《The Dungeon Gods [DEAD - AWAITING REWRITE]》 Prologue Prologue Blackness. That was all that surrounded him. He could see, smell, and hear nothing. For a moment, the Great Mage Arcius wondered if he was confined to the Abyss. Only for a moment though, as he quickly remembered his predicted fate. So then, he thought, this must be the ¡®waiting room¡¯ before reincarnation. I shouldn¡¯t be here too long, after all, I took steps to ensure I retained my memory. After Arcius finally succeeded in casting Destiny-attributed magic for the first time, he discovered his predetermined next life, and spent his remaining few centuries learning everything he could that might be of use. After all, his fate was not to reincarnate as a human, elf, or even any of the other races. Instead, his fate was to be reborn as: a Dungeon. He had even taken the risk to travel to the worlds of science, such as Earth, Nexra, and Li¡¯Tri¡¯Ah, where magic was notoriously unreliable at the best of times. After waiting for what felt like a long time, although it was probably much shorter than his lack of sensory input led him to believe, there was a sudden flash of light. The next thing he knew he was standing in a room. The room was rectangular, and he was standing at one of the shorter edges. There was a simple but comfortable looking bed along the wall to his right, and a wooden desk with an intricately carved jade tablet on its surface along the wall to his left, both of which were placed at the far end of their respective walls. A window was situated on the opposing short wall between the two, and out of it, Arcius could see stars. Not like the night sky, but as if the room was in space, beyond the atmosphere. Arcius looked down at himself to see: a human body. What. The. Fuck. He was human. Again. He put in, all of that effort, to prepare himself for being a Dungeon, and. He. Was. HUMAN! Were the Gods playing a sick joke on him? He knew he worked the magic right. Every other vision he saw in the spell came true, so why? Why did he not become a Dungeon? He wondered, Is it because of the spell I worked to retain my memories? ¡°Relax, boy, your vision wasn¡¯t false.¡± a deep voice proclaimed from behind him. What the F-. Arcius whirled around, but there was nothing there except a simple wooden door. ¡°If you wish to know the answers, step through the door.¡± the voice spoke again. With only a moment¡¯s hesitation, he did so, and everything went black once again. When he could see again, he found he was sitting on a wooden throne of some sort. He looked down to see that it was floating high above a sea of golden clouds. Looking around now, he noticed 15 other thrones. 14 were like his, but one, which he assumed belonged to the voice¡¯s owner, was much larger, and seemed to be made of obsidian. The other occupants of the wooden thrones were a mix of various races. He recognised the races of six of the other occupants: two elves (one male, one female), one dwarf (male from the size of his nose), and three beastmen (two wolves; both female, and a rat; male). The others, however, were of races he didn¡¯t recognise. Three of the thrones held some kind of humanoid tree, which were nearly identical in appearance save for one having green leaves and the other two having brown. A sign of gender perhaps? Or maybe age? One held a kind of snake-man, which wasn¡¯t a beastman, as they could only be mammals. It had the upper body of a human, albeit with scales and a snake head, and the lower half was all snake. Two more held humanoid slimes, one green, and one blue, with no discernible features of any kind. The final two held humanoid roaches of all things, with two pairs of arms, ending in insectoid pincers. The obsidian throne held a man that looked like a human made of black smoke, with glowing white flames for eyes. As the other occupants stopped looking around, he spoke again. ¡°Welcome all of you. I am the High One, Creator of the Gods. You may refer to me as CoG.¡± The beings, Arcius included, gave their races version of an intake of breath at that. There was an instinctive sense of Truth about the beings words, as if reality itself were being regulated to make its claim Absolute. ¡°You are all wondering why I have brought you here. I shall tell you. Recently, in order to prevent the death of the universe as a whole, I destroyed and rebuilt one of its segments. This is a mandatory process: by splitting the universe into segments and then destroying and rebuilding them one at a time after they ¡®expire¡¯, I prevent the universe from expanding to the point of collapse, thus ending it entirely. Having done so, I gathered you all here to begin one of the first processes of rebuilding.¡± Suddenly a massive globe appeared in the middle of the circle of thrones. It was of a seemingly lifeless world, about half covered in water, with only two continents, one about half the size of the other. They were next to one another, with and expanse of water about the width of Italy from Earth between them. There were numerous islands, including a small grouping of them in the middle of the water on the other side of the planet from the continents. There were also polar ice caps about the size of those on Nexra, so maybe two thirds the size of those on Earth and Nelcrus? There were three mountain ranges on the larger continent, and one on the smaller continent, which had a volcano on one end. The larger continent also held a few volcanoes. Finally, there were some lakes and rivers on both continents, as well as two canyons on the larger one. CoG spoke again, ¡°This is the first world in the new segment capable of holding life. It is at one of its earlies stages of development, and currently only holds Prokaryotic Cells as in terms life. You will each now take on the role of a Dungeon God. You will create the first Dungeons on this world, and will be responsible for creating the life that it holds. Each of you will endeavour to try and produce a sentient race, of which you will be its Racial God.¡± Arcius burned to ask this question, but was beaten to it by the female elf, ¡°Sire, the most sentient races I have ever heard of existing even on the oldest worlds is seven. Is 15 not an overly large number?¡± CoG nodded at this, almost seemingly pleased that someone had asked, ¡°That is true. Although you will all possess the goal of bringing forth a sentient race, naturally you will not all be able to do so. Sentient races are tricky things to produce, being incredibly complicated and resource costly, regardless of how you develop your Dungeon. It doesn¡¯t matter if you use science or magic, it still takes a much grander amount of resources to make them. Those who fail to produce sentient races will become other Gods within this new world, and the most promising races from all Dungeons, sentient and non-sentient, will be duplicated and spread to the other worlds inside this segment of reality upon their formation. Bear in mind that you will also be competing with one another at times. You may team up, if you so wish, or face off against one another. The only thing I will forbid in this regard, is outright destruction of your opponents. Instead, when you come into conflict, you will lay out the terms of victory and defeat, and accept them upon winning or losing. Should the condition of your defeat be your Dungeon¡¯s dissolution, you will be transported to a random location on the world that is not overly near another Dungeon, and shall start anew. You will now all look upon the world and decide your staring locations. You shall be given the option to choose in order rotating clockwise starting at the serpentoid after me.¡± That was the snake-man, and Arcius was located eight beings after him. ¡°You will be given up to an hour to choose upon being asked. If you should desire more time to choose, then say so, and you will be temporarily skipped until the end. At that time, you will choose, regardless of your desires. To look into the world, merely concentrate on the globe. You are all viewing different iterations of it, so one being moving it will have no effect on the view of the others.¡± One of the tree-men with brown leaves chose now to speak, with a voice so deep, it rivalled CoG¡¯s, ¡°Sir CoG, may I ask why I have retained my memories?¡± With a start, Arcius realized that none of them had lost their memories. His remaining was expected, after the effort he put into developing a countermeasure to the memory loss, but there was no way the others had used the same method. So how were their memories still present? CoG spoke, ¡°That is because I chose to let you keep your memories, as they can be useful to a Dungeon God, at least at the later ages.¡± Arcius couldn¡¯t help but groan internally. All that time and effort, he thought, all that research into creating a spell to let me keep my memories, and it was all for naught!This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. CoG chuckled suddenly, and looked at him, ¡°No, human, your efforts were not for naught. In fact, it was the ingenuity you demonstrated in creating your memory retention spell that led me to choose you as a Dungeon God. For the record, your spell would have worked near perfectly, except it would have made spawn as a Dungeon in the Abyss.¡± Now that was a terrifying thought. The Abyss, was an existence of Unreality, and would have obliterated him in mere moments, trapping his soul forever within, without any hope of future reincarnation. ¡°Now then, all of you, begin to choose.¡± CoG spoke one last time, before turning to the serpentoid. Without another moment¡¯s hesitation, Arcius dived into observing the world, anxious to find a good starting point. He didn¡¯t possess the greatest amount of geology knowledge having focused mainly on Physics, Chemistry, and Biology during his time in the worlds of science. However, some of the information he had gained in those areas led him to knowledge of geology that was pertinent, and he was quite thankful of that now. Looking at the globe of the worlds, Arcius began to mentally list the things he would need for an ideal start location. First, he had learnt that the first life forms on worlds where life developed alone tended to come from the oceans, as it was easier for the first forms of complex life to develop there, other than some plants. In order to maximise his efforts to build, he needed somewhere in the oceans then. That discounted nearly half the world immediately. Next, he needed some kind of geothermal hotspot, probably near a fault line, but at such a position that he was unlikely to have his Dungeon torn a sunder by earthquakes and mountain formations in the future. He needed this so he could use some of his enchantments to maintain a decent temperature in his Dungeon to try and bring his lifeforms into being faster. Just from these two requirements, he¡¯d narrowed his options down to five areas already: an underwater valley in the ocean between the two continents, an underwater volcano just to the south of the smaller continent, another underwater volcano to the east of the larger continent, a geyser of some sort in the ocean on the opposing side of the two continents just south of the pole, and an area in the islands opposite the continents. He was able to use the mana concentration to narrow his choices further, as geyser and eastern volcano were both at background levels. Looking over the globe again, he noticed that four areas had already been claimed for Dungeons, marked clearly on the globe. The serpentoid had claimed one of the two canyons on the larger continent, which was the area with the highest mana concentration on the planet. A roach-man had claimed the volcano at the end of the mountain range on the smaller continent, which had the second-highest concentration of mana. The next two choices were made by the wolves, and had little to do with mana concentration. Instead, they had picked two islands, one next to the other, located just to the south of the smaller continent. Either they were planning on aligning, right from the start, or they had a serious bone to pick with one another that would be coming to blows shortly. Thinking about it, Arcius realised it would be in his best interest to start away from as many of the others as possible. He hadn¡¯t really been one for people in his past life, and was not exactly skilled in politics, for want of a better way of putting it. Being close to the others would mean having to deal with such matters, and that was something he didn¡¯t want. Looking over his choices again, while one of the tree-men chose the northernmost mountain range on the larger continent, Arcius decided to go for the islands on the other side. Unlike the other locations, there wasn¡¯t some obvious geological formation, such as a volcano or a valley, at the islands, instead, there was a point where the crust was oddly thin, allowing greater amounts of heat through. The islands themselves, looked as though they were formed from previous incidents where magma had burst through the crust, leading to the islands as they appear now. Each island, seemingly as a result, had a somewhat low mountain at its centre, with a few looking like long extinct volcanoes. Arcius chose a point underwater located almost directly in the centre of the various islands. One definitive advantage he would find here, would be that he now has more time to prepare his Dungeon before using his enchantments to control the magma. He may even be able to exert greater control over how it will form his future island for whatever spawns in his Dungeon. In theory, he could even bring about a new continent, although he had decided against that early on upon knowing the true circumstance of his rebirth, as this could lead to some of the others allying against him, out of fear of what he might do, and out of greed for the new land. No, better to settle for an island or two instead. Satisfied with his decision, Arcius now sat back, and observed the three remaining beings before he could make his choice. It didn¡¯t take too long for them to do so. The dwarf had chosen the second canyon on the larger continent, one that was riddles with caves. The rat had chosen the centre of the largest flatlands on the smaller continent. Then, another tree-man chose, this time selecting the eastern shore of the southernmost lake of the larger continent. Now it was Arcius¡¯ turn. He swiftly spoke, ¡°I choose are underwater in the middle of the islands opposite the continents.