Mordecai was simply giving into temptation with this sed boss. He had wao save it for ter development, but he also wao py with this idea now. And he felt that it would be a nice surprise. So for the first time Mordecai turned his attention towards the teically hostile anisms occupying a part of the dungeon.

  “Wait, really? Yoing there? E.” Came Kazue’s mental voice when she realized where his focus was shifting. Mordecai smiled at her response, but kept his attention on his search. He was being picky in a way, but he didn’t want to create something pletely mindless. His small structs might have very simple minds, but they did have minds.

  Most of the auras he entered were far too weak to even sider, despite the size of some of the creatures. There was a certain amount of strength developed from the mind; physical vitality alone could create rge amounts of spirit but it took a mind and will to focus it and make it strong.

  Of the auras that had a little something more to them, most of them tasted of little other than basiger. Those were not what he wanted. No, what he wanted was … there. It wasn’t muot yet, but there was the slightest hint of curiosity, of huurned beyond physical satiation. That would do quite nicely. He could make an offer to a creature like that, a promise to help fulfill this new sensation. He didn’t offer safety or food, he offered stimution and experience.

  There was a sense of fusion at first, and Mordecai couldn’t be happier. If it could be fused, it could learn. The primitive proto-mind briefly stilled, theantly reached back towards the e to accept. Mordecai’s sense of the creature sharpened and solidified as it became one of his inhabitants, and he mentally grasped it to draw it to the boss room where his avatar awaited, and he opened his eyes to examine what was to bee his boss.

  A getinous mass of fluorest colors shimmered in front of him. If the child-sized ooze didn’t glow slightly, he’d have sidered it iridest instead with the way its colors flowed and shifted. The surface of the creature had a texture that was stantly giween smooth and kled, with occasional bits briefly being solid. And floating in the very ter was a nearly invisible tiny sphere of crystal. “Oh, you are beautiful.” He murmured to it as he walked around and exami. “You have the best iion of living crystal and slime I’ve see. I would like to see something.” He stepped up close to it and raised his hand over its surface. “Just a quick poke. Rex a your reflexes happen, I won’t hurt you and you ’t do any real harm to me.”

  O aowledged him, Mordecai used his middle fio jab at it swiftly. The surface gave slightly before rapidly hardening against the impad it reflexively built pressure behind that point, then as his finger retreated and the surface tension released the pressure behind that part of the surface automatically flung acid-coated shards of crystal at his hand.

  Mordecai spun to the side to avoid most of it, but a few flecks still hit him. They did more damage to his sleeve than to his flesh, but a normal person wouldn’t have taken it quite so well. “Oh, I am going to be happy with you little one. I think we o start with a name however, and then move on to enhang you. What do you think of Kstoria?” It pulsed with a pleased-looking fsh of color, and Mordecai smiled. “Then it is a pleasure to meet you Kstoria. I am Mordecai.”

  “And I’m Kazue!” Announced his wife as she maed her avatar. “Oh goddess, you are too cute, Kstoria!” She practically danced in pce as she squeed over the slime. “Mordecai, I want to hug her so badly! How did you find something so cute in that pce?”

  “Heh, I don’t reend that just yet love, she o learn a bit of restraint first.” Wait a moment. “Um? Her?” He’d initially followed the gender identification before he realized what Kazue had said.

  “Yep! Someohis shiny and cute has got to be a girl!” the little kitsune said, and Mordecai couldn’t help but shake his head with a smile.

  “I think Zushi might have something to say about boys not being allowed to be cute.”

  “Nah, he’s fluffy-cute, that’s different. Kstoria is shiny-cute and pretty like a girl.”

  Mordecai decided to trahat into ‘I wao be a girl’ more than being any sort of rule Kazue was truly serious about. He’d attribute it to youthful whim if it weren’t for the fact that he retty certain that a hundred years from now she’d be ined to do the same sort of thing. He had met her mother after all. “Not a good idea just yet, love. Your avatar isn’t acid-resistant, and your clothes certainly aren’t.”

  While they’d been talking, the little bits of crystal and acid that had hit the ground had melted together and flowed back to rejoin Kstoria. “And I have a spell that help with that, but let me finish getting Kstoria ready first, alright?”

  “Fine fine, hurry up, I want to hug her!”

  It was hard to not ugh at Kazue’s eagerness as he turned his attention back to their boss-to-be. “Alright, looks like Kazue has decided yoing to be a girl. If you ever decide that’s nht for you, let us know. Noant to make you stronger and smarter, though the smarter might be a little slower to e.” Kstoria wouldn’t be able to fully uand what they were sayi, but she would be able to remember.

  He mentally grasped the avaible boss node and began feeding it the cept of the crystal core in the ter gradually growing in size and its paths being smaller and more intricate. “We are going to want you to beuch bigger …” he paused as a new idea came to him. “Oh wait, how dense your crystal get?” He had already noticed that the fluid had been pressed when it turned into crystal. Oh, that should work.

