I made some plans for developing further while waiting for my mana to return. First of all I focused on which species I wanted to protect me. My first thought was something like a dragon, after all they're known for their strength and near immortality, but it would take too long for it to be grown enough to protect me.

After that, I thought of insects. There are many species so a lot of variety, they're perfect to keep humans at bay since they seem to have an almost instinctive fear for insects and a lot of them are either poisonous or venomous. I know of spiders deadly enough to kill humans with a bite, even though they're tiny. There are also species of ants known as natural disasters, destroying everything in their way.

Best of all, due to the sheer size I could harbour a lot of them and they would be ready right from the start to protect me. Of course I would still make them more versatile to deal with fairies, but the base would be perfect.

I couldn't very well leave it all to bugs though, since in general they're on the lower part of the predatory ladder. I've already mice, bats and slimes to add a little more to it, but I'll need something else as well. Snakes would certainly help, but I need something more environmental. Golems, treants and murlocs for example would help, but before that, I would need plants, water, a cycle of light and all. Tentaclegrass would be really good....

I noticed I had enough mana to create a room, so I did, below the Heart room this time. It was connected by a small hole about a foot in diameter that led directly downwards. I made the walls of the hole extraordinarily smooth and steep to prevent anything to scale it.

Small cave has been upgraded to small cave system

I would just let the upper floor take it's natural course from here, excluding me adding a couple of mosses to increase survivability of the smaller insects and keep the predatory cycle intact. This new floor would become my true playground.

Tentaclegrass would be my first goal to plant all over the place. It's a predatory kind of grass, using it's leafs as whips to both smash things out of the air and grab them, after which they're moved to its "mouth". This "mouth" is merely a small acid pool covered by some of its resilient leaves. It can keep itself alive purely by taking up the necessary minerals and other molecules by absorbing them via its roots or through the leaves, but animals were needed for racial growth.

For it to be able to grown, I would both need nutrients and light. I could easily take care of the nutrients, they would come from some insects I would set loose, the light however would be a bigger problem. I would need to create a lightcycle stone, for which I need a lot of mana.

Back to planning the rest of the layout then. Other than tentaclegrass I should also add trees so I can have treants walking around without being noticed. The whole forest feeling would give all my lovely insects a boost in their survivability and deadliness. It would also allow animals like bears, wolves and several types of birds to settle down.

The best way was to upgrade my whole second floor into a giant space without any secluded rooms, giving enough space to the bigger creatures to move around and smash possible intruders to their deaths. I should not forget to create a lake or something similar and make it a place for murlocs to live as well.

The third floor would be best turned into a maze, having golems moving around. After all they've the best affinity with just plain stone, making it possible for them to overcome the natural limitations that a maze brings. I should totally add rockeaters as well.

Rockeaters would seem like a pretty bad choice with golems and stone all around, but the opposite is true. They've a certain type of acid that turns living beings into stone and that's the only type of stone they eat. To multiply the mix their acid with normal stone and another excluded liquid, which they only do if the food source is abundant.

The fourth floor, I'm thinking about a full underwater area. A sudden environmental shock will prevent any proper preparation for the change and will become just as deadly as the creatures themselves. Depending on how big I make it, I could possibly even add a kraken.

Of course, every floor would have its fill of insects, holding at least one different kind each, which without a doubt should be venomous. It will take a while to actually be able to do that all, but it's good to have a plan.

For now I should focus on increasing my mana regen. It's already a lot better than at the beginning, due to my creatures increasing in size, variety and numbers, but it's not enough yet. To counter that, I'll actively be luring new creatures in from now on.

It'll increase my chance to be discovered, but with my snakewormparasaticwormhivethingy I'll be fine for the most extend. I'll benefit from any animal that wanders into my dungeon because STOP WHISPERING FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!

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Who even whispered to begin with, there's no one here but me. Am I starting to hear things? Am I slowly turning crazy? It's probably nothing, I mean, it wouldn't be the first time someone heard a really regular sound like the wind or just some animal noises and it would sound like something else. It's nothing I'm sure of it, how can it be something else after all. No doubt, it's nothing, it's truly nothing.

Since it's nothing, back to business, I'll just take control of one of the ordinary bats. It's not truly taking control however, it's more slightly warping it's instincts. I make it so that she feels like there's better food outside of the cave, but that it's not safe to eat it outside, or even kill it. Safe enough to hunt, not safe enough to consume so to speak.

If this works as well as I suspect, she should start bringing in small insects and the like before she kills them, giving me more mana. With a bit of luck, she might also get a parasitic infection which then might spread, giving me even more mana regen and experimental subjects. I might transform another couple bats like this as well.

It's not much of a cost after all, I'm not even changing its instincts, just redirecting it. Warped words, I'm aware, but the only thing that matters is that the cost is low and thus it's a beneficial change for me to make.

Meanwhile I'm also spending mana on expanding my second floor room into a true cavern, at least in size. I'm also creating ants of different species and even the same species but assigning them as different colonies so they can prey on each other, giving nutrients to each other and the floor.

Of course that won't be enough for the long run, but it'll be interesting to see the interactions and it's better to create a foundation early on. While I was busy with changing a few other bats and expanding the room into a cavern, I noticed something.

First I should check upon the King bat, to see if that explains what's happening.

King Bat A bat that's stronger than the rest of its species, depending on several factors among which experience, is able to rule over and direct it's brethren

Haha, so that's why! I suddenly noticed a single bat flying through all the rooms and circling around the hole leading to the second floor before returning to where the King Bat was waiting. It seems like he wanted to know what was happening all around so a scout was send.

I will expect many great things from the King Bat from now on, being able to control others to send them to scout. Okay, it might only be one bat that scouted but I'm sure it wasn't because he could only control one. After all, he did have bodyguards of some sort already.

Content with all the actions made, I orbed the King Bat. If it already made such a amazing progress with just the regular mana flow here, what else could happen?