Chapter 9

Honestly, here wasn’t much to do now, with the excitement of the Seal preparations being over. In fact, with his E rooms all set up, he actually benefitted more from doing nothing at the moment, then from working anymore on the Dungeon. So, he decided to leave the Dungeon to its own devices for 300 years.

That should be more than enough time for a couple millennia of evolution to occur, maybe even more, he wasn’t entirely certain of the exact multiplier Mana concentration provided to the process. Of course, he wasn’t simply sleeping away those three centuries. He periodically left to do other things, ranging from talking with Aisha, to playing games and relaxing, to exploring other worlds.

It was after 153 years, however, that he first stepped into the Arena. He was matching up against Green, the Treeant he met when he first visited the exercise and conflict area. They had spoken a couple of times since then, and both had become curious about the other’s magic.

It turns out that Treeants, alongside all the other plant races of Green’s home segment, were specialists in Life Magic, and most couldn’t use other attributes. Green was what the Treeants called a World Tree, meaning he was born with the ability to utilise all of The Four Elements on top of the Life Magic of his race.

Naturally, his fine control in each was somewhat reduced, but his overall power was still vast. With Arcius being a Great Mage, someone trained and specialized in using all types of magic besides Arcane Magic and Divine Magic, his personal control in each attribute was diminished more than Green’s, but he held great power over all of them. What’s more, the methods they each possessed of using magic were different.

All creatures that used magic within Arcius’ home segment, regardless of whether or not they were Magicians or Cultivators, did so through what was essentially an act of will, with chants and other actions used solely to aid concentration when using a spell. Of course, there was more to it than that, but that was the basics of it.

The plant races of Green’s home segment, on the other hand, did so through runes. Using magic concentrated in their fingers (or equivalent appendage) they would draw runes which would then automatically cast magic. Magic power for the plant races was therefore more dependent on the speed at which they could draw runes, as well as the amount of runes they knew, than it was about the amount of Mana they possessed, and their understanding of the attributes they wielded.

They were both interested to see how their individual methods of using magic compared, and chose to duel each other to find out. They chose Arena 3, and set it to Private so that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Then they were facing one another, in the centre of the Arena. No words, they began.

Arcius took the first move, casting Phantom Shroud, and disappearing from sight while he moved back and to the right. Green responded by drawing three runes with the fingers of his right hand, casting some kind of lightning spell, sending a massive bolt at the place he once stood. That, however, wasn’t the end of the spell, as smaller bolts blasted outwards from the point of impact.

Arcius avoided these by casting Swift-Feet, a Wind spell that tripled his speed, allowing him to get out of the spell’s blast radius before one of the randomly striking bolts could hit him. He then retaliated by casting the Death spell Path of Decay, sending a bolt of back-green fire at Green, only for the flames to dissipate against the barrier of Life magic set up by Green’s left hand, though the barrier was destroyed in the process.

Another rune from Green caused spikes of obsidian to suddenly shoot out from the ground along the path of Arcius’ spell. A good strategy, but Arcius wasn’t there anymore. He used Flash Step to move instantaneously behind Green, while his Phantom Shroud covered the normal flash of light that would accompany it, and then cast Field of Suffering, a Death magic that continuously brought excruciating agony to anyone within it, even the caster.

Green dismissed this with a rune he had drawn, not with his fingers, but with a toe on his left foot, creating a field spell of healing with his Life magic that countered the Death magic, followed by a Water spell that caused hundreds of ice shards to simultaneously form and shoot outwards around Green, one of which impact Arcius’ left thigh, piercing deeply and rendering Phantom Shroud useless, so Arcius dismissed it and threw out a Steam Blade, slicing right through Greens left arm, separating it from his body and causing him to yell in pain.

Arcius then backed off several feet and cast a Rebirth spell, combining Life and Death magic to create an Anti-Healing Pulse, negating his and Green’s ability to heal any of the damage they had just taken, while simultaneously morphing the ice shard in his thigh to cut his leg off. He quickly cast another Water spell, creating a motion capable replica of his own leg out of ice.

Green didn’t even attempt a healing spell, he just used several runes to form a segmented whip out of stone and vines, and attached it to the stump of his arm. The whip then lashed out at Arcius forcing him to block it with an Earth Wall, only for Green to turn that Wall into spikes that launched at him. Jumping backwards, Arcius noticed that the length of Green’s whip was only 10 feet, so he had already left its range.

It was then he noticed something else: Green hadn’t moved a single bloody step! Throughout the entirety of this fight, Green had remained in the exact same spot. Arcius wondered, Is this some kind of requirement of his runes?

So he decided to test this, with a Titanic Gust, to try and knock Green from his spot. Sure enough, instead of dodging or moving with the spell, Green cast several runes to try and negate it, and when those failed to block the Gust (despite its appearance and misleading name, it was actually an Earth spell that manipulated gravity massively on a large part of the air) he then slammed his arm and whip into the ground, to root himself in place and outlast the spell, although his whip was ripped off in the process.

