Ryan looked over at Gaia, who was still extremely excited about finally reaching level 10 and gaining a new skill. Then, on top of that, there were the new seeds she just got. Ryan hadn't looked at those yet, though, since was more focused on her new skill.

  "Golem Gardener's Little Helpers... huh. So what, you can control insects now?" Ryan looked at the golem, who quickly nodded her head. She squatted down, carefully holding her hand out toward one of the nearby flowers. A small ladybug climbed onto her stone finger. She was so excited, so Ryan really couldn't bring himself to say that he didn't quite understand the use of the skill.

  Or rather, he knew why it was useful to some degree. Not needing about garden pests destroying your plants was amazing, so they weren't going to need anything like insect repellents anymore. But he just didn't get how insects could be helpful to the garden.

  "What can they do for you?" Ryan asked, and Gaia quickly stretched out her hand - the one that wasn't holding the ladybug - and pointed at something at the edge of the grass. It looked like some kind of weed. There were heaps of them stacked up in the corner of the garden, but they still hadn't even gotten close to getting everything that was harmful to other plants out of here.

  Ryan squatted down in front of it to take a closer look. A number of small bugs were starting to climb onto the plant, clearly feeding on it.

  "Oh, shit, they can get rid of the weeds for you? And then I guess their droppings would be a good bit of extra nutrients for the plants..." Ryan muttered. This was definitely useful, though... it still didn't feel quite 'special' enough as a new skill. Then again, it was only just unlocked. Maybe Ryan could buy some other bugs and set them free here so that they could help Gaia out.

  And then, Ryan realized something else. With how many bugs were in the skull garden under the house, Gaia could have a serious little army. They'd be able to take care of the garden in her absence as well. As he was thinking about this, Gaia started walking to the edge of the garden. By one of the walls, they had set up a large composting area. Curious, Ryan followed her, though he stopped before he got too closer. There were worms just trying to climb up the large plastic bin. Of course, they couldn't, but they were still trying, just gathering around the bottom.

  "Right, they can help this way too," Ryan looked around, and soon saw something that could help. It was a plank of wood. Old and half-rotten, but it should be long enough, at least. He placed it against the plastic tub that held the compost, making sure to push it into the ground as much as he could so that it was there steadily. The moment he did, the worms started gathering around the plank and began to climb up it, dropping into the soon-to-be compost without hesitation. There, they were going to help all the plant matter in there break down way faster. Especially with this many of them.

  "Is there anything else? What about... butterflies, or bees? Pollinators, you know?" Gaia hurriedly nodded her large stone head, almost making some of the small plants growing on top of her snap off. Though, as Ryan looked around, he couldn't see any of them. Maybe it was just that there weren't any pollinators within the garden right now, but Gaia would be able to control them and make them help out.

  "Now that I'm thinking about it, honey made with pollen from magical flowers is supposed to be pretty damn good. A tiny jar of that stuff goes for like 50 gild. I think it's used in some super high-end potions, too..." Ryan turned toward Gaia, "Do you think we should keep bees? Does that fall under your skill?"

  Gaia seemed to think about it for a moment. First she quickly nodded, then she shook her head.

  "Okay, so... yes, and no. Yes, we should keep bees, no, your skill doesn't help with that. But... you can still manipulate them?"

  It seemed as though the golem was hesitant. She pointed around at the garden, and nodded her head, and then pointed at the sky, and then shook her head.

  "Ah... okay," Ryan understood what she meant. Gaia could manipulate the 'little helpers' within her garden, but she couldn't manipulate them anywhere else. And it didn't seem like the bees would be able to survive for very long when feeding only on the plants in the garden. It was big, but it wasn't that big. They would have to cover every single tiny square of this garden in flowers for it to be even remotely viable for a small hive to survive for a little while. It wasn't realistic.

  "Well, either way, that's fine. Do you know anything about how to actually keep bees? Does that belong to your innate abilities?"

  Gaia stayed silent. Only after a few moments, she slowly shook her head, "Don't worry, Gaia, that's fine. We can figure it out. I'll look up some stuff, get us some books, and see if we can talk to some beekeepers for tips. Alright? I'm sure we'll be able to figure it out. Now that you've got your little helpers, you won't need to do as much manual upkeep, so a hobby like beekeeping might be nice, right?"

