Doyle turns his attention back to finding a soul for his boss. His soul extends across the unknowable depths. Avoiding the halos of souls directly around the various dimensions and the most stagnant parts of the void were souls lose all connection to any reality.
This dive it was even easier to find dimensions inhabited by sapient myconids. The problem ended up being finding a dimension that wasn’t only inhabited by fungus based creatures. It seems that some of his thoughts about the mi-go spreading their malignant form of corruption around wasn’t completely off. Souls from those dimensions would not do!
While the void could wash away all attachments a soul might have, clearly some elder being had experimented long and hard to make a taint that stuck. So while Doyle didn’t notice any beings moving creatures around to corrupt new dimensions. This revelation shows that it wouldn’t be needed.
All it would take to infest a new dimension is a soul still carrying the taint to take over a fungus. Though it wasn’t quite as bad as it might be. While Doyle could grab one of the souls and use it for a boss, they aren’t able to fit into just any being. It would be like fitting a square peg through a round hole. Instead of needing a random myconid gaining sapience for a tainted myconid soul to take over, it needs normal fungus to develop to the point that a tainted soul can fit.
Of course, in the infinite depths of the void there are equally infinite such instances happening all the time. Thankfully, from what Doyle’s dungeon senses tells him, even an entire world that has been taken over by tainted fungoides isn’t enough to doom a dimension. You need entire sectors covered in the stuff with even the depths of space infested with Mu spores to change the fate of an entire dimension.
More interesting to Doyle, since he certainly can’t do anything about this mess, is that the more corrupted a dimension becomes, the closer it gathers towards a central point. Well, as central a point can be in the void. Doyle didn’t try to look too closely at that point since the other dungeons, despite being spread across infinite, did not spread in that direction.
Not that there weren’t dungeons in there. Yeah, not touching that with a ten universe long pole. Their reach was limited to the heavily corrupt area and their soul spread like fungal growth instead of a clean binary tree. It both felt more natural and yet completely against nature.
Doyle turned away from the fungal growth and searched for a healthier choice. This led him to a relatively empty section of the void, well, as empty or full as the void could ever be. Distances in the void tended to be based on concepts, emotions, and intent.
All that aside, what really mattered right now was a lonely dimension the locals called Um-soo. Unlike the previous nameless dimensions, while there was a decent population of sapient fungus, they were all connected to myconids instead of the more alien mi-go and mu. Not only does that mean there were more useful souls floating around, but also that there wasn’t any taint.
Doyle was mostly certain that not all dimensions with the more alien options were all corrupted. He couldn’t quite feel them out there, but there had been a few dimensions before this that he turned down because there was a certain air about them. Not corrupt, but alien. Which, if there were stuff like the mi-go kicking about, would make sense.
That all, while important to a degree, wasn’t going to get in the way of him grabbing a proper soul for his boss. So, having found a dimension likely to have the soul he needed, Doyle allowed himself to sink into his instincts. To enter that special state where his soul is unbound by the constraints of a mind and reach out to find what he wants. Maybe at some point he could figure this step out on his own, but for now his instincts with a heavy bit of system shenanigans made it work.
An infinite number of soul threads all flair out as Doyle’s mind spreads out over them. Each becoming as if a new him yet reduced well below any state of consciousness. One after another, thread bumps into loose soul after soul.
Then something changes after a moment of infinite timelessness. One of the souls resonates with the thread touching it. Other threads pull away from their souls and swarm that one and begin to pull it back.
This soul wasn’t anything particularly special. Unlike the last boss soul, this soul hadn’t been living as a specific species for tens of generations and it hadn’t floated out in the void after becoming worn out and tired of life. It had only lived as a myconid for two lives, having been a random assortment of sapients before that and it certainly wasn’t worn out.
In fact, this soul was raring to go and live again. It had just gotten caught in what passes for weather in the void and was drawn away from a small grouping of dimensions that it had called its own. That led to the two most recent lives being in the lonely dimension Doyle had found.
As for what had drawn Doyle to this particular soul? It wasn’t the two most recent lives, but rather the lives that had come before. The collection of dimensions the soul had come from. Those dimensions had been held close by a theme and yet kept separate by the same theme.
World after world of deep wilderness. What “civilized” sapients existed in them barely surviving as savage tribes or trapped behind tall walls in a desperate fight against nature. In the time the kobold boss’ soul had spent living 30 lives, this soul had lived hundreds of lives! Not as a normal civilized sapient, but rather as a monstrous sapient.