¡± Some of the other looked confused by this, although the dwarf did not seem surprised, and the tree-men looked¡­ well he didn¡¯t really know what they thought of his choice. Their faces seemed to be incapable of expressing emotion. CoG, however, just nodded, and assigned him that location. All he had to do now, was wait for the others to finish choosing their locations. These went by faster, likely because they had already had plenty of time to choose. The green slime chose an island relatively far off the western coast of the smaller continent. Next, the female elf chose the northernmost volcano on the smaller continent, followed by the blue slime picking a point on the easternmost coast of the larger continent. Then, the remaining roach-man chose the westernmost volcano on the larger continent. The green-leaved tree-man selected an island in the middle of the lake on the smaller continent. Finally, the male elf chose a point between two unclaimed volcanoes in the north of the larger continent. With this, all of the selections had been made, and the globe vanished. CoG spoke once again, ¡°When we are done, you will return to your rooms. To do so, merely leave your thrones. This room shall be off limits except for meetings. Meetings will occur every million years to begin with, and more regularly at later stages of development, in order for everyone to be provided with an overview for the development of the world. Any other meetings will be called into session by myself should I feel the need to do so. Do not make me need to do so.¡± Everyone got that message: there would be no need for additional meetings unless one of the beings present messed something up. ¡°Other than those meetings, I also require reports sent once every millennium on any significant happenings within your Dungeons. To do so, simply place your hand on top of the carved jade tablet on your room¡¯s desk, and think ¡®Report¡¯. You will then be able to compile and send said report. To alter your Dungeon, do the same, but think ¡®Dungeon¡¯ instead. Other than that, you will be able to leave your room and make use of the various recreational activities available here. Don¡¯t worry about finding yourself here by mistake. Your doors only lead here when a meeting has been called. One last detail, you will each find, upon your return to your rooms, a helper. They will be there to guide you through the process of managing a Dungeon. Now then, you may leave.¡± With that, CoG vanished. Swiftly, so too did the rest of the beings, Arcius included. Upon returning, he looked around to find his helper, only to see: nothing. No helper, or change to his room. Suddenly, he heard a throat being cleared behind him, and whirled around to see CoG leaning against his door. Arcius spoke, ¡°Uh, CoG sir, what is going on?¡± The smoke making up CoG¡¯s face almost seemed to form a smile for a second before he spoke, ¡°I thought you¡¯d be the first to notice my statement giving permission to call me CoG rather than sir. Now then, I have not given you a helper, can you guess why?¡± Arcius pondered this for a few seconds, before replying, ¡°I¡¯m guessing it¡¯s because of my research.¡± ¡°Correct on the first try.¡± CoG confirmed, ¡°You are the first Dungeon God to have been even partially aware of their fate prior to death. As a result, you did extensive research into many subjects, ranging from the basics of running a dungeon, to the most intricate mysteries of life. As a result of your extensive studies, you are actually more knowledgeable about Dungeons now than even my best helpers. Because of this, I¡¯ve decided that you will be a trial run, of sorts. I am going to observe you more closely than the others, to see how you, someone who came prepared instead of being thrust into this role, fare against the others, who were indeed thrust into this role. Depending on how you do, I may even apply your circumstances to future Dungeon Gods on future worlds. No pressure, and good luck.¡± With that, CoG vanished again. Sighing, Arcius decided to get started. After all, even without CoG latest info, he had a lot to do to get ready. He sat down on the rather comfortable chair at his desk, placed his hand on the tablet ¨C which he now saw held a carving of a massive tree growing out of the new world, as though it were a seed ¨C and thought ¡®Dungeon¡¯. Everything suddenly faded away. Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Slowly, the world faded into being in front of him. Looking around, Arcius quickly realised he was disembodied, possessing no form to speak of. As he looked, he noticed he was underwater, and was directly above the point he¡¯d picked for his Dungeon. Looking down at the rocky floor beneath him, he realised he could see a ghost image of a room beneath the ground. This must be my Dungeon Core Room, he thought. The Dungeon Core Room is the first room in a Dungeon, although it is not the first room an intruder would enter, that is for sure. It is the heart of a Dungeon, to destroy it is to turn a Dungeon into a mere cave system, ending its existence. Naturally, once he made more rooms for his Dungeon, he will be able to move the Core into another room, turning that into the Dungeon Core Room, and when he creates life in his Dungeon, he will be able to add a Boss monster to it, to protect the Core. Some refer to the room at that point as the Final Boss Room. Speaking, or rather thinking, of the Core, there it was. It seemed to have taken the form of a smooth, spherical, ruby-like gem, and was being held up on a simple pedestal, more of an octagonal pillar with an indent for the Core at the top. The room itself was about 5x5x5 (width, length, height) metres in size, and there seemed to be no opening yet to allow entrance to the room, and this the Dungeon as a whole. Before trying to do anything, Arcius concentrated, and activated the easiest magic available to a Dungeon: ¡®Status¡¯
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 400/400
Mana Regen: 60/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 0
Number of Rooms: 1
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
Interesting. There were some differences here from the information he¡¯d gathered. About a century before he died, he¡¯d made a deal with a relatively old Dungeon, exchanging a copy of his research into life and how it formed for a copy of the Dungeon¡¯s memories on how to be a Dungeon. The memories he had showed a slightly different status screen to the one available. For starters, Dungeon God had replaced Dungeon Master, although that might make sense. After all, Dungeon Master was meant to show who owned the Dungeon, but here, the only ones who could own this Dungeon were Dungeon Gods. Another difference was Faith. That simply wasn¡¯t present in the Dungeons he¡¯d researched, although that also makes sense. Those Dungeons were natural born Dungeons, not Dungeon Gods. And Dungeon Gods go on to either become Racial Gods, or Gods of other aspects of reality. Faith, therefore, was probably unavailable to them as they simply weren¡¯t ¡®divine¡¯, as it were. The rest of his status screen was pretty much as he expected, so he closed it, and moved on. The first thing he needed to do was make an entrance. There was nothing around that could threaten him, and unless he connected his Dungeon to the world outside, the amount of Mana Capacity he¡¯d gain from his number of rooms would be significantly reduced. Swiftly manipulating his Mana, Arcius quickly carved a short tunnel, leading to a circular hole in the rocky surface. That was his current entrance. Simple, but quite cheap, and nothing fancier would be needed anytime soon as there was simply nothing around to be impressed by it. Well, there were the other Gods, but they were all on the other side of the world, and besides, is the appearance of a small cave really all that important right now? Having finished, Arcius checked his status again:
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 380/500
Mana Regen: 75/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 1
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
A fairly decent improvement. It seems the Mana Regen is at around 15% of the total capacitance per year, so it would only take around six-and-a-half years or so to fully recover his Mana from 0, and creating a simple entrance only used 20. He noted, as expected, that the amount of Mana he currently had did not go up in proportion to the increase in total capacitance, but again, that was anticipated.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. There wasn¡¯t much point in going over his available Abilities and Upgrades right now, so instead, Arcius decided to experiment. He knew a lot about being a Dungeon, but he could only apply that as theory rather than fact in his specific circumstances, so first he needed to know the facts. He started by creating another room, identical to the Core Room, and connected that to his first room, placing it just behind it. He then looked at his status again.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 350/550
Mana Regen: 82.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 2
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
Interesting. It seems that a simple room only costs around 30 Mana to make, and increases the Capacity by 50. That means that every entrance must also increase the Capacity by 50, as it rose by 100 when he first connected the Dungeon to the outside. However, was this linked only to the number of rooms? Or was it to do with the size? He decided to experiment further. He created another room, this one linked behind his second room, and made it twice as wide as the other rooms, making it 10x5x5. Looking at his Capacity, he noted it rose by 100, while his amount dropped to 290. So a room that was bigger increased the cost and reward by the same factor. Next he split the room into two, creating a wall between them, and then checked his status again.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 270/650
Mana Regen: 97.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 4
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
That settled it, the number of rooms had nothing to do with determining his Mana Capacity, only the size of the rooms mattered. Thinking about it, Arcius decided to make certain all his rooms were multiples in size of the first room. He¡¯d make rooms that weren¡¯t cuboid, certainly, but their volume would still be a multiple of 125 m3, that way he could more easily control the amount of Mana Capacity he had. For now, he decided to make more rooms with the Mana he had left, and, as there was little need for anything else, he made them the same size as the first room. At the end of it, he had nine more rooms. His status now looked like this:
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 0/1100
Mana Regen: 165/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 13
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
Having finished these rooms, there wasn¡¯t really much, if anything, he had left he could do now. Before leaving however, he decided to see what Abilities and Upgrades he had available. Abilities were, as the name suggested, different abilities and powers a Dungeon had available to use. They cost Mana to do so, although he suspected there were probably some Faith based ones for later down the line. Upgrades, on the other hand, were things he could ¡®purchase¡¯ that could unlock new abilities among other things. Looking at his available abilities, there weren¡¯t many options.
