Azotreh had started shaping stone like a workhorse. They didn't take breaks, didn't stop shaping and reshaping the stone, forming their dungeon. Nicholas spent a lot of time shaping with Azotreh and trying to convince them to take even the smallest break. Every time, they simply looked up at Nicholas with that dead look for a long moment before continuing their shaping.
They didn't seem fully in control of their actions either. Like a machine, they just kept shaping in automatic patterns. Whenever Nicholas took a break, they simply continued to shape in a straight line until Nicholas took control of the work and guided the hand of Azotreh.
Whatever was happening with Azotreh, it was certainly assisting their growth. While the most obvious change was the gradual tick up of the Nightshade Gneiss Shaping skill, they had also been accumulating levels in Internal Mana Manipulation for some reason.
They had also found deposits of other stones, mostly something simply called poisonous mixed stone, which seemed to accumulate in small clusters at the edge of the massive hunk of nightshade gneiss. Even more strangely, they appeared in natural cubes like pyrite on Earth. Naturally, they had picked up a new ability and skill for the shaping of said stone and a stone called nightshade schist.
Most of the stone varieties Nicholas had stumbled on seemed to be some variant of stone also found on Earth, which did make some sense. It's not like other planets had entirely different geology, especially if this one had life as abundant as they'd found so far.
The dungeon had been extending down. Atu was given the largest and first home, but with the knowledge of dungeon denizens granting benefits somehow, and their new perks, they suddenly had a new task.
While Atu had gotten five rooms to herself and Azotreh, with more planned once Nicholas figured out what was going on with the relentless kid, most homes had two or three. The ones with kids had more.
Nicholas had also discovered that they could make the walls in any designated room glow, though it didn't really help much with the morale issue.
Suddenly having just over a hundred people used to living above the surface move underground wasn't an easy change. Especially not for the people involved. They knew they had safety, but that simply wasn't enough. They wanted to see the sun and frolic as they used to.
Of course, they couldn't. But it had still begun to really harm the rabbit-kin. Even an artificial sun would have been a great help, but that was completely out of the question.
There was one good thing they'd figured out, at least. The system's innate looting function allowed the harvesting of meat from their dungeon monsters in small quantities. One of the rabbit-kin had also stepped up and placed a ritual circle in the initial room, helped by the expensive placing of a resource node of shadow iron into the shape of the circle. The circle had allowed them to harvest a monster's corpse, making it produce more meat and other resources.
The resource nodes weren't hard to set up once they figured out how. Simply designating a space for the material to appear and then willing it to go there. At least, that's how it was for metals. When Fuzem tried to make a wood node, she got an error message telling her the ceiling was too low. Considering the ceiling was nearly three meters from the floor, that seemed impossible.
Of course, vegetables couldn't grow in solid stone, so the rabbits could only harvest meat, but they did bring enough vegetables from their own homes in the escape that they didn't miss out on full meals.
Fuzem, Nicholas, and Errazorrus had plans to go outside and find more resources to possibly start farming for the new residents, but that was for when Azotreh came back to them.
About a week after the rabbits moved in, once they had set up their tenth home, they received a surprising notification.
[For obtaining two denizens through natural means, your dungeon has earned 2,000 DP and DX.]
[Your dungeon faction: Black Dragon has crossed the 10th threshold! +100C to Mana and Mana Regeneration, +1,000DP, ERR: b1739999]
[For passing the tenth threshold, you have been awarded a perk selection!]
[You have gained 1 perk selection!]
[For ERR: B4382111]
[As you have crossed the tenth threshold, you may now choose an additional dungeon faction. Due to the presence of the Infinite System, original faction can continue advancement!]
[You have gained the Blessing of the Black Dragon Dungeon God (Emerald)]
Not even the new notifications snapped Azotreh out of their trance as Nicholas guided them further down, shaping a stairway alongside them to keep pushing deeper into the earth.
Azotreh felt the change within. Once again, there was another shift in the dungeon. In themselves, too, but not the one they were searching for.
They didn't know how long it had been since they had begun the search, the attempt to find something important. Whatever was pulsing in time with their heartbeat and causing mana to spread through their very cells. They had to find it.
They had begun to verify that there was actually something similar to their former mana channels in their body, just much smaller. So small it was impossible to notice at first glance, and so numerous that it appeared as if their entire body was a homogenous mass of mana. But that wasn't true. There was some biological material around the natural ebbs and flows of mana throughout their body.
The biological material pulsed like the central point near their heart, or what they thought was their heart. It wasn't like they could cut themselves open and look.
Then they remembered the flaring pain. The horrific agony they felt that night after the rabbit-kin had escaped. After they'd eaten the entire village. The slicing and cutting pain that eventually allowed them to shrink down to their current size again. They didn't know how it had happened, but they certainly remembered it happening, and the consciousness that had caused it.
They reached out to the cold awareness. The blank voice that kept their aura steady and their eyes blank. They reached out on instinct, knowing how in some deep part of their soul. The consciousness responded immediately.
One moment, they felt the body they weren't controlling come to a complete stop. The next, the slicing agony was back. But centralized around the chest.
They received feedback from the cold awareness as something cut them open. There was something beating, a mass of crimson and cerulean flesh in their chest. The flesh was covered in what seemed to be teeth, bony ridges protruding from several spots on the central mass. Then there was the eye. It reflected their eyes, four spinning pupils, but around an empty center.
