Blue Core Day 25

Day 25

I was worried about hunting out the local wildlife. There had been a definite drop in the intake of wild ga and frankly that wasnt sustainable anyway. Not considering the biomass requirents of stuff deeper in the categories. Moving parts like valves took far more than expected from the size of the things.

But now that I had access to water, I had an idea. With the boring beetles and upgraded roots I had a nice chunk of underground cleared out, so I Altered the stone and added water to make mud. And then put grain bait all over the mud, hoping that the faux sun would result in sothing sprouting.

[Dungeon Ecology] learned.

Ecology Category unlocked.

150 Experience gained.

Apparently I had the right idea, and checking the category it included actual dirt so I didnt have to try and grow things in rocky mud. But I could grow things in actual rock, apparently.

There was tayan grass and tayantan trees for dirt, and chrysthenium variants that grew in rock, ice, and magma. I didnt know what any of those things were, though it took a mont to resolve the chrysthenium entry as not simply being a misspelling of a more familiar flower. They were also relatively expensive, though I wasnt short on the materials for the rock version at least. In fact Id capped out the actual storage for rock and had a couple rooms full of rock slabs so I didnt waste any intake.

So I would have a garden, then, at least to see what these things were. And that ant I actually had a reason for carving out more space. To start I could reuse the test room, and replace all the mud with sothing more useful, so I reclaid everything there to seed it with grass. And it was just as well Id started early, since a twelve-hour tir started, tiny pinpricks of green just starting to push their way out of the dirt. Well, it wasnt like I was going anywhere.

When it finally did mature, it looked like more or less normal grass to , although more teal than properly green. But the overlay inford I was getting a passive biomass inco from the grass, which ant given proper investnt I had an infinite source of the stuff. Investnt I did promptly because that ant I didnt need the trap corridors anymore. And that ant I could seal off my entrance entirely, disguising it as bare rock.

Not that I wouldnt open it if Shayma ca back or so other fugitive ca by, but it might give protection from people like the knights.

And in the anti, I landscaped. It was easy enough to make a few low-ceilinged rooms for growing the grass, and grey chrystheniums grew on bare walls, taking four full days to mature, but providing stone and mana inco when they were mature. The trees took a very large room to grow, and when I completed that room sothing unexpected happened.

Size requirents for level increase t.

Dungeon Level increases to 1.

Skill base levels increase by 1.

Hm. A quick glance showed that the only major developnt was that my core no longer had just one hit point. It had two, which wasnt much better. Though free skill levels werent bad either. It applied to categories, the things inside the categories, which I could raise with experience, and actual skills, which I couldnt. Well, so skills anyway. Others just seed to be what they were, like [Dungeon Ecology].

[Temperature Control] going up was fantastic, because a quick test showed that now I actually could get things cold enough to freeze water, though not hot enough to lt rock. [Alteration] and [Camouflage] upgrading made it even easier to customize my interior. But most importantly, [Wisdom] upgrading gave sothing to do with magic.

I didnt get spells. Spells, most likely, were too active for a dungeon and that kind of made sense. But a new tab now gave the ability to create regions of effect. Or rather, grow them. These regions could be seeded and would grow slowly, consuming mana as they did so until they reached their full size and effect, sothing I could modify a bit but was mostly determined by the room they were in. Doorways blocked the effect, open or closed.

Fog and Darkness effects were straightforward enough. Depletion and Recovery though, were different. [Depletion]: Slowly incrents depletion of individuals within the area of effect.[Recovery]: Slowly restores health and energy of individuals within the area of effect.

So depletion was different from health and energy. That didnt answer what it was, but it sounded pretty unpleasant. Not sothing I was planning to use. Recovery, on the other hand, seed like itd pair well with my newly developed hot bath technology. It was just too bad I couldnt enjoy the fruits of my own labors.

I went ahead and filled the little room with the effect, but mostly I spent ti on expanding my borders. If I leveled up by size then there was a bonus to setting up farms for resource inco.

And that was when I had my first cave-in. One of the areas I was digging out creaked, groaned, and sagged as chunks of rock and dirt fell from the ceiling. Outside, a stand of trees leaned at precarious angles. Inside, one of my boring beetles was very thoroughly squished. Given that I couldnt replenish them, that was a little scary.

As disturbing as it was, the collapse didnt cause any other damage, though it did ruin my attempts at stealth. Itd be pretty obvious sothing was going on if I left giant holes all over the landscape, not to ntion the wasted effort. But all was not lost. I tooled around with constructing support underneath the cave-in, first to stop it from getting any worse and second to try and reconstruct the rock and dirt ceiling so the trees didnt give away my position.

It was tedious but it reminded of of things like arches and triangles and other such support techniques. Plus it gave good practice with [Alteration] and with dirt. Not that I really planned to build with dirt but it was worth figuring out how it acted before I caused a landslide or sothing.