With his new stats and level, Argul felt like he could try to perceive things in 4 dimensions. 

Before he did that, though, he wanted to create the settings for the 5th floor. There was no reason to waste time and not let the floor grow while he experimented with weird shit. He had also figured out most of the settings during the breaks in his training time, and as one could guess from the catastrophic weather event, it was going to be hot.

[Floor 5]

• Volcanic caves
• Cave size: large to gigantic
• Eternal night
• Temperature: 35°C to 50°C
• Events:
• Tunneling
• Caves form randomly with a minimum distance of 50m and a maximum distance of 1000m between each other. Each cave has to be at least connected to one other cave in some way.
• Earthquake
• There is a 25% chance of small localized earthquakes happening each month.
• The floor is magma!
• There is a 2% chance of a magma chamber forming beneath a cave, making the ground unstable. Beware, or take a hot bath! This event counts for each cave extra and will cause a cave-in after the cave floor breaks in. There is no permanent settling inside a volcano.
• Note: Caves underneath the magma chamber might cave in.
• Volcanic eruption
• If the ‘unreliable catastrophic weather’ event is activated, earthquakes will shake this floor. The temperature will rise to 70°C, and there is a medium chance for magma to erupt from the ground, walls, or ceiling in random places.

Argul had thought about making the air toxic but decided against it ultimately. There would be enough people dying by falling in magma, though those that died in gigantic caves would at least die epic and cause a cavern the size of a small city to cave in. That said, the air might become toxic just because of the nature of the floor, and he wouldn’t stop it should it happen.

Now that his floor was growing, Argul could fully concentrate on the task at hand. As for how to do it, he had gotten an idea during his training. 

To perceive 2 dimensions, he had to zoom out without zooming out, so now he would do directly the opposite and try to zoom his perception inwards.

He had seen pictures of four dimensions on the internet, but they didn’t really help as long as he couldn’t comprehend what the actual fuck he was seeing. 

Argul tried once and failed. After that, he tried a few more times without success and became frustrated. 

On his 13th try, he succeeded, and everything began to hurt. There was a vague sensation of something cracking in his body, and he was yanked out of his perception, not that he had seen anything thanks to the pain.

Argul took a few minutes to gather himself again, and the pain began to lessen gradually. There was something weird about the pain in comparison to the pain before. It felt more bodily. More tangible in a way.

He looked at his core for a bit until he found a small crack. Looking at his structural integrity, it was at 79%. 

That was not good because it meant he could kill himself by accident. That said, Argul also didn’t want to stop and decided he would not try this again until he had more [Wis]. 25 [Wis] should be sufficient for this.

He mentally shook his head to clear his thoughts, and a screen appeared before him.

[For perceiving 4 dimensions, you received +1 INT]

At least he got something, Argul thought before his daughter could interrupt him.

A worried Alyra came into his view. “Are you okay, mom? Do you feel weird? Is everything alright?”

Argul answered her as truthfully as possible while also trying to calm her down. “I’m alright, Aly. I think my core got overwhelmed by all the information and cracked.”

He paused for a second. “The crack had hurt like hell, but I don’t feel it anymore. I’m really alright, but I won’t try that again for some time. Thank you for worrying about me.”

Having someone around who openly worried about him made Argul appreciate his new life more.

While he had theoretically known that people worried about him in his previous life, he had never really felt or perceived it. Sure, they came and asked if he was okay, but it had always been a lot easier for him to say he was alright than speak about his problems, and most of the people he knew had been happy with that answer. 

It had also never truly felt like they worried about him and more like they were concerned for his future. The thing is, as long as he couldn’t cope with his present problems, his future was pretty pointless to him.

Alyra was still a bit worried but nodded approvingly. “I wouldn’t let you do that again, and let me tell you, even though I don’t have a body, I’m still able to stop you from doing things if I really wanted to.”

Argul was sure of that. If his daughter didn’t have that power, then he couldn’t explain some weird things, such as why he had to level, and his core didn’t grow by itself. He didn’t ask her, though, because he didn’t mind too much. It gave him a purpose, at least for as long as her hold over his nature held.

Alyra smiled, relieved, interrupting his idle thoughts. “Still, it is good that you are okay. Please never do something like that again.”

Argul got a nice feeling that he couldn’t quite describe. “It’s okay, Aly, and while I can’t promise to never do something like that again, I will be much more careful in the future.”

And Argul meant what he said. To distract himself and Alyra from what just happened, he asked her if she had something she wanted for this floor.

Alyra thought about it for a moment. “A desert rose would be nice, but make it glow.”

A few minutes of thought later, she exclaimed excitedly, and a picture of a plant appeared before Argul. There was something that looked like a violet swimming ring around another part that grew in the middle of the plant. 

Alyra pointed at the picture. “There was a really weird but huge as fuck flower in your old world. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s a flower, but I don’t care. It was like three times as large as a man. Speaking of large, make the desert rose bigger too, please!”