  Once again, Gaia pulled Ryan into a hug. Clearly, she was extremely happy about the idea. This hug was actually a bit tighter than the one from before, so Ryan struggled to breathe for a few moments before the golem let go of him again.

  Ryan stretched a bit, standing right in the entrance area of the amusement park dungeon. It was Saturday morning, right around dawn. He wanted to finally dive deep into this dungeon, especially now that he awakened the physicality stat.

  He was also going to meet up with Silvia and Modak later and bring them back to the gift shop so that they could go on a shopping spree. Ryan had saved up a ton of coins so far, so they should be able to buy a good amount of items today. Hopefully, it would get Ryan everything that he needed to feel comfortable heading down into the labs below the food court.

  "Alright, let's get going," he started moving forward. The only spirit that was summoned right now was Maximus. Not even Gaia was outside, and the knight was sitting on top of Ryan's shoulder, holding onto the edge of the metal helmet that Ryan was wearing. It was the 'Urban Knight' outfit again, of course.

  And the reason why he didn't have anyone else summoned was so that he could move quickly. Ryan loved Gaia, but she couldn't really move super fast, so it was easier to get to the destination without her. The only reason why Maximus was here because he was the one that was the most directly combat-oriented, so he was the best spirit to have out in case of an emergency.

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  His first stop was the petting zoo, and in there, he was going to look for that stand that was marked on the map for every petting zoo area. Though Ryan had tried to find it a few times already, the petting zoo was so hard to get a proper hold on directionally that it was almost impossible. Compasses didn't work in dungeons either, and with all the monsters roaming around, it was easy to get turned around.

  And whenever Ryan thought he was actually getting kind of close, more and more monsters were gathering. Of course, it was good for the spirits' levels. Both Jester and Gregor were at level 9 and would probably reach level 10 over the next week or so at the latest, and even Maximus levelled up again and was now at level 12.

  Plus, if everything worked out well, they would have one or two new spirits joining the group, depending on how many areas Ryan could get the 'Perfect Completion' reward for.

  That being the case, Ryan took a deep breath. It was time for him to just be quiet for once. He was at the perfect place this time. It was one of the smallest petting zoo areas he had seen in the dungeon with one of those stands marked on the map so far. From here, where he was standing, it should be a straight shot there. Plus, right next to it was the tallest rollercoaster in the dungeon, which should be visible from almost anywhere, so he could reorient himself whenever he got turned around.

  "Okay, let's do this," Ryan quietly stepped into the petting zoo. He was squatting down, doing his best to not make too much noise. Whenever a group of animals came by, he would either wait until they passed, or Maximus and him would quickly take them down if they were weak enough.

  They even noticed a Moss Sheep again. At least, this was a good sign. The other monsters were scared of the Moss Sheep, since it went around killing them all, so Ryan knew that where it came from, no other monsters should be lingering anymore.

  Like this, for the first time, Ryan made it to that secret, small hut in the centre of the petting zoo. It was almost broken down, and the tall, jungle-like plants from the petting zoo were tearing apart the wood that it was built from. But most importantly, there was something inside. On the counter, as if it was just waiting for someone to pick it up, there was a small instaprint camera. Clearly aged beyond belief, but it was most likely still operational. A small checklist was hanging off its side. There were 10 different small sketches, clearly corresponding to the different animals of the petting zoo.

  "Fuck yes, finally," Ryan picked up the camera, quickly looking through the viewfinder. It was so dirty that you couldn't see anything at all. But that was fine; it wouldn't need to be a good picture, just any picture at all and things should be fine.

  He quickly took a deep breath and summoned the others, "Gaia, are you ready?"

  The golem quickly nodded, and three small sub-golems dropped off her body, almost immediately running off as Ryan linked with Gaia, and at the same time, with those three sub-golems. They were now looking around to find different monsters. Ryan had already seen all of these before, and he killed all of them before too, so this should be easy enough.

  And it was just like he thought. The giant moss sheep, giant rabbit, giant fox, all of these monsters were roaming around, and Ryan took a quick snapshot of them. With every time he did that, a small stamp appeared on the piece of paper, showing that this animal was 'done'.

