Shaking off any apprehension for the future, he started putting down large amounts of insects within the dungeon, carving out cracks in the walls to serve as nests. Ants, millipedes, louse, and other commonly eaten bugs that form the bottom of the food chain. Across all rooms apart from the core room and the entrance room.

He then started to carve out small dens and form stalactites from the ceiling for rats and bats. Twisting his mana to create the small mammals was far more complex than the simpler insects and they near-perfectly copied a rat in mannerisms that he could remember from his time as a lumberjack. With his new dungeon senses, he could feel the lack of any life force projecting as an aura. The few insects that had already scurried through the portal had tiny bubbles of energy preventing his manipulation of their bodies.

“I suppose this is the best we can get for now.” Elvinia mused. “I do have one idea, but you should probably put a few predatory animals in their soon as a small form of defense. Any large non-magical plants need light to grow and to form light in a dungeon you would need to absorb a light-emitting source.” His interest grew as he listened to the fairy. “A good light source to help them grow is a light affinity gem however, you will have to be very lucky to find it underground and absorb it. This is where the symbiotic relationship comes in with the humanoid races, when they find a new dungeon the international adventuring guild has a protocol to feed the dungeon certain items so it can recreate them. It includes currency, seedlings, and basic affinity gems like fire, water, earth, wind, and light. They would also give dark affinity gems, but they are restricted by the church.” She made a face at the last name.

“I somewhat remember the church, but why would they restrict only dark gems?” He asked back.

“They have some strange idea that they go against the Goddesses wishes. On that note, I am glad you didn’t pick undead as a specialty. I feel sorry for any fairy who bonds with a dungeon of that specialty. They are targeted by both the church and the necromancer’s guild. One wishes to destroy them and the other wishes to control them.”

Unbound was very happy he didn’t pick that specialty, whilst he didn’t pick due to how he remembered dying he was tempted due to how much stronger it seemed to start off. Especially compared to his current situation.

“Anyway, the way to improve your current defenders is to make them fight each other. That large place of solid rock you should hollow out a space about five meters cubed. Then spawn two different creatures, like a rat and a bat then order them to fight to the death.”

“Is that it?” The core spirit asked.

“No, be patient.” The dungeon fairy scolded. “You then heal the victor and spawn another enemy to fight it. Continue the cycle until there should be a stronger winner that wins a lot. That winner will eventually warp and mutate to a stronger species variant. And that is a big part of a dungeons power.”

After listening to the fairy, he committed it to memory before spawning a few larger predators such as small wildcats and large hunting spiders. The large hunting spiders scurried up the walls to find dark corners to spin out their webs and the small wildcats simply found a comfortable patch of ground and curled up.

All of the defenders were contained within the eight middle rooms leaving the tunnels safer and barren apart from the speckled plant life. Therefore, Unbound hollowed out the stone beneath parts of the floor and twisted the stone into barbed spikes. He left the top with a thin layer of stone that would shatter if any large creature tried to walk across it, making them plummet to a painful death. He spread these evenly through the winding tunnels and within the large tunnel that led he placed a locked door and hid the key within an ants nest in the second room and set up pressurized copper spikes and a collapsible ceiling within the tunnel to hopefully stop anyone currently reaching his weakly protected core room. Within the core room, he dug a small tunnel into an alcove where he placed a weak elemental. Despite not being wanting to be found as a legendary dungeon he wanted insurance in case someone tried to kill him.

The void elemental was a dark pulsing gem, not unlike his own core gem, but with a large crack down the middle where a sort of blobby humanoid figure spread out of mottle grey and black. When it brushed against the wall the wall looked as though someone had taken a pick to it and Unbound hastily ordered it to float in the middle of the room. Elvinia spoke as she watched the elemental.

“Void befits a legendary attribute and its unique even amongst legendary affinities.” She explained as she looked at the damaged wall. “It is sort of like the mortar between planes holding it together, and it doesn’t really belong inside a reality. When it is, like you saw, it chips away at everything. Even the air though you can’t feel it with your current level is breaking apart slowly when it contacts the elemental.” He took her word for it because he was unable to see or feel any change in the air. “And that is why legendary dungeons are powerful, even their weak affinity monster can cause damage with their very presence.” She smiled at that. “Wait until you can reveal it, everyone will flock to see it and space or time magus’s will pay their last iron coin to live here. Until then we have got to live so as soon as your mana is back, build the arena and make evolutions.” She ordered; he gave a mental nod at that pushed at the wall the elemental had clipped to restore it. He started to struggle because the elemental had left a residue that wore away at the wall. Once the residue had been put into his own pocket dimension, he fixed the wall and covered the tunnel with a thin layer of stone that the elemental would shatter easily if need be.

Later he built the arena in the solid stone beneath the floor of his core room and spawned a large hunting spider, a rat, and a bat. Without orders not to harm one another, the spider acted naturally, the blood in its back two pairs of legs pressurized to allow it to leap forward with astonishing speed. The foremost pair of legs drove sharpened tips into the back of the struggling rat's head causing it to go limp. The spider slowly dragged the rat back to its own corner and ate it.

Unbound frowned at that, if there was no real struggle how would it agitate the mana within the creatures to change and evolve? He then proceeded to remove the dead rat, feasting spider, and replace them with another bat. Gave orders for the new and old bat to fight to kill one another and watched. His fairy meanwhile sat down on the part of his core that jutted out the wall and cast her senses through the dungeon to watch as well.

They both bats dove directly at one of each other and collided mid-air, as they fought wings became tangle and they plummeted to the ground. The older bat was atop the newer one as it splatted against the floor, however, the older one had too much speed at shattered its wings when it hit the floor. Before it could die Unbound suffused it with mana, far more than he needed to make another bat, and watched as the wings regrew larger and thicker than before and its claws became more pronounced.

“And that’s the start, partner,” Elvinia said with a smile. “Not a full evolution but soon you have a significant defensive force.” He went to respond but a flash of warning instinct flared up and he turned his attention towards the portal. Dragging itself through was a skeleton wearing beaten-up rusty armor and wielding a flanged mace in its sole arm. Eerie green flames floated in its eyes as it marched deeper into the dungeon.