While looking through his status, Argul noticed something strange. “Why would one want to level if you can just get stronger through quests?”

Alyra smiled at him. “Well, by my estimation, your body should have absorbed enough mana at level 25 to cause an evolution. I don’t know what that evolution will do, but it could be anything, even enhancing your basis and strengthening your stats in the long run. As long as I don’t have an excessive amount of data on that matter, I can’t really tell you anything either.”

She created a few variations of birds. “The mana needed for evolution is different from species to species, but species that were never in contact with mana should have at least a minor one at level one as a result of their body adapting to the new energy.”

The birds morphed together, and a glass appeared, which they then filled. “Your level is a measure of your potential. With every level, you can add around 100 stat points to your being. This, again, is a measure that changes from species to species. The amount of stats you can get per level might change due to an evolution.”

Oh! So it was not actually like in most games. “Now, leveling makes some sense, but still, isn’t that kind of unfair for those who always lived with mana?”

Alyra’s smile turned slightly vicious. “Nope, mana makes a creature a lot stronger than one without, so the level one evolution is more to give them a chance. The bodies of creatures that have always been under the influence of mana will be able to do a lot more with the energy naturally.” 

A human appeared and got slaughtered by a rat-like thing. “Because of this, those new to mana will still be weaker than your creatures but don’t get too full of yourself. It is possible that they won’t need as much mana for their next evolution. The evolution would likely be weaker than those of your creations, but it will still put them ahead in strength for a few levels. Also, some evolutionary traits can be passed on to your descendants.” 

His daughter definitely liked to mess with people. That was clear now. Well, he wasn’t sure how much of this was natural and how much influence Alyra had on the process, so she might not be messing with people, but the girl was enjoying it nevertheless.

It’s not like Argul was an angel of a person either, especially now that he could make fun of humans without making fun of himself and without all the bindings society put on him. He smiled to himself. “Oh, it’s going to be fun to watch important human families try breeding the best children only for some adventurer to get something better.”

It wasn’t like he wanted to abandon everything he knew and turn into a murdering maniac. Still, there were quite a few small things that had been extremely difficult for him to do that pressured him, and nobody had shown any sympathy because of that. If he didn’t do what was expected of him, he had always been the bad guy, and from his point of view, his relationship with his family was rather strenuous due to that.

Alyra looked at him blankly. “Has anyone ever told you that your sense of humor is weird?”

Argul laughed to himself. “Remember my trees?”

The avatar just sighed.

Having successfully made fun of his former people, Argul returned to finishing his first floor. 

He already knew he wanted slimes and maybe mosquitos that preyed on the slimes. There was only one problem: level 1 magic only goes so far. His slimes had to make at least some kind of sense.

 Argul thought about a possible solution.

Slimes were, in a sense, a ball of digestive tract, but to make that work, Argul had to add other necessary things for a living being somewhere. 

He added a thick membrane and stuffed breathing and thinking and all the other needed stuff in there. Around that membrane, slimes would have a second one focused on protection. 

They perceive their surroundings through sense mana and small vibrations. That should work for them and would likely drive any biologist insane, but that wasn’t his problem anymore.

With that done, he was left to wait for about an hour before he got to work near one of the bushes.

3 cat-sized silver slimes mutated into existence and started to happily wobble around. 

They were damn cute, and Argul really wanted to take some kind of picture of them, but he identified them first to make sure they weren’t some kind of natural monster like a certain tree.

Slime

This is a mid-sized animal. Slimes might not look like much, but compared to other animals, they are bright and really good at understanding the emotions of other beings. Slimes are naturally curious and like to explore, their strange body allowing them to live virtually anywhere as long as they have food.

Slimes procreate by dividing themselves. They do this around once a month, and if they eat enough, they can do it even more often. 

One of the slimes jumped before it slowly floated back down to the ground, and god damn, was that cute. 

Argul couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Goodness, why are they so cute? They look like the perfect responsive cuddle pillows!”

Alyra eyed him and then nodded. “Are you sure you were male in your last life? But you’re right. They are cute, a bit like kittens.”