Its sclera was a bright cerulean blue, as was most of the rest of it. Only the four pupils slowly circling around the middle of the eye were a different color. One was green, one red, one black, and one blue.
It pulsed, and mana flooded their body again before feeling like it was slightly drained. Then it beat again.
Azotreh didn't notice the horrified Nicholas beside them as they watched the heart and began to identify where the mana was naturally flowing. Towards their skin in every direction, mostly centralized in what seemed to be thin knots of veins in the wrists, ankles, knees, elbows, shoulders, throat, and hips.
They didn't know how they sensed the minute flow of mana through their own body. Normally, the channels were wide enough that one could feel the mana move, but their channels were smaller than the smallest vein. Narrower than any gap. But they felt it, and knowing that, they could move it.
They took hold of some of the mana pushing its way up from the pulsing heart and channeled it into their ears. Into the marks on the back of them.
The world suddenly went very quiet as their heartbeat intensified in their ears. Soon enough, all they could hear was the pulsing of mana from that beating heart.
That was certainly one way to take a break.
Fuzem watched from the ceiling, attempting to figure out why Azotreh had stopped. Nicholas had been across the forming room when they stopped, and a giant cleaver seemingly appeared from thin air to precisely cut through their chest.
They saw the beating heart, almost identical to the beating nexus of their dungeon, though it had some more bones across its surface. They saw the lighting up of Azotreh's body as the heart flared, followed by purple light as the rabbit ears they insisted on having despite the oversized draconic tail. The marks on the backs of their ears flared before they simply vanished in a puff of mostly blue and purple smoke.
She watched in fascination as Azotreh collapsed backwards, though their body remained whole. The last time they had done something weird with magic, their form had collapsed into slime. At least this time, they had a full body someone could lift.
Fuzem stuck her feet to the ceiling and began to crawl along it. She didn't leave any trail as she went to find Atu. The woman was the only person she and Nicholas trusted to care for Azotreh.
She eventually found Atu in her room, meditating over something or other. She dropped onto her head again, fitting between her ears.
She felt the right ear twitch as she spoke, "Azotreh needs help again."
Atu sprang to her feet without a moment of hesitation. Fuzem guided her through the central room and down the spiral staircase to the lowest floor, the one they had been working on.
But rather than the giant orc trying to help Azotreh, they instead stepped into the room to witness a standoff between Nicholas in the avatar and a woman with chitin plates on her body and a pair of antennae dancing slightly.
Nicholas was holding an oversized cleaver, the same one that had dropped from the air to cut Azotreh open, in fact. The woman was holding a sword seemingly carved from the mandible of a giant ant. Neither was willing to back down, even as the woman's aura suppressed Nicholas.
Essence smoke gradually rose from the monstrous body Nicholas was inhabiting as her aura slowly tore away at their form, but Nicholas still didn't flinch.
[Pain Resistance has increased to 0.08%]
[New resistance: Suppressive Pain (0.03%)]
[New resistance: Dissolution Pain (0.02%)]
Atu equipped her full set of armor in a split second, moving to stand between the intruder and the unconscious Azotreh on the ground. Atu knew as well as Nicholas that she could not win. The aura pressing down on Nicholas was at least emerald-rank, if not higher. It was very strong for that rank too, and carried an innate sense of authority. As if the woman in front of them sat atop a mountain they could never climb.
The eyes of the ant didn't move, but Atu got the immediate sense that she was looking at Azotreh behind her.
Finally, after another half minute of simply staring each other down, the woman caused the mandible sword to vanish in a mist of brown smoke.
Atu's eyes widened at that. A conjured mandible blade? Where could the ant have gotten something like that?
The idea was driven from her mind as the woman stepped further into the room, still staring down at Azotreh.
The ant woman said something in a language Atu didn't know, but Nicholas seemed to recognize it. The tall orc responded in the same language, which caused the antennae of the ant lady to twitch in irritation. But a moment after, she switched to Aemabi.
"Give me the child."
"Why would I do anything of the sort?" Atu growled between clenched teeth. She wasn't willing to give up her family, even if they'd only known each other for a couple of months.
The ant woman let out a derisive snort despite her lack of a nose, "Because I'd be a better trainer than you could ever be."
Just as the ant said that, Atu felt another overwhelming aura, but this time from above. It carried the unmistakable mark of a curse and some form of draconic power.
A second woman suddenly stood in the room, her presence utterly masked. She also spoke in Aemabi.
"You will not take the child Anthei, they are to be trained not just by you."
"Why shouldn't I?"
"Because candidate status doesn't give you that right. Lay one finger on them to remove them from this realm of their own design, and I will see your hands severed at the wrist."
"Why would I care-"
"You would care because I'd curse them to never regrow. Don't underestimate me, little insect. You are not as all-powerful as you think."
The ant woman seemed to shrink before letting out a quiet sigh.
"Fine, you wish to train the child together. Call me at the point where they need to understand their heroic qualities. I'm going to hunt."
With those words, the ant lady stepped back into the tunnel she had emerged from. There were clear mandible marks along the wall, making it clear that Anthei or whoever she was had dug the tunnel herself.
Suddenly, Atu felt the weight of the dragon's aura on her, "So, will you introduce yourself, or should I?"