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Chapter 11: Designing the Second Floor
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As quickly as he lost consciousness, Lethe roused himself from his stupor. He felt distinctively larger, not in the sense that he was big, but in the sense that he had more "space" in his mind. Expanding his consciousness further, he was unable to find any changes to the dungeon itself with one notable exception. His core was now at the end of his first floor instead of in the first room he had made. Seeking more concrete numbers, Lethe willed his [Status] to appear.
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<td style="text-align: center">STATUS</td>
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NAME: Lethe
RACE: Dungeon Core
CLASS: Locked
LEVEL: 2
XP: 53 / 200 (Earned XP/Required XP)
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FLOOR ONE
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MOB POINTS: 25/25 (Used/Total)
ROOMS: 6 (60m^3 total volume of control
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<td>FLOOR TWO</td>
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MOB POINTS: 00/50 (Used/Total)
ROOMS: 14 (140m^3 total volume of control
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SKILLS
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[Territory Control 3 | Rank 3/10 | Allows user to expand his territory by spreading consciousness. Direction of expansion can be specified with will. Territory can now be shrunk by ceding consciousness.]
[Creation - Mob 2| Rank: 2/10 | Sub Skills: [Combine] | Allows user to generate mobs based on mob points. Mobs can increase in rank by consuming or defeating mobs of equal rank.]
[Design Structures 1 | Rank: 1/10 | Allows user to create and design various structures (traps, buildings, objects, etc.) inside rooms.]
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TEMPLATES
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Cavernous Room
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MOB TYPES
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Slimes: [Acid Slime 1], [Stone Slime 1], [Treasure Slime]
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STRUCTURES
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RULES
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BOONS
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Applied to [Jones and Folks]
[Adventurer Boon - Trusted Companions | You and your party members have demonstrated a trust that is rare to find in this world, although much more expected in adventurer''s than mercenaries. Grants increased effectiveness in working together with your party members.]
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QUESTS
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<td style="text-align: center">Defeat adventurers 0/5
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The first change he noticed were his resource pools. His mob points, or MP, and the number of rooms he could control were now separated based on the floor he was working on. The second detail that caught his attention were that his resources were both reset and increased for his second floor. On hindsight, he realized, this was something that he should''ve already known about when he had first received the information about dungeon cores. However, he only understood the portion of knowledge now when he actually experienced the change. Lethe decided to attribute this particular gap in his understanding, which was one of many, to the fact that he had received a lot of information. Since he woke up and landed in this world, if he just sat down and started to process the information, by now he would have only understood less than 10% of it. Regardless, he now had a whopping 50 MP and 14 rooms to design for the second floor!
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Enthusiastically, Lethe started to imagine how he would structure his next floor. His primary mobs were still slimes, but due to the [Merge] and [Combine] mechanics, he started to develop an idea on how he would design the new area. The biggest issue with his first floor, Lethe thought, were the final two mobs, the rank 3 [Stone Slime] and the rank 4 [Mutated Acid Slime]. He realized that these two mobs were usually too dificult for just a first floor. As such, for the next floor, he didn''t want to challenge adventurer''s. Instead, he wanted to reward them, obviously with risk of losing limbs still involved.
He invokved both [Creation Floor] and [Territory Control] simultaneously, and started to shape a staircase from the end of little alcove in the final room, each step curving inwards, wider at the end and narrow towards the center. Slowly but surely, a curved stairway leading to the depths was made, while his territory created a cylindrical area hugging the walls of structure. Each stair was about 1 meter long, with the whole cylinder going down for about 10 meters before he stopped. Internally sensing the amount of area the staircase took up, Lethe was pleased to note that he had about 110 m^3 in area left for the floor.
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[Rule Established]
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Subject: Floor 2 mobs
Rule: Roam within 10 meters of spawn
Designation: Passive behaviour - Floor 2 Mobs
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[Rule Established]
Subject: Floor 2 mobs
Rule: Ambush enemy
Trigger: 1 enemy within 3 meters
Designation: Ambush Trap - Floor 2 Mobs
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[Ding! Tribute XP received from party [Jones and Folks]]
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[170 XP received!]
[XP 223/200]
[Ding! Core is ready to level up! Warning: Increasing levels will close access to [Dungeon] until the process has finished.]
[Increase level? Yes/No]
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Receiving the jagged pieces of broken light once more into his core, Lethe didn''t see any reason why he shouldn''t continue to level up. He had the whole night to spend and he was already finished in so far with his second floor. Accepting the level increase, Lethe was once more witness to the incredible density of mana and movement that comes with a dungeon increasing its level. The entrance changed from its usual opaque grey to a pitch black, his recently expanded territory sinking into the walls of his second floor, all of his mobs repopulating on the first floor, Lethe once again sank into unconsciousness.
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Jones was happy tonight as well but the mood came with a weariness as well. They had pushed themselves hard today, barely taking time in between the dungeon being reset to rest up before entering once more. Thankfully, they were all able to level up again today. However, everyone looked miserable. All of his brothers sat around the campfire, eating dry rations while cleaning their equipment as best as they could. Harry was able to find a fast flowing stream the first night they had spent outside of the dungeon, thankfully allowing them to refill their waterskins and clean their equipment better than they would have been able to without it. Checking their party list, Jones stared at the progress that they had made after 3 days of delves (and well 2 days of grinding).
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[Party: Jones and Folks]
[Party Members]
[Jones Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Acolyte | XP: 239/345]
[George Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Shieldbearer | XP: 242/345]
[James Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Skirmisher | XP: 242/345]
[John Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Hedge Mage | XP: 239/345]
[Harry Ram Level 7 Rank 1 Tracker | XP: 247/345]
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