The sun stood high overhead that day. It was warm, pleasantly so, and the forest was almost silent, except for the occasional bird singing among the branches or the rustle of leaves in the underbrush. But in that rustling of leaves was an intense battle. A game of tag with death on the line. But it was also an operation.

A small group of mice rushed desperately through the bushes and piles of leaves, trying their best to get away. Behind them, the mice’s natural predator, a cat. This cat was just a kitten, however. While playing during the day, the kitten had left its bobcat parents and began chasing after its new snack. The mice were fast, but that was just something that made this chase all the more fun.

However, there was something clearly wrong with these mice. The bobkitten was just too young and inexperienced to realize it. They all ran in a clear formation. Like a small flock of birds, they ran as a “v,” and would continually run just outside the cat’s reach.

The five field mice ran into a small clearing, before splitting up and speeding off in different directions. The cat jumped into the clearing, confused at the sudden disappearance of her prey. She was about to return to her parents’ side again when she heard a rustle of leaves just ahead of her. She pounced on it excitedly.

Just as she made contact with the ground, the earth around her wrapped around her legs, encasing them. She struggled to move, but couldn’t. All around her, rats and squirrels popped out of the bushes around her. They began to run at her, fangs bared.

The bobkitten was stricken with fear, and only let out a few mews as it was killed by the rodents around her. And so, another species was added to the monsters of the dungeons.

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It has been about a week since I began learning magic. This was its first use in the field. I’m glad the plan went well. I began to walk back towards the grove where Jenna was waiting. And as if rewarding me for my first in battle use of my magic, the voice sounded.

The skill [Earth Magic] has increased to level 2!

I had to do a lot of training to finally be able to manipulate mana. And although Jenna knew a lot about the properties of mana, she was next to useless when teaching me how to use it. Using and regulating mana was something second nature, something that could be done literally on only instinct.

I did learn a lot of theory, fortunately enough. Mana, simply put, is the life force of beings. Every living thing in the world releases mana naturally, and most beings don’t even realize it. From humans and elves to insects and blades of grass, living things release mana. Dungeons absorb this mana, and put it to use into creating life, items, or terraforming the region. Without this constant absorption of mana, mana would pollute the sky and earth, leading to earthquakes, horrific storms and tornadoes, among other natural disasters.

Magic is simply the broad term that refers to the willed use of mana. Although it takes mountains of mana to be able to create living beings with consciousness, not as much mana is needed to make basic elements. Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind are the four common elements. Those with talent can operate more elements with magic, like Light and Dark. Incidentally, healing spells fall under the Light element, and mind spells fall under Dark magic, usually.

Magic is a freeform ability. Common spells exist as a way to teach magic, but one could theoretically do anything with the elements. You need an image of what you want the magic to do, and then you have to push your inner mana, or your MP, into what you want to manipulate, and direct it to create the effect you desire. Often, people will associate a chant with the effect they desire, as a type of “magic shorthand.”

It looks a lot like elemental “bending” from the Av*tar television show. Although it is quicker when you have the material next to you, it is possible to create it from thin air. Mana is a force of creation, after all.

The hardest thing about learning magic was learning how to control my inner mana. It was like learning to walk again after a stroke. My body instinctually can use mana around me to see, feel, and hear, so it was difficult to grab hold of these abilities and directly control them.

Jenna would often send small amounts of mana through my bones, just so I could get used to feeling it. Mana was warm, and often felt like it was circulating through my body like blood. I spent a day just paying attention to that feeling inside myself.

While I was in meditation, Jenna worked hard on the dungeon. We had discussed before I began my spiritual journey what we wanted to do in the dungeon.

Jenna was busy expanding her territory, creating mice, having them breed like crazy, inciting them to fight each other, and then breed more. We split all the mice into three main groups, and split them up around the territory. We had one group make a home near the pond, one group just outside the pond near the rock wall, and the rest a little bit deeper into the forest, once we captured enough territory.

My goal here was simply to see if environment would affect evolution. It may at least play some part in variants, so it was worth a shot either way. We had the groups battle each other to encourage level up.