Ability Description Mana Cost
Increase Mana Concentration This increases the Mana concentration in a specific room by forming Mana Gems. Increases Capacity by 50 per use. Does not affect Mana Regen 50/year for 3 years.
Control Creature This allows you to control a creature within your Dungeon. 20.
Increase Mana Regen This allows you to create Life Gems by sacrificing a sufficient amount of lifeforms within your Dungeon. Increases Mana Regen by 7.5 per use. Does not affect Mana Capacity 50/year for 3 years. [Note: amount of creatures sacrificed depends on their complexity]
Not exactly a lot of options indeed. He would need to increase Mana concentration eventually, because increased Mana in an environment results in an increased rate of natural evolution. However, he wanted to hold off on that until he had more environments to make use of, which will have to wait until he had control over the magma beneath him, so he could create his island. He closed the Abilities screen, and opened the Upgrades screen:
Upgrade Description Mana Capacity Cost
Environments I This allows you to create new environments in your rooms. At tier I, this is limited to simple changes, such as temperature, or the layout of the room. 500
New Species This unlocks a new species for you to use. [Warning: all species acquired this way are pre-designed] 2000 [Note: Increases with every form of life present]
Upgrade Species This allows you to upgrade an existing species to its next form. [Warning: only works on pre-designed species] 500+ [Note: exact cost depends on current level of life]
This screen was pretty much as anticipated. All upgrades cost Mana Capacity to buy, so you had to be certain of what you wanted when you make the purchase. It looked as though any attempt to try and rush a new lifeform through the system was a bust as well, as 2000 Capacity, was not exactly cheap. Plus it gets more expensive the more species you have, so you can¡¯t just increase your Capacity to a few hundred thousand and then spam it either. Right now, there wasn¡¯t much point in getting anything, as it was better to use the Capacity he had to expand. Besides, for what he had planned, he was going to need a lot of mana. Arcius closed the Upgrades screen, and then concentrated on returning to his body. As expected, it didn¡¯t take long for the world to start fading. Back in his room, Arcius turned towards his bed. It seemed unlikely that Gods would need sleep, and, on top of that, he highly doubted that there was enough in the way of entertainment in the other rooms to keep anyone occupied for the many millennia they will no doubt spend outside of working on their Dungeons. Concentrating on it, he was rewarded with an options screen
How long do you wish to sleep for?
Sleep for ___ years. Sleep until Mana is at max Capacity.
Sleep until ____ has been accomplished. Cancel.
He was right. The bed existed to allow the owner to skip chunks of time, so that they didn¡¯t have to consciously wait. Now, he had a choice. Explore, or sleep. Thinking for a moment, Arcius chose sleep. Chances are sometime around now the others would be wandering the halls, and although he didn¡¯t hate other people per se, he was consciously aware of CoG¡¯s rather public announcement of his ¡®ingenuity¡¯. He didn¡¯t want to have to deal with the others with that fresh on their minds. He chose to sleep until his Mana had regenerated. Admittedly, if he chose to sleep for only, say, one year at a time, he could more rapidly increase his Mana Capacity and Regen. However, he wanted to start future preparations, and to do that, he would need large amounts of Mana to use at short notice, rather than small amounts for small projects. He selected the option, and then lay down and closed his eyes. Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Arcius opened his eyes, surprised. Had he not felt his consciousness fade earlier, he would have assumed no time had passed at all. He hadn¡¯t even dreamed during the sleep. Without wasting any time, he got up and moved to the desk again. As he sat down, he realised that he was neither hungry nor thirsty. Interesting, he thought, it appears that, as a God, I no longer need food or drink. How then do I continue existing? Do I merely feed off the local Mana? He pondered this for a while, before deciding that it was a research project for another time. So instead, he returned to his Dungeon. Upon arrival, he immediately opened the status screen again, to check his stats and make certain nothing had changed.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 1100/1100
Mana Regen: 165/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 13
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
Everything seemed to be in order, and so Arcius turned his sight to the magma beneath the ground. He quickly noted that it was pushing upwards sooner than he anticipated. Within a few centuries, it would likely build up enough pressure to burst through the crust again, creating another new island above, and burying his Dungeon in the process. If he wanted to last this, he needed to set up his Magmatic Seal Enchantment soon, so that it could gather the power needed to control the magma. He needed to start building his Dungeon around and above the area the magma would break through. Fortunately, he had estimated that correctly, and was already in the correct position to start doing so. First, however, he would need to set up a high Mana room from which the enchantment would draw its power. He selected the second room he¡¯d built, and then used the Increase Mana Concentration ability on it three times. It would reduce his Mana Regen to 15/year for the next three years after this one, but it would be well worth it. Next, he used the available Mana he possessed to create 36 additional curved rooms, carefully laid out to begin the encirclement of the breach point.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 20/2900
Mana Regen: 435(-150)/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 49
Number of Floors: 1If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
This particular project was his most important, so he couldn¡¯t afford to waste a single drop of Mana or second of time available for work. He¡¯d thought he¡¯d have more time before this, but he was wrong. Ah well, he thought, at least this gives me an excuse to avoid the others a while longer. So he left, slept, and returned in three years, when the Mana Gems had finished forming. His status now looked something like this.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 1325/3050
Mana Regen: 435/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 49
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
Looking into the room, Arcius noted with satisfaction that the new Mana Gems, which looked like pale blue quartz and were growing from the walls, were glowing blue, and indication of their effect on the Mana in the room. Now that this was set up, he could begin creating the Mana Gathering Enchantment he would need in order to activate the Magmatic Seal. Concentrating, Arcius got to work carving the runes of the enchantment into the floor. It took quite some time, as each line had to be perfect, or else the entire rune would malfunction, and could even explode upon activation. By the end of it, he had used 65 Mana to carve out the enchantment. This took much more power than he would have spent had he been there physically, after all, he would have been able to manually carve the runes without using Mana. He then spent 15 Mana activating the enchantment and beginning the process of Mana Gathering, which dropped his Capacity by 100.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 1245/2950
Mana Regen: 435/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 49
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
Using his remaining Mana, he created 41 additional rooms, meaning he now needed only four rooms to finish creating the 81 he would need to finish the encirclement, although he would need a further 27 after that to place on top of the breach.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 15/5000
Mana Regen: 742.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 90
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 1
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
It would take him two years to gather the Mana necessary to create those rooms, so he left, slept, and then returned in two years. He then finished the remaining rooms, and determined another problem. The runes for the Magmatic Seal were more intricate than those of the Mana Gathering enchantment, and would require more Mana to create. He assumed 100 Mana per room, to be on the safe side. This meant that he needed 10800 Mana to make all the enchantments, and his Capacity was currently 6400. Thinking over the problem, he decided to fill his Mana Capacity and begin the process, adjusting the time he would sleep after that once he knew how much Mana he had to spend per room. He left and returned again in seven years, and spent his Mana creating the runes. It turned out he only needed 80 Mana per room, meaning he was able to finish an additional 16 rooms to the 64 he¡¯d initially anticipated. It only took three years to accrue enough Mana to finish the job, leaving him with little left to do but wait.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 685/6550
Mana Regen: 975/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 121
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 2
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
It would take around 150 years for the Mana Gathering Enchantment to gather enough power to feed the Magmatic Seal. Until then, he had nothing but time. Looking over his status, Arcius couldn¡¯t help but notice that he had a new species. Quickly investigating, he found this new species inside the Mana Gathering room. They were called Infirmanabacteria. Single celled, they had evolved to use infirmanaphyll, a substance similar to chlorophyll, which transferred Mana into energy it could use to survive. It wasn¡¯t enough on its own to do so, but, when combined with its pre-existing properties, it meant it was much more capable than an ordinary Prokaryotic Cell to survive. In fact, he wouldn¡¯t be surprised if it became the dominant species before too much longer. He decided to start the process of creating two sets of Life Gems and another set of Mana Gems, all in the Mana Gathering room. It would not affect the Mana Gathering process, and would increase his Capacity and Regen such that they were more even. He then left, and returned to his room, intending now to explore a little. Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Arcius was quite curious about the rest of his new home. He¡¯d technically been here for a decade or two now, but, between the work and the sleeping, he¡¯d never actually left the room. Admittedly, one reason for this was so that he could avoid having to deal with the others after CoG¡¯s announcement, but still, he was curious. He got up from his desk and moved to the door, opening it and stepping outside. He now found himself inside a circular room. All along the outer wall were 15 doors, including his own, which were obviously the rooms of the Gods. There were three corridors leading out of this room, which split the doors into equal groups of five. At the centre of the room was a kind of dining area, encircled by cupboards at waist height, with three gaps to allow entry, each in the middle of a group of five doors. Inside the circle of cupboards were 15 circular tables, each with five chairs. It provided a space that meant every God could sit on a separate table if they so choose, but groups could also sit together. Interested, Arcius entered the dining area through the gap in front of him, and looked in the nearest cupboard. There was nothing inside, which was strange unless¡­ he closed the cupboard, concentrated on it, and opened it again. This time, there was a glass of his favourite wine inside the cupboard. We may not need to eat or drink, but it seems like we¡¯re still able to. Grinning openly now, he took the glass and moved to the nearest table. As he sat down, he took note of who was in the room. On the other side of the area were the two wolves, who seemed to be discussing something. The lack of any tension about them pretty much confirmed that they chose their adjacent islands so they could team up. He could also see one of the roach-men and the green-leaved tree-man on another table, and judging from the body language, assuming it translated relatively evenly between roaches and humans, their discussion was less cordial. They may be negotiating something, after all, those two weren¡¯t too far away from each other. While he was observing the others, he heard someone sit down across from him, and judging from the sound, it was one of the slimes. He looked over to see his suspicions confirmed, for the green slime had sat down opposite him. It spoke, with a distinctly feminine voice, ¡°Hello, I hope I¡¯m not intruding.