Arcius pondered this for a moment, and then realised that the runes must need to be very specific about the coordinates of their affects in relation to the caster. If he moved, Green would have to recalculate the positions of his attacks, which would leave him wide open.

Realising his weakness had probably been found out, Green drew multiple runes with his remaining hand and the toes of his left foot, and cast a variety of AOE spells that blasted out fire, ice, stone and wind all around the Arena.

But Arcius wasn’t at any of the blast sites, having used Flash Step again to send himself into the air above Green, while simultaneously casting several Discs of Weight beneath his feet aiming downwards, causing everything below him to be gravitationally attracted upwards at a sudden instant and with massive force, pulling Green from the floor before he could retaliate, while Arcius turned his ice leg into a blade, and slammed it into Greens head as he rocketed upwards, piercing straight through it, and wiping out the collection of nervous tissue that served as the Treeant equivalent to a brain.

The fight ended at that, with Green vanishing, no doubt teleported to his room, while Arcius’ ice leg also vanished, replaced with his actual leg, complete, conveniently enough, with undamaged clothing. Standing upright for only a moment, Arcius then allowed himself to collapse backwards onto the ground, utterly exhausted.

Disc of Weight was a top-tier Earth spell, and, without using a chant to help guide the process, used a lot of energy, both physical and Mana, to cast just one, and he’d cast seven! Coupled with directly morphing his ice leg into a blade, instead of guiding the process with a spell, this meant that, had that last attack not succeeded, he would have been a sitting duck for at least an hour, more than enough time to kill him.

After said hour had finally passed, he managed to get up, leave, and meet with Green in the central common area, to discuss the fight, although neither really had any advice to give the other.

The runes system was something Arcius could use, but was overall less reliable than normal magic, as it required the caster remain stationary to accurately cast spells with a significant amount of power. The style of magic Arcius used, on the other hand, couldn’t be wielded by Treeants like Green because they lack the kind of nervous system that would allow them to use it.

Other than that event, nothing much occurred for the next 147 years, except for one occurrence. He had acquired seven new species within his Dungeon, three of which were primordial forms of moss, algae, and surprisingly a fungus. The other four, though, were much more interesting.

One of them was an early form of grass, and it had evolved, not from the Cyanocoral, or the plants, but from the Thermocoral and Thermobacteria, creating a near-black red grass called Cinderblade Grass, that, much like its ancestors, used thermal energy instead of sunlight, and was similarly weak to water.

As such, it started growing in E1.1 and E2.5 with relative ease, as well as a small amount in E1.5 and E2.1, although the greater humidity of those two rooms meant they were far from common. The other three though, one in E1.1, another in E2.1, and the third in E3.1, were far more significant to Arcius’ plans. They were all Origins.

Origins were the first step on any world life develops on naturally, the common ancestor from which most life forms would develop. All of their descendants would share many of their physical traits, such as the number of limbs they possess, or where the organs are located. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, but mostly they were all the same.

The Origin in E1.1 was somewhat like an amphibian, needing to be in the water at times to moisturise its outer layer, and prevent it from drying out. Interestingly, its outer layer consisted of thin, soft, flexible scales, as opposed to flesh, and it was herbivorous, living off of the Cinderblade Grass in the room. Naturally, as an Origin, it wasn’t too complex, but it was enough.

It possessed no legs to propel itself on land, but instead was like a snake for the most part. It had two sets of movable fins, one set was halfway down the body, the other just behind the sides of its very basic head, which was shaped like a shunt, with the joining edge lying horizontally, and a vertical mouth, as opposed to the more commonly seen horizontal one, which was like a primordial beak, consisting of no lips or teeth, just two blunt bone ridges that did the job instead.

The thing had no way of smelling anything, but had some very basic ‘sensors’ for sight and sound, which would doubtlessly evolve into eyes and ears at some point. What was interesting about the ‘eyes’ is that they seemed to be designed to see thermal only, rather than the visual spectrum.

This actually helped them distinguish the Cinderblade Grass from the Thermocoral, because the Cinderblade Grass is actually colder than the coral. A very useful adaptation, because it seems as though Thermocoral is not edible for them. They were also about as long as a finger, so not too big. Arcius chose to name them Primagin (Primary Origin) as they evolved in the E1 section.

The Origin in E2.1 was a tiny fish, no bigger than a finger nail. They had a fairly typical fish appearance, except instead of the two sets of movable fins a fish normally has, they had one, located about midway down their body. They fed off of the algae in the water, as well as the moss and the fungus that grew on the edges of the island, and, most unfortunately, each other.

They were cannibalistic, and seemingly also very territorial. They did not require meat to survive, clearly, but they would kill and eat any other member of their kind who entered their vicinity. The only reason they were still alive was because of an unusual quirk in their biology.

