Dragonheart Core

The first mangrove I'd made shuddered as I pumped mana into its roots, leaves bristling as they stretched to the ceiling; I didn't want to hold its hand—branch?—for all of its growth, but at the same time I certainly wanted my unsuspecting foliage to be taller than four feet.

Two points was plenty to take it from a sapling to a proper tree, its tallest leaf nearly nine feet off the ground, still nowhere near the algae-covered ceiling but now armed with many more properly thorn-covered limbs to slash with. The silverheads in the canal below scattered as its roots extended, gnawing deep into the surrounding stone for nutrients and balance; already its roots protected a stretch of the water nearly six feet across, looping over each other in massive, spiked ropes.

A proper threat. I couldn't wait until some adventurer was foolish enough to fall into my river.

Twenty-three points left—I shuffled around the rest of my second floor, aging up trees at random. I had far more than I was able to properly grow, but I just wanted enough that they would be able to stand for more of a proper threat. They could do the rest of their growing by themselves.

I whittled away at my trees until I only had three points left, enough for something drastic if it would come up before relaxing. My newly-grown arbour rustled quietly, their bone-white leaves adjusting to their new position and twisting to catch the algae's bioluminesence; a toad died a horrible, squeaking death as it made the idiotic mistake to try and avoid a cave spider's web by crawling over the surrounding roots and was promptly stabbed to death.

Glorious little trees. I was immensely fond of them.

My second floor picked itself back up surprisingly quickly, silverheads emerging from their dens and silvertooths slowly relaxing from their blood frenzy; it would be several more days until their eggs would hatch and thus the small school didn't have much swarming power, but they'd done their damnedest to try and break through the sturgeon's armour. Not a fraction of success to their name, but still respectable.

The rewards for killing Luthia were already flooding through the two kobolds, standing just a bit straighter, their scales just a bit brighter. Oh-so very far from unlocking their draconic heritage, if they even would at all, but I had hope—the loner still hunted in the furthest corners, eyeing the snapping turtle. I wished her all the luck.

Tomorrow would bring more adventurers, I could guess, what with the mention of some little bastard guiding them to my entrance, but for today, I knew there wasn't anything I could really do beyond let my floors heal. I would simply follow my creatures and see how they recovered.

The horned serpent was still merrily sleeping off her kill, stomach swollen with the entire man she'd managed to consume—impressive, really—and her channels thick and bright with mana. Gui hadn't had any attuned mana to speak of, so nothing in particular to guide whatever evolution she could reach, but already she was well on her way to gathering enough. Her evolutions took longer than most of my other creatures, taking a full human's mana and the cave bear before she had even evolved once, but beyond Seros she was easily the most impressive I had so far.

Speaking of.

My smallest evolution, scuttling and ruby-red, had been having a lovely time trying to claim the entirety of the second floor as his territory. The jeweled jumper was less than half a foot in diameter but with his scarlet venom and disregard for anything resembling self-preservation, he'd managed to wrap up quite an array of hollowed-out husks to serve as the boundary points in his territory.

Just a shame his evolution had seemingly removed braincells instead of increasing them. He did have potential.

His biggest contenders, surprisingly enough, were the other cave spiders called to the second floor by the density of my mana; I had only created starting populations of stone-backed toads and burrowing rats to serve as food on the terrestrial sections, every other creature coming down of their own free-will. Some intelligent—comparatively—spider had woven a little pathway alongside the stalactites over the rock pond so more of its brethren could clamber their way down.

That sort of communal spirit went right against the jeweled jumper's interest. He wanted no other spider within the second floor, thank you kindly, and did his absolute best to murder them all.

They kept coming, though. All creatures wanted mana and while my first floor still had plenty compared to the outside world, the siren call of being closer to my core would always bring more. Competition was good for him.

The twin kobolds scuttled back to their den, taking their sweet time now that the mangroves had grown over their normal path; the male hissed and clawed futilely at a branch stretching between two rooms, but just as how his scales protected him from its thorns, his claws could do nothing against its bark. I imagined they would grow to hate each other.

