I’m walking outside. The night is dark, none of the moons are in the sky, letting the stars shine brighter than usual. There is a weak breeze in the air taking to my nose the flowers’ fragrances. I love this kind of night, they allow to almost forget about my troubles.

I’m taking a walk in the palace’s park, enjoying the stars while I’m trying to decide on what to do next to attain my goals.

What was that?

A dream? That’s the first time I've had a dream.

It looked like a memory. Was that one of my locked memories? Am I starting to regain those?I had a body with two legs and two arms, none of my creatures are looking like what I was. I was simply walking and thinking about the problems I had at the time. I can’t remember what were those problems. Anyway, this life ended, I have a new one and more urgent things to do than to try solving my previous life problems. One day I’ll find a way to regain all my memories from that time and I’ll be able to understand what happened to me. Maybe if I keep growing as a dungeon I’ll be able to do it.

And for that I need to have visitors, some stuff to attract them and other stuff to greet them and keep them away from my core. The ‘adventurers’, the people that go dungeon diving, must never ever reach my core room and walk away. So, here’s my to-do list:

Make some real monsters, not the slightly overgrown crabs I have. Make a maze to lure the adventurers away from my core room. Make something to reward the adventurers and be sure that they still come in my dungeon.

Wait a second. Why do dungeons want adventurers to come in them? If they didn’t want it, they would not make rewards for them. Even if most of the dungeons’ rewards are simply monster parts for a lot of crafts, a lot managed to make some kind of quality ore, gems, and even magical ones. The biggest and riskiest always had wondrous rewards. If dungeons want adventurers they must be a reason, I’ll find out eventually. I’m not planning on staying forever hidden in my hole, one day, someone will find me. And that day, I should be ready.

Monsters are the first thing I need to do to prepare for the eventual adventurers, but it's not an urgent task. First I have to take care of my daily tasks

I check my mana pool and remark that it is almost in the same state as the previous days. Same size, but slightly faster regeneration rate. I think the size of it depends on my size of as a dungeon and the number of creatures I claim while the regeneration rate depends a bit on the size and mostly on the activity of the creatures and if they are claimed or not. I will be able to check this theory the next time I make a big expansion.

My creatures are fine, slowly growing in size. Maybe they’ll naturally become monsters if they have time and mana. And it’s the same thing for the plants, they even grow more than they were eaten, it means I don’t need to artificially accelerate their growth anymore. Or I could try to make monsters out of them. Plant monsters are a rarity, but they are a thing.

Then I claim one new bat, it is surprisingly fast and low on mana consumption. Maybe the ambient mana is starting to make a tangible effect on the claiming process of the bats, it’s actually been a lot of time since I claimed the area. I take advantage of the situation and claim a fourth one. I also examine the memories of the previous two. They only went flying in the outside forest. They are not giving really useful information, but I can slowly map out the immediate surrounding area.

That’s good, my mana pool, creatures, and knowledge of the local area are slowly growing. I can now pass on the longer term tasks.

I choose one of the biggest crabs - not one of the two first claimed - and infuse mana in it. First I make sure to evenly pour the mana in the crab to have an idea of how the crabs will evolve as they continue to absorb more and more mana. I don’t need to pay as much attention as before in making sure to not mana poison the creatures I infuse mana in, all that claiming helped me to master that skill.

The crab seems to feel that I’m doing something to it, it decides to stay still. That’s new, when I’m claiming a creature, they don’t notice it until I gave it an order, and if I don’t give it order it will continue its life like before. Although for the crabs, I notice they always target the new fishes that manage to swim inside my part of the river before attacking the claimed fishes, like if they were repealing invaders. And my fishes don’t go outside of my waters, but that’s cause I ordered them to.

Anyway, the chosen crab continues lay still as it gathers the mana I’m pouring in it. At first, and during a moment, it doesn’t seem like anything is happening outside of the mana concentrating in every part of the crab. Then the crab starts to glow, I don't falter and keep pouring mana in it, the glow grows brighter with each bit of mana and I can feel something is happening inside the crab. I don’t stop infusing my mana in the creature, and slowly the light starts to diminish.

When the light completely vanishes I can’t help but feel a bit of disappointment. It's a big crab that standing over there. A very big crab indeed, twice as big as before making it the biggest crab in my dungeon, but only that. And it was really consuming in term of mana quantity.

I’ve almost emptied my mana pool and I feel very weak right now. I’m more sleepy than ever, and it made the day really short for me. Notes for myself, only push the creatures on the last bit of the way to evolution, it should be a really lower price. I also suppose that if I want to make some special variants I’ll need to use more mana.

I’m going to take a nap, I’ll test my new theory tomorrow.

In the following days, I continue my daily tasks, the bats became easier to claim each day and my mental map of the local forest grew more and more detailed.

I ordered the bats to map out the natural maze of tunnels between my core room and the outside, it seems like there is a lot of natural ways on this mountain. It is also surrounded by the forest on the north, the east, and the south side. Only the west side isn’t bordered by forest, it’s a cliff directly bordered by the ocean, or maybe it’s just a sea, I don’t know. The bats also gave the information that the shore is heading east on the north and the south side. And I learned that my core room is actually above sea level, my river is logically flowing in it, I'll need to send my fishes to inspect it.

Anyway, it seems that there is no habitation near the mountain, that means I may be able to claim it fully along with a part of the forest before being discovered.

I also forcefully grow two other of the biggest crabs. The task is still so exhausting that I can’t do more than one every two days.

Today is the day I will try the first time to do something different than simply make them bigger. I’m going to try to make a new asymmetrical crab.

I choose one of the bigger crabs and start the process of forcefully evolving it. But this time I focus on its left pincer. The crab stop moving during the process, like the other ones before, they may have a spark of intelligence.

The mana gathers itself in the crab, I force it to concentrate more in the left pincer, but it keeps trying to leak in the rest of the crab, like if something wanted it to be evenly distributed. I focus on the left pincer and decide to forgo the right one. Then the crab starts to glow and I keep my mind focus on the task to focus the most of the mana in the left pincer.

When the light vanishes I see that it is only a partial success. The left pincer is indeed bigger than the left pincer of the other crabs, and the right one smaller, but it is not at the same level as the one that hatched with this asymmetrical trait. Surely it is easier to manipulate the form of the creature while they are still in a fetal form.

I have a lot of ideas on how to experiment on the next crabs, but I may let them gather more mana from themselves before.

And was right on another part of the experiment. Forcing a way of evolution is more demanding in mana and concentration than simply taking them on the normal path.

I’m tired, so tired I may sleep for two days straight.