After Amy set up the tides, she decided to begin with the mangrove swamp, working her way up to building the coral reef barrier, then experiment and create the trench environment.

She was going to mainly use some of her mangrove oak trees, and as she was going through all of her tree species, she noticed one that she had never used on previous floors. The seed, oceanic tupelo, was a long-living tree that grows in saltwater. It was perfect for the swampy environment she wanted, even though she did not know exactly what it looked like.

The mangrove oak and oceanic tupelo are the only trees that she wanted to be in the environment, so she knew she would have to experiment. She was going to do the experiment before growing the two trees because Amy did not know what she would create. And if the experiment is successful, then she might want to have the experimental trees be placed equally with the other two trees. So, she decided to do this experiment with one of the mangrove oak seeds.

Amy took a strand of water mana, inserted it into the seed, and wrapped the strand around the seed to completely cover it. Once it was covered, Amy started pushing the power of the water mana into the seed.

Unlike the other time that she did this on a seed with water mana, the glow that came out of it was a brownish-blue colour.

After a bit, she stopped pushing mana into the seed and pulled up the description.

Murky Mangrove Seed

A type of mangrove tree that has been encased in water mana. An effect of the water mana is a brownish water-like sap that is released by the roots.

Realizing brownish water-like sap, could darken and muddy the water a bit to make it appear more like a swamp. She was quite happy with the possibility that the tree would make her environment appear more like a swamp.

As soon as she saw the experiment succeed, Amy started growing the three trees throughout the swamp. Throughout the areas, both in the deepest and shallow spots, she threw the seeds for the tree down and let them settle in their spots randomly to get more of a random and less artificially placed feel to the environment.

When the seeds were all placed down, Amy inserted many mana strings and grew the trees all at once.

As the trees grew, they started to form their own little islands with paths going around them. The mangroves were too dense to pass through in some spots, but the oceanic tupelo was not like the mangrove trees. It had a thick trunk, with most of its leaves were at the top of the canopy. When the trees had grown enough, Amy withdrew her strings and watched as the trees became fully settled.

It was interesting because soon enough, the murky mangrove started to release its sap and the water surrounding the swamp started to become less clear and more like swamp water. The sap began to spread fully around the environment as the tides and currents started moving it around. Still, it did not go further than where she wanted the coral reef barrier to be.

With the trees placed, Amy started working on the plants that would be placed underwater. This would be the most difficult as with the tides changing the water level would expose the underwater foliage to the air. But, hopefully, her adaptation affinity would help the plants survive in the open air.

She placed leafy seaweed, fluffy sea grass, acid seaweed, shard grass, and water pad pods throughout the underwater swamp environment. Then, with hope that they will survive in the tidal environment, Amy focused on the plants that will live on the trees and in the canopy.

Almost all of the vine and flower species that she had were placed in the swamp, with some moss and a few other plants that were planted within the environment. Even though she wanted to keep environments separate or more distinct in past floors, she decided not to do that this time because her main environments were already different enough. Amy also wanted to achieve that swampy look to the environment, so she did not really care if the plants used were in other environments on the floor.

With the plant portion of the swamp environment completed, she turned towards the sand incline that bordered the inner and outer sections. This was where she was building her reef barrier.

In her mind, it was not going to be like a true coral reef that she had created on previous floors so far. It was meant to be an obstacle preventing an invader from having a straight shot towards her core, which meant that it would not be structured the same. What she wanted the reef to be, did not necessarily mean she had those types of coral to make the reef strong.

Amy knew that she was going to have to experiment to get the coral types that she wanted.

She looked throughout her dungeon for different types of minerals and metals to use to see if she could merge or add their traits to the corals. After looking for the metals and minerals that were in her sub-dimension, Amy pulled up the two metals that she had.

When that one group tried to bind her core to them, and she killed them, she received an iron dagger and sword. If she could take the iron and make the coral grow out of it, then she could probably create a sturdier type of coral.

Amy duplicated the sword and dismantled the handle so that there was just iron left. Then, with the iron ready, she pulled a sturdy type of coral, block coral, from the third floor to the fourth floor.

With the coral ready, Amy took two mana strings, inserted them into the objects, and circulated them around them. Then, when her mana strings spun around the coral and metal without her pushing them to do so, she took the end of the mana string connected to the iron and placed it into the coral.

Slowly, she started pushing the mana thread from the iron into the coral until it fully disappeared into the coral. When it disappeared, Amy dispersed the thread circulating the coral and saw the changes that were happening in the block coral.

The previous light pink coral had taken on a silvery, metallic tone. It showed Amy that the experiment, at least somehow, was a success.

Wanting to double-check, she pulled up the description for the new coral.

Iron Block Coral

A species of solid coral that grows in sheets and columns that has taken on the traits of iron.

With the experiment being a success, Amy started looking for other types of corals to do this with.