As much as a tree could hate. I didn't have the same connection to them as I did my other creatures, but there certainly was something more than that of my lacecaps and algae; not yet a true consciousness, but certainly moving in that direction. I couldn't wait.

Most of the canals had been undisturbed, beyond fleeing from the silvertooth's frenzy; my electric eel was happily settling into the new growth of a mangrove's roots, twisting his muscular body between the thorns to curl up at the base; his two electric silverheads continued switching between staying with him and guarding their nest of eggs, struggling through the cracks in the roots with far less grace despite being a fraction of his size.

They'd learn. I was counting on them being a massive threat once their schools got large enough.

In the middle room, the newly made pond sat quietly, water lapping at the shores as silverheads swam lazily around their own little paradise. They were growing fat on the algae swaying in their home, alongside the occasional delectable feast of a fly that strayed too far from the top floor; I reached in and carved a very thin tunnel back to the main canals, far too thin for any of my larger threats but enough they could still escape if they so desired. I didn't expect it for at least a long while, though; silverheads seemed just unintelligent enough that they needed outside influence to actually start wanting things.

Such as evolution. I could wait.

I had only just finished bemoaning how long it would take for them to gather mana when something pinged against my awareness.

I paused, swiveling several eyes towards the first room on my second floor; something splashed through the river entrance, bouncing gently off the ground before drifting up to the surface. The surrounding silverheads spooked, clearing out from the deep emerald-green creature struggling its way to the top of the water, hooded eyes peeking out.

A crab.

It was certainly one of the larger creatures to invade my halls; while the turtle was several feet around and the electric eel was nearly seven long, this one was broad and stocky, measuring nearly four feet in diameter with massive, crushing claws extending out front. Its carapace was beautiful, the rich shade of evergreen trees or deepwater granite, smooth and not yet pockmarked by lost battles or age. Its claws stabbed deep into the ground as it pushed off, strong under their protecting armour, and even its antenna looked capable of surviving a hit or two.

To put it shortly, a right proper beast.

It managed to stab its front legs into the rocky wall of my canal, using its pincers to tug its way up to the surface; maybe it was trying to find new territory? I knew crabs could survive in both water and on land, but preferred land for making dens or laying eggs.

The crab wriggled its way up, bulk slamming into the stone as it breached the surface; it had to weigh near twenty pounds, utterly massive for a crab, and even by watching it manuver its way up to the shore I could easily tell it had the strength to utilize that bulk. Some crabs were scavengers, often those in the sea, feeding off the dead that fell to the ocean floor.

Others were hunters.

I got that lovely little fact confirmed for me when the crab's eyes swung to the left as a stone-backed toad—one of the few that had managed to leap, swim, and struggle its way across the rock pond of the first floor—poked its head out of its den, croaking curiously, and promptly froze.

The crab clicked its pincers.

Ten legs—although to be fair, only six that were actually used for running—were infinitely faster than four, and before the toad had even a second to try and disappear back into its den, the crab had charged over with all the grace that scuttling sideways could truly have. The toad squawked and curled up, its—his—back spikes bristling with earthen mana; the crab's left pincer, larger than its right, crashed down on his back with all the force of a hurricane and bounced off.

Both of them seemed rather shaken by the experience; the crab from having its presumably flawless attack deflected, the toad from having been hit with the equivalent of a falling anvil. But the toad was used to it and recovered quickly, croaking desperately as he sprang around the crab to run—but it was only partially stunned. It clicked its horrible little mandibles and gave chase.

The toad scurried, strong back legs propelling it like a misshapen missile; he tore off towards the closest mangrove, one of the largest ones. Pincers snapping, the crab pursued; I followed behind at a more leisurely pace, idly curious for the toad's action. He was similar to my rats insofar that he had lived his life as a prey species, hunting only the small insects that posed no threat to him; how would he really react when hunted?

Apparently, he would react by running directly into the thorns of a mangrove.

His pebble-like protrusions on his back flashed as the mangroves in vain tried to stab him, curling up to protect his still-sensitive underbelly as he rolled under the grasping roots. He safely made it to the other side, heart racing like a war drum in his warty chest.

