Dragonheart Core

The Underlake thrummed happily as mana exploded over its length.

Fresh, rippling mana, stored deep in the merrow's souls; my creatures and I drank deeply of that new power. I felt my core strain as all this potential roared through me, climbing ever-closer to my limit of seventy-five points, and slow just before reaching that.

Gods. I'd missed the kind of mana that invaders brought.

Although admittedly, only the majority of it was from the merrow; a not inconsiderable amount of it came from the numerous amount of my creatures they'd slain. Nearly a dozen roughwater sharks lay dead and dying across the ground, a handful of greater crabs, schools a plenty of silverheads and silvertooths alike. Though they'd been taken down in the end, they had very clearly proven the might that an all-Bronze invading group had.

It was an interesting situation. On one hand, they had clearly been strong and coordinated, their weapon wielders moving in tandem and their mages both defending and supporting. A machine they'd used before. But at the same time, they'd mentioned that Talluo was new to the group and untrained.

So maybe this was less of a group-specific attack, and more the general training that they learned in Arroyo? Still impressive that they had worked so well together, but I got the sense it wasn't a true adventuring group, if that made sense, rather one born of convenience. I poured through the memories I finagled from their souls.

There were thirteen priests and priestesses in Arroyo, each serving a different deity, and each with their own "tribe" underneath. The Thirteenth was the newest and least developed, which was only doubly worsened by the fact their brand-new Priestess had seen a potential bid for power in my dungeon and come here, only to get killed and have her staff—her connection to her goddess—stolen. So the thirteenth tribe was rather floundering, to put it lightly, but they didn't have the resources to fully challenge me.

Well, that sucked for them, and worked out great for me. Precisely how I liked it.

I finished dissolving their corpses, digging through the various weapons and items they'd brought; once more their blades were made of that crystalline glass structure, sand heated in boiling water and shaped with flecks of mana. I had the schema so I could technically create it, but I couldn't see where it'd be helpful. Maybe on the fifth floor, as something sharp for the invaders to hit if they fell off the side? That had potential.

Always the fun of planning out my floors. I never knew where to put the things I had.

But back to the merrow. One of them had a spear with ridges made of a new stone I didn't have yet—granite. It was a coarse, multi-coloured stone, mainly dark pink and white with beautiful marbled streaks of black; very pretty. And while not as porous or water-accepting as limestone, it was far sturdier, better built for support. I'd most definitely be using that.

Another handful of new jewels, with a pink variation of opal that one of the mages had used to temporarily heal the other's missing eye. That was curious. Healing mana had a lot of potential in many places to be used, especially since most of my creatures were of the variety where their preferred manner of dealing with attacks was throwing themselves blindly at the invaders. Maybe my rats could use it? If I could convince another near-evolution rat to swallow one of these pink opals, maybe they would grow into a healing mage. Certainly useful for an attack.

Focus.

I gathered all the mana won from the attack and started to replenish my great armies, recreating another half dozen roughwater sharks and plumping up the schools of silverheads and tooths that had been nearly decimated by the merrow. The few sturgeons killed could replenish themselves and I truly had more mimic jellyfish than I knew what to do with, and the few lost crabs in the face of the hundreds swarming over the ground meant nothing. It was a devastating attack, but nothing I couldn't fix.

But with that, I'd finalized making sure everything would survive. Always wanted to make sure that nothing would implode on me if I took a quick break to focus on something else.

Like the message tickling at the back of my core.

I dove at it.

Only one, unfortunately. This battle had mostly been carried out by those who were now dead—rest well, my sharks—or those who were plenty far off from evolution, like the sarco. I'd held out hope that maybe this would be enough to tip the silver krait or the oldest armourback sturgeon over the edge, but it didn't look so; they were bright and full with mana but not enough. Maybe one more battle, if I was lucky. Maybe.

But this was still an evolution, and I would take it. I dug greedily into the message.

Your creature, a Silvertooth, is undergoing evolution!