Argul acted as if he had been hurt. “Hey, that’s sexist! And I’m not sure if I have a gender right now. For all I know, you could really call me mom.”

Alyra’s smile got very wide. “Heeh”

“No, please don’t!” Argul despaired. He had wanted to make her stop calling him mom, but it was too late now.

The avatar made a motion as if to console him. “Do not fret, mom. Everything is going to be alright.”

He just gave up. He had just lost his manhood. “What have I done? You won’t ever call me something else again, will you?”

Alyra knelt down and smiled sweetly at him. “Nope, not ever, even if it means being stuck in your dungeon forever.” That, that just sounded wrong.

It was silent for a few minutes.

Argul was honestly touched by those words, despite the other meaning his brain interpreted into them. Nobody had ever said something like that to him.

He faked a sniff. “You would stay with me for such a small thing?”

She sighed, “Right, can’t leave you alone.”, and then tried to distract Argul. “Also, you can’t cry. You are a crystal.”

Argul took that personally. Challenge accepted! “I can! Just look at my core!”

He looked at his core for the first time himself. He had kinda put that off until now, scared of what it might be for some reason.

A brilliant silvery crystalline sphere hovered there, surrounded by nothingness. It reminded Argul that his floor would only continue to grow to the new range level once he had finished it. 

Here and there, swirls of different colors appeared on the sphere’s surface and moved a bit before they sunk into the crystal again. It was fascinating to look at, and Argul would have stared a bit at the gem that he was himself, but he had a job to do. 

He copied the movement of mana that occurred around the Lunagrass seeds and created water drops on his core. The plants didn’t use interconnected runes like he did, which made the spell a lot less efficient, but he didn’t have the time to create his own spell right now. Argul would do that later when he had the time, needed a break from something, or was simply bored.

He made the drops move in a tear-like manner from the middle to the bottom of his core, where he let them drop off and reversed the movement of the mana of his first spell, dispersing the drops that left the surface of his core back into mana.

Multiple screens appeared before him. 

Congratulations

You learned the skill/spell  

• conjure Water
• You can conjure Water out of mana! This skill helps train and improve your ability, making usage more natural.

Congratulations

You created the skill/spell  

• Water manipulation 
• You can manipulate water! This skill helps train and improve your ability, making usage more natural.

Congratulations

You created the skill/spell 

• banish Water
• You can banish water, returning it to mana! This skill helps train and improve your ability, making usage more natural.

 Congratulations, you combined the skills’ conjure Water’, Water manipulation, and banish Water

You created the skill/spell 

• fake Tears
• No matter who you are, what you are, and how you feel, you can cry! You can even make others cry if you want. This skill helps to make making eyes all watery even easier.

 Achievement made: Skill Creator (2)

You created 5 or more skills unknown to the archives and enriched the universe. Your skill learning got a moderate upgrade. Your skill identify got a minor upgrade. WIS +1 

• Learning (3)
• Skills will be easier to learn, and you will understand information better.
• Identify (2)
• The skill displays everything you know about your target. Even knowledge you forgot will be shown. The skill does not display false knowledge.
• You can upgrade the skill through quests.

Alyra couldn’t quite believe her eyes. “You had more than 6 days to create spells, and now you created a party trick just to prove a point?”

Argul coughed, embarrassed. “Well yeah, I thought I could be lazy and let people create or use the skills inside my domain and then have the knowledge to do it myself….”

She looked at him accusingly. “You just forgot, mom!”

Argul had to try. Never give up! “A manacrystel can have dreams!”

The avatar smirked and pointed at him. “Delusions, not dreams.”

Mission failed. He deflated. “Rub it in a bit more, will you?”

Alyra smiled brightly. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Argul wanted to shake his head, but he would have to grow one first, which would take it a step too far for him. The fact is, though, he needed more slimes.

 Argul watched the slimes for around 8 days, and one of them split, so he now had 4. 

There was a lot more silver on the floor now, the gray ground slowly being covered by grass and flowers. It was a good thing, too, because the slimes had to eat now. 

The rest of the plants took longer to spread as they didn’t receive the large growth bonus of small plants.

Argul decided to watch for another 5 days. 