That collection of dimensions were all of a relatively rare sort where, after a certain level of power, basically anything will be granted sapience. Whether it was a powerful goblin, a common wolf, some random fish, an elder tree, or even a simple rock. They just had to gather enough power and a soul would slip in. Thɪs chapter is updatᴇd by novᴇlfire.net
In a dimension like that, life is short, and even worlds don’t survive for long. While an entire world tends to be too large to gather the power to gain a soul. Any nearby moons and even more dangerous comets, will do so quite happily and destroy the local planets for power.
For a world to survive long enough for civilized sapients to even start appearing, you need a solar system similar to Doyle’s home except a lot fewer comets and no moon. Good thing the lack of a moon tends not to be a problem with the tides, as deep in any ocean will be countless water elementals stirring things up.
And within this soup of chaos where even galaxies could come alive and devour all life within them, this soul Doyle had grabbed onto had been having a blast. Where other newly sapient beings would search for safety, this soul treated each new life like people treat video game characters. This comparison was particularly apt as since the soul had been going through lives so quickly, it had begun to remember its past lives, not having been dead enough for those experiences to be worn away.
At the end there, it had actually begun to live longer with each life because of this experience. And then it was swept away from those dimensions and that accrued experience was wiped away. However, what was left was enough to attract Doyle to it as this was the perfect sort of attitude for a boss.
Well, almost perfect. If the soul had kept what was basically a suicidal tendency, it would have caused problems in the dungeon. As luck would have it though, those two lives as a myconid were both long and more than enough to blunt those urges. After all, if Doyle had just wanted a soul willing to throw its life away, those were a dime a dozen.
No, what attracted Doyle to this soul was the fact that its willingness to die had been tempered by a desire to protect. Those two lives weren’t as a lone myconid, but rather a myconid that was born into a community. Not perfect, but better than any other souls available within his reach.
Soon though, the soul approaches Doyle’s dungeon and the dust of primal nothingness is scraped off as it enters. Those shards of the void are taken in hand by Doyle to reinforce the weakest points of his dimension and each reinforced point has teeth bulge out around to swallow the patch, returning it to them to the same look as the rest of the dungeon’s outer layer.
The thread of soul was pulled through the blob of power that will soon be the boss and the soul was left inside. At that point, Doyle’s creation skill starts up again and the blob of power with a soul begins to take physical shape. Then it pauses again.
{Please Choose what form you want your Myconid boss to take:
Myconid Troop Guard (Requires 4 Extra Boss Slots and Souls, Boss becomes a pseudo Raid Boss)
Doyle can’t help but sigh after seeing the options. The first was obviously the result of him having the lesser troop guards and also pointed towards the fact he should probably smash five regular myconids together to see what happens. Though since it would become what a pseudo raid boss is, he decides it isn’t worth it to find out.
That just left the two lord forms. Forms that might have caused some confusion, except Doyle could tell right away what the two names were getting at. The troop lord form is specialized in commanding myconids and their various forms, while the fungal lord was able to handle anything fungus based such as the shriekers and violet fungus. This was also a simple decision to make.
Without a second thought, Doyle chooses the troop lord option. While having control over all funguses would be interesting, the boss’ cavern was both too filled with mushrooms and not filled enough. All the mushroom trees and specialized mushroom creations would be hand things to control, even if all they could do is keep an eye on things. However, since the troop lord was more restricted, it would likely pack a bit more oomph.
Of course, the system doesn’t wait for him to think it over some more after choosing an option. Instead, it gets right down to forming the new boss into a form most suited for it. Doyle watched as what had seemed like a normal enough myconid went through drastic changes. The boss’ body grew in size until it was a head and a half taller than any other myconid.
From its back grows foot after foot of mycelium, the branching root-like structure that mushrooms use. As it grows outward, it begins to weave itself together, forming itself into a cape. Then as the bosses form fills in, one final detail forms. A diadem in the form of a plain circlet appears above its head as a separate entity.
The myconid boss has finished forming though the circlet, which appears to be made of a golden red mushroom cap still has a moment to go. In the moment the circlet takes to finish, Doyle notices something about the boss. Up until now, the myconids had been a random assortment of browns. The boss, however, was a bold shade of orange.
Then the diadem finished spawning in and it fell a short distance until it was seated upon the boss’ head. With that, a pulse of orange power flows out across the dungeon floor.