A sudden feeling of danger woke me up from a long, restful sleep. I looked over to Myra, trying to figure out if she felt the same, but she was still resting while clinging to several bars of orichalcum as if they were plushies instead. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight, before taking a deep breath and starting my day.

Nearby, on the white furs that remained of my former nest, six foxes could be seen lying around. The Liri Foxes were deep asleep and cuddled together as one pile of fiery fluff, while the obsidian fox nearby at least greeted me with a yawn before going back to rest. It seemed they hadn’t even realized we had visitors.

As for the invaders in question, it didn’t take long for me to figure out who they were, as the feeling of threat disappeared before I had even made my way out of the storage hall, leaving me to be rewarded with a small, green board instead. The white text on it revealed that a total of forty-eight adventurers had fled the dungeon, which could only mean they had left after paying the prayer site a visit. A second board revealed I had gained two new herbs thanks to them, which wasn’t much, but still a nudge in the right direction.

Myra had told me about the deal she had made with the paladin’s leader Aspen. His men entering the dungeon to pray and make offerings was only one of the benefits I gained. Myra had made it sound like something she had added on a whim only, but it now turned out to be the biggest boon I had gained from their whole exchange. At the cost of a rather rude awakening, I gained several hundred points of mana to work with, more than enough to make some important changes.

As I made my way past the dozens of compartments that stored metals and various other types of loot, food, and drinks, I was already thinking about what to do with all this mana. My first changes would obviously need to happen in the nursery, as it still lacked the flowery meadow I had promised the young family. So after making my way through the whole length of the storage hall, I soon entered the pitch-black tunnels leading towards their home.

It took me minutes to finally reach the place, time I had spent basically glued to the wall so as to not get lost. Sadly, all of the donations had left me with no lighting options other than the materials needed to craft magic lamps, which would require some tinkering on my side. Unfortunately, I had no idea how exactly they worked, so I could only wait for Myra to wake up to ask her for advice before hopefully adding them to my tunnels.

The nursery looked as unassuming as ever. Other than its seven small, wooden houses and the pond with its geyser, there was nothing to see here, but I swiftly went about rectifying this, adding all grass options to the place before spicing it up with an assortment of flowers and, more importantly, a few dozen berry bushes for the young foxes to scavenge from.

Only when all of this was finished did I have the idea of adding a little something to this room, something that would hopefully make my work a little easier and safer in the future. I knelt down near the middle of the room and imagined a new Vulpine Circle to pop into existence. While the one in the volcano room was fine and usable as it was, it left me somewhat vulnerable to explorers, of which I would soon see way more of should things go well. I also didn’t know if the structure itself was vulnerable to vandalism or stray attacks, and I wasn’t about to take the chance of potential mishaps due to an unnoticed crack in the stone pieces messing up the ritual.

Once I knelt and had closed my eyes, it was easy to summon the magic circle into place. I simply had to think of its name, which was more than enough for a cold shiver to run over my skin and a cloud of mana to spread out. Soon, the pale blue cloud gathered on the ground, where it formed pedestals of marble, with lines of black stone connecting them all.

Satisfied with what I saw, I lifted myself up and checked on the couple instead, both of whom were now on their feet and watching all the changes that had happened to their home. The two of them showed different reactions. While the father was happy to see the lush meadow and the berry bushes, the mother simply seemed too exhausted to care about her changed surroundings. A single look at her big belly was enough to see why, as she now looked as if she was about to give birth at any moment.

I waved at the two, which they answered using their tails, but they soon disappeared back into their little house, seemingly trying to catch some more sleep or preparing for the things to come.

With a shrug, I finished my work by summoning cherry trees to separate the future biomes visibly, before making my way back to the storage hall, where Myra had finally woken up and made her bed, leaving a suspicious little hill in the blanket where she had hidden her way-too-hard sleeping companions.

“Good morning,” I greeted her.

Myra walked up to me and pulled me in for a quick hug before answering in kind. She then asked me about my plans for the day. With a shrug, I told her I still had some mana left after decorating the nursery and that I was about to decorate the new home for the lava foxes I had to relocate from their former location, where they had proven too much of a challenge, especially since it was the very first ‘real’ room of my dungeon.

