- “I hate this, damp backwater island in the middle of the ocean no one sails through!” Rogue spat angrily.

- “Give up Theo, go map it out while we recharge mana and make a camp.” Leader sighed, fed up with Theo’s complaining.

- “Ughh, fine. But after I'm done I’ll leave the rest to you.” Theo said before running off to the center of the island. Not knowing that he was already dead before even reaching the tree line.

-”AGH! What the!” - Wheezed Theo as unknown force began crushing and reintegrating his body with the soil beneath him. While this was happening the space between him and the rest of the party began warping and twisting making the illusion of him running to the forest.

After rogue was nothing more than a pile of meat integrated with the earth forming asphalt or concrete like substance, the space was unfolded.

-”Wait, I think I heard Theo scream but it was cut off fast.” Warrior said dropping his tent. He took a combat stance and used a corrupted tattoo that increased his resistances.

These tattoos are signs of nobility and very experienced adventurers, but also they are a source of doom for the greedy. Because these contain shards of dead dungeons. Have more than 3 shards or switch too often or take too high tier for your body and mind, congratulations you became a dungeon!

-”Are y.. Aspen mana interference and party location!” Leader quickly ordered the mage while using his own tattoo to spread dark mist that damaged or at least weaken enemies in the area.

-”Fuck off Brent! I know my stuff. Huh?! Theo is apparently right in front of us, there!” Aspen pointed at a strange smooth surface that had the colours of Theo’s back feathers. He tried using Party recall, a mage class exclusive skill that was a part of high tier shard. When the magic dissipated he stood frozen at the horrific amalgamation of earth, equipment and flesh pressed down into a thin disc.

-”Aspen! Can you revive him?” Asked the warrior not seeing the amalgamat.

-”Fuck! No, Christy Theo is gone. Even the king wouldn’t be able to revive him.” Aspen stammered while pointing at the disc.

-”Okay leave Theo remains here. Go in a formation and prepare for combat! The killer and his friends are here!” Brent Shouted while crushing his soulstones that contained his precious summons.

The ungodly horrors soon emerged from the mist, wearing what looked like obsidian armour. The flying abomination soon dropped some ovoid objects and smaller ones started spewing fire.

The ground units began a rhythmic mandible clacking and absurd force began crushing them. Even the space around them started tearing apart and forming void swords and spears.

“Agghh! A-Asp rrr-ecall us!” Brent shouted gasping for air, trying to fight against crushing force from above.

Aspen didn’t say anything, thanks to mana interference he could stand albeit barely. He activated recall on himself and the leader, thanks to the unstable space around them he could only teleport one other person with him.

-”This isn’t the end!” He said thinking that recall will take him to safety before the abomination will get to him. He was somewhat successful because he left behind his legs, or more like they were torn off by a sudden scream of mana that destabilized his spell.

Listening to the report of the soldiers I think I overreacted. At least I got their equipment and a prisoner. While the mage and misty boy left I ordered the mages to contain the prisoner. I will get all the info I can hehe.

Okay post battle report:

CNs were decent as bombers and excellent as crowd control limiting the movement of the invaders. Regular napkins from the mines were atrocious at dealing damage and were okay at harassing enemies. Miner Zodarii and mage caste behaved admirably, the former creating a cordon around the latter and blocking physical abuse. While the latter crushed the attackers and blocked the mist.

In summary, If these adventurers were one of the nation’s finest I don’t have to worry about anything. But this doesn’t mean I’ll stop developing my defences.

The fort was coming along nicely, while I began designing my turret species.

Firstly I picked up one of mage cast armours and copied it to use as a base for the rest of the changes. Then I changed its shape into a crystal cube that used gravity to float but was connected with roots below using thin atom thin lines.

Secondly I changed the roots below into a brain and set of organs that helped with calculating the necessary velocity, angle and type of a spell to kill an invader. Next to the brain I made tubes pointing in every direction around the turret that can squeeze itselfs and made several pores inside that made normal, natural and very physical acid. To stop anytone that could shrug off magic.

Thirdly, I made the organs below extend tendrils to the nearest plant hivemind which will serve as a server for all of the turrets and other defense structures. Then I made sure that every plant could form or at least begin construction of a hive mind that was absolutely loyal to me.

The resulting turret couldn’t reproduce but it didn’t need to since I’ll be placing them down on my own and wouldn’t want to have areas where there’s too much or too little.

Then I spawned them in their desired location and changed the colours of their crystals and their average height to make some of the cubes hide in the leaves of tall trees or in stalks of flowers near the soil.

While that was happening I made a tournament for my dungeon helpers to create the best mechanical turret to place on top of the walls that dealt physical damage and could be operated by at most 2 dungeon helpers. This wasn’t because I was lazy or unimaginative but because I want my sapients to at least somewhat contribute to the defence instead of sacrificing themselves.

While I could just spawn them continuously I would lose my free time to design my base and improve my control over mana. With this I also Imprinted onto them the ideology of prized individuals.

This form of thinking was that every individual is good at something and losing him/her would be disastrous and inefficient since making a new one takes time. And no matter how quickly individuals will grow there will always be a certain time where they can’t or can but slowly work, dragging down the efficiency of everyone around them.

I hope that by doing so my helpers will be happier and more efficient. This sort of thinking worked with humans in some corporations but i’m not sure if this will work here, It’s worth a shot tho.