Congratulations!

You have reached level five.

Next level up at 500 mana.

+10 dungeon points

“And just like that I’m level five,” I sing to myself giddily.

The view from the forest's floor was just what I needed to lift my spirits. Ever since I woke up as this dungeons core there was very little excitement in my life. Sure, there were a few moments here and there that enlisted some interest on my side, I even have the experiment on the mouse check up on later. However, for 99% of the time, all I do is just sit and wait for my mana to regenerate.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad… but it sure feels like that. I really hope things get more interesting once I’ve improved my dungeon.” Whatever does happen, there is one thing I know for sure, there will be many more animals and monsters for me to entertain myself with.

While sharing a mouse's senses I’ve had a great deal of new experiences. With the most exciting one surely being the near-death experience when the mouse noticed a predator and bolted back to the safety of the dungeons tunnels.

I quickly order it to stay close to the entrance so that I can see what it was that scared it.

What I saw was a fox of some kind. The red-furred, fluffy-tailed canine looked in my direction for a few moments, realized that its hunt has failed and left disappointed. However, before he could disappear completely in the bushes, an idea hit me. One I couldn’t execute until I was at least level five, so I told the mouse to leave the dungeon again so that I can continue to enjoy my wait while also browsing through the grayed out options the dungeon shop has to offer. Familiarising myself with the different things it had to offer.

Another interesting thing that appeared during my wait were the bugs. Fliers, walkers, and crawlers. I had the mouse kill a few and bring them inside the dungeon but I didn’t get the option of creating them like I did with Wormy. Dismissing it as just a one-time thing related to the achievement I returned to just looking around at the forest ecosystem from the viewpoint of a mouse. Just like I’ve been doing for the past hours with great pleasure from the lack of boredom.

It was nighttime when a notification alerted me that I can now create a new animal. A Western Harvester Ant. When I checked to see how that happened I saw that Miki ate an ant that found its way inside the dungeon.

“So I only get whatever dies inside the dungeon?” I ask myself as I summon a Western Harvester Ant worker and look at it starting to waddles through my network of earthworm dug tunnels.

“I can work with this,” I say to myself excitedly.

And now that I’ve leveled up I’m ready to spend my precious dungeon points on the newly unlocked options of the dungeon shop.

I start from purchasing a skill called [Splicing] for 100 points. It will allow me to change the physiology and morphology of my monsters. The second thing I had to purchase for my plan to work was a perk called {Genetic Chimerism}. Perks were dungeon upgrades. They could be bought for specific skills, specific floors, or for the whole dungeon and could give some crazy bonuses.They ranged from just a few points to ones like {Reality Dungeon} for 10,000 points. The perk gave the ability to shape the physical laws of the dungeon.

Having no idea how common achievements are, I don’t even entertain the idea of ever purchasing it.

“I’m too easily excited, and thinking of the entertainment I would get if I could bend the laws of nature will leave me too distracted to do anything else. I mean, for all intents and purposes I would become a god! Although I am close to something like one aren’t I? I can see ‘everything’ that happens in my dungeon. I can move the earth with my mind, create life. Being god of the dungeon, or dungeon god sound really interesting. Why if I could make, wait, no,” luckily I catch myself before I’m completely become lost in fantasy, “Right now I need to focus. Increasing my animal variety comes first. Megalomaniac delusions later.”

Going back to my new perk, {Genetic Chimerism} costing only 200 points, it allows the [Splicer] skill to combine two and more monsters to form an entirely new monster.

This combination is incredibly useful as it means I don’t need to spend points on buying monsters from the shop. Instead, I will create my own.

“I can only imagine the fun I’ll have trying out the various combinations.”

Restraining myself from rushing to try the new skill out immediately, I take my time to browse through the incredible selection of flora the dungeon has to offer. Settling on a cool looking Carnivorous Pitcher Plant and a bunch of bioluminescent mushrooms I activate the [Splicer] skill.

Before me start appearing various lists and columns, next a whole interface manifests allowing me to control everything with my mind.

Like a 3d artist's tool it gives me control over all the animal or plant parts that I have. The perk is even more useful than it appears as it allows me to combine animals and plants. Might come in handy in the future, but this time I’ll be focusing on just the plants.