Myra suggested she would accompany me to watch me work, which I happily accepted. Soon, we were already making our way to the future town, where I would abduct my core to gain a little bit of assistance when creating the new room’s features. Myra questioned my reliance on the crystal ball, but she accepted it once I explained that it helped me concentrate when doing more challenging tasks.

It took us several minutes to finally reach the core, given the length of the tunnels and the size of the room it was stored in, but there was no way of fixing this. I couldn’t place the core back to its former home as that would only force me to open the private tunnels and the storage hall to those capable enough to challenge my existing rooms. Sure, I had yet to meet anyone who could defeat my stronger foxes, but it wasn’t impossible now that the whole town of Abervale knew about my existence, with news of it likely traveling far and wide at this very moment. So a little more safety and security for both me and the storage hall, at the cost of a slightly more peaceful sleep next to my core, was certainly called for.

Once we had reached the room in question, I began by digging out a huge hole in the ground, leaving only two islands where the tunnels were. I then kneeled down, hugged my core, and closed my eyes for the next step, which involved imagining a lava lake to come into existence, one that would keep its heat forever. Doing so almost immediately sucked away most of my remaining mana, but it at least was working, if Myra’s surprised gasp was anything to go by.

And indeed, when I opened my eyes, I could already see the pale blue cloud of mana changing its color into a deep red, before it became thicker and thicker, slowly turning into molten rock. Obviously, I wasn’t finished with just that, so as my next course of action I created a winding path of rock that cut the lake into two and allowed delvers to somewhat safely pass the room, if they managed to defeat the foxes living in it, that was. I still had to unlock traps that I could use to spice up the path with, so I instead decided to create pillars of rock that connected to the room’s ceiling, before getting rid of the sunny sky that still covered it. Within seconds, the whole room became darker, with its newly gained roof of rock solely being lit up by the molten rock dozens of meters below it. The pillars I had built now looked like they were preventing the room from caving in, adding much to its atmosphere while also giving its future inhabitants something to hide behind. It wouldn’t do if they could be dispatched using ranged magic and projectiles, without the chance of them fighting back. To make sure this was not a risk at all, I then added dozens of burrows for them to use, before spicing up the image a little bit more by adding sharp stalagmites and stalactites that looked like rocky needles. With a little bit of extra work and mana, there were now even droplets of lava coming down from the ceiling, adding a little bit of danger while, hopefully, not being a bother to the foxes that would live here.

Myra was the first test subject I had for this, although she didn’t have any say in it, as an orange droplet soon hit her head. But instead of being burned, she seemed to be annoyed at worst, as the droplet soon cooled off into blackish stone without doing any damage. Myra simply plucked it out of her hair, wincing over the fact that it got stuck to some strands of it.

“Let’s get out of here,” I suggested, before leading her back towards the future town.

Even with all of this work done, it had barely made a dent in my mana pool, leaving me in the thousands still. So, having the excess, I decided to lay the foundation of the future town by turning the empty cavern into a flowering meadow for now. After placing the core back in its resting place, I summoned a large variety of flowers and plants into existence, making sure not to select any I knew had medicinal purposes, as those were likely better off growing in rooms dedicated to them.

Doing all of this cost me less than decorating the nursery had, as the plants, aside from berry bushes and trees, required a fixed expenditure of mana regardless of the room’s size. This was true of all the plants I currently had and proved to be quite the boon with the sheer size of the future town.

Myra observed the cloud of mana spread out, awe clearly painted on her face. She stared at the pale blue mist dissipating into the ground open-mouthed, before watching it as it turned the rocky ground into fertile soil, the first sprouts emerging from the formally barren earth. First, there was only white, as the grasses popped out of the dirt the fastest, but there was soon a lot of green to be seen as well. Before long, the first flowers appeared, painting the whole room in all the colors of the rainbow.