¡± Arcius was surprised. He would have thought that the slimes wouldn¡¯t have a gender-based voice tone, after all, they seemed to be genderless. His surprise must have shown on his face, for the slime spoke again, sounding almost amused, ¡°You are not the first to be surprised at my chosen voice. My people can change the sounds of our voices as we see fit. I use the voice of my bond-mate from my old life, as my way of honouring her.¡± ¡°Bond-mate?¡± ¡°Yes. Humans and slimes in my segment of the universe co-exist through the bond. Every human child bonds with a slime not long after birth, and then they are like siblings, facing the challenges of the world together.¡± ¡°Fascinating. How did this come to be?¡± ¡°That would be because of the gargoyles, the other sentient race in my segment. Nasty things, they are creatures that look like humans with claws instead of fingers or toes, and bat wings. Not to mention that they¡¯re made of stone.¡± ¡°So in order to defend against these creatures the humans and slimes of your segment created this bond?¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°As I said, fascinating.¡± He paused for a second to take a sip of his wine. ¡°Now, I do not wish to sound rude, but I must ask. Why are you here, speaking to me?¡± She seemed to smile as she replied, ¡°There are two reasons, well, two main reasons. Despite what you must be thinking, your ¡®ingenuity¡¯ as CoG put it, is not one of them. The first reason is that we seem to share a similar attitude to the others, although yours seems slightly more extreme than mine.¡± Raising an eyebrow, he replied, ¡°And that is?¡± ¡°Neither of us wishes to deal with the politics. Our Dungeons are the only ones the members of neither continent can interact with easily. Yours for obvious reasons, but mine because of the fact that it is located on an island separated from all else by a large expanse of water. Admittedly, mine is not the only one on an island, and it is not the Dungeon furthest from the others. However, although the wolf sisters are¡­¡± ¡°Wait sorry, I hate to interrupt, but wolf sisters?¡± ¡°Yes, they¡¯re sisters that reincarnated here together, an interesting occurrence, wouldn¡¯t you agree?¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s certainly strange. Please, continue.¡± ¡°As I was saying, although the sisters are located on islands, their islands are right next to both each other and the smaller continent, meaning they are not hard to get to from the continent. When it comes to the other, my fellow slime is the one farthest from the others, but he is still on the larger continent, meaning it is still fairly easy for his Dungeon to interact with the other Dungeons on the continent. ¡°The other reason I have is curiosity. You are the only one of us to pick a Dungeon underwater, never mind one on the ocean floor. I am interested in knowing why that is.¡± Sipping his wine again, Arcius carefully replied, ¡°So then, I can assume this is just a discussion, and is not political.¡± Definitely smiling this time, she replied, ¡°Yes.¡± Smiling in return, he replied, ¡°Very well, I¡¯m Arcius.¡± He held out his hand to shake. Shaking hand with him, she replied, ¡°I¡¯m Aisha, pleased to meet you.¡± They spoke for some time, mostly discussing their respective segments, although the question she asked was shortly answered: ¡°I chose my starting point based off of the research I had done in the past, into the development of life. My findings indicated that life that develops on its own, nine times out of 10, came forth from the oceans. Something about an underwater environment makes it easier for complex lifeforms to develop. ¡°But wouldn¡¯t the aid of magic mean that a magic-based strategy is faster and easier to use?¡± ¡°Not necessarily. Think about it, they both have pros and cons. Magic would allow you to skip some of the stages of evolution and thus save time, but has the downside of having to tailor the environment for your new creatures, as they did not develop with your current environment in mind. On the other hand, evolution takes longer, but means that your creatures are now tailored to the pre-existing environment, resulting in no compatibility issues.¡± ¡°But what about the endgame, the development of sentient life.¡± ¡°Similar issues. In Evolution, the problem with the development is to do with a combination of environment and resources. To get a sentient mind to develop means you need resources such a mind would be able to use to develop things such as tools, as well as an environment that rewards sentience. Both of these things, combined with the issue of time, can easily cause issues if they are only slightly off the desired amounts. With magic, on the other hand, the issue is almost solely one of resources, and much more so than evolution. A sentient mind is an incredibly complex thing to create, meaning it costs a colossal amount of Mana to create, and will probably cost a colossal amount of Capacity to unlock as well. So both have their ups and downs.¡± ¡°I see. So then, you¡¯ve chosen to use evolution.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve chosen to use both where I can.¡± After a few hours had passed, they both chose to leave and talk again another time. Aisha headed to her room, while Arcius finished his wine and then headed to his own. Once there, he decided to sleep for three years, after all, that would allow his Gems to finish forming. Chapter 4 Chapter 4 After sleeping and then returning to the Dungeon, Arcius opened the status again.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 3160/6600
Mana Regen: 990/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 121
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 2
Dominant Species: Prokaryotic Cell
Number of Bosses: 0
He had a decent amount of Mana available, and about a century and a half until he activated the Magmatic Seal. Thinking about it, he decided to increase the amount of rooms he had now, and then increase them every 30 years from then on, that way he would get a good amount of rooms up for once he had the Seal, and he wouldn¡¯t be in here constantly working. Using 2160 of his remaining Mana, he created 72 additional rooms, pushing his total up to 193. He then decided to do something a little different. Using 300 Mana per, he created three rooms 10 times the size of his other rooms, all perfectly circular. These would be his first evolution rooms. Here, he would use a Mana rich environment to accelerate natural evolution, alongside various different environmental features. In order to use them, however, he would need to do some upgrading. First, he used the increase Mana Capacity and Regen abilities three times per room. This would greatly increase the Mana concentration in the evolution rooms, which in turn would increase the rate of evolution of the organisms within. Next he spent 500 Mana Capacity on the Environments I upgrade. This allows him greater control over the temperature of the rooms, as well as small changes to the rooms. Upon purchasing Environments I, Environments II became unlocked, and it looked interesting.
Upgrade Description Mana Capacity Cost
Environments II This allows you to create new environments in your rooms. At tier II, this you to make greater changes to room layout as well as to control the water in the environment. 1000
New Species This unlocks a new species for you to use. [Warning: all species acquired this way are pre-designed] 3000 [Note: Increases with every form of life present]
Upgrade Species This allows you to upgrade an existing species to its next form. [Warning: only works on pre-designed species] 500+ [Note: exact cost depends on current level of life]
He now had a choice. If he got Environments II he could actually set up his evolution rooms the way he wants them. However, his Capacity would drop by another thousand. On the other hand, if he left out on getting Environments II until next time, his Capacity would be the same for now, allowing him to make more rooms next time, and reducing the impact of his lost Capacity. After thinking about it for a while, he decided to go with the upgrade immediately. Yes it reduced the amount of rooms he would be able to make later, but it allowed him to get started immediately on creature development. After all, the Infirmanabacteria were cool and all, but they could, at best, be seen as a beginning point. Environments III got unlocked as a result, but he didn¡¯t need its benefits right now, as what he had now was fine. He spent 95 of his remaining 100 Mana reshaping his three rooms. The first evolution room, which he decided to label E1, he removed the water almost completely, and gave the room some hills. He left some water in the form of puddles and streams, and then increased the temperature such that the room became very hot, like an ever-present summer near a world¡¯s equator. He stopped the increase before the remaining water could start to evaporate, and left it at that. The second room, which he named E2, he turned into a small island surrounded by water. The water height was only about a fifth of the room¡¯s height, so depending on their size, a human may find the water up to anywhere between ankle and knee height when standing in it. He had the island form like a hump, with a raised centre, and left it at that for now. He set the temperature such that it was constantly somewhere between warm and cool, never quite being one or the other. The third room, dubbed E3, was the least changed. He left it filled with water, and created pillars, spires, and rocky mounds in order to add variety to the environment. He made the temperature here fairly cold, but not quite enough to make the water start freezing. He then left and returned to his room. He¡¯d decided to sleep for 27 years this time so that, when coupled with the three years he¡¯d slept earlier, he would be able to hit the 150 year time limit on the Mana Gathering process after only four more sets of 30 years. He returned to find his status much as he had expected. The only major difference was that the dominant species had changed to Infirmanabacteria, showing, as anticipated, that they were better at surviving and thriving than their normal Prokaryotic Cell compatriots.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 10950/10950
Mana Regen: 1867.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 196Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 2
Dominant Species: Infirmanabacteria
Number of Bosses: 0
He spent all of his remaining mana creating an additional 365 rooms of equal size. He then decided to create 10 more sets of Mana and Life Gems per E room, which would increase the rate of evolution exponentially. He chose to leave again at this point. Upon returning to his room, he moved not towards the bed, but the door. By this point it had been at least 30 years since he had last left, and he hadn¡¯t seen everything while he was there. Upon leaving, he chose to enter the nearest corridor. It seemed long at first, stretching almost endlessly, but he had barely stepped foot within when he found himself at the other end. Fascinating, he thought, the corridors are teleporters, keeping the sounds of the contents of their destination away from the home of the Gods, but the contents themselves within only a few steps. Looking around, he realised he was in a smaller circular hub, like the one he¡¯d just left. This time, however, there were only nine doors. The three doors immediately to the left of the entrance were labelled Gym 1 to Gym 3. After that were Arena 1 to Arena 3, and finally, completing the circle were Pool 1 to Pool 3. An exercise area of some sort. Arcius pondered on why this was needed when, as his own lack of weakness demonstrated, Gods of any kind didn¡¯t need exercise to remain fit. The answer hit him soon enough: boredom. This was a place to help prevent the Gods from getting bored. It stood to reason that the other corridors ended in locations with similar purposes. This one was clearly for those who liked using exercise to alleviate boredom. And stress, now that he thought about it. Also, he thought while looking towards the Arena doors, it provides a place for those that like to fight. Considering it some more, he realised this would be a good place to settle the lesser conflicts. After all, CoG never stated that conflicts between Dungeons and Dungeon Gods had to be settled in the world. Only that certain things were forbidden, such as outright destroying another God¡¯s Dungeon. It made sense then, at least in Arcius¡¯ mind, that lesser conflicts, things of no major import, such as minor territory disputes, could be settled in the Arenas. Also, the Gods could hold competitions between themselves for their amusement. As he looked around, he realised that although most of the door labels were glowing white, two were glowing green, and one was glowing red. Curious, he looked for any sign that showed what that meant, and noticed one just inside the corridor on the right hand wall.
