Matthias groaned as his mind slowly began to fog.

  "I think it is time you took a step back," Lucy suggested as she watched him closely. "Even dungeons can't fire on all cylinders at all times. Maybe pull back and try something more simple?"

  "Simple?" Matthias asked.

  "You hit the ground running so we kind of just let you go," Chloe admitted. "But maybe something new would help your mind clear?"

  "Like monster fusion? or maybe boss creation?" Lucy offered.

  "Oh, yes fusions could be fun," Chloe said while clapping.

  "Please tell me that fusions are more complicated than just taking two monsters and slamming them together," Matthias sighed.

  "A bit," Chloe confessed. "You need to make a dedicated room. This is considered a ritual, so you need to set up a ritual area. I am told it is different for every dungeon. Everything from a simple stage and chant to ritual sacrifice of both mobs to fuse their essence."

  "Some divine dungeons offer prayers for divine intervention," Lucy offered up.

  "How am I to make a ritual circle when I don't understand magic?" Matthias asked.

  "Well, that is the beauty of it," Chloe informed him. "You don't need knowledge. You see there is no singular enchanting language. It is all about symbolism and intent. The more monsters you plan to fuse, the more complex the ritual need to be as there will be some traits you need to prune in order to get a creature instead of an abomination or horror."

  "I see," Matthias mused as he let his mind wander off to an empty chamber in his influence. He took a minute to center his mind. He could already feel some of the fog leaving his mind as he kept all his focus on a single line of thought.

  He dug deep inside himself to think about what symbolized his intent to fuse creatures together. He had many thoughts all at once. Everything from Ven diagrams to more esoteric designs. Based on his old life he fell back on an old adage, to keep it simple. So he set out an infinity symbol on the floor. It was carved in as grooves. He then put a hole for drainage in the middle. Then that hole lead to a chamber for the new monster to form in. As he looked at the simple set up he decided he might have gone too simple. At the bottom of the carving he put a line of silver for purity braded with steel for durability and copper for conductivity. This felt like enough for simple fusions, so he nodded to himself. It would not do anything fancy, but would let him get started.

  "Looks good for a beginner setup," Lucy agreed. "Generally the more intricate you make it the more involved you need to be. But that braded lining should impart the best attributed of each creature in a pure state so long as you don't go overboard."

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  "So what are you going to try to fuse first?" Chloe asked.

  In response Matthias placed a salamander in one side and an anaconda on the other. Keeping poison out of this felt right at the moment.

  "Interesting choices. But what now?" Chloe inquired, watching what he was doing on an image projected upon his core.

  Matthias began to infuse mana into the braided metal. He felt the ritual take off as his violet mana coursed through the symbol. Both animals seemed to compress down into a violet marble. The mana kept building as the orbs went from matte to lustrous before unspooling into threads. Those threads then spiraled around each other until they formed a double helix structure. That structure then began to melt, dripping down into the infinity symbol. The fluid then drained down into the room below, forming an egg that was greater than the mass of the two original creatures.

  "Well, that was something," Lucy commented while blinking owlishly. "I feel like a ton I don't understand just happened."

  "It is not over until the egg hatches though, so I will move it to the side while we try a few others," Matthias noted. He could feel that he could move the egg so he made a side room and placed it there while he prepped to try another fusion. "So, why don't you two explain to me how bosses actually work. I feel like Antoinette and Steve don't quite count yet. So a name is part of it, but not all of it."

  "Indeed," Chloe nodded. "Normally you name a monster after making them a boss. You turn a monster into a boss by infusing five times its normal mana cost into it. Infusing more will change what kind of boss it is."

  Matthias nodded as he began setting up more tests. He had to admit that this was helping him get his mind to refocus. His next experiment was a bird and a snake.

  In the end it took several hours for the first egg to hatch. Long enough that his fairies had gotten bored watching. He had given them a variety of board games from his world. Today they were playing chess.

  "The first egg is finally hatching," he informed them. They promptly rushed to his core to watch the egg hatch.

  To Matthias' horror the egg began to literally bleed as it hatched. Crimson blood ran from the egg as it cracked, until it finally burst apart to reveal the monster within. Slowly the blood soaked creature unwound, and Matthias' mind ground to a halt as he recognized the creature. He had not wanted to hope this fusion was that easy. After a quick inspection it turned out he was both successful, but also not fully so. It was indeed a three-headed hydra, but it was a lesser hydra. It did not have poisonous blood or toxic breath. In fact its bite was not poisonous in the least. It was just a block of hit points if he was to distil it down. It had the regeneration, but it was bound to another stat.

  To be precise it was a lesser swamp hydra. It had three abilities. The first was vast stomach, allowing it to eat things that would normally be considered too big. The second was lesser regeneration. It would never grow new heads. Instead it would use mass from stuff it ate to regrow its heads. The third was an ability called pleasant scent. Apparently this hydra smelled nice as a way to draw in prey.

  "Do you think this could make a good dungeon guardian for our entrance?" Matthias asked.

  "You should create a new one and give it at least one modifier," Lucy responded. "Even if you powered up this little guy as it was, the turtles and leeches would eat it alive."

  Chloe seemed to watch him closely as he contemplated his choices. It honestly did not take him long to choose all things told. Why fix only one problem when you could fix multiple at once with a single upgrade after all.