Chapter 11

Arcius decided to give things a century to develop further, but not before adding another 14,182 rooms for his Dungeon, to increase the space to use, adding them equally to the different E rooms groups. This boosted his stats as such.

Dungeon God:

Arcius

Dungeon Name:

Mana Capacity:

1134560/1134560

Mana Regen:

191970/year

Faith Capacity:

0/0

Faith Regen:

0/year

Number of Entrances:

1

Number of Rooms:

25381

Number of Floors:

1

Number of Species:

14

Dominant Species:

Secugin

Number of Bosses:

0

After doing so, he left to meet up with Aisha, for a game of normal chess this time. Things went as normal, for the most part, with the two of them discussing current events within their respective Dungeons. Although the two had become fairly decent friends, neither was willing as of yet to fully disclose what they were doing, but they did discuss some of the unusual creations within their Dungeons, as well as issues they had each had.

Apparently, Aisha’s most dominant creation at this time was, strangely enough, a micro-organism. It had evolved on accident within the Dungeon to become a sort of cross between a bacteria and a virus, possessing the more mobile features of bacteria, but the reproductive mechanisms of viruses, although both were enhanced as well. These Micro Devourers, as Aisha had named them, were able to rapidly move – individually – from one end of her Dungeon to another in less than a week, a shocking speed considering the fact that a) they’re micro-organisms, and b) Aisha’s Dungeon was at minimum 1.5 times as big as Arcius’.

What’s more, like how a virus infects a host’s cells, turning them into ‘breeding factories’ to produce more of itself, the Devourers did the same on a larger scale, and even did so to each other. This actually wiped out most forms of complex life within her Dungeon, although it had created an evolutionary arms race between the Devourers and a type of hyper-regenerative and rapid-breeding fungus within her Dungeon.

The result, was that most of her remaining complex lifeforms were teetering on the edge of extinction, save for that species of fungus, which she had named Ever-shrooms due to their tenacity. These Ever-shrooms had thrived, and were basically the only reason those other complex lifeforms were still around, as they were all herbivores that fed off the fungus. Although this development did mean Aisha’s Dungeon was going to be much harder to invade in the future, it also hindered the ability of her Dungeon to produce sentient species.

When Arcius expressed his concern on the matter, however, Aisha surprisingly dismissed the matter by saying, “Truth be told, Arcius, I’m not actually aiming to be a Racial God.”

This surprised Arcius, “Really? I’d have thought everyone would aim for it. I mean, it is one of the more powerful Authorities.”

Aisha chuckled at this, “It’s true that on the surface it looks like the best position for a hopeful God, but when you think about it, it has a surprising number of drawbacks. First, being a Racial God means you’re basically damned to inter-deity politics. Oh, maybe you won’t have to solve issues between Elemental Gods or Political Gods, but you will have to do a lot of negotiating to use the other Gods to benefit your species in some way.

After all, while a Racial God does have the authority to order other Gods to aid his people, doing so rashly and without consideration for the wants and desires of the other Gods does nothing more than paint a target on their back, plus the other Gods only have to obey the letter of his demands, not the spirit. Therefore, if the Racial God wants the aid done right, and without making him and enemy to all other Gods, he needs to negotiate, which inevitably drags him into politics.”

Arcius wrinkled his brow at that, “I’ll admit, I didn’t think of that.”

Aisha smiled, “I doubt anyone did. I also doubt anyone realised the second problem with being a Racial God: work! As a Racial God, you are, essentially, responsible for an entire species. Sure you can interact with them very rarely, and allow them to develop on their own, but if you want them to go down a specific path, that means putting in a lot of time and effort. This is especially true if you want to significantly impact culture, as that requires decades, if not centuries of constant work to guarantee that they develop the way you want them to.”

He nodded, “That all makes a lot of sense. Still, I think I’ll stick to this path. It’s pretty damn hard to study all the intricacies of evolution, and to test it in its entirety, without watching a sentient species develop from an Origin. Now that I have the opportunity to do so, I’m damn well not gonna miss this chance if I can help it. Guess I’ll just have to try and avoid needing the help of other Gods.”

She smirked at that thought, “Good luck with that.”

“So then, Aisha, if you aren’t trying to get the [Race] Authority, which one are you after.”

“[Knowledge].”

“[Knowledge]?”

She nodded, “Yep, I’m looking to become a Scholar God. See, my goal isn’t so much to experiment with new things, or to understand profound concepts. Such things would probably make me a God of Evolution with the new things available to us to experiment with, or an Enlightened God on the other hand. No, I just want to know everything I can.”

Arcius arched an eyebrow at that, “That’s all?”

Aisha smiled and nodded again, “Pretty much. Ever since my helper told me I could create books from my home segment, I’ve been studying in a Library I created in my Dungeon every time I can. Turns out, so long as you keep it separate from the rest of your Dungeon and the world, something like that can actually be made for free in a separate ‘micro-realm’ although it does cost a fairly big Mana cost for upkeep. Plus, if you try to take one of those books out of the ‘micro-realm’ it costs a lot of Mana, more so than anyone would really want to spend now.”

“Huh, that is very interesting. I might see about making something like that myself.” After that, they played several more matches of chess. Arcius actually came out as the overall winner, beating Aisha at 11 of their 17 matches. They said their goodbyes, and then returned to their homes. After sleeping a century, as he intended, he returned to his Dungeon, eager to see how things have progressed once more.