Colour Meaning
White Unoccupied
Green Occupied. Can be entered.
Red Occupied. Private. Cannot be entered. [Warning: only Gym, Arena, and Pool 3 can be set to Private]
Interesting. That meant that Gym 2 and Arena 2 were currently occupied, but open, while Pool 3 was currently set to Private. Feeling curious, he stepped inside of Arena 2. Inside he found two more doors, one labelled Participate, the other Observe. Participate was glowing red, while Observe was glowing green. So, assuming the colour system was the same, then that meant that he couldn¡¯t enter Participate, but he could enter Observe, and someone was already in there. Going through the Observer door, he found himself in a long and wide corridor. One of the walls was completely see through, being a window made of, he assumed, enchanted glass. Through that, he could see that the corridor curved around a large circular room, maybe 100 or so times as large as his E rooms. Along the outer wall were chairs and a more of the cupboards he¡¯d seen in the dining area. Directly in front of him was the green-leaved tree-man, who was now turning towards him. The tree-man spoke, ¡°Ah, human, I wondered when I would see you outside your room. My name is unpronounceable in your tongue, so please, call me Green.¡± It offered no hand-shake, but did incline its head. Figuring that that was its people¡¯s version of a greeting, he inclined his own, and responded, ¡°It is nice to meet you. I am Arcius.¡± He glanced towards the window, before continuing, ¡°So, who¡¯s in the Arena?¡± The tree-man gestured for him to come closer to the window, before replying, ¡°The serpentoid Slaras is currently fighting with the Rei¡¯Oc, Clarull.¡± ¡°Really? What¡¯s it about.¡± ¡°Apparently it¡¯s a result of some form of interspecies rivalry from their segment. Theirs is filled with various kinds of humanoid animals, and some of these have become bitter rivals. The serpentoids, from what I understand, have always been proficient in the use of mana for combat, and, in the joint species societies that have developed in their segment, tend to be the guards and soldiers, alongside other, more physically powerful species. The Rei¡¯Oc, or Roach Being in the common tongue, have a different kind of specialty. They tend to be good at using defence and stealth based magic skills, and have a tendency to become the more criminal element of the societies. While annoying for all guards and soldiers, their power is apparently very good at fighting serpentoids, so over the years they formed a rivalry. This particular battle is not their first, and is a result of another of their arguments.¡± Arcius looked into the Arena now, observing the fight. The Arena was fairly bland, all things considered. Simple. It was flat and circular, no obstacles, and seemed to be made of some form of granite tiling. Judging by the sheer lack of any damage from the ongoing fight, it seemed likely it wasn¡¯t actually granite. The two combatants themselves were not as unscathed. Both were covered in scratches, although none were severe. Slaras was using his tail like a spring to launch himself into the air, and seemed to be using Fire-type magic to launch devastating infernos at Clarull. Clarull, however, seemed to be all but unaffected by the fire, and the reason soon became very clear. Their carapace was glowing with a red Mana aura that seemed to glow brighter with every flame it blocked. ¡°What type of magic is that?¡± Green responded, ¡°Absorbing magic. A variant unique to the Rei¡¯Oc. They can absorb the power of any magical attack, so long as it is an Element-type, and then unleash what they absorb as a focused magical attack that is hard to defend against. It is particularly effective against Fire-type magic, which is the only magic-type serpentoids can use.¡± Arcius pondered this for a moment, ¡°Then, why is he still attacking with Mana? Wouldn¡¯t it be more effective for him to attack physically?¡± ¡°The reason for that is twofold. First is that physical attacks are not very effective on Rei¡¯Oc. Their natural defence is strong, weaker only than the turtloids¡¯ shells. Serpentoids, on the other hand, aren¡¯t built for brawling, so their natural physical offence is not all that great. The other reason is the absorbing magic¡¯s weakness. When they release the power as an attack, they have to drop the defensive ¡®aura¡¯ that absorbs the magic. Slaras is trying to put enough power into that aura to force Clarull to release it, exposing herself for a more focused and powerful attack.¡± ¡°I see.¡± With that, they went back to watching the brawl. It wasn¡¯t particularly long or eventful, to be honest. It mostly consisted of Slaras firing magic at Clarull until she dropped here aura and attacked, and then trying to take advantage of the lack of aura to damage her. It eventually ended when Clarull managed to score a slicing blow on Slaras¡¯ tail, cutting it clean off. At that point, a bell ringing sound occurred, and Slaras vanished in a flash of light. Green explained before he could ask, ¡°When someone loses, both parties are healed, and the loser is teleported back to their room. The winner is not, so that they may continue fighting if they wish.¡± ¡°I¡¯m assuming death isn¡¯t an issue?¡± ¡°You assume correct. If you get struck by a formerly fatal blow, you simply won¡¯t die. Clarull found that out the hard way when Slaras got a lucky hit in and incinerated her head. It grew back almost immediately. Still hurt though, apparently.¡± ¡°Huh, makes sense. Say, what was the argument about?¡± ¡°They were insulting one another¡¯s creations, although I don¡¯t know who started. They both are the first to have spawned a third new species with their Mana, and were insulting the other¡¯s choices.¡± ¡°Let me guess, Slaras had gone for some form of snake, while Clarull went for an insect?¡± ¡°Got it in one. Both are trying to replicate their own species, and naturally are mocking the other¡¯s attempts at doing so.¡± ¡°Speaking of species, how many are you at?¡± ¡°Not including the Prokaryotic Cells? I have two, both plant creatures. You?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not so fortunate, but then I¡¯m not using Mana to purchase them. I only have one new species, a type of bacteria that feeds on Mana.¡± ¡°Interesting choice. I think there are only two others not using Mana, the male elf Richard, and one of my brethren. They also have only one new species, although I believe they were bacteria that used photosynthesis, Cyanobacteria, I believe they were called.¡± ¡°Mine are a similar concept of evolution, but are called Infirmanabacteria. They could potentially evolve into a Mana based version of plant life.¡± He paused for a second, thinking, before continuing, ¡°You know, considering the fact that CoG¡¯s opening statements made this whole thing a pseudo-contest, you seem strangely open to sharing.¡± It was at this point he found out the tree-men could chuckle. It sounded like a combination of rapping your knuckles on a desk and a slightly sped up sound of rubbing two very rough pieces of wood together. It then responded, ¡°Well, why would I need to be worried about your development.¡± Arcius frowned upon hearing this, and, slightly irritated, he asked, ¡°Care to explain?¡± The response was immediate, ¡°Certainly. When you pause to think about it, what is the big limiter to all of us, regardless of whether or not we use Mana? Resources. This affects both the before, while we¡¯re developing our creations, and after all the sentient species have been developed. It paused for a second, as if gathering its thoughts, ¡°The way I see it, you are no threat to my development early game, unlikely to be a problem for me mid game, and probably only a minor problem at best late game. Early game, there is no chance of us coming to a resource clash over anything, as not only is there a relatively large amount of everything just up for grabs, but you¡¯re also on the other side of the planet, so no real chance of us meeting each other in the world itself. Mid game, same reasons, more or less. There will be a lot fewer resources just randomly up for grabs, however, there is unlikely to be any competition with you for them, as you will have plenty for yourself, and the way I see it, by that point, as the sentient races will not have come into play, there won¡¯t be much need for more resources. Late game, with the sentient races, there will be a much greater need for resources, so competitions and conflicts between us Gods will be much more common. Because you will have a somewhat larger amount of resources naturally available to you than anyone else, chances are some of us will strike at you to try and get them. However, so long as I can avoid becoming your enemy, I don¡¯t see any reason I can¡¯t try and trade with you, so that means you would at most be a minor problem from dealing with trading, and probably not an issue for me once again.¡± Arcius was surprised. He genuinely had not thought of these issues when choosing his location. Heck, the whole reason he chose this spot, despite some meeting his requirements in a better fashion, was simply to avoid the politics as a general rule. The fact his isolation meant he was relatively safe from resource conflicts had never occurred to him. Heck, the only reason he was open about his Dungeon then and there was because the chances of anyone challenging him for being weak were nearly zero at this early stage, not to mention that if anyone underestimated him right now for his ¡®slow growth¡¯, that could only benefit him later on. He continued to speak with Green for about an hour, mentioning general ideas about what their home segments were like and so on, and found out that the tree-men were actually called Treeants. In the end, they parted on fairly decent terms, and Arcius decided he could count Green as, at minimum, a friendly acquaintance, if not a friend or an ally quite yet. Thinking things over, Arcius decided to retire to his room and sleep for another 30 years, at which point, he would again work on the Dungeon, and explore the rest of this space. Chapter 5 Chapter 5 After he returned to his room and slept for 30 years, Arcius quickly returned to his Dungeon and expanded it by another 1023 rooms, pushing his total up to 1584. It left his status looking pretty good.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 10/81850
Mana Regen: 12502.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 1584
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 2
Dominant Species: Infirmanabacteria
Number of Bosses: 0
With nothing left to do at the Dungeon, he returned to his room and exited to the dining area again. This time, he decided to head to the second nearest corridor. Just as with the first, he had barely taken a step down it before finding himself at the other end. This time, he was in a massive circular room, with hundreds of doors lining the wall. Each door was labelled, and he recognised some of the names displayed: Earth, Li¡¯Tri¡¯Ah, Aruun, Zelztrior, and so on. He even saw his home world, Regulon. Curious he stepped forward and was presented with a floating message before him.