Jenna was surprised that she would just be taking control of the forest rather than digging underground.

‘Eeeeeeh? Dungeons go underground though!’

‘Well I guess that is how it usually goes, but we have so much free space up here, shouldn’t we use the forest area to our advantage? We won’t have to do much digging, so getting space will be much faster!’ And I won’t have to travel far with a large animal to add it to the dungeon, but I kept that remark to myself.

‘We should increase the size of this pond, however, so we can have enough room for a large species of fish.’ I postulated. ‘Can you do that?’

‘Yeah that much will be super easy!’ Jenna reliably replied.

There were parts of the pond that contained algae, so we spawned more algae along with a few bass, and hoped that insects would come to feed on the algae. Then the bass could get some food as well. Once there was a food source, we could have them battle each other as well.

Maybe some bass would evolve to be vegetarians? That would be quite interesting to see. Either way, the base animals and algae did not cost all that much DP, so even if they perished, we wouldn’t lose too much.

A few days passed, I had moved on from the meditation and could successfully push my mana out into something else. I trained mostly by moving earth. I had been trying to use a spell that would open a large pit under my target, but it simply took too much MP for it to be useful. I wanted something that could trap prey from afar, and then I could leisurely head over and kill it.

However, I was interrupted by some news.

‘Ozzy! Get over here, quickly! Ozzy!’

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ I scrambled back into the pond area and crossed the water.

‘Nothing is wrong, but we finally got our first evolution!’

I wish Jenna wouldn’t scare me like that. I felt my body untense a little as I moved back towards the pedestal. I opened the [Spawnable Monsters List] and sure enough, Forest Rat was now an available monster. We also managed to get a few new insects, namely mosquitoes and waterstriders, so we can now sustain a population of bass.

We simply decided to spawn three more Forest Rats, as they were much more expensive than their mouse cousins, and let them procreate.

A couple more days went by, and I finally finished my spell. I called it [Earth Snare] for simplicity and the effect was surprisingly hard to get right. Holes that came up to the human knee would appear below the target, causing them to fall inside. The earth would then close around them. For the average human, it wouldn’t take too long to get out of this, but it was enough to buy time.

For small animals, however, it would be much more difficult. After the factions of mice had their daily fight, I took one of the corpses and left the dungeon. The rats were far too powerful to fight against the other mice, so I needed to find a proper training partner for them. I believed that my usual quarry would do, the Scavenger Squirrels.

The bodies of monsters killed in the dungeon remain for a few hours, but if left alone, they will dissolve back into mana for the dungeon to absorb. Depending on how many materials were taken, the dungeon would get less mana back for them. I was glad to find out I still had a reliable source of bait.

I was able to quickly find, trap, return, and kill a squirrel, which added it to the dungeon. I’ve killed so many, it was actually a boring hunt. This way, though, the rats would be able to advance themselves more. I was hoping the mice’s presence would attract snakes and falcons, but no such luck yet. Well, I’m sure we will get some with time.

I was also able to get a level in [Trap Making] and I finally received my skill for [Earth Magic]. All in all, I would say it was a productive outing.

Jenna and I then quickly set up plans to lure in something else for our dungeon and we were wildly successful. We found a bobcat child wandering just outside our territory, and the mice I had with me were put into action.

Cutting back to the present, I was thankful that something else could be present that may be a real threat to human invaders, because unintelligent skeletons were not such a thing. The skeletons would make good training partners for the cats, however.

‘Ozzy, I saw! You guys caught a bobcat! How’d you get something that big?’

‘I’m back, Jenna, and it was just a little kitten, so we got really lucky.’

‘Aw, poor thing. Oh well, I get cats now! How exciting!’

‘I’m looking forward to wolves more myself. I’ve always been more of a dog skeleton.’

‘Meh.’ Apparently, Jenna wasn’t one much for dogs. What a poor, deluded soul.

I was hoping to find one more group of fighters before our discovery. Fate, however, had other ideas.