Argul’s stats were coming along nicely, even though it wasn’t fast by any means. At least he thought so. He didn’t really have anyone he could compare his progress to.

For the next 30 days or so, Argul trained his [sense space] and worked on his avatar quest. 

During this time, slimes managed to spread around the second floor. The cave stalkers and cackle fangs met on the third floor and regularly fought each other. The spiders were mainly winning those fights, not disturbed by the cackling, and often able to take out the cackle fangs without them being able to do anything. It started evening out once they began to form packs, and the cave stalkers couldn’t pick them off anymore. Seeing different creatures adapt to each other was really interesting for Argul.

His worms and crickets discovered the first floor and started to spread there. The cave stalkers followed their prey shortly after, though they found the Negators to be challenging targets and left them largely alone. The two species were kind of on the same team anyway since the Negators absolutely despised the large crickets.

Argul himself made a few breakthroughs with his sense space during that time and got +1 Str and +2 Wis as a reward.  

He could now see how the mana he produced attacked and damaged the outer walls of his prison. For now, they still regenerated much faster than they got destroyed, but that was bound to change if Argul didn’t do something against it, and he had no idea what would happen then. Going by what Alyra had told him earlier, however, it was likely his domain would collapse, which wasn’t his preferred outcome.

Argul also had a rough plan for his Avatar spell but wanted to be level 5 before he tried it out. A part of the spell required him to create a connection between his core and the new body. Maintaining such a connection without system help required a lot of concentration. In truth, he just didn’t believe he would be able to do it before hitting level 5.

The avatar spell might even help him escape his prison, but with only a vague idea, he couldn’t say for sure. What Argul knew for sure, though, was that he needed the levels, so next to his training, he designed the settings for the 4th floor.

[Floor 4]

• Natural caves
• Cave size: small
• Eternal night
• Temperature: 5°C to -15°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 5% chance of small localized earthquakes happening each month.
• Heatwave
• For 5 to 15 days, the temperature will increase to 20°C. This event has a chance of 10% to occur each month.
• Cold wave
• For 5 to 15 days, the temperature will decrease to -30°C. This event has a chance of 10% to occur each month.
• Unreliable catastrophic weather
• For 5 to 20 days, a hot temperature of up to 45°C surges forth from the 5th floor, and a cold wave hits the 4th floor at the same time. This causes rapid temperature changes that are wildly unpredictable. Where cold and warm temperatures meet, related weather phenomena such as fog, mist, wind, storm, and lightning will occur. This event has a 1% chance of happening randomly each year and a 50% chance of happening immediately after a heat or cold wave. The event is guaranteed to happen should both cold wave and heat wave occur at the same time. After this event, no temperature-related events will occur for 15 days.

He had already planned to change his entrance option for his first 5 floors once he reached level 5 so that events such as the last one get a bit more punch. Taking a mental step back, he relaxed and watched his other floors while he waited for his new one to grow enough for his first plant.

Argul wanted his first plant to heat its surroundings to a more acceptable level. The trunk would be surrounded by leaves that were stacked in a staggered pattern.

After creating his plant, it got the addition of what Argul could only describe as pink hair that floated through the air around the plant. 

As the temperature around it steadily increased to somewhere around 10°C to 15°C, drops of water collected on the hair and flowed down to the turquoise trunk until they reached the ground. This resulted in a muddy area around the plant.

Argul named and identified the thing.

[Weeping pink hair]

This is a mid-sized plant. This plant grows primarily in cold climates but also in warm, humid regions. It spreads out unique leaves in the air, increasing the energy level of atoms and molecules around them, effectively making it warmer. The second function of the leaves is to collect water, which then flows along the leaf to the trunk until it reaches the ground, making it muddy. This makes it easier for the plant to spread its roots in cold earth as well as ensuring water supply.

He was enamored by the long leaves. They were gorgeous and made the caves look more like coral reefs than caves with all the way they floated around in the air. There was even a weak glow to them when they actively heated the surroundings.

Having had one success, he hoped that the mushroom he had planned would be a success too. The last mushroom had turned out rather disgusting.

Argul changed to another empty cave and started the [ribm] process once his mana was back at 100. 

The mushrooms he grew were a deep violet and had pointed caps. Really tiny crystals of ice formed around them as if it was snowing.

[Frostbite]

This is a small plant. This mushroom grows in cold environments, icy caves. They absorb the energy of their surroundings, making it colder but the area around their roots warmer.

The absorbed energy is partly converted into mana that is used to make their body extremely cold. When eaten, most creatures would get frostbite inside their bodies before succumbing to a slow and excruciating death. Only the base of the stem connected to the warm root is safe for consumption.

Argul should really start a list containing all plants he should never eat. 

While his mushrooms might not be the most edible of plants, mana being a thing, he could imagine them being a possible ingredient for alchemy. One never knows, but heat-resistant potions would be helpful for a lot of things, even smithing.

Argul waited a day to give his two plants time to grow and spread because his following three plants would have it easier to grow around one of the two. 

Then he created his next plant in a batch of Frostbites. A few tendrils of what looked a bit like ivy grew throughout the mushrooms. The tendrils had a few flower-like blossoms that glowed in the same violet as the mushrooms. The leaves of the plant were deep blue. 

Argul called it Winter-ice ivy.