In truth, he just took a nap, but he would never confess that to his hard-working daughter. 

Nothing much happened in these 5 days. He had 8 slimes now, and one of them had developed some kind of friendship with the Negators.

With a refreshed mind, Argul got to work on his mosquitos. 

He hadn’t really slept, as he had still been able to perceive everything on his floor, but it was close to something you could call sleep. Maybe with a body he could move, he would be able to sleep?

Argul shook the thought away and got back to work.

The mosquitos would be the size of a Negator and would mainly prey on the slimes for now. Their poison’s main task was to relax the slimes so they wouldn’t fight back. 

As that should have been enough, he initiated his ribm skill.

Argul created 3 mostly mosquitos. Their rear was split in two, a bit larger than he would have thought. They were colored in different shades of a dull gray, oh, and they flew silently. It was actually creepy to see the damn things but not being able to hear them. At least they wouldn’t annoy you in bed like the Earth version of them. 

Argul named and identified the little or rather big bugs.

Silent Mosquito 

This is a small animal. This insect preys on slimes in low-gravity regions. Silent mosquitos fly, as the name suggests, silently to hide themself from their prey. They have developed a special kind of poison, which is very relaxing for the slime and can be addicting when the slime is often exposed to the poison. 

After ingesting the stomach fluids of the slime, the fluids are divided into nutritious and acidic parts. The acidic fluids are stored extra and can be released when the mosquito is attacked to distract and hurt the offender. 

They were a bit like a certain kind of demon was for humans. “The day I created mosquitos that drug slimes to suck them dry….”

Argul got distracted by notifications and left the mosquitos to themselves.

You finished floor 1. Your floor can continue to grow, and you can decide on placement and design for the way to the next floor.

Quest completed! 

• Flooring away (1)
• You created your first floor. The future looks bright!
• The growing speed of your floors is doubled. Str +1, Wis +1

New quest: 

• Flooring away (2)
• Requirements: Flooring away (1)
• Have 5 finished floors!

Please decide on further floor growth!

Argul just wanted to let the floor grow like before.

Accepted

Please decide on placement and design for the way to the next floor.

Now came the exciting part because Argul wasn’t sure if it was possible to reposition the entrance to the second floor upon gaining strength, so he might be stuck with this forever. Going by how organic things had been until now, though, he didn’t really believe it would become a problem. 

He requested the entrance to always be randomly placed in the outer 10 kilometers of his floor. As for the design, a natural downwards-sloping cave would do it for this floor, and it should be big enough for multiple 3-meter-tall humans to walk side by side. 

Argul would likely change the settings later, but it should do for now.

Request acceptable, design accepted, waiting for the floor to grow…

He wondered why he didn’t have to do all these things himself. “Hey Aly, how does the system manage everything in my dungeon?”

She smiled at him. “The system takes some of your intelligence and wisdom to create something you could describe as AI that manages these things for you.”

She created a human shape with a wifi symbol above. “The AI is connected to you, so you can update it should the need arrive.”

A crown appeared on his head, and the shape began shaking random Erlmeyer flasks. “This design will help give you more time to do more important things, such as discovering new knowledge. I made a similar system for kingdoms, other kinds of states, and organizations, though they are a bit different and not really refined as I lack the knowledge to create something better for now.”

Argul was pretty impressed. “That’s quite smart, you know? Just imagine being able to be king and still having time for your hobby! I still don’t want to be king. I would break under the responsibility.”

Alyra jumped happily. “Thanks, mom! I noticed from the memories of your last life that people often got stuck with paperwork after succeeding and didn’t have time for the things they wanted to do anymore. I thought it was a flaw, and mana can negate some of it, so why not.”

Argul mentally knelt before her. “You are smarter than me. I surrender!”

She held her hand before her mouth and laughed haughtily.

Argul had to wait another 5 days until his floor reached its current maximum size. It took 2 more days for the first moongrass to reach his cave entrance. 

You had to walk about 2km into the dark, randomly turning tunnel before it ended, where Argul supposed his next floor would begin. The cave had enough room for it to be comfortable for a human to walk normally.

He checked his status before creating his second floor and left his first one behind. May it grow in peace.