Satisfied with the result, I led the still slightly dazzled Myra back to the wall near the entrance to the private tunnels. She questioned me about my next course of action, but when I explained to her that I was going to build the boss room now, she suddenly became very eager to watch it happen. So, instead of keeping her waiting, I created an elongated, rectangular room for her to work, and, should she choose to do so, even live in, once again using lava to light it all up. The resulting hall was big enough to not only connect to the future town but to also almost touch the newly built cavern with its lava lake. Still, something deep inside of me was telling me that building it this way was still safe and that there was no risk that the ceiling of either room would come crumbling down.

After finishing the boss room, I had to reroute the existing tunnel to lead to it instead, so delvers could not skip fighting Myra. Doing so was the work of little more than a minute, so barely any time compared to the hour I had spent decorating today, if it had been that long, that was.

Following Myra’s wishes, I then created a platform in the room, so as to give her some room to fight. She then suggested I could summon foxes to aid her in both the fight and in smithing, so I naturally went with the three-tailed fire foxes I still had to summon. Choosing to summon only two of them, so as not to break any rules of the fight being too challenging.

Myra’s four tails began wagging from side to side as I summoned the foxes, a pale blue cloud of mana soon spreading out only to condense into two vulpine shapes soon thereafter. The resulting foxes were once again made from pure flames, this time blue ones, with hints of white to be seen here and there.

After greeting her new companions, the so-called Flash Foxes, Myra tasked them with showing off what they were able to do, as to learn from their example. She still had to cast a single fire magic spell herself, as she previously only had access to wind magic in her former life. Sure, she could summon a blue flame to light up her surroundings, but that wasn’t magic, at least not compared to what the foxes now demonstrated for us.

First, the foxes waved their tails from one side to the other, causing three balls of fire to be launched through the room. The projectiles were hard to aim, it seemed, at least for a newly summoned fox, but they didn’t just explode into flames and disappear after hitting the ground. Instead, they lingered, creating small carpets of liquid blue flame that slowly shifted to white over the course of a minute or two.

We watched the magic closely, to find out what it was all about, only to notice that it was indeed a way to, at least for some time, shrink down the arena for any living being incapable of enduring its intense heat. Myra and I were entirely fine with the flames, as a quick test confirmed, and the foxes themselves showed no fear of walking into the fire themselves either. If anything, they were very eager to do so, at least until the flames had lost most of their fuel, having turned into red and orange flames instead before soon dying off.

I asked the foxes to continue, which they happily did by creating another carpet of flames, before, with a flash of blue, suddenly teleported right into it from several meters away. The foxes then made a show of teleporting from fire to fire, while attacking invisible foes that seemed to be caught off-guard by the sudden reappearance of the foxes. This very much fit the idea I had when creating them, as they were supposed to use tricks and feints in order to triumph over their opponents rather than overwhelming them with sheer power.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have that option either, as they soon showed by flinging several dahher-like projectiles of blue flame into the distance, only for them to impact the walls throwing brilliant sparks soon after. The attack had been fast, faster than any arrow being shot from an ordinary bow. These foxes were quite the dangerous foe, and just what I needed as part of the final encounter for the first floor.

Myra was soon seen teleporting around like the two foxes, with them seemingly chasing each other in a game of catch, which lasted for several minutes before the foxes ran out of mana, both of them dropping to the ground exhausted. Their new leader was far better off. She could now be seen tossing around daggers of blue flames, before summoning patches of angry blue flames across the platform with a wave of her tails.

After having had her fill testing out her new magic, Myra announced that she felt there was at least one remaining spell she didn’t know, a gut feeling telling her that she was still missing something. Still, she was satisfied, which I was more than happy about.

It was at this moment that a green board appeared before my eyes, announcing that I had finished my twelfth quest by having summoned a total of nine different foxes into my dungeon. I counted my foxes on my two hands, and indeed, I was sitting at a total of nine variants now, not including Myra, of course.

Finishing this quest finally unlocked the air foxes, who would be a nice addition to the volcano room, which was already stormy to begin with. And, with most of its lava foxes leaving for their new home, there would also be lots of space for them as well. I couldn’t wait to find out what they looked like!