Rules of Use
1. Door Colours: If the name is white, it can be entered, if the name is red, it cannot be entered. 2. Observe Only: When inside of a world, you may only observe the world. You are forbidden from intervening in that world¡¯s affairs. Any attempt to do so will be punished by a loss of power proportional to the severity of the interference.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. 3. Obey the Laws: When inside of a world, you are only permitted to perform actions in keeping with the Natural Laws of that world while you are being observed by said world¡¯s inhabitants. Any attempt to do otherwise will be punished by a loss of power proportional to the severity of the resulting disturbance. 4. No Combat between Gods: When inside of a world, you are forbidden from directly engaging in combat with another God through the use of your power as a Deity. You may fight assuming that you do so without Divine power. Any attempt to directly fight against another God as a God will result in punishment to the instigator and, should they respond to the instigation, the instigated, via a loss of power proportional to the severity of the resulting disturbance.
Interesting. These rules must be here to prevent the inevitable interference of the Gods from destroying worlds on a whim. What Arcius found most fascinating, however, was what was implied, rather than what was outright stated. For instance, Rule 3 forbids acts outside of a world¡¯s Natural Laws while being observed. This means that he couldn¡¯t just go to Earth and use his Divine power to perform magical miracles. However, the ¡®while being observed¡¯ part means that he would be permitted to use those magical abilities, so long as he didn¡¯t let himself be seen doing so. The other Rules, with the exception of Rule 1, had similar loopholes. He doubted CoG would be so stupid as to miss these, especially the more obvious ones, so he assumed that they were put in deliberately. Probably to avoid having bored Gods. Having read the message, Arcius dismissed it. Looking around it didn¡¯t take much to realise why this room was here. Inspiration. By observing the different worlds, he and the other Dungeon Gods would be able to receive inspiration for how to shape the world they now controlled. Curious, he decided to enter the door labelled Alliiru. Entering the door, there was a bright flash of light. When the light faded, he found himself standing on a hill overlooking a city. A fairly common scene in the universe, save for the fact that the hill was made of obsidian, and the city was made of crystal. Acting quickly, Arcius cast Living World, a Life spell that could detect all living things within a given area. He used it to observe his immediate surroundings, but found nothing living close enough to see him. Satisfied that he would not be seen, he then cast Phantom Shroud, a Darkness spell that hid him from all senses, as well as Calming Aura, a Light spell that would negate negative emotions in his immediate surroundings. Thanks to Phantom Shroud, the calming effect is negated, but due to the overlap of the two opposing-attributed spells, there would be no way for a mage with expertise in Darkness to detect him, as they would be able to sense the gathering of Darkness attributed Mana otherwise. Now hidden from sight, he cast one last spell, a movement-type Wind spell called Soaring Wings, and moved quickly to the city. The trip did not take long, and he soon found himself among the crystal growths that made up the city. They were smooth and flawless, and each tower seemed to be a single crystal that had been grown into shape. And, if the light blue tint that shone from within was any indication, each was made up of Mana Crystal. Mana Crystals were essentially just very big Mana Gems. To use a human analogy, if the Mana Gems were the infants, Mana Crystals were adults. And as one might suspect, they held a much greater amount of power. A Mana Gem¡¯s ability to generate Mana per unit volume was approximately 1/100th that of a Mana Crystal. This would make it seem like Mana Crystals were vastly greater for anything than Mana Gems, but there was one major problem: the type of Mana produced. Natural Mana is ¡®tainted¡¯ by the environment it is found in. It is still technically Mana, and normally requires no special method to absorb, regardless of its attribute, but there were some exceptions. Mana Crystals generate Arcane-attributed Mana, Mana in its purest Natural form. Very few beings could harness Arcane Mana, and most of those did so by converting it to other attributes, a method which greatly lowered its power. The number of those that could harness it completely, besides the Gods, numbered approximately 3 or 4 per segment of the universe. To put that into perspective, there are practically infinite amounts of sentient creatures in each segment, and seven segments of the universe at any one time. That means that in the entire universe, on average there are at most 28 people that can use Arcane Mana and aren¡¯t Gods. The beings that made up this particular ¡®city¡¯, clearly weren¡¯t among their number. They were Crystal Golems, a type of Light Attributed being made up of floating Mana Gems, circling a large Light Element Core, sort of like a Beast Core, except made up of elements for Elementals. Some of the floating Gems were shaped into various appendages, such as human-like hands, or bird-like claws. These particular Golems seemed to be sentient, if the city meant anything. There were vehicles made of metal and crystal, all sized and proportioned to the bodies of the golems, and these vehicles were all tripods, no wheels. The roads were made from some kind of asphalt-like substance, although it had a natural blue tinge. And the giant Mana Crystals were all hollow, filled with uniform hexagonal rooms. Arcius decided to explore for a while, and see what this city held. Chapter 6 Chapter 6 This world, Alliiru, was an interesting place. The entire planet was made of various types of stone, with granite being the most common type, although places like the obsidian land the Mana Crystal city was located in were not uncommon enough to be considered truly rare. Also, there seemed to be no organic life on this world. Everything was formed from inorganic materials, even the ¡°plants¡± if they can be called that. Stone flowers and crystal trees were a relatively common sight, save for certain land types, including the obsidian. What¡¯s more, every form of ¡°animal¡± life here was either an Elemental or a Golem. What I wouldn¡¯t give for a free century or two to study this world, he couldn¡¯t help but lament in his heart. Although he was now, effectively, immortal, he didn¡¯t have that kind of free time. A few decades at a time, maybe, but that kind of method would cause him to miss many important clues about the nature of this world, and would increase the time to understand it by tenfold at least. A world like this was truly unique. In all his studies and travelling, he had seen countless worlds with countless varieties of life, and had even seen Elementals and Golems present naturally on some of those worlds. But a stone world holding only Golems and Elementals? This was unheard of. In fact, all of his research indicated it was almost impossible, unless¡­ Ah, so that¡¯s it. Realisation flooded through his mind. This world was almost certainly a world like the one his Dungeon was located on. Chances are, it was directed to this state by Dungeon Gods. There were only a few Dungeons on this world big enough to have been made by them, but CoG did tell everyone right at the start that competition and land grabbing were all valid strategies. The fact that less than a quarter of the world has any water, all of which is concentrated in one location, means that there are only land based barriers to hinder movement, which, for a Dungeon God, are very easy to work around. No real division for any of the Gods, combined with a lack of organic resources to distract themselves with, probably led to large numbers of conflicts and competitions. Hence, only a few of the Dungeons really made it to a larger level, almost certainly allowing them to direct the end result of the world¡¯s growth to their own ends. Despite this, no matter how much power he poured into is senses, he couldn¡¯t sense the presence of those Gods. There were enough traces to indicate his theory is correct, but beyond that, no sign they had stepped onto this world any time in the past century. Ah well, he thought, it would have been nice to speak with one. They may have had some good advice for dealing with some of the God specific aspects of the Dungeons. With nothing else to do here, Arcius decided to leave. He returned to the room of doors and then to his room, sleeping for 29 years, as he had spent one within Alliiru. Upon coming to, he once again returned to his Dungeon, and checked his status.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 81850/81850
Mana Regen: 12502.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 1584
Number of Floors: 1Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Number of Species: 5
Dominant Species: Infirmanacoral
Number of Bosses: 0
Looking over his status, he noticed that he now had three new species within his Dungeon. One of which had already become the currently dominant species. He opened up another window to look at all his species.
Species Rank Species Name
1. Infirmanacoral
2. Infirmanabacteria
3. Thermocoral
4. Thermobacteria
5. Prokaryotic Cells
Very interesting. Infirmanacoral were a type of coral evolved from Infirmanabacteria. They were multicellular and could be considered a sort of moving coral, as they did not grow on surfaces like normal corral, but instead drifted within water currents. Naturally, they were found in almost every room of the Dungeon, save for E1, as they were almost all filled entirely with water. Interestingly, they seem to have originated from E2, the island room, although one would have thought they would come from E3. Thermocoral and Thermobacteria, on the other hand, were a much more fascinating development. The Thermobacteria evolved from Prokaryotic Cells present in E1, but unlike Infirmanabacteria, Thermobacteria developed Thermophyll, a substance which allowed the bacteria to use the environments thermal energy to perform Thermosynthesis, essentially Photosynthesis with thermal instead of light energy. Thermocoral, unlike normal coral, and Thermobacteria existed exclusively on land. This was because the evolution of Thermophyll also caused a change in the Cell Walls and Cell Membranes of both species. This evolution meant that water, in high enough quantities, was essentially acid to them, and would kill them. A small amount, like the water vapour present in E1, was fine, but much more is enough to end them. This was why even the Thermocoral was ranked below the Infirmanabacteria, because although it is the greater species, it is only able to live in one room. Moving on, Arcius closed his status and the species window. Continuing on as he had already done before, he spent 81840 Mana on making 2728 additional rooms, leaving him with only 10 Mana left. After that, he then looked at the upgrades screen again.