  No pictures were actually printed, though, so a weird gut-feeling was sitting in Ryan's stomach the entire time. Until he took pictures of every last one of them, and nothing happened. He thought that maybe he had to take it back to the stand, but it didn't work either.

  "What's going on?" Ryan muttered, leaning against the counter annoyed, "What the hell am I supposed to do? Are we just going to have to kill everything here after all?"

  And he didn't know why, but that felt wrong, too. His gut was telling Ryan that the camera was the right starting point, but... he did it wrong. Did he have to take a picture of all of them at once? Maybe herd them together somehow?

  "Or... I just need to add 'death' into it," he whispered. That was the overarching theme of this dungeon as far as Ryan could tell, 'Death'. At least... so far. There was a lot of killing and themes of death and undeath in what Ryan encountered here until now. So if he took that theme and twisted the original gimmick with that in mind, it came to a simple result, "I need to take pictures of the dead bodies of each of them?" he wondered. It was worth a try, at least.

  It didn't take Ryan long to find the first group of monsters either. A trio of giant rabbits that were slain before anyone even knew it. Ryan pointed the instaprint camera at th dead bodies, and a camera flash shone out. That was the first time that happened. And slowly, a picture was pushed out of the camera, while the colourful stamp turned into an inky, dripping black. This was it; this was what he needed to do, he just knew it!

  Ryan took the picture and waited for it to show up properly. After a few moments, you could start seeing the outline of the rabbits. But they weren't the same rabbits that he just killed. It was just a single rabbit. Larger, and somehow more distorted. Probably twice the size as before, with massive teeth and hind legs that could crush a car door with ease.

  He got a bad feeling. Ryan looked past the picture, and saw the corpses of the giant rabbits just melting away, forming a puddle between them. Their flesh fused together and their bones cracked and were pulled into place.

  The huge undead rabbit slowly stood up off the ground, breathing heavily. It was freezing cold all of a sudden, and Ryan's hair stood on its ends.

  "Quick! We need to take it down, now!" Ryan instructed the spirits, as Maximus, in his small form, jumped onto Ryan's foot. With a straight kick forward, he shot the knight toward the monster and then unsealed him. Maximus used his greatsword to cut into the huge rabbit's body. It still cut through, but not nearly as well as it should. If Maximus hadn't been unsealed, his sword would have just gotten stuck in the monster's new flesh.

  "Fuck, fuck," Ryan ground his teeth. He pulled his shield off Gaia's backpack and held it in front of his body to protect both her and the Gregor, who was hurriedly setting up one of his machines. To not attract anything else, he was setting it up in its silent mode, which took a few moments longer.

  The horn of shapeless water turned into a new 'weapon'. It was like a giant, oversized pickaxe. Ryan was thinking of a war-hammer, but he knew that blunt weapons didn't work great on undead like this, so instead, the hammer's head turned into a large, two-sized spike - a pickaxe.

  While Maximus was running around and distracting the rabbit, which was hitting its hind legs on the ground and throwing around dust, pebbles, and dirt, Ryan sprinted at the monster. With a large motion, he swung the pickaxe at the monster. It felt like he was trying to bury the spike in solid rock for a few moments, but somehow, it still went in. The pickaxe went into the monster's shoulder, so to give Maximus a better angle to attack from, Ryan pulled back on the pickaxe with his entire weight. The giant rabbit's throat was cut and deep black, oily blood was gushing out from it. The rabbit, which really hadn't even done much until now, finally counterattacked - straight at Ryan. He managed to pull the shield in front of his body, but he was still thrown ten metres away, far behind Gaia and Gregor. And the riot shield was bent and cracked.

  "Holy sh-" Ryan stood up and ran forward. As he ran, he threw the shield at the rabbit, at least to distract it, while Maximus was hanging off its back, trying to plunge his sword into its body.

  "Tiar!" Ryan looked at his hand and spoke to the symbiote. They already knew what he was thinking, so the horn of shapeless water slowly changed size as red tendrils wrapped around it.

  Ripper was being formed out of ice, and Ryan just immediately jumped at the distracted, slow, and quickly rotting giant rabbit. He tore into the flesh, creating a massive open wound that Maximus immediately took advantage of.

  Its spine was completely cracked, and the monster fell back to the ground.

  [You have killed a level 8 -Mutated Giant Rabbit-]

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