolution path, as the alligators on the swamp floors were apparently a precursor to the lizard’s primary evolutionary tree. Valens hadn’t been able to learn much about this branch of evolution from Magnus, the drake insisted he wanted it to be a surprise. What he did learn was that the evolutionary branch was supposed to be big, very big.

Valens could see that the alligators were already larger than Sora, though not by a lot. Sora stood at about the same size as a wolf with a more upright body, her legs keeping her fully off the ground. The alligators were longer than her, and they were also positioned closer to the ground, almost dragging themselves along when on land. Well regardless, Sora was still the better fighter, on land, there was very little contest with Sora being able to sneak up on the larger lizards and pin their skulls to the ground and kill them. Things were a little more even in the water, Sora had pulled off a few kills with surprise and a little bit of luck but if she didn’t get the jump on an alligator in the water, she would get pulled under and drowned.

All in all, though Sora was coming along nicely, she had shot up to level 52 while Aspen had grown at a noticeable slower pace and was now level 39. Unfortunately, both of his bosses weren’t getting very many levels right now, most of the normal creatures on his later floors were only low tier two. Which meant they gave less and less experience to the increasingly stronger bosses. Come to think of it, levels seemed like they weren’t that big of a deal except as a way to tell how close you were to the next tier, a level 10 tier two creature was much the same as a level 15 tier two creature in terms of power. Maybe they would matter more later, as it took increasingly more levels to evolve to the next tier, the core was certain that Magnus was a lot stronger than any newly evolved tier six creature.

Taking a second look at the two different lizard patterns he has, Valens can see there is a clear difference between the normal monster lizard and the aquatic variety. The mana in the alligators seems different, changed in some way that Valens can’t fully identify. It almost looked like a different mana type like the ones Magnus has been messing with.

Magnus, can you take a look at something real quick?

Sure, Valens. Fortunately, the drake was actually awake when the core needed something this time.

Valens created an alligator right in the middle of the core room and asked. Do these aquatic monster lizards, or alligators if you prefer have a different mana type in them?

Magnus squinted at the lizard tilting his head from side to side. Now that you mention it it does look like they have a tiny amount of water mana in them. Not enough for most people to notice, but then you are a dungeon. Frankly, I didn’t think you could see elemental mana yet.

I didn’t see it precisely, but I did notice how the neutral mana seemed twisted and different from the normal lizard pattern.

Magnus nodded his head sagely. I see, well that makes sense. Elemental mana, water mana in this case is made of part normal mana, or neutral as you referred to it, and pure water element. When you control neutral mana in a certain way it will create the water element, which is how mages use water magic.

Does that mean I could use elemental magics, I have neutral mana that I can control very well, you just need to tell me how to change it into water mana.

Magnus looked a little uncomfortable at the suggestion. Well, sorry but you’ll probably have to figure it out on your own. You see, everyone has a different way to shape their mana to produce an element, the way that works for me will almost certainly do nothing for you. Also, your mana is intricately interwoven with your aura, and I don’t have the slightest idea how that will affect elemental mana either.

Ah. Valens slumped a bit, he would have liked to have thrown a fireball at some invaders. So how do most people go about learning a new element? Surely he could figure it out eventually.

Well, when most people try to learn a new element it's almost exclusively to unlock a class that will let them use the element more easily. Except for certain classes you need to have a basic grasp of whatever mana type you are trying to class into. So for example to get a fire mage class you would need to have a very basic understanding of fire mana. Most people get such an understanding by spending a lot of time around the fire, and in areas with a lot of fire mana.

Not sure I needed to know about the classes part, but it's interesting to know. So I just need to be around a type of mana for long enough to start figuring it out? That would fit quite nicely into his plans for the next floor if that was the case. Also, when do mage classes start specializing like you mentioned? The only one I’ve seen besides you was that kid who came in here with the other humans and he was just throwing around neutral mana.

Magnus scratched his head looking uncomfortable. So again I don’t know how you will go about learning about the elements. It could be you’ll just be able to understand them as you grow and your aura gets strong enough to see them. Now about the classes, mages don’t take any elemental specializations until they choose their tier four class. Actually, for all of the different energies, chi, mana, and chakra, the first three classes are always the same. It's only after that point where different class evolutions start taking place.

Valens nodded, it was good to know, he would theoretically be having a lot more humans exploring his dungeon in the coming days. Too bad he didn’t have a class though, not that he was interested in straight-up fighting, but it would be hilarious to be able to throw a spell into the middle of an ongoing fight to see what happened. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem likely, the core had tried to cast a few basic spells but they never quite worked. Sure he could mold and form mana very well, but it never would quite unstick from his aura, so he could never get his spells to cast. It was disappointing but he put it under his long-term projects, along with rune carving, and figuring out how to use runes without using his aura.

Oh well. Magnus have you finished setting up the runic arrays on the sixteenth floor? There wasn’t much of a sixteenth floor yet, just a small cave around his core room, with absolutely no life in it, but covered in complex runic patterns spaced out every ten feet. For what the core wanted to do, he needed a lot of runes, runes that he wasn’t skilled enough to draw himself, so he had Magnus do it.

Yes it's ready, but I’m not so sure about this Valens, I don’t want to have to do this for the entire floor. The drake yawned widely. I’m tired already can’t you just let me sleep?

No, stop being so lazy. Why do you sleep so much anyway? Just activate the arrays, I want to see what happens. Seriously, why was the drake always sleeping?

Magnus shuffled his feet and looked a little awkward. Well, I like sleeping, and I hadn’t slept in centuries before finding you so I thought I’d catch up on lost sleep. Not like there’s much for me to do until you become a tier six dungeon.

Seriously? I was kidding before but you spend like ninety percent of the time asleep, just because you're lazy? You sure it's not a more believable reason like wanting me to be independent when creating my dungeon?

Magnus wouldn’t look at the core, despite Valens’ ability to literally see anything within his dungeon. No that's not it. It just gets boring when all you're doing is expanding or growing plants, give me a break Valens, things will get more interesting once the humans start exploring the dungeon.

Valens glared suspiciously at the drake but decided to let the matter drop. Fine then, can you turn on the runes now?

Magnus nodded his head and a complex weave of patterns throughout the start of the sixteenth floor began to glow. The temperature on the floor plunged as the runes took the heat on the floor and pulled, dropping the temperature below freezing. The glow reminded Valens, he still didn’t have a proper light source for his dungeon, and he didn’t want the adventurers coming back with torches again.

Hey Magnus, any ideas for a light source that I could use? The drake had all sorts of odds and ends tucked away, and core half-believed any request he had could be filled by pulling something from mid-air.

Sure I have a few sunstones that I picked up over on the Dusk continent. They should work. Magnus laid out several rocks that were glowing with bright radiance, almost identical to the sunlight that streamed in through the entrance.

Valens nodded appreciatively and absorbed the stones. They were tricky to understand at first, but inanimate rocks, no matter how complicated, were always going to be less complicated to living things so the core figured out the pattern quickly enough. He then began seeding the stones throughout the dungeon, he made sure to sink them a little way into the rocky ceiling of the dungeon, which would hopefully prevent anyone from taking them.

It was quite satisfying to see his entire dungeon properly lit, it was a small change overall but now at least he didn’t have to worry about adventurers burning down an entire floor because they dropped their torch. Anyway, Valens turned back to the sixteenth floor, it was time to start populating the floor, he was excited to see what new evolutions he could find in this new more extreme environment.