Chapter 6: Glowing jungle

First, i have my mole servant dig a hole near the wall for the ivy, the mole being basically a puppet works tirelessly and without complaining, I like him, her, what gender are you? Oh, a mother mole. So as I was saying, mother mole dug a shallow hole in the ground and nuzzled in the dead plant, I’m not sure how where ivy’s seeds are but I really hope there is at least one in that bundle of dead vegetation.

Before starting the advanced mana growing, I suddenly had an idea, it probably stemmed from my researcher’s past or from my evolver trait. I had the mole put the frost berry together with the ivy, if my intuition was correct, something magical was going to happen.

I immediately used my mana feed, and oh boy if it worked. A green stalk immediately exploded upwards insinuating between the rough texture of the cave wall as it grew and grew. After a minute it had already reached the roof where it kept on growing, soon the whole cave walls were surrounded by mana-fed ivy. It still had no leaves tho, I kept giving it mana like crazy and it finally happened, buds grew out of the dozen stalks and bloomed in something I wasn’t sure to call a win.

Glowing bellflowers appeared, dropping down from the ivy like pale lamps, giving the first iota of light to the room. They were both incredibly beautiful and unsettling, like ghosts swaying from the roof together with the wind.

[Congratulation! Your splicing experiment succeeded, +2 skill points awarded]

Can I get skill point like that as well? I focused on my surroundings, there must be something else to splice up! There was not. Rat had almost died just to get those plants and mole couldn’t get out. I looked at the worms, they could technically go out, but they couldn’t hear me, and even if I did the soul overwhelm trick I would have to pay an upkeep so no thank you. Besides that what are they doing? It looks like they are slythering around the ivy trying to reach the bellflowers. Whatever.

Skill shop! Show me plant related skills I can afford, don’t even give me the description, just the names.

Automatic trimming CO2 emissions Random seed generator(low tier) Automatic watering Parassite extermination

Wait- hold the f up! What is that random seed generator?

Random seed generator(low tier): summons a random seed from the chiasm in exchange for essence. Cost 5 SP

I WANT THAT SKILL! I bought it in a hurry and waited for the vision to come… I said I’m waiting for the vision!

It finally arrived, a group of men surrounded what I recognized as a mana well, the familiar blue light cast a shadow on the group and the altar placed in front of them. They placed a rabbit in the middle and cut his throat, the moment the blood touched the formation it lite up like a beacon. One moment later the light was gone, the rabbit was still dead and on top of the altar stood a weird nut, one of the men took it and nodded satisfied.

“The chiasm is something we still don’t understand, everything we know is that it emits copious amounts of mana, and if fed souls thanks us by giving out seeds and artefacts.” Chiasm lead researcher Dr Li

Hey window, what is the chiasm he was talking about? Am I wrong or is it connected to me and you?

Window wasted no time and gave me a buy one get two visions deal.the vision started in a castle-like building, skeletons guarded the walls nailing to the ground any still breathing being. My vision was caught by a blue hue coming from the main hall of the castle, as I entered I saw the skeleton throwing people, minerals, plants, really anything inside a mana well and for some reason it seemed to get stronger. Suddenly even I was sucked into the mana well and from there I left the world, and in the void I saw. Millions, maybe even billions, of strands connected just as many worlds, and they all originated from a single entity, a giant vortex far away from any stars and yet shining like the sun. Then the vision was over.

I felt a hint of fear and excitement at all of this, to think I was linked to such a thing, I could only hope he wouldn’t be hostile to me, but seeing how everything had been until now he didn’t really hate my guts for taking over one of his mana wells.

Activating the [Random seed generator] I could see how much essence it wanted for a low tier seed, 1 essence for 5 seeds of different plants! If this wasn’t robbery I didn’t know what it was.

Essence from life forms in the dungeon has been gathered +0.9

What about the upkeep? Window?

Monster currently undergoing evolution won’t need upkeep to maintain the link

Status! Let’s check how much essence I have.

