Taking a closer look, he noticed that it was entirely made of plants. Thick vines made up the limbs with bark like claws jutting out.
Its teeth looked like sharpened stones. Its body was covered in large leaves covering it like scales, and the muscles underneath appeared to be some green roots.
It was covered in what almost looked like a cloak of small vines, which he remembered the creature could control quite deftly, almost like smaller limbs.
The small amount of blood still dripping from it was slightly transparent, almost as if it was water saturated in chlorophyll.
Looking at its eyes, he realized they were almost crystalline, which explained why they seemed to glow. All in all, it was nothing like he had ever seen before.
This worried him as to what else the lush jungle outside would contain. Giant tortoises that flew at mach speed? Enormous hornets spitting poisoned thorns? His imagination started going wild.
He hoped it wouldn't rot too quickly before some use was found for it. That's when he saw a new window appear in front of him.
FIRST KILL DETECTED
DUNGEON ASCENSION PROGRESS 03%
HARVEST KILL FOR USABLE MATERIALS?
With that a myriad of questions popped up in Dexter's head.
“Ascension? What.. like pokerman evolutions or something? And what usable materials will a lizard give me? I only use stone and metal….?”
Dexter selected yes and looked at the corpse expectantly. He observed a cloud of what he could only assume is mana surrounding the lizard's body.
It started rising up and all of a sudden, it started compacting. Folding in in itself as if some morbid jigsaw puzzle. It got smaller and smaller until all that's left was a small green crystal, about the size of an apple on the floor.
He noticed it looked similar to the mana stones, except it felt like it had something more inside.
Suddenly he got a pop up appear in front of him:
SMALL ESSENCE STONE AQUIRIED
TYPE: LIFE
“Life essence? I guess that would explain how the lizard was made of a mixture of different plants. It certainly isn't normal thats for sure”
He put those thoughts aside while looking back at his domain. Other than two tunnels and a main chamber that was starting to get rather full of rocks, he didn't have much. That's when his attention fell onto the bees.
Itsy had seen better days. Bitsy and Beetsy around them, trying to wake them up. But something told Dexter that there was nothing that could be done. As if whatever link he had with Itsy was gone.
Just to be safe, he tried to use repair summon on Beetsy. He got no return on the ability, confirming his thoughts.
Dexter didn't know why, but Itsy’s loss hit him hard. He hadn't even spent that much time with the construct, but every single one of them felt like his children to him, the loss of which needed to be greatly avenged.
Though, Itsy had already been avenged. So he felt some peace in that regard.
Suddenly, he got a mental prod coming from the direction of the essence stone.
USE ESSENCE STONE TO ENHANCE CONSTRUCT?
Shocked, then delighted, Dexter quickly selected yes.
He felt his mana almost bottom out again, the scant few points he had gained getting used up.
Itsy’s body went to the center of the room, along with the life stone and some metals. Mana surrounded the automaton in a cloud so thick he couldn't peer through, though he could still sense what was going on inside.
The automaton's body started morphing, the metals liquefying and replacing lost parts. The essence stone went into the chest area, then sank beneath.
When that occured, Itsy’s whole body suffered a transformation. Along with the wires and pipes running through its body, vines started appearing aswell.
Some leaves poked out through the various metal plates and what looked like a diadem of intertwined twigs appeared on Its forehead.
When the mana dissapated, Dexter managed to get a closer look at the changes.
Itsy still looked like an automaton, though now it seemed as if it was left for several years in a forest. Instead of the naked plating that the rest of the automatons sported, Itsy had what looked like a toga made of vines. With space for its wings in the back.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
ENHANCEMENT CONCLUDED
WORKER BEE (N: ITSY)
RANK: SPARK
HAS TRANSFORMED INTO
INITIATE DRUID BEE (N: ITSY)
RANK: CANDLE
The reveal of the official name of Itsy revealed a question, could Dexter see the menu of his automatons?
A quick prod revealed that, in fact, he could.
Looking at one of the miner moles he got the following menu:
AUTOMATON MINER
RANK: SPARK
DIGGER MOLE (N: MOLEY)
INTEGRITY: 100%
SKILLS:
CLEAVE ROCK
Empower a tool with mana to break up more stubborn minerals.
MINERAL STORAGE
Small dimensional space used exclusively towards storing minerals.
MINERAL SENSE
Small radius in which different minerals are able to be felt.
“Mineral storage eh? I guess that's why I never saw Moley carrying rocks over here but the piles kept increasing”
Shocked that he hadn't thought of this before, he looked back at the other bees.
AUTOMATON SUPPORT SMALL
WORKER BEE (N: BEETSY)
RANK : SPARK
INTEGRITY:100%
SKILLS:
BUZZING FLIGHT
Use the surprisingly small wings to fly around.
LIGHT CONSTRUCTION
Use a small amount of mana to stick materials together
MATERIAL SENSE
The ability to sense objects that can be used as material
“Light construction? Yeah that would explain as to how they managed to make such an impressive little castle”
Dexter then looked at Itsy’s menu, to see what had changed.