Upgrade Description Mana Capacity Cost
Environments III This allows for even greater environment manipulation, as well as the ability to instantly generate any plant that already exists within the Dungeon and place it as desired. 2000
New Plant This specifically unlocks a brand new species of plant that you can use. Can be affected by Upgrade Species. [Warning: all plants acquired this way are pre-designed] 1000 [Note: Increases with every species of plant present]
New Species This unlocks a new species for you to use. [Warning: all species acquired this way are pre-designed] 3000 [Note: Increases with every form of life present]
Upgrade Species This allows you to upgrade an existing species to its next form. [Warning: only works on pre-designed species] 500+ [Note: exact cost depends on current level of life]
He decided to buy Environments III as well as the then unlocked Environments IV,
Upgrade Description Mana Capacity Cost
Environments IV This allows for greater manipulation of temperature and environment, allowing for extreme environment types to be created. Also, this allows for the creation of Light Stones with adjustable light levels depending on the amount of Mana used to make them. 4000
This took a grand total of 6000 out of his Mana Capacity, but he viewed it as worthwhile, as it would allow him to better develop his E rooms. In the future. All of this left his status as such.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 10/212250
Mana Regen: 32962.5/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 4312
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 5
Dominant Species: Infirmanacoral
Number of Bosses: 0
With all this done, Arcius decided to leave the Dungeon again, and prepare to head out, and down the third corridor. Chapter 7 Chapter 7 After leaving the Dungeon, Arcius exited his room, and headed to the third corridor. Once again, it seemed to be endless, but a single step took him to the other end. Here, he found himself in a massive bar, easily 10 times the size of his E rooms. There were various doors leading out of this bar. On these doors, in typical glowing white letters, were the name of various activities. Some of the doors had lists of names instead of only one. Looking at these, Arcius recognised several of them, ranging from games that test logic and strategy, such as Chess and Ektrii, a Ralectoran game that was essentially Mahjong crossed with Poker and Checkers, to casual games, such as Earth¡¯s video games and Elpin¡¯s VR games. There were also other activities, such as Yoga, and Liins, a sort of meditation based Martial Art from the Criinsu. Many of the activities, however, were unknown to him. However, despite this, it was no less obvious what purpose this place served. This was a leisure centre, a place of relaxation. If the Gym/Arena/Pool, or exercise, area is there for the Gods to exercise their bodies and solve their conflicts, and the inspiration room there to invigorate their imaginations, then this place existed to nurture their minds and souls. Looking around, it seemed no one else was here this time. He also had another window appear to tell him the rules of the signs.
Colour Meaning
White Unoccupied
Green Occupied. Can be entered.
Red Occupied. Private. Cannot be entered.
They were essentially the same as the exercise are, save for no limit on when Private mode can be used. After sifting through the various doors, Arcius decided to play a few rounds of Crenjiou. It was essentially a fusion of Chess and Solitaire with a few extra features, and was made by the Rojiou. The game itself was as such: you have a game board consisting of 72 spaces, making up a 3 space wide path. Each of these paths is one of three colours, red (symbolising rage), blue (symbolising inner peace), and purple (symbolising the balance between the two). There were 24 pieces of each colour, representing various individuals from Rojiou history. Each piece had a base, the shape of which determined there type. Those shapes were: circle, triangle, square, pentagon, and hexagon. If a red and blue piece of the same base type are placed upon the board, and you choose to have them fight, a coin is flipped. One side is red, the other blue.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The side that is face up upon flipping determines which piece is removed from the board. If a purple and non-purple piece do the same, the coin is also flipped. If it lands with the non-purple pieces colour face up, that piece is removed. Otherwise the purple piece is removed. Each colour has: 2 hexagons, 4 pentagons, 4 squares, 6 triangles, and 8 circles. The goal is to have the all 24 blue pieces on the board, with as few red and purple pieces as possible. The game ends when any colour succeeds. At the end, 2 points are awarded for every blue piece, and 1 point removed for every red or purple piece. Pieces are randomly drawn, 3 in total, but 1 at a time, from a bag containing all of the pieces, with the requirement to play the pieces in the order drawn, or if no play is chosen, to draw again. This particular game was a favourite of Arcius¡¯, as it was introduced to him by an Elf from the Rojiou, who was a very dear friend. As such, whenever he had the time, he¡¯d play a round or two. So it was that he entered the room, set it to Private, and then began. His skills were a tad rusty, so his first round did not end too well. He reached the end with the purples, had no reds, and only 10 blues. The result was -4 points. Having reacquainted himself with the game, he played again, finishing again with the purples, but also with 17 blues, and unfortunately 3 reds, leaving him with 7 points, a fairly decent score for the average player. However, he knew he could do better, so he played again, time and again, and lost himself in the game. As time flew by, he found himself reminiscing over times long past, playing games such as this with Jiou Lin Roon, the Rojiou Elf. Roon was a particular fan of improvising two-player versions of normally single player games, so that they could face one another. In his modified Crenjiou, one player controlled red, one blue, and they shared purple, taking it in turns to wither draw, place, or fight. The point system had the player¡¯s colour earning them 2 points per piece, with -1 point per piece of another colour. Minutes, then hours, then days, then weeks, and finally 3 months passed, with Arcius playing Crenjiou, while remembering his friend. 2 weeks in, he had even swapped to playing the modified version against himself. He recalled the days spent playing Ilruun against one another. He recalled their co-operative struggles at completing the complex and profound game of Vri. He recalled the journey they went on, across numerous worlds. The people they met, the places they saw, the creatures they fought, he recalled it all. He only ended his reminiscing, and his time playing, when he finally recalled Roon¡¯s death. It was an ignoble end. A greedy noble from the world of Treyus had been after a rare treasure they had acquired from a nearby Dungeon. Normally this would be no cause for concern for the two of them, as they held enough status and power that most such people would only try to bargain and trade, which, as the treasure was useless to them, was what they were after anyway. But this noble was beyond greedy. Beyond arrogant. He was so obsessed with the boost the treasure would give to his status that he decided to simply try and take it. He waited until Arcius was busy with other trades, and then requested that Roon meet him for a trade proposal. Of the two, Roon was always the more trusting, and did not think to check the food and drink offered by the noble. Said food and drink was poisoned with the Triilyeer Flower seed¡¯s toxin, a particularly nasty move, as the toxins within said seeds temporarily seal the victim¡¯s ability to both move and use Mana, although they can be actively negated with Mana if one is aware of them. He waited until Roon was fully paralyzed, and then executed him and stole the treasure. Needless to say, Arcius found out when Roon used one of their artefacts to contact him, an ingenious tool that required no Mana manipulation ability to use, and was able to be activated before his movements were also sealed. Although he was not yet known as the Great Mage, Arcius¡¯ magical abilities were vast even then. He personally burned the noble¡¯s house to the ground, and left his corpse impaled in the streets, frozen in an immensely humiliating position. Roon¡¯s corpse was found, and taken back to the Rojiou, for a proper burial as per their customs. Having reminisced, Arcius wiped away the tears that had formed, put away the game of Crenjiou, and left, returning to his room. Had anyone else been around, they would have heard him mutter one thing: ¡°Creions alltrinti, meiaroun Triinjiou.¡± Rest well, my dearest friend. Chapter 8 Chapter 8 After returning to his room, sleeping for another 30 years, and then returning to the Dungeon, not much of significance happened. In fact, only two things of any real significance had occurred within the Dungeon by the time he was finished altering it. First, Arcius constructed an additional 12 E rooms. These E rooms, including his original three, were further altered, bringing the amount of Mana he had available for use down to 206610. These alterations meant that he now had three types of E rooms split into five different versions. He labelled them E1.1-1.5, E2.1-2.5 and E3.1-3.5, with the .1 rooms being the original three, and the rest being the new rooms. All the E1 rooms featured the theme of almost entirely land, next to no water. E1.1 was re-structured slightly, so that it became a true barren wasteland with next to no humidity in the air, and hard, rocky terrain to deal with. E1.2 was made into a Desert-style room, with sand dunes rippling across its surface. 1.3 became a slight exception to the water rule, in that it was Arctic-themed. All snow and ice over the entire floor, with no liquid water in sight. 1.4 was set up to be Jungle/Rainforest-themed in the future, with plenty of fertile soil for future plant-life and a nice, warm, and humid environment to support plant-life. Finally, 1.5 was made¡­. ordinary. The temperature was average, the humidity was average, the soil, although fertile and capable of supporting plant-life, was not to the same level as that of 1.4. Basically, the entire room was destined for normalcy. It was also completely flat. The E2 rooms were themed to be half-water, half-land. E2.1 naturally remained the same, filling in the normalcy role. 2.2 became a Desert-Oasis-themed room, with a little fertile soil around the central oasis for future plant growth. 2.3 was turned into the Arctic room, with an area of water filled with minerals that prevented it from freezing. The room was designed so that there was a cut-off line between the ¡®land¡¯ and the water running straight through the centre in a straight line, just for the heck of it. 2.4 became the future Jungle/Rainforest, and was styled similarly to 2.1, save for the island being made entirely of very fertile soil. Finally, 2.5 became the Barren room, with a central pond/lake. The E3 rooms were all filled to the brim with water, and all featured various stone pillars and mounds. E3.1 remained practically identical, acting also as the normalcy room. 3.2 became a Boiling room of sorts, with the temperature raised just to the point of water boiling. A slightly complex tunnel system had to be connected to the room because of this, funnelling the water vapour produced at the top through a series of cooling tunnels before reconnecting to the room at its base. 3.3 became the Arctic room, cooled to the point of water freezing, with the water naturally being filled with the same natural anti-freeze used in E2.3. What¡¯s more, the pillars were made of ice instead of stone, and connected to the ceiling. E3.4 was set to a lukewarm temperature and filled with a variety of minerals, in both the water and the earth within the room that, according to Arcius¡¯ research, should inevitably promote the growth of a large variety of water-based plant-life types. Finally, lacking the same kind of Barren room option for a water-filled room, he instead made 3.5 into a pseudo-cave system that technically counted as a room, replacing the pillars and mounds. He also installed Light Stones in all the rooms, setting them all to mimic the day-night cycle outside, although the E3 rooms were given a reduced light level, to simulate being relatively deep underwater, although only to about the point of a third the level of light as normal. The remaining Mana he had was used to create another 6887 rooms, increasing his Mana Capacity to 424860, and his Regen to 85515/year. The second significant Dungeon-related event came about from those Stones, which is the development of two new species, Cyanobacteria and Cyanocoral, making the list as such:This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Species Rank Species Name
