ALL NOVEL Chapter 1311: Moving To The Miasmic Nest
Chapter 1311: Moving To The Miasmic Nest
"Huh? What...? We teleported like you said?!" asked Celica. "Amazing Sylphy! I didn't know you had space magic!"
"It's not exactly space magic, it's the ability of a dungeon master to move around their dungeon as they please," I explained. "Sometimes I just walk, but when things get urgent, I teleport. Teleporting all of us cost a lot of Dungeon Energy though, roughly four to five thousand."
"Is that a lot?" my father wondered, looking around.
"Not much, I suppose?" I wondered. "I have a lot more saved... Anyways, here we are."
I pointed at the distance, there was a huge forest that stretched for hundreds of kilometers. Yes, the first floor of the dungeon had become enormous, perhaps as big as several thousands of kilometers right now.
"This is... a forest?" wondered Celica. "I don't remember ever exploring it before... Half of it has become black and purple..."
"Yeah, this is where all the Miasma ended accumulating," I explained. "It ended infecting the forest, and it has continuously spread through it. We'll have to purify as much as possible as we make our way there."
"Interesting! Very interesting!" said Felicia, looking into the forest, her homunculi body had a slightly younger voice. I hated to admit it, but she was cute. "The large accumulation of Mana in this area is very big, it seems that the streams of Mana had become unstable, causing this over accumulation and then decay within this forest area."
"Wait, so there's a reason why it appeared here? It's not random?" I wondered.
"Of course not!" she said. "Nothing is random, everything has a reason behind why these things happen. As Alchemist, we work to not only make things but comprehend the world itself. And I believe there's a reason why the Mana was fluctuating so much here."
"Why?" I wondered.
"Compared to the rest of the dungeon, this area is too unbalanced, this gigantic forest stretches for several kilometers, but it still a separated area from the rest of the grasslands, creating an imbalance of life," she explained. "Because this is seemingly the only forest here, it naturally requires more Mana to continue flourishing and expanding compared to the grasslands or that huge lake. So it accumulates in large quantities. Sometimes, too much of it."
"Oh... I guess that makes sense," I nodded. "I never thought about that. Then what could I do to remediate it?"
"Perhaps create an artificial forest at the other end of the dungeon floor!" she suggested. "Like this, the floor will gain a balance between the mana fluctuations, and everything won't accumulated within just one corner. Though, it would be better to have three forests, actually, another should be placed in the middle of the floor, surrounding the city of your plant people."
"Interesting, maybe with some magic and the help of the spirits I should be able to grow a lot of trees and create an artificial forest like that," I nodded. "I guess that's a new future project."
"Indeed," she said. "You said there were more dungeon floors in this dungeon, right? If each one is even larger, then the possibility of the same problem occurring is close to a hundred percent. In a way, and from what I've investigated, your dungeon works very similarly to the world outside, it has to keep a balance between wildlife and nature, or it will eventually collapse. It didn't collapse before because you kept giving it as much Mana as they wanted, to the point it became an excess that decayed into enormous quantities of Miasma."
"S-So you're saying that I've been irresponsible, but the only reason my Dungeon remains so well was because I just compensated with tons of Mana...?" I sighed. "Yeah, makes total sense. I am really bad at this job..."
I felt like shit again, I guess my whole dungeon would have gone to shit if it wasn't because I compensated with my insane powers. Dungeons need to be kept balanced in where the resources go to.
"Of course, you can't keep constant, eternal balance either. Nature is ever-changing! It could be said that it has created a sense of balance, but this very sense of balance was built upon billions of years of evolutionary adaptations from all living beings, who shaped the world," said Felicia. "The true nature of life is chaos, and it is eternally ever-changing, there will never be true balance."
"Hah... So what can I even do then?" I wondered.
"Come on Felicia. Don't get too philosophical, Sylphy is only fifteen years old," my father sighed, crossing his arms.
"Are you implying your daughter is not smart enough to understand such simple concepts, Allan? Don't look down on Sylphy, she's very smart. I would say she's smarter than you," said Felicia. "Actually that isn't that big of a benchmark, hahaha!"
"W-What? No! I didn't imply that..." he panicked a bit, looking at me with surprise. "Of course my daughter is smarter than me! Actually... I was the one that didn't really understand
that well."
"Haha, it's fine dad," I said. "I asked you but I kind of have thought of an answer."
"Oh? And which one is that?" Felicia asked.
"I have to accept that this problem will become more common from now on. I'll try to improve the dungeon's balance, but I can't achieve perfection either," I said. "It will have to be a combination of both working on its entire structure and also strengthening the people inside of it, and perhaps even the monsters, so they can survive the Miasmic Creatures, which could be said to be a part of nature as well."
"Good answer, look, they came just to tell you how right you were," Felicia smiled, looking at the forest.
From within it, hordes of Miasmic Creatures appeared, crawling out of the darkened trees, their shapes and forms varied with each one, but they were all made of black and dark purple slimy ooze, sometimes with hard bones beneath, made of crystalized miasma, but all the
same.
And they kept coming, constantly... There were perhaps over a hundred of them now. Whatever was inside of that nest, they knew we were here to put a stop to them.
"Alright, Ivy, Bark, time to show off your newly evolved abilities."