Having found this new goal for the day, I easily gained the energy needed to finish my current project. My next task was splitting the new boss room into two halves, one big one where the fighting would happen, and one much smaller part that would serve as Myra’s workshop. I separated the two using thick rods of mithril, just like I had used them at the nursery, so as to allow delvers to watch her work before the fight started, should she decide to finish a piece first, that was. It would also allow her to escape an overwhelming foe if she ever had to face one. A second line of mithril rods would allow viewers waiting in the town to watch the fight without being in harm’s way, that was if nobody launched their attacks straight at them. Only a passage was left open, hopefully, small enough as to not allow delvers to skip the fight. In the future, I would need to find a way to enchant a door so as to only allow those through who had defeated a boss, but for now, I would make do with what I had.

Myra naturally was eager to start working on her crafting room as soon as possible, but I pointed out that I was wasting too much mana being idle right now, and that I needed to drop it below a hundred first before having time for the more detailed work this required.

So, after building a small passage that led to the private tunnels, accessible only to her, we soon made our way back to the volcano room, where I would finish my work for the time being. Myra happily led the way with the help of her fire magic, seemingly satisfied with what I had done today. In the volcano room, there was little to do other than fill the meadow with more trees, which would both serve as protection from avalanches, as well as give the earth foxes a little challenge with their burrows. The foxes in question loved to dig around trees, so why not give them a little more to choose from? As for the new trees, I didn’t have access to more fruit-bearing variants yet, but I could select between ashes, aspens, beeches, birches, cherries, chestnuts, elms, linden, maples, and oaks now, thanks to the combined work of the men that had made camp outside. So, once we had reached the volcano room by passing through the storage room with its still sleeping foxes, I began summoning the new trees all around the fiery mountain, a total of ten for each of the new options, before, to finish things off, summoning an additional two elms to lord over them all with their lofty heights. Doing so easily turned the meadow into a flowery forest instead, just the perfect environment for my earth foxes to explore. At least they looked happy as they strolled about the underbrush, their tails wagging behind their backs, sniffing at every tree trunk they found.

I watched the foxes explore their new home for several minutes but thought better of it once I realized I was still wasting mana. So, making my way over the volcano slope, I quickly summoned air foxes, a total of fifteen of them, bringing all the base elements to the same group size.

As my mana spread out to condense into over a dozen balls of mana, I hoped for the best, which would be a cute fox that would somehow work together with the others in defending their home. Contrary to the Vulpine Circle, I had no say in the abilities and shapes of the one-tailed foxes, which seemed to be solely based on whatever Cilia thought useful or had existed in the past; I couldn’t possibly tell.

It took my new foxes a few seconds to form, but once they did, I was greeted by what I could only describe as small, foxy angels. All of them had white, half-transparent bodies with tiny wings, seemingly too small to carry them, but despite this the monsters still began floating around without a single care in the world. They were soon exploring their new home, rolling and somersaulting in the air as they did so.

Chuckling at their appearance, I couldn’t help to check out what the summoning menu had to say about them. And indeed, it didn’t disappoint, giving me some valuable intel about the foxes’ behavior and abilities.

「Air Fox (F)
A weak vulpine monster that uses wind magic to support its allies and hinder many types of ranged attacks. Air Foxes have a very mischievous character and will use their limited magic in often quite creative ways, all of them with the goal of pranking passersby. When not busy fighting or planning their next prank, these foxes can often be found picking fruits and berries from trees, causing them to quickly lose their ability to fly as they tend to overeat.
Summoning cost: 13 mana」

Satisfied, I made the green board disappear with a thought, before telling Myra about the last place I had planned to visit for today, the Vulpine Circle. I still had to burn sixteen mana to get ready for the summoning session, which I quickly did by planting a few more berry bushes, but after a minute or two of doing so, I was finally prepared.

As for the combination, I would go for this time, I decided to give the earth foxes a leader to flock to, one that would hopefully make them happy to have around. So, after selecting two very eager helpers, we soon made our way towards the magic circle, which already had a whole crew of pirate-playing water foxes gathered around, foxes Myra still had yet to meet. So, taking the rather confused-looking Myra by her hands, I dragged her towards the shore, where we spent several minutes greeting each of the would-be brigands. Myra was especially intrigued by the idea of the foxes using a boat. She didn’t like how shabby the thing in question looked but confirmed that it would indeed do its job of carrying both a few foxes and the goods they would be tasked with ferrying around.