[Winter-ice ivy]

This is a mid-sized plant. This ivy grows in cold environments. It absorbs the environment’s energy and slowly crystallizes itself until it dies. The colder the environment and the less energy there is, the older the ivy may become.

Interestingly the crystals of Winter-ice ivy get colder to the touch the older the plant becomes, creating freezing statues of those that have lived the longest.

Argul wondered how cold old ivy tendrils could become. There was some limit to it so long as the plant didn’t grow in absolute zero, though he doubted they could survive there.

Anyway, the crystals surely had interesting uses that nobody knew for now. 

He changed to a weeping hair batch. There were no mushrooms around them as they didn’t like each other. It also made sense as they were somewhat contrary to each other.

His next plant would be a huge root that grew underground in the muddy earth around the weeping hair. On the surface, only a few little purple leaves would indicate the existence of the root. It wouldn’t grow blossoms and could just create new offspring. 

Argul finished his ribm process, and small violet leaves popped up everywhere.

[Bloated mud root]

This is a small to large-sized plant. This root grows best in muddy areas. They grow for their entire lives, making old roots really large. The older a root is, the higher the possibility that the root can have one or multiple random but positive effects of different strengths upon ingestion.

The root forms spaces filled with horrible-smelling gas inside itself to stop animals from eating the whole root.

Argul doubted the effectiveness of the gas in protecting the root. Sure most animals would likely stop eating and run away, but more intelligent animals and sapients?

The moment they realize that these roots might have a chance to increase stats permanently, the search would start. At least Argul guessed they could have these effects as the possible effects of the root seemed to be largely unrestricted.

He didn’t think about it further, and once he had found an empty cave, he prepared his last plant. 

While the flower he had in mind would have it a little easier around frostbite mushrooms, he wanted it to grow alone for the time being. 

The flower would have a more or less typical stalk and a dark blue blossom, slowly transitioning to a bright light blue from the inside to the outside of the bloom. The petals would look like needles, and the lighter blue colored parts of them would glow.

Once grown, the flower was a bit larger than Argul intended, but that was fine. The deep blue stalk opened into leaves that grew in a circular, slightly upwards-arched manner away from the stem. In the middle of the leaves, the blossom of the flower rose.

[Wintercrest]

This is a mid-sized plant. This flower grows in cold environments. They collect energy in their petals that will glow brighter the more they contain. The flower can shoot magic missiles imbued with the stored heat to defend itself. 

The more energy they store, the harder the petals are, and they will crystallize once they contain enough. The flower will then be able to shoot the petals instead of magic missiles. If the petal penetrates the offender, it will start to gradually burn it from the inside out. On opponents slain in this manner, a new Wintercrest will grow.

Somehow Argul’s plants on the fourth floor were much more dangerous than on the other floors. It must be because of the harsh event. 

The wintercrest flowers looked like they were grown for royalty and handled opponents like royalty would, at least in Argul’s opinion. 

He gave his plants another day to give them more time to spread before he started on his animals.

For some reason, Argul’s first idea was a kind of sheep. 

It would have a weather sense to protect itself during catastrophic weather events and would like to eat cold things. 

The sheep he grew had wool of a really light blue color. Their feet and head were black, and they had two large horns adorning the sides of their head.

[Blue Wolacle]

This is a mid-sized animal. This kind of sheep lives in cold environments as they like to eat cold things. They might be friendly, but they are wary of most other creatures. Despite looking soft, their wool is hard to penetrate, and they don’t shy away from using their horns.

Wolacles have a fantastic sense of the weather in their region. If you should ever see a Wolacle running from seemingly nothing, it is time to pack your things and follow it, for it will run to a safe spot in the coming storm.

Argul watched his four sheep as they started to move around and bleated at each other. They stayed together, so Argul guessed they were herd animals.

His next animal would be an insect similar to a butterfly. 

It would live in and feed off the weeping hair plant. Argul still wasn’t sure if it was a flower, a bush, or something else entirely. 

The insect he created looked like a butterfly, one with 6 wings, that is. They were violet and had red spots on their wings. The edge of their wings was black, and if they sat on the leaves of the roots around the weeping hair, it looked like red glowing eyes would look at you.

[Lunarian red eye]

This is a small animal. This animal lives around and feeds on pink weeping hair and bloated mud roots. Their larvae grow up in the mud around pink weeping hair.

Lunarian red eyes are poisonous and will do a lot to protect their food source.

They were not that special, but sometimes nature just had to be a bit boring. 

Argul thought that his creations would be the special ones anyway once his portals were open, and he was already developing a plan for that.

He gave his two new animals 10 days to grow before he created a predator.

His predator looked a bit like a downscaled wolf, just with dark blue fur. They had three tails, the middle one with a red tip and the other too with light blue tips. They were speedy and agile, for their small size at least.

[Ice howler]

This is a mid-sized animal. This type of wolf evolved to be able to live and hunt in small and cold caves. They build burrows for their pack and often form groups of 3 to hunt for prey.

Ice howlers are able to manipulate the temperature around them using their tails. By doing this, they are able to create or remove tracks and map out the surrounding cave system.

Argul thought he would get something special for his predator, but the result was somewhat underwhelming. On the other hand, his fourth floor was already dangerous, so not having the most dangerous predator might be a good thing?

He got interrupted by a few system messages.

You finished the floor!

[Level up!]

Argul told his floor to continue growing like always and opened his status.