Leaving Wenigo to get himself situated in the throne room he had prepared for him, Valterra moved to the furnace room. He knew his first guardian would be able to accomplish the task he had laid before the mouse. He chuckled, remembering the look of shock on the mouse’s face. First, he would finish this next floor, then he would give his mice on the third a proper challenge.

  He moved back to the seventh floor, noting its position in the house. Of the three rooms in the wing, the furnace room was the furthest from his Aether funnel, with the bedroom off to the left of the hallway and the ritual room off to the right. This was beneficial because the basement wasn’t directly under it, allowing him to utilize that extra space. Well, it would allow his monsters to do so. Before that, though, he had an Ascension to delve into.

  Your “Pinewillow Emberseed” is ready to Ascend!

  Due to being a Unique creation, the Helpdesk will now be engaged to help the dungeon core craft a suitable stage of advancement on its Path of Ascension.

  The system notification was a welcome one. It seemed as though his gamble had worked, though the results were less than he had expected, most likely due to the forced nature of the Ascension. Valterra made a promise to himself that he would not force such a thing again, mainly since it had caused a strain he didn’t think would be going away anytime soon. Still, it didn’t quite halt his enthusiasm when he dove into fashioning the next Ascension for his newest dungeon-unique entity.

  The available Pool of Ascension was massive for its rank, but the inherent Divine Potential was not. The latter amount was less than expected, and Valterra suspected much of it had either been used to accelerate the growth or had not been given enough time to grow on its own. Either way, Valterra wasn’t going to waste what little he had. It did mean that it couldn’t go as far as he had wished, but it could go far enough.

  He took hold of the Framework and again controlled its growth aspect. From a seed, it would become a sapling, retaining the potential to grow into something greater later. The nature of Valterra’s title would have it be small, barely a foot and a half tall at the max. The Framework most likely wouldn’t have been considered a sapling, since without the shrinkage caused by his title, the sapling would have been almost thirty-six feet tall.

  Valterra didn’t care much. In his dungeon, his words were law, and he considered the small tree a sapling. The System could only acquiesce. He then turned his attention to the tree itself. The fire affinity that had been granted, he increased as much as he could. He then utilized the potential he could to transform its sap into red-hot metal, a metal he had obtained the inspiration for from his Coppertip Moles. He couldn’t quite turn it into straight copper, and he didn’t want to.

  Instead, the sap became a thick alloy composed of copper and Aether, as well as various minerals essential for the tree's survival. The ability of copper to channel Aether to a certain extent helped the process immensely. Valterra dubbed the alloy Aesukose in the old language, and made sure to emphasize that to the System. With most of his changes made, he made more general upgrades to its bark’s toughness and strength, its roots' ability to draw in nutrients, and its leaves' ability to draw in Aether.

  Satisfied, Valterra drew back and let the changes finalize, receiving the System notification soon after.

  New Path of Ascension synthesized from an existing Framework during the process of Ascension! The Framework “Pinewillow Emberseed” may now Ascend into the following stage:

  Flamewillow Sapling (Unique, Rank D - Iron)

  From an ember, this once-upon-a-time Pinewillow has kindled into flame. Its sap has transformed into the alloy Aesukose, a unique alloy even among the magical alloys that dungeons have created. With living metal flowing through its veins, this sapling has vast potential if left to grow unmolested and is found only within the dungeon of Valterra Unok’Davaas.

  Valterra gave his interpretation of a wince at the last line. He had known he had pushed it, and the System was letting him know in no uncertain terms that if he did it again, the quality and potential of his new creation would not work out well for him. Still, he had succeeded, and that was all he let himself feel in the moment, even as he acknowledged the warning.

  Turning to the wider floor, he began to spread dozens of seeds around the central seed, which was now undergoing Ascension. Then he started building stone trees into the walls of the Floor, using the original Pinewillow Framework as a basis for his design. They were more like half trees, carved in such a way as to seem as though they were full, but in reality, only extended in a half-circle outwards from the wall. He carved painstakingly in the bark of each tree, creating hollows in each one, and placed a Rune of the Holding set into a pylon that rose from the ground.

  He left the hollows and filled in the walls with art, ensuring that the runic formations of the room remained intact. Art wasn’t something he had attempted before, but something about how Wenigo had looked in wonder at the artwork on the walls of his Aether Funnel room had spoken to him. Valterra carved the impression of trees further off, and gradually a visual illusion came into being. As he took a metaphorical step back, he felt like he had been transported into a forest of stone bathed in the fierce red light of the Heart of Flames that hovered in the center of the room.