Name: Dungeon of the great mage Azorious

Level: 0

Essence: 2.1

Creatures in your sphere of influence: 22(1 follower)

Size:80 m^3

Skill points:0

It’s getting a little better. Seeing how my daily essence is the same as my upkeep I can waste 1 essence for the seeds, [random seed generator]!

From which zone would you like your seeds to be originating?

Looking around the room I decided a night jungle would be great to welcome my guests. As soon as I decided on the jungle, 5 seeds appeared on the floor. Unfortunately, i had never studied botanicals, and if I did, I don’t think I would have recognized seeds from others world. When I get some more skill points I should check for a skill like [bestiary], but for plants.

I decided to try my luck and had mole plant each seed at a fair distance of the others. First, I started with the smallest seed, after just a little bit of mana feeding it had already fully grown into a short fern with pointy leaves, unimpressive. The second became a thorny bush with some bright coloured berries. The third a short palm oozing off some kind of grease. The fourth had a bulbous shape, when it bloomed it opened in four leaves laying on the floor with some kind of red liquid in the middle, I had already seen something similar to this, a carnivorous trap plant, too bad it was too small to eat anything bigger than a mouse. The last was a tree that grew vines with red berries attached.

The room now seemed like a plantarium because of the distance each plant had from the others. I had mole gather fruits and other possible seeds recipients and spread them over the room, after a whole day of work the room was a mess with plants totally covering the floor and trees occupying most of the view, my only bone to pick was with the variety of plants.

Now let’s wait for something to get attracted by the exotic smell of the plants…

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A few km away from the Dungeon.

Dozens of burly men divided into small groups were cutting down trees like crazy. Whenever a tree fell down to the ground with a loud thump they would get a moment of breath before passing to the next, the loud chops of their axes mixed together creating a symphony in the quiet forest, birds and animals had already long escaped the area terrified by the large number of men.

“Quicker lazy bastards! We were supposed to have finished a week ago!” A man with long robes and cane walked amongst the men barking out orders like a drill sergeant, “The frontier explorers will be here soon and you idiots still haven’t even finished building the palisade!”

Suddenly from the ground, a giant tongue shot forward at incredible speed towards one of the woodsmen, the worker barely had time to notice it before the tongue was already in front of his eyes. He closed his eyelids in fear but nothing happened, he tentatively opened his right eye and a wall of mud stood in front of him. “Where the hell did you train coward? Never lower your guard!” The robed man who had been barking orders until now had saved his ass by slamming his cane once into the ground, and the earth obeyed raising up.

He grasped his hands around the body of the cane, infusing his soul into a 10 runes formation near the top of the cane, the air in front of him distorted and soon blue embers appeared fusing into one fireball the size of a coconut. The fireball hoovered for a moment before turning into a comet and flying towards the base of the tongue still trapped in the mud wall.

The ground exploded and from the scorched earth an enormous 4-meter figure raised, a round head with fish eyes, humanoid features such as legs and arms and a full round belly. A trudor, as recognized by the mage, his wide mouth exposing his yellow teeth while bleeding from the stump of the tongue severed in the explosion.

The trudors were horrible beasts to face. First, they would try a surprise attack with their tongues, if that failed they would grab nearby boulders and siege their opponents to the point of exhaustion, then they would get near just for the finishing blow.

But today it was an unlucky day for this trudor, before he could grab even a peddle with his buffed arms, an ice dart had impaled his hand on a tree, he bellowed in pain and turned to look at the robed magician calmly walking towards him, “what are you looking at, stupid beast?” He felt fear raising his dirt covered hair and with a pull freed his hand from the ice.

Instead of staying for another bout it immediately fled turning around and breaking into a sprint, before he could take his second step the earth opened in front of him, a giant hole big enough to fit him with pointy spikes below, he tried to stop but it was too late.

The robed man didn’t even go check the trudor, he just whistled going back to the axemen, “Show is over! Get back to work!”