  “But you won’t always have to be that big. No, with a little enha, we help you pact yourself into a pletely crystal form. Yes, that’s going to be your focus, plete mastery of your form and the transitioween fluid and solid states.” He had been thinking of fog more on the acid attacks of a slime-type monster, enhanced with ratacks and crystal shards, along with Kstoria beier armored than a typical ooze-type, but this would be, hmm, not necessarily ‘better’ from an absolute sense, but more and unique.

  Mordecai ected the boss o Kstoria as he tio feed in his cepts and took several steps back, motioning for Kazue to do the same. It took a moment for anything to ge as all the mana began funneling in, but then Kstoria began to groidly. In just a couple of minutes she grew into a sphere about 15 feet in diameter, jiggliedly at all the ges happening. Knowledge came as well as power and mass, and as soon as the e was finalized she began experimenting.

  The huge blob suddenly shrank, transf into a hard, sharp-edged cube of crystal only about 5 feet across. Mordecai blinked as he rah, then double-checked what was happening. It took only a sed to realize she’d evolved the cept into a limited version of Shape ge, allowio dispce a portion of her mass the way many other shape-ging creatures could. But not all of it, she was still imes as dense in this form, which was a rather intense pression, putting her somewhere iween iron and lead.

  It also seemed unfortable based on the emotions ing from Kstoria, who then began moving through a rapid series of other form-ging experiments. Most of them were maniputing her ability to shift between fluid and solid phases at will with nearly unlimited amounts of discreteness, but she was also able to shift and recall any amount of mass she o within her ranges.

  She could form long limbs able to swing as freely as aacle, but could instantly harden her surfad/or interior to act like exo- or endo-skeletons, and her limbs could have any sort of surface she desired, creating almost any shape of bde or point. The hydraulic pressure that powered her limbs and gave her the ability to fire projectiles of crystallized acid also bined with her size-ging abilities to allow her to leap, and even spin or slightly course-correct by altering her density in one or more spots mid-air.

  Climbing was easy too. Any sort of tree-like structure could just be grabbed and used to haul her body up, but she could also flow up walls and crawl along the ceiling by letting her body flow into the ti imperfes and then harden into crystal to obtain a surface-wide grip. Mordecai eveed a smooth gss surface for her to try on, and Kstoria was able to figure out how to ftten her body enough that simply air pressure could hold her onto it, though she was a bit slower this way.

  She couldn’t go perfectly ft though, that sphere of crystal that was the seat of her very self could not be altered. But the ability to ge her form so freely gave her lots of options that she was going to be experimenting with for days. Mordecai did point out ohing for her to try ter: With her abilities, there is no reason she shouldn’t be able to drop from almost a. In her rger form she could increase her internal pressure to just high enough to create a colpsing cushion, while if she made herself a dense, sharp e she could fall straight into the ground or another objed force it to take the shock of her impact, the rigidity and hardness of her body keeping her from being damaged.

  Kazue slid up beside him and asked in an ever-so-sweet voice, “Are you two done pyi?”

  Mordecai chuckled, the her into his arms to give her a lingering kiss. “Alright love, you go hug the squishy slime. She’s learned great trol now and should be able to be just soft and pliable enough.” Which holy would be anreat exercise for Kstoria, but he made sure not to mention that thought out loud.

  “Yes!” Kazue flung herself at Kstoria with reckless abandon and was quick to explore other py options as the slime could also be anything from a soft cushion to sink into, to a bouncy spring to jump high in the air. Mordecai amused himself by sending some images of what Kazue was doing to Moriko, and the half-elf’s envy was tangible across their link. He doubted she would be initially quite as carefree as Kazue about it, but he didn’t doubt she would enjoy herself.

  While his wife pyed, Mordecai set about double-cheg the level and inhabitants, making sure everything tied together and worked smoothly. It would take a few days to get everyoo their routines and roles, and weeks of practice to bee well-trained for this mix of terrain and style, but it would be well worth the effort.

  The final step was to sweep through again a limiters. The creatures could simply feel his i and hold back where needed, but all the more trap-like anisms o have a sed yer of mana wovehem tn them in. Things were less sticky, hit softer, and were easier to break. But in exge, he was able to apply a soft yer of vitality absorption that would increase the fatigue of dealing with the various dangers, roughly approximating how they might feel after dealing with the trap’s full strength.

  It increased his overall costs frowing them by about 50%, and if he’d been trying to make them more deadly the expenditure would have failed.

  Mordecai snorted. I indeed. He’d not thought to yer things like this, he’d grown up just knowing what his limits were on how strong he could make something based on where in his dungeon it was. He’d ried making something strong, and then ‘waste’ mana by pg a restri on it. A restri he could release as needed, but his sient was to only do so if he felt it was needed.

  Well, that would cost them a few days at least until they had enough to push down and start the sixth floor, but that was okay. He wao work over some ideas with Kazue first anyway. The anization of the first five floors was fine, but despite the theming, the yout was a touch repetitive, and they were deep enough already to make brute f a ‘sed’ entranfeasible for most.

  Zagaroth