It seems, not only were they capable of having thousands of offspring at any point, they were also hermaphrodites, and entered a sort of breeding frenzy once every two or three weeks. Of course, they didn’t really care for the offspring all that much, and would happily eat them as well. Arcius chose to name these ones Secugin (Secondary Origin)

The Origin in E3.1 was the largest, a little over twice the length of a Primagin, although it was very thin. It was a pure herbivore, feeding off the algae and, interestingly enough, Infirmanacoral. It had a total of three sets of movable fins. Two were located a little behind the head, one set above the other, rather than to the side, and were very long.

When moved out from the body as far as they would go, they formed a sort of X-shape behind the head, and seemed to be used for controlling direction and ‘braking’. The other set was locate about three quarters of the way down the body, and were about half the size of the others, although they were wider and thicker, and seemed to be used for propulsion specifically.

It’s ‘mouth’ was probably the most interesting thing, as it was more of an opening, and little else. It seemed to eat by scooping up the algae and Infirmanacoral and then just swallowing. Naturally, following the pattern, he named them Tertiagin (Tertiary Origin).

All three seemed to primarily use a primordial version of gills to breathe, although the Primagin version could also passively absorb oxygen from the air, so long as they gulped it in and kept moving. Looking over the environments all three could live in, Arcius decided to move some of each into other environments, some very suitable, others not so much.

The Primagin were spread out to E2.5, an environment that was actually slightly better suited to them, as it had a larger amount of water for them to live in. They were also moved to E1.5, which wasn’t perfect, as it was colder than they would genetically prefer, but did have sufficient Cinderblade Grass for them to survive on.

He would have spread them to a less suitable habitat as well, but the only other room with Cinderblade Grass, the Primagin’s food source, was E2.1, and Arcius decided early on that he wasn’t going to put any of the Origins in another Origin’s ‘spawn point’, where they first developed.

He spread the Secugin further, as their food sources were both more common and more varied. He chose not to put them in E1.5 with the local Primagin, because there was so little water for them both to live in, that chances are the Secugin would first devour the Primagin, and then themselves as they simply wouldn’t be spread out enough.

A similar reason kept him from putting them in the other E1 rooms. However, he did put them in E2.5, alongside that local Primagin population, as there was more than enough space for both, even with the Secugin’s territorial nature, as well as 2.4 and 2.2, as although they were hotter environments then the Secugin were used to, they were capable of surviving them. They were similarly placed in E3.4 and 3.5 for the same reason, although E3.2 was too hot for them.

The Tertiagin were only able to be placed in the ‘Arctic’ rooms, E3.3 and E2.3, and would have been put in E1.3 as well, if there were any water for them to live in. The other environments were too hot for them, and the one time Arcius attempted to move them to the slightly warmer E3.4, they died very shortly after.

Of course, these environments were now too small after the end of his 300 year break, and would only be detrimental to his creatures’ development if they only had these, so he spent a couple decades re-designing his Dungeon. The number of rooms remained the same, but their environments changed.

With the exception of the rooms containing the Mana Gathering and Magmatic Seal Enchantments, the others were all split evenly and modified to match the 15 E room versions, E1.1-1.5, E2.1-2.5, and E3.1-3.5. These themed rooms were also divided from those of other themes, with a voided environment placed in the connecting tunnels, essentially preventing any living theme from crossing to the other themes.

He included each room of the same theme in the same designation, with the original E room of that theme gaining and an ‘A’ modifier. For example, the rooms themed on E1.1 were referred to as E1.1, but the original E1.1 was now called E1.1A although E1.1 was used when referring to all of the E1.1 rooms and the E1.1A room at the same time.

After he did this, he quickly looked at his species list, and tried, and succeeded, to alter it, making it display the rooms the species were in as well as their name and rank.

Species Rank

Species Name

Rooms

1.

Secugin

E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, E3.4, E3.5

2.

Primagin

E1.1, E1.5, E2.5

3.

Tertiagin

E3.1, E2.3, E3.3

4.

Primordial Algae

E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5

5.

Primordial Moss

E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5

6.

Cinderblade Grass

E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5

7.

Primordial Fungus

E1.5, E2.1

8.

Infirmanacoral

E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5

9.

Cyanocoral

E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5

10.

Infirmanabacteria

E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5

11.

Cyanobacteria

E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.2, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5

12.

Thermocoral

E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5

13.

Thermobacteria

E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5

14.

Prokaryotic Cells

E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.2, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5

Having done all of this, Arcius now looked over his status, and again considered what to do.

Dungeon God:

Arcius

Dungeon Name:

Mana Capacity:

425460/425460

Mana Regen:

85605/year

Faith Capacity:

0/0

Faith Regen:

0/year

Number of Entrances:

1

Number of Rooms:

11199

Number of Floors:

1

Number of Species:

14

Dominant Species:

Secugin

Number of Bosses:

0