That was a good sleep, I slept one day and a half and I’m still groggy from the effort. I won’t do such big and complicated experiments before some days. Today I’m gonna rest a bit.

I go through my daily checklist and make sure everything is fine. The creatures and the plants are in good health and slowly growing bigger. The big crabs are doing fine but it seems the density of the mana in them is growing slower than before their evolution. On the bat size, they have found a clearing with a strange source in the forest, the plants around it seem to grow faster and bigger than in the other part they mapped for me. I order one of them to taste the water next time and the rest of my bats to explore the rest of the forest during their time outside.

I also found that when my mana pool is completely full my core emits refined mana in bigger quantity than usual. I guess it’s a good thing, it allows my creatures to absorb ambient mana faster and in better quality. Hopefully, they will grow faster and stronger thanks to that.

Talking about creatures naturally absorbing my mana, maybe the insects will evolve faster. I didn’t had to manually claim all of those after all. I closely inspect some of them and it seems that they are almost full of mana and already really bigger than when they were unclaimed. I will keep an eye on those and work on them tomorrow.

After that I allow my fishes to swim freely in the river, as long as they come back one hour a day to let me pick in their memories and map the waterways. The insects have the task to map the airways of the mountain.

On my side, I claim one new bat then start to claim a bigger area. I infuse my mana in the air of the bats’ passageway, in the water of the river and directly in the rock all around me. Slowly but surely I’m expanding my influence area or growing my own body, it’s the same thing anyway.

Claiming is easier on the air than on the upstream part of the river or in the stone, but surprisingly at first the fastest and easiest part to claim is the downstream part of the river. After a bit of reflexion, it appears normal, after all this water was part of me before flowing outside, and I already ascertained that previously claimed stuff is easier to claim back.

I use one-fourth of my mana in claiming the surrounding part of the mountain, it was only tunnels, air and water ones, and the rock and dirt in between. My new size is almost twice as big as before, it seems that claiming new area is more costly than when I claim my current core room. Too bad, it will slow my expansion’s will but not stop it.

Now I’m gonna take a nap and after that, I will start my experiments on the bugs.

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Mmhmm.

I can’t fall asleep, and I feel my mana pool slowly filling itself. Can’t I sleep without an empty mana pool? I always go to sleep when I empty it, so maybe.

I’m going to need something to entertain myself if I can’t sleep. Is that the reason why dungeons want adventurers? To entertain themselves watching them dive into their domain? Maybe, I’ll see if it is true when I’ll have adventurers diving in.

I wanted to wait before making new experiments but screw that. I will start now.

I start by examining the kind of bugs I have in my dungeon. So I have flies eating moss and cadaver, fleas and ticks sucking blood from bats, mosquitoes sucking algae sap and bat blood, beetles devouring the moss and the algae, and finally, some spiders eating flying bugs. The bigger are the bloodsucker ones and the spider, probably because their food source is more mana charge than the herbivorous ones. And of course, I have the larvae state for all of those insects.

I start by taking one of the biggest flies and pour some mana into it. Almost immediately the fly lands on the roof and starts to glow, pretty soon after that the glow vanishes and a bigger fly is there. I’m surprised, I was expecting it to cost more mana but it only cost me the quantity I gather in the same time. It means I can play as much as want with the bugs, it will almost cost nothing.

I’m going to play with that.

First I try the same with the other kind of bugs, and no surprise, the mana cost is dependent on the size and the complexity of the bug, the spiders being the costlier.

Then I start the fun part.

I start with trying to make a really big fly. I pour as much mana in it as I can without poisoning the fly. And success. Next a fly with really big wings. Then one with twice the number of wings, I need several attempts before succeeding. I go on again and again for the better part of the day.

I now have dozens of type of variants for each kind of bugs. Some with disproportionate body parts, bigger or smaller, some with more or less numerous members that normally, some with colors, every kind of color mixing. I even manage to make a two head fly, but its so ugly I kill it immediately. Except for the spiders, I don’t have enough spider to make as many stupid experiments than with the other bugs. As I thought, the mana consumption is bigger when the modification is more complicated.

There is still one thing I couldn’t make. Glowing bugs, I didn’t manage to make the bugs glow like my fake stars. But I know that one day I will succeed, I just don’t know how to do it yet.

Oh! I have a new idea. I take a fly and a flea and force them to touch one another, then I start to pour mana in them. I focus my mind on making them one. I want to fuse them. The light starts to shine from the two different bugs. I force them to go closer and closer, almost crushing them.

Then I sense something changing in the center of the light, there is no more two light, but only one. At the same time, my mana starts to flow out of me at an accelerated pace. The light shine brighter than for all the other bugs or even than for the crabs. My mana pool is emptying itself at a record speed and I start to stop the operation.

I feel that my mana pool will soon be empty and I don’t want that. The light is still getting brighter each second it takes mana out of me. If it continues at this pace I will be dry out of mana in 3 minutes. I must find a way to stop it.

I order all my present creatures to attack and kill the source of the light while I keep trying to stop the mana from flowing out of me. Unfortunately, when they get too close my creatures are stopped and they can’t hit the light source.

I’m afraid that it will continue to suck mana out of me even after emptying my mana pool and that it will kill me.

And then, 10 seconds before being completely mana depleted, the light stop in a big flash illuminating the cavern.

The thing that appears in the place of the fly and the flea is a monstrosity with 9 unproportioned legs, 3 sets of shattered wings, a twisted body, and one and a half head. The thing looks around take three steps and the drop dead, releasing only a small part of the mana it took from me.

This last experience beat me, I’m going to take a good night sleep, I think I use enough mana to do it. It also taught me an important lesson, hybridization is a really complicated thing to do, and even with small and insignificant creatures, it cost a tremendous amount of mana, that I don’t have to succeed at the moment. I will keep that thing for a much later time.

I had a good and peaceful sleep.

As I go through my daily checklist I confirm that my mana pool is bigger after my expansion, it is still full, but not as much as the last days. I also find out that half of my experiments on bugs died during my sleep, I guess I will need to be more thoughtful about the modification I put into them.

After that, I inspect my creatures memories for actualizing my surrounding area map.

First the inside of the mountain. It’s a true gruyère of air and waterway, it seems there is a lot of caverns, but not as big as the one I currently have my core in. My fishes and bugs that have explored those passages crossed path with some creatures that I don’t have in my dungeon, but I don’t know what they are. I will need to claim more of the mountain and then mana poison some to learn the names of their species.

On the bats' side, they went through a far bigger part of the forest they usually go, but they didn’t find the end of it. The one that tasted the water in the clearing brings the information that it is slightly infused with mana. My mana, the water flowing outside from my dungeon must flow there, it’s a good news, this part of the forest will be easier to claim when the time comes.

The bats crossed past with a lot of creatures from the woods, like every night, they also show me the three moons in their actual phase, it was beautiful but not as much as my own starry roof. One of them made an interesting discovery, it flew above a strange place, three furry creatures with arms and legs were communicating and eating around a strange thing undulating in the air and producing warmth and light. The creatures used a lot of strange objects to do a lot of things. I don’t know what those objects, things, and creatures are, but it’s really interesting. Could they be adventurers? I don’t know.

After making this discovery I claim as many bats as I can and ordered all my creatures to study every being of this kind the next time they found some.

I used all my mana to claim the bats then go to sleep.