The crab had the unfortunate symptom of never having encountered the extinct species I had so lovingly brought back to life; it ran directly over the thorned roots with no such care to try and protect its sensitive underbelly, being far too large to try and crawl underneath.

It was its undoing.

As strong as a beautiful emerald carapace was, it was only as strong as its weakest point.

The mangrove seemed to… shiver in delight as it managed to stab a thorn up the underside of the crab, needling right in the crack between two of its legs; the creature clicked and thrashed, pincers snapping fruitlessly at the roots holding it prisoner. The mangrove hardly cared; what was one root to a meal?

And a large one at that. The crab's blood, blue instead of the tree's usual red, already started to flow up the hollow thorn; I watched with a certain satisfaction as the crab's thrashing weakened, a purple-ish hue rising up through the scarlet bark of the mangrove.

Apparently, so did the toad.

He crawled hesitantly back, eyes still bulging and lungs inflating like a bellows, but some strange mixture of pride showed itself through our liminal connection; he was proud of what he'd done. Proud of trapping a predator so much larger than himself.

Don't give yourself too much credit there, pal.

The crab continued to quiver and shake, heedlessly bashing at the roots despite how it wormed itself deeper onto the thorn, back left leg nearly ripped off by the pressure; the mangrove seemed to grow inches with every passing second, more blood flowing into its core, upper leaves rustling happily in a breeze of its own making. The toad continued to watch, even creeping forward to give a truly pathetic bash with his back legs to the crab's arm. A real hero.

Until eventually, with a shudder and a last click of its claws, the crab's legs curled in and it slumped over.

Its mana burst into me, bright and full of memories of swimming and deeper mountain rivers; it wasn't a stationary hunter, neither in water or on land. It highly preferred stalking prey over river beds, grasping them in its powerful right claw and ripping them to shreds with its left. I dissolved its corpse with no small amount of glee.

Greater Crab (Uncommon)

Grown much larger than its primitive cousins, this powerful beast uses its pincers of differing sizes to both hold its prey and rip them apart, feasting on the remains. Its armour is enough to protect it from all frontal attacks, and its multi-purpose limbs allow it to retreat should the need ever arise.

Oho. Frontal attacks yes, thorns from below not so much.

That might have been my own personal bias from seeing Seros' glorious evolution notice but this message seemed almost… lesser, somehow—sure, it hyped up the creature and called it all manner of flattering things, but there wasn't the specialization that my other creatures had. It did everything a lesser crab would, only more so.

That was what a greater evolution seemed to be, then. Not a gain of anything specific but more an overall growth in size and power, something more feasibly obtained by wild creatures without the constant mana from a dungeon. I imagined I'd find more evolved creatures down the lines, with the vast majority of them being greater variants.

It was also terribly rude of me to sit there insulting the creature that had so graciously given me its schema, but ah well. I was a terribly rude creature myself.

Its soul flowed entirely to me, filling me with memories and the odd taste of a new template, but its mana shifted and bubbled as it split itself neatly into sections; the largest came to me, of course, tasting richly of water.

The rest, however, halved itself between the mangrove and the toad.

I hesitated. I… wasn't sure the toad really deserved that kill, nor the mana, but someone upstairs certainly seemed to think so. He'd barely led it on more than a chase; the mangrove had done all the work. Ah well.

What was far more pressing at the moment was the pale glowing surfacing from underneath his rocky skin.

Your creature, a Stone-Backed Toad, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Bullfrog (Uncommon): This ornery beast lives between worlds, resting just below the surface of the water until its twin stone horns can be mistaken for driftwood. If it is ever disturbed, it charges out of the water with a war-cry.

Ironback Toad (Uncommon): Resplendent in metallic armour, this creature guards the dens of those below it to fulfill its innate sense of honour, protecting them from larger predators and retaliating with its deadly bulk.

Stone-Tongue Toad (Uncommon): Sitting in the shadows, it swaps its back protection for an earthen spike on the tip of its tongue, which it uses to spear its prey and kill them before it drags them back to its mouth to feast.

Gods. So many delicious choices; and alongside the greater crab, no longer would kobolds have to terrify the poor rats to attack invaders. I would have a proper roaming threat.

After, of course, I actually chose the damn thing.