And thus, Alyra was excited and happy again, and Argul couldn’t help but smile to himself in his mind.

She also showed him other variations of the desert rose. Sometimes they were ordinary flowers. Other times Argul would have called them trees. He couldn’t remember ever seeing any of them, but they had to come out of his memory, or Alyra wouldn’t know them.

As for the weird plant, he would make it a flower. “Sure thing, Aly!”

Alyra made a hugging gesture. “Yay! You are the best! And you will make them even weirder!”

Argul had no idea what he should think about the last part but chose to ignore it. 

After that, he waited a bit longer to make sure he was really alright before he regarded the large and, from some events, shielded entrance cave.

The thing was actually massive, big enough for a city and a few villages. Stalactites were growing from the ceiling, and in the middle of the cave was a magma lake that was fed by three magma streams. The magma painted everything in an orange-red light, and yes, since they were technically still underground, it was magma and not lava.

Argul really liked the atmosphere of his new biome. 

Sadly the soil was still as resource-poor as that one friend that always had to ask for money, or him for that matter. The magma was a lot less rich in minerals than what he would have guessed too.

Argul let the matter go and decided to create the first plant, the desert rose. He liked that they sometimes looked more like trees with fat trunks. Yes, trunks can be fat.

What grew from his ribm looked really interesting, like someone had taken a few ropes and curled them around one another. Then the ropes had been thickened and turned into black orange-veined wood that grew a few gnarled and short branches. From the branches, sky-blue blossoms bloomed, but the tree still looked a bit empty. 

To be honest, Argul thought it looked more like black stone with veins of magma than wood, but who was he to judge?

[Volcano rose]

This is a large plant. This tree grows in volcanic caves and on active volcanoes. The trunk is so heat resistant that it could even grow in magma or lava as long as its blossoms are over the surface and a bit away from hot liquid.

Volcano roses don’t grow leaves and have blossoms instead, as the temperature makes the needed energy of light for photosynthesis unnecessary. While the blooms are heat resistant, they would not survive a magma bath or the direct heat of the liquid.

Growing in magma made a lot of sense if magma could erupt out of the wall randomly. Argul thought the wood would be an interesting crafting material and made sure to look out for what people would come up with. He wasn’t the most talented regarding work done with his hands and not his mind.

For the other flower, he had to work out something a bit more complicated. Argul would let the ring about the blossoms be because he had no idea what to do with it, and his mana would surely come up with something. Well, he could put some horrendous-smelling gas in there, but that was so obvious it was boring.

The blossom would have the form of a stretched pyramid. The flower wouldn’t have a large base area and be around 6 meters large. 

Argul wanted to allow the plant to rotate the three sides of the pyramid, making it possible to have the blossom look inwards to protect it from any harm. 

After creating the flower, it looked a lot like the one in the picture Alyra had shown him. The only difference was that the ring had changed its color from violet to black, and while the blossoms were blue, the protective side was dark red.

He identified the flower and then named it.

[Haphephobic blowwood]

This is a large plant. Haphephobia is the fear of contact with others, and this flower does not like being touched. If the flower is touched, it will turn its blossom inwards, protecting it and releasing a highly flammable gas stored in the ring around the bloom. This gas will likely ignite in split seconds as the blowwood often grows in hot volcanic regions.

Sadly you will never reach the state of being properly prepared meat and instead get incinerated in moments, leaving behind naught but ash. At least your relatives won’t have to cremate you anymore.

That was…harsh. His mana had come up with something, and he really didn’t know what to think of it. It could have been cool, but somehow the [identify] note at the end made it brutal instead.

Argul sighed. Nothing he could really do about it, so he continued onwards. He wanted to create all his plants and animals in this first room, letting them grow and spread around the floor from there. 

His next plant was another flower, but a small one this time. He kinda had a thing for flowers.

It had a black stalk and leaves, perfectly fitting into the color scheme. The blossom was of such dark red coloring that it could be mistaken for black, and the middle of the flower shone in a bright yellow that also framed the edge of the petals. 

The upper part of the flower erupted in flames and then regrew as if nothing had ever happened.

[Phoenix flower]

This is a small plant. This plant grows in hot environments where magma or lava is present. The flower is mostly heat and flame resistant, except for the blossom and a small part of the stalk beneath the blossom where the seeds are grown. To spread its seeds, the flower ignites that part of its body, causing the seeds to be taken away by the rising hot air.

Now Argul had flowers that couldn’t be ignited, would ignite others, and one that would ignite itself. The collection was complete, perfect trinity! Who wouldn’t like a small fire on a Sunday evening? 

As long as it wasn’t yourself that burned, enjoy the show! Now only available on the fifth floor, you have never felt this hot before. 

He shook his non-existent head at his own thoughts.

Argul could understand igniting others as a defense but igniting oneself just to spread one’s seeds seemed a bit inefficient, in his opinion. Wouldn’t the flower lose a lot of energy doing so?