AUTOMATON SUPPORT MAGE
INITIATE DRUID BEE
RANK: CANDLE
INTEGRITY: 100%
SKILLS:
LIFE FLIGHT
Use life essence to fly.
PLANT MANIPULATION
Spend life essence to manipulate all kinds of plants and plant adjacent life.
REGROWTH
Spend a considerable amount of life essence to repair damage done to yourself and nearby plants.
LIFE SENSE
The ability to feel the life essence present in all living beings.
“One more skill huh. The rest are self explanatory, though I wonder what regrowth does.”
Meanwhile, the three bees were hugging each other, seemingly very happy to see each other. Dexter observed them fondly for a few minutes before going back to the task at hand, seeing Itsy’s new abilities.
“Sorry to break up the reunion, but I need you over here Itsy”
Itsy, with one last look at its siblings, quickly went over to Dexter and stood in front of him, standing at a military salute.
“Ok, first of all, congrats on your rebirth and evolution, proud of you. So, what happened in the jungle? Was it the lizard that got you or something else?”
Dexter got flashed of images and feelings in his head, which somehow managed to tell the story of the trio quickly flying through the forest, taking in all the new sights, before all of a sudden a vine coming out of nowhere, instantly removing Itsys legs, then the ground quickly approaching, and after that all went black.
“Ok, safe to assume it was the lizard then. See anything interesting before you got knocked out?”
Itsy just shook his head no, though he did look embarrassed at having been taken out in such a way.
“Dont worry about it, you couldn't have known, it was a new environment after all. Anyways, let's explore your new abilities eh? Can you do a showcase of all of the new ones for me? If possible?”
Itsy nodded and before he got to work showcasing his skills, he flew back towards the jungle quickly, as if looking for something.
Ten minutes later, they came back holding several seeds in their arms.
“Yeah, I guess it's kinda hard to showcase life skills surrounded by rock”
The first skill Itsy showed off was plant manipulation. They took a few of the seeds, placed them on the ground and concentrated. Dexter was able to see life essence flowing from Itsy to the seeds, which quickly sprouted.
Soon there were a bunch of mini trees in front of Dexter. Itsy then started flying above them in circles. And, atleast to Dexter's eyes, the plants seemed to turn even greener and perk up a bit more.
After that, Itsy used what Dexter could only assume is plant manipulation, morphing one of the saplings into a mini bee, which waved at him.
Then they ripped the mini bee in half, startling Dexter. Along with that they broke one of their own fingers. With that, Dexter could assume that either the automatons didn't feel pain, or Itsy had a will of steel.
Then he felt an impressive amount of life essence surround Itsy and the mini bee. Small vines and roots surrounded Itsy’s broken digit, putting it back into place and reinforcing it and the mini bee regrew what was lost.
Feeling satisfied with the demonstrations, Dexter dismissed Itsy, thanking them. Having checked his mana, he felt that he had enough to repair Xol, so he called back in the defender.
Xol marched in, looking slightly better. He swore that some of the holes in their armor and body were smaller, with some gone entirely. Putting the thought aside, Dexter quickly got to work with repair summon, using as much metal as possible to keep the mana cost down.
With the intent of observing as much of the process as possible, Dexter willed the process to slow down. The metal liquefied and started diving itself into several parts. Each part solidified into a different mechanism, while the remaining liquid flowed over to Xol, patching random tears, cracks, and holes in their armor and metallic skin.
The edge of their arm that was ripped off got cleaned up, looking to just be disassembled instead of damaged. Then the components that were just fabricated floated over and started spotting themselves in, and before long Xol had both limbs again, along with a brand new shield.
Then Dexter decided to open up Xols, menu, wanting to see what skills the automaton had.
AUTOMATON WARRIORS
AXOLOTL DEFENDER (N: XOL AXEL)
RANK : SPARK
INTEGRITY:100%
SKILLS:
EMPOWERED SLASH
Use mana to empower a weapon for one attack.
WEAK REGENERATION
Passive regeneration of minor injuries.
UNYIELDING RESOLVE
Spend mana to become an immovable object.
“Nice skillset Xol, exactly what we need for A defender. Thanks for all your hard work! You are dismissed, please go back to defending the entrance, and do notify me if anything is off”
Xol gave a crisp salute, and marched off to their post.
With all pressing matters attended to, Dexter looked around his territory once more.
The original tunnel the moles had made had already left his sphere of sight. Surprising him. The amount of mana stones had grown slightly, but he felt that he didn't have enough, for what though he didn't know.
Looking over at the metal pile, he realized that he was quickly running out of all types, the repair of Xol having reduced the amount to less than half of what he started with.
“Hey mole duo, good job on the tunnel. Now can you see if you can find metal veins? We are quickly running out and a stable source of metal would be nice.” -Dexter called out to the miners.
Feeling satisfied with the current process, Dexter decided to return to his terrain manipulation practice, seeing how important it was in the last battle.