“Which, luckily, requires less mana to splice together than animals.”

All parts I can choose from are easily accessible and require of me only to drag and drop a body part on top of each other. Everything is simulated in my mind and after playing around with all the options I’m glad to say that the whole thing feels like a game.

I don't know how long it took me, but by the time I had the result I wanted my mana, pool was full and I had the option to level up again. The network of tunnels dug by the earthworms has grown considerably as well. More and more roots were visible to me as the worms kept digging around them. There weren't many more empty spaces left that I didn’t discover, so I instructed a few worms to dig tunnels to the surface at chosen locations. Each tunnel, just like the first one with Miki, connects one of the larger empty spaces under the tree to the forest outside.

Next, I spread some moss on the floor of those empty spaces and created a few of my newly spliced Carnivorous Bioluminescent Mushrooms. The mushrooms were small but came in a variety of shapes. Long bodies and small caps. Short bodies and large caps. Ones that looked like sponges and some that looked like miniature round tables or shelves that I stuck to the dungeon walls. Most I put in small clusters together, but a couple I put alone. Those I increased in size until they filled out the whole space.

Each and every one of the mushrooms slowly increased its brightness. Most glowing in various tinges of green but a few in light shades of blue, and for the first time something brought some interest to the previously bare landscape. Since I had only two more spaces big enough to hold a Monster version of a mouse, I summoned two Dungeon Mice for 50 points each and put one in each.

Once done I leave them for a moment to check up on the experiments results. The small mouse looks unchanged. Still lying about its cage of earth, getting up from time to time and moving around in the confined space.

Focusing on him I don’t feel anything special from sharing his senses, so the next thing I do is summon an earthworm into the space to see what happens. And surprise surprise, unlike the last time I tried this, the small mouse moves towards the worm. Attacking it and starting to devour. I take control for just a moment, ordering it to make sure it kills the worm first so it doesn’t suffer more than it has to.

“So my creations can live on mana alone, but will also eat each other. Animals will do that only when enough time has passed that is supposed to make them hungry, while monsters will attack on sight,” I go through my conclusions outloud and then wonder, “Why the difference?”

Looking around at the two mice and the three monster variants and can’t help but notice they are different in size. The mouse that was outside, eating and playing, is larger than its locked up counterpart. The same case is with Miki and his newly created brethren.

“The only thing I can think of is that eating and moving makes my animals grow stronger. This is true with the worms and mice, but the difference is especially noticeable in the monsters. Miki, who has eaten a mouse, two worms and a dozen or so bugs since being summoned is already slightly too big for its 15cm long, 10 cm wide and high room. I use a few mana points to increase the size so he’s more comfortable.

His room was the largest space I found, which means that if my idea works I’ll need to increase the rooms of the other two monsters as well. But first, I take a step back to observe all seven of the entrances I made into my dungeon at the same time. Somehow, being a dungeon gives me mental capabilities I’ve never dreamed were possible, allowing me to not even struggle to keep my attention on it. Even giving me enough leeway to contemplate over other things while waiting for the animals to come.

The substance a normal carnivorous pitcher plant makes is used to attract prey to it. I spliced that ability onto the mushrooms. They now secrete it as a byproduct of the bioluminescent reaction, and as the mushrooms glow brighter and brighter so does the density of the odor released from them increases inside the dungeon, until eventually leaking out into the forest.

“I hope it works,” I watch the entrances excitedly as more and more mushrooms light up.

Eventually, the first bug arrives, a small beetle. It entered through one of the unprotected entrances and started to chew on the mushroom. Hopefully it decides to stay inside the dungeon, living in the tunnels together with more of its kind that would come eventually.

“The more, the merrier,” I light up and smile to myself when I see the beetle move deeper into the tunnels and a few more critters scurry through other entrances. Some to join the first beetle in my growing dungeon ecosystem, while others to be eaten by my dungeons mice. I even summon a few more normal mice and place them in the smaller rooms to eat the bugs that are now wandering through my tunnels. The last touch is ordering the earthworms to start digging wider tunnels so that the mice can also start moving through the dungeon instead of being stuck in the same small room all the time.