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  Pleased, Valterra went to the ground this time and began terraforming it to suit his plans. Stone was turned into rich soil interspersed with boulders. However, in the midst of all this, the core started to carve little stone rivers into the ground and between various boulders. Then came the most crucial part as he filled the veins with copper before carving Runes of Holding and Fire Generation all along their lengths. He watched as the copper began heating up, turning a molten gold in color.

  He felt his core shine yellow with happiness as it took effect. Excellent. The effect was just as he had hoped, as the red-golden glow lit up the Floor even more than the heart did. The heat was tremendous, but the creatures he was placing within wouldn’t mind at all, he was sure. Well, except for the first ones, but he thought they would be fine once they began to dig, and he had hopes that they would evolve into a more suitable Framework due to their surroundings. With that thought, he summoned a couple dozen Coppertip Moles.

  He watched in fascination as they came into being, their soft brown fur gleaming in the light of the heart. What caught his gaze were the bright coppery digging claws that each sported. Their velvety noses turned up to sniff the air, but the heat immediately became too much for the majority of them, with only a few braving the heat for a few more moments. In a sudden flinging of earth, the majority disappeared rapidly into the soft soil, using their claws to move a tremendous amount of dirt in a short time.

  Valterra followed with excitement. This was what he enjoyed the most, watching how his creatures moved and lived. To his surprise, most of the moles had no problem when they eventually met others of their kind underground. They just sniffed each other with their noses before turning and digging another tunnel elsewhere. Querying the System, Valterra learned that that was normal when the moles were starting.

  Since they were all at the same power level, having all been created at the same time, they were able to perceive that conflict would be undesirable. This concept was fascinating in a Framework not influenced by divinity, such as his Guard Mice or a layered Framework like his Danians. Cooperation was rarely seen within his Dungeon, although Valterra knew that was changing rapidly from what he could sense from his first and second floors, like the partnership between the spider and mouse from earlier.

  Leaving the rapidly growing tunnels, he went up to the burrows where he had placed pylons. Within each one, he summoned a single Kindling Brushtail, the squirrel Framework he had received along with the Coppertip Moles when he had been Ascending. These, he felt, would adapt well due to their ability to regulate temperature, but he was hoping they would Ascend into an impressive monster over time.

  These he also watched come into being, russet fur gleaming and bushy tail waving to and fro. As Valterra looked closer, he was excited to see thin veins of glittering red running the length of the animal, culminating in its tail, which released tiny sparks now and then. This was exciting for two reasons. One, it gave him an idea about how the animal functioned. He figured that was how it controlled its temperature. Two, it looked terrific, and he could only hope that the animal kept that trait as it Ascended.

  Lastly, he summoned some Sparking Firebugs, mostly because he wanted some representation of bugs on his fire floor. Each one was only an inch or two long in size, immediately taking flight once they had finished forming. They seemed to enjoy the room immensely, buzzing this way and that as their thoraxes began to glow cherry red.

  Finished for now, Valterra felt something else steal over him at that moment. It wasn’t like there was anything wrong with the floor, and he would probably finalize it soon. It was more like a longing, a desire for something, and it took a long moment of looking at the floor before realizing what was missing—a Guardian.

  He wondered why he was feeling that longing now. His fifth and sixth floors did not have guardians, at least as far as Valterra was concerned. Now that his floors were larger than a foot in diameter, a guardian seemed necessary, and the System didn’t even have that particular designation for his creatures. But he did desire them. He wondered why that was. Diving into this new emotion, he found that he trusted in his guardians more than his normal creatures. For whatever reason, the bond that tied him to them was stronger for the simple reason that they had been with him the longest, and he trusted them to protect him more.

  The root of that desire was fear, and Valterra had to deal with the reality of what he had just gone through. He had been attacked and threatened to an extent that he had never before experienced, and he hadn’t dealt with the lingering effects of it. Thinking it over, he realized he had just retreated into playing with his dungeon right after fixing it. He hadn’t dealt with the fear and terror of the experience.

  So he did now. He withdrew and sat with his memories, turning them over. He witnessed, with perfect clarity, everything that had happened since he woke up from Ascension. After that, he returned to the hazy memories of his Ascension process. That was where the majority of the fear came from, he found. In that partial awareness, he had known only the pain of his creatures and that something had been terribly wrong.

  It took him longer than he thought it would, but soon the fear and terror began to be replaced by determination. He wouldn’t be so weak again. He had already eclipsed his previous strength. The more they tried to claim him, the stronger he would become, and he had already put plans in motion to grow his strength with his first guardian, Wenigo. Still, perhaps there was more he could do, and Valterra had an idea of where to start.

  End of Chapter Notifications:

  7th Floor Created!

  The Core has created its 7th Floor, featuring active Rune Structures, a hazardous and extreme environment, and an entirely new metal alloy.

  Progress to Core Ascension:

  25%