After finishing our business with the watery foxes, I instead made my way back to the pedestals, where the earth foxes were already sitting on their chosen spots, wagging their tails as they watched me approach. Quickly, I knelt down on the closest pedestal. I closed my eyes and imagined a fox to come into existence, one that would rule over the earth foxes as their beloved monarch. Naturally, this meant the combination of two earth foxes would need to result in a superior element, though I didn’t quite know what that would be. Would it simply be harder, as in stone? Or would it be more, making the fox bigger while keeping its earthy appearance?

No, making it bigger wouldn't help this time, as it would render the fox unable to use the tunnels the earth foxes had already dug throughout the whole room; meaing stone would be the better choice this time.

So, with that decided, I began imagining a stone fox, one sized to still use the same tunnels the earth foxes had built, yet strong enough to give them a hand whenever there was harder material to be removed, making them a valuable ally for the building efforts of the foxes. Just like the earth foxes themselves, the stone fox would have high endurance as its main attribute, forsaking most magic to stay standing for as long as it possibly can, just to buy more time for other foxes to win the fight for it. Much like its kin, the new fox would have a rather rough appearance, with two rocky tails instead of one. As for the color, I went with a dark grey, much like the rock the volcano was made of. There was no reason to do this, other than it being a match, which was good enough for me.

Soon, my remaining mana left my body, indicating that the summoning ritual was running its course. And indeed, after a few moments, I could already hear the excited barks of the earth foxes who had participated, indicating that the Vulpine Circle had done its thing.

Relieved, I opened my eyes, only to find the stone fox already surrounded by five of its softer relatives, all of whom were sniffing at the new addition to the room with their tails rapidly wagging behind their backs. I went in for a few scratches as well, before leaving the foxes to their own devices. Instead, I made my way up the volcano’s slope to invite the lava foxes to join us on our way back, at least ten of them.

Luckily, the foxes were eager to join us, as their current home was rather cramped in comparison to the far larger, and hopefully, more comfortable lava lake I promised would be their new abode. So, after selecting ten of them and sending the unlucky ones back to sleep, we soon made our way back to the newly decorated room, which actually proved to be quite the challenge, as the foxes simply didn’t like the cold air surrounding them once they left their fiery home. Myra helped them out a bit by summoning a carpet of flames for them to reheat every now and then, which worked well until we reached the wooden bridge, which couldn’t take that kind of heat.

Myra was quick to point this out as something I could improve upon, especially since my current, makeshift bridges didn’t account for seafaring foxes and their boats that didn’t quite fit within the low clearance provided. And they didn’t allow for blazing hot foxes to use them either, as our current predicament showed. We actually had to ask the foxes to run the whole distance the bridge covered, so as to not allow it to catch fire. Still, there was some damage done to the wooden planks, hundreds of paw prints now burned into their surface.

The rest of the route was more or less easy to traverse. We still had to take breaks for the foxes to regain their heat and energy, but we still reached our goal before the black stones on the surface of their bodies grew big enough for them to become cumbersome and slow their movements. Still, once we had reached the lava lake’s shore, they couldn’t help but let themself drop into it as if they were wet sacks of potatoes. Soon, all ten of them were floating around and, after mere seconds of orientating themself, they were already deep asleep, the whole journey having taken quite a toll on them.

Seeing them laze around like this, I couldn’t help but yawn, before leading Myra back to the storage hall. Luckily, she realized just how exhausted I was after everything I had created during the past hours, so she did not ask me to start the work on her workshop yet. Instead, she even lifted up my bed’s blanket for me before tucking me in.

I was soon readying myself to rest, with Myra doing the same, though her bed needed a little more preparation with the hard bars of precious metal hidden underneath its blanket. I couldn’t help but smile as she made herself comfortable with them at her side, cuddling them as if they were soft plushies instead. Only after a few moments of doing so did she realize I was watching her, and quickly hid herself under her own blanket. Chuckling at the sight, I closed my eyes, trying to find some rest myself. It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, as exhausted as I was.

 

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