Please select your desired path.

Bloodtooth (Uncommon): No longer does this creature want to take second. It lives in a permanent blood-frenzy, always starving for action, living short but wildly successful lives.

Royal Silvertooth (Rare): As blood commands, so too does royalty. Leading a school with tyranny and fear, it terrorizes its territory and lets no other dare intrude on that which they claim as their own.

Vampiric Silvertooth (Rare): It thrives on blood, using its needle-shaped teeth to drain victims dry as it swarms over them in a massive school. No hollow is safe from their highly sensitive blood sensors.

Holy shit. My first second-level evolution.

…was it wrong that I had hoped it would be Seros first? Or the horned serpent? Or any of my numerous creatures I put more time and care into?

It unfortunately made enough sense I couldn't keep overthinking it. Seros, the horned serpent, Rihsu, even the silver krait and armourback sturgeon were rather complicated beings; they had a lot of intricacies in their skills and grew almost constantly. The silvertooths were straight-forward brutes who didn't need to grow or develop themselves in any complex forms because whenever there was one, there were dozens. All one had to do was survive long enough to gather enough mana and they would have a perfect straight shot to evolution.

Which this one had.

I held myself back from glaring at him.

He was only now emerging from the tunnel the merrows had trapped him in, mana stuffed full through his channels; larger than those around him but not overly so, still a recognizable silvertooth. Pack hunters, and all that. It had been half luck and half his own aggression that had let him live this long in order to survive.

And now evolve.

I debated the options as I scanned the rest of his school; while more than a few were well stuffed from their shark kill, none were near the level of evolution yet, leaving him the sole one on the threshold. So that would rule out two options, unfortunately. It wouldn't be much use to be a bloodtooth or vampiric silvertooth when you didn't have a school to back up the aggression.

And either way, I was more interested in the royal option.

My silvertooths were deadly, efficient, but overall uncoordinated. As much as blood was a deeply helpful activation tool, their attack on the shark was proof enough; they needed more intelligence to their aggression.

And since I certainly wasn't going to teach each individual silvertooth that charging in a straight line to bite someone wasn't the most effective attack, I would let someone else do the job for me.

I selected royal silvertooth.

Pale light overtook his features, the scarlet of his fins and fangs disappearing under the glow of evolution. I imagined this one would take a while, being the second evolution and all, and so promptly shuffled him off into a den tucked in a tunnel, adjusting the water currents to lift him gently into his temporary residence. He'd be fine there. I only hoped he finished up faster than his predecessors had.

But he was evolving.

Already, I could feel the difference between a normal and a secondary evolution; he felt far denser to my mana-sight, positively dripping with excess. There was the deep feeling of power emanating from him, stuck to his under two foot long form that he was, and he seemed to act almost like a sinkhole, tugging in the ambient mana around him to help guide his evolution. I wouldn't know until he finished but it felt almost like a reawakening, similar to the sarco crocodile. Like this would be a new body for this soul to house, rather than just an upgrade.

All that did was get me extremely impatient for Seros to evolve. Gods if he didn't deserve it already—he deserved it a lot more than this fat lump of a silvertooth who'd just thrown himself at a shark and gotten the kill.

I pulled my points of awareness away before I could get even more mad at a literal fish.

The Underlake recovered, as it always did, settling back into its normal patterns as the echoes of the attack faded away. Perhaps a touch more full of mana, perhaps a touch more impressive; but it settled nonetheless. It had to wait for the next attack, the one I knew was coming. Though no merrow had escaped to tell their story in full, they had a reason for coming here, a reason that other merrow would remember. There would be more.

And I would be ready for them.

Because oh, my beautiful Underlake had delivered. Delivered in spades, really; it'd more than outdone itself. And while Aloma and Nicau had certainly explored above, they hadn't been a full frontal attack; but at least I knew my third floor was up to task.

All I needed were more opportunities to prove the rest of my floors were too.