Who knows, he wasn’t some kind of biologist.

He got back to creating plants. His next and last two were nothing special except for their heightened heat resistance. 

One was moss, and the other was a small, primarily brown mushroom that grew in or beside the moss. Mushrooms weren’t really plants and a category themselves, but who cares?

The two organisms had a symbiotic relationship. The moss would supply the mushroom with sugar, which was hard for the mushroom to get, and the mushroom would provide the moss with nutrients the moss could usually not process in return.

Two screens appeared before Argul and surprised him.

Quest completed: 

• [It grows! (3)]
• You created 25 species of plants never seen before. May nature flourish in your presence! STR +1, WIS +1

New Quest: 

• [It grows! (4)]
• Requirements: It grows (3)
• Create 50 new plant species. 25/50

Again, he had forgotten this quest but wouldn’t complain about more stats. 

He also noticed that things he had created before he received a quest still counted towards the quest completion. That was something he should have asked Alyra at the very beginning, now that he thought about it.

With five plants done, Argul waited for his portal cave to become overgrown and went through the things that had happened inside his domain. Just because he knew everything didn’t mean he was automatically aware of it.

Slimes had spread to the second floor, and one of them had stumbled upon the entrance to the third floor. His cave diggers had already spread to the fourth floor and were actually able to consume the frostbite mushrooms. They gave them an ice breath, much to the chagrin of the ice howlers. 

The mind reader fireflies had spread to the second floor, and a particular cave stalker found them to be a nice snack in between. The tiny bugs weren’t fast enough to flee from the giant spider, rendering their mind-reading ability useless.

Except for the mosquitos on the first floor, slimes actually had no one really preying on them. While all the predators would kill and eat them if they were starving, they did prefer to have something to chew on, so slimes were mainly able to have good relations with all the other animals.

Argul had to wait a bit longer, and once the main cave had some plants, he proceeded with his first animal, a honeybee. The honeybees were black and red instead of black and yellow and started to work on a nest on one of the desert roses. He wanted to know how their honey would look, but that would take some time. 

[Volcanic Honeybee]

This is a small animal. This insect lives in volcanic environments and can survive in air which would be toxic for most creatures. Like their regular counterpart, they have a queen as the center of their colonies. The sting of volcanic honeybees will burn you in addition to their usual poison.

Honey made by these bees will make you not only feel warm but actually warm your whole body if ingested. 

Everybody loves bees, and they are generally good neighbors to have. Argul hoped they would help to spread his plants a bit faster once they got going and had their nest built.

After the bees, he created a sizeable blackish lizard with a spiked tail and spikes on its back. 

The scales of the two lizards were colored from yellow to dark red, and the spikes were black.

Argul thought they would be imposing to look at as a human. While the lizards were longer than high, they still reached about a height of 1 meter, without the long spikes, that is. The spikes easily tripled their height.

The lizards didn’t move around fast, more at a slow, lumbering, and relaxed pace. 

[Spiketail lizard]

This is a large animal. This lizard lives in hot and volcanic environments. They eat the plants growing there, often not caring about defenses set in place as they won’t harm them anyways. This lizard’s scaled hide makes predators despair and even enables the lizard to swim through magma or lava for a limited time.

Spiketail lizards have the ability to check the ground in front of them with the vibrations of their steps to make sure they never step on something unstable. The spikes on their back are less a defense against predators than they are a defense against falling rocks.

The lizards did as suggested and started to munch on the plants around them without care. They immediately set off an explosion, and Argul could only shake his head. 

Sure, he had wanted lizards that could swim through the magma for a while, but that hadn’t meant he wanted impenetrable tanks walking around his fifth floor.

After that, Argul waited 5 days until he had another 3 beehives. He wanted to create some kind of bat next, and giving his bees some time to grow before they got preyed on sounded good in this case.

The bats he created had a reddish hue and sharp claws on their feed. Their ears were a bit longer than Argul remembered, but they were refreshingly normal except for that.

[Red shadow]

This is a small animal. This bat lives mostly in caves. They have no problem living outside them but always search for a shelter to raise their young. The hide of this bat can change its color to make them less noticeable in its environment. They use their sharp claws to hold themselves on the cave ceiling, often leaving behind marks of their passing.

Red shadow is a subspecies of shadow bat that lives in volcanic caves.  

Okay, so their claws were special, but you couldn’t actually see the difference, so only a little bit normal.

Argul thought his bats would likely spread to all his floors. There was an abundance of caves everywhere for them.

Four new notifications opened in front of him. 

You finished the floor!

[Level up!]

Quest completed: 

• [Flooring away (2)]
• You have finished five floors. May they reach eternity! STR +2

New Quest: 

• [Flooring away (3)]
• Requirements: Flooring away (2)
• Finish 25 floors! 5/25

He should seriously keep a bit more track of his quests, Argul thought. He told his AI to continue growing the floor as before and opened his status.