1. Infirmanacoral
2. Cyanocoral
3. Infirmanabacteria
4. Cyanobacteria
5. Thermocoral
6. Thermobacteria
7. Prokaryotic Cells
As expected, they evolved to make use of the newly provided ¡®sunlight¡¯. Besides all of that, nothing much changed in the Dungeon at this point. On a non-Dungeon note, however, Arcius had encountered Aisha again after making the new E rooms. They talked some more, this time over a game of Lilti, and Raeshian version of chess (imagine normal chess, but on a 100x100 board, and 15 unique piece types). For the record, they played 17 games, with Aisha winning nine, including the last, and Arcius winning eight. By the end, it wouldn¡¯t be false to say they were friends, although not really to the point of being close, at least not yet. They were both fairly similar, equally seeking out knowledge. However, the how and why were different. Whereas Arcius desires to know as much as he can, and actively researches and experiments in order to find out, Aisha prefers to record that which is already known, and preserve it so that others may learn. It would be accurate to describe Aisha as a Keeper of knowledge, and Arcius as a Seeker of knowledge. After that final 30 year sleep, during which the Cyanobacteria and Cyanocoral had developed, Arcius found himself back in the Dungeon, activating the Magmatic Seal. To call the process anti-climactic would be accurate, as there wasn¡¯t anything flashy or mystical that occurred, just the runes glowing faintly as Mana flowed through them. Probably the flashiest thing about the system was the sheer amount of Mana that was used, totalling 1.5 million Mana, gathered entirely within the Mana Gathering Enchantment. While this might seem like the Enchantment was incredibly useful, especially with its low Mana cost for production, the Mana it gathered could only be used in enchantments that contained runes, so it was fairly useless for most things Arcius needed at the moment. Far more significant, if less flashy, was the influx of information streamed right into his mind. It was enough to leave him stunned for a few hours as he sorted the info out in his mind. Basically, he now had complete control of the magma within the Mantle beneath his Dungeon. So the first, and currently only, thing he did was to prevent the build-up that was threatening his Dungeon. He didn¡¯t particularly care if it happened elsewhere, but not at his Dungeon. Although he could have used it to make himself an island, something he was going to do eventually, he chose not to do so quite yet. It was one thing if he managed to make a new island in the mid- to late-game, it was entirely another if he did so at the early-game. It would inspire jealousy, as well as greed, and would doubtlessly lead to conflicts he didn¡¯t want or need. So he refrained for now, and turned back to his Dungeon while observing his status, wandering what he would do now.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 425460/425460
Mana Regen: 85605/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 11199
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 7
Dominant Species: Infirmanacoral
Number of Bosses: 0
Chapter 9 Chapter 9 Honestly, here wasn¡¯t much to do now, with the excitement of the Seal preparations being over. In fact, with his E rooms all set up, he actually benefitted more from doing nothing at the moment, then from working anymore on the Dungeon. So, he decided to leave the Dungeon to its own devices for 300 years. That should be more than enough time for a couple millennia of evolution to occur, maybe even more, he wasn¡¯t entirely certain of the exact multiplier Mana concentration provided to the process. Of course, he wasn¡¯t simply sleeping away those three centuries. He periodically left to do other things, ranging from talking with Aisha, to playing games and relaxing, to exploring other worlds. It was after 153 years, however, that he first stepped into the Arena. He was matching up against Green, the Treeant he met when he first visited the exercise and conflict area. They had spoken a couple of times since then, and both had become curious about the other¡¯s magic. It turns out that Treeants, alongside all the other plant races of Green¡¯s home segment, were specialists in Life Magic, and most couldn¡¯t use other attributes. Green was what the Treeants called a World Tree, meaning he was born with the ability to utilise all of The Four Elements on top of the Life Magic of his race. Naturally, his fine control in each was somewhat reduced, but his overall power was still vast. With Arcius being a Great Mage, someone trained and specialized in using all types of magic besides Arcane Magic and Divine Magic, his personal control in each attribute was diminished more than Green¡¯s, but he held great power over all of them. What¡¯s more, the methods they each possessed of using magic were different. All creatures that used magic within Arcius¡¯ home segment, regardless of whether or not they were Magicians or Cultivators, did so through what was essentially an act of will, with chants and other actions used solely to aid concentration when using a spell. Of course, there was more to it than that, but that was the basics of it. The plant races of Green¡¯s home segment, on the other hand, did so through runes. Using magic concentrated in their fingers (or equivalent appendage) they would draw runes which would then automatically cast magic. Magic power for the plant races was therefore more dependent on the speed at which they could draw runes, as well as the amount of runes they knew, than it was about the amount of Mana they possessed, and their understanding of the attributes they wielded. They were both interested to see how their individual methods of using magic compared, and chose to duel each other to find out. They chose Arena 3, and set it to Private so that they wouldn¡¯t be disturbed. Then they were facing one another, in the centre of the Arena. No words, they began. Arcius took the first move, casting Phantom Shroud, and disappearing from sight while he moved back and to the right. Green responded by drawing three runes with the fingers of his right hand, casting some kind of lightning spell, sending a massive bolt at the place he once stood. That, however, wasn¡¯t the end of the spell, as smaller bolts blasted outwards from the point of impact. Arcius avoided these by casting Swift-Feet, a Wind spell that tripled his speed, allowing him to get out of the spell¡¯s blast radius before one of the randomly striking bolts could hit him. He then retaliated by casting the Death spell Path of Decay, sending a bolt of back-green fire at Green, only for the flames to dissipate against the barrier of Life magic set up by Green¡¯s left hand, though the barrier was destroyed in the process. Another rune from Green caused spikes of obsidian to suddenly shoot out from the ground along the path of Arcius¡¯ spell. A good strategy, but Arcius wasn¡¯t there anymore. He used Flash Step to move instantaneously behind Green, while his Phantom Shroud covered the normal flash of light that would accompany it, and then cast Field of Suffering, a Death magic that continuously brought excruciating agony to anyone within it, even the caster. Green dismissed this with a rune he had drawn, not with his fingers, but with a toe on his left foot, creating a field spell of healing with his Life magic that countered the Death magic, followed by a Water spell that caused hundreds of ice shards to simultaneously form and shoot outwards around Green, one of which impact Arcius¡¯ left thigh, piercing deeply and rendering Phantom Shroud useless, so Arcius dismissed it and threw out a Steam Blade, slicing right through Greens left arm, separating it from his body and causing him to yell in pain. Arcius then backed off several feet and cast a Rebirth spell, combining Life and Death magic to create an Anti-Healing Pulse, negating his and Green¡¯s ability to heal any of the damage they had just taken, while simultaneously morphing the ice shard in his thigh to cut his leg off. He quickly cast another Water spell, creating a motion capable replica of his own leg out of ice. Green didn¡¯t even attempt a healing spell, he just used several runes to form a segmented whip out of stone and vines, and attached it to the stump of his arm. The whip then lashed out at Arcius forcing him to block it with an Earth Wall, only for Green to turn that Wall into spikes that launched at him. Jumping backwards, Arcius noticed that the length of Green¡¯s whip was only 10 feet, so he had already left its range. It was then he noticed something else: Green hadn¡¯t moved a single bloody step! Throughout the entirety of this fight, Green had remained in the exact same spot. Arcius wondered, Is this some kind of requirement of his runes? So he decided to test this, with a Titanic Gust, to try and knock Green from his spot. Sure enough, instead of dodging or moving with the spell, Green cast several runes to try and negate it, and when those failed to block the Gust (despite its appearance and misleading name, it was actually an Earth spell that manipulated gravity massively on a large part of the air) he then slammed his arm and whip into the ground, to root himself in place and outlast the spell, although his whip was ripped off in the process. Arcius pondered this for a moment, and then realised that the runes must need to be very specific about the coordinates of their affects in relation to the caster. If he moved, Green would have to recalculate the positions of his attacks, which would leave him wide open. Realising his weakness had probably been found out, Green drew multiple runes with his remaining hand and the toes of his left foot, and cast a variety of AOE spells that blasted out fire, ice, stone and wind all around the Arena. But Arcius wasn¡¯t at any of the blast sites, having used Flash Step again to send himself into the air above Green, while simultaneously casting several Discs of Weight beneath his feet aiming downwards, causing everything below him to be gravitationally attracted upwards at a sudden instant and with massive force, pulling Green from the floor before he could retaliate, while Arcius turned his ice leg into a blade, and slammed it into Greens head as he rocketed upwards, piercing straight through it, and wiping out the collection of nervous tissue that served as the Treeant equivalent to a brain. The fight ended at that, with Green vanishing, no doubt teleported to his room, while Arcius¡¯ ice leg also vanished, replaced with his actual leg, complete, conveniently enough, with undamaged clothing. Standing upright for only a moment, Arcius then allowed himself to collapse backwards onto the ground, utterly exhausted. Disc of Weight was a top-tier Earth spell, and, without using a chant to help guide the process, used a lot of energy, both physical and Mana, to cast just one, and he¡¯d cast seven! Coupled with directly morphing his ice leg into a blade, instead of guiding the process with a spell, this meant that, had that last attack not succeeded, he would have been a sitting duck for at least an hour, more than enough time to kill him. After said hour had finally passed, he managed to get up, leave, and meet with Green in the central common area, to discuss the fight, although neither really had any advice to give the other. The runes system was something Arcius could use, but was overall less reliable than normal magic, as it required the caster remain stationary to accurately cast spells with a significant amount of power. The style of magic Arcius used, on the other hand, couldn¡¯t be wielded by Treeants like Green because they lack the kind of nervous system that would allow them to use it. Other than that event, nothing much occurred for the next 147 years, except for one occurrence. He had acquired seven new species within his Dungeon, three of which were primordial forms of moss, algae, and surprisingly a fungus. The other four, though, were much more interesting. One of them was an early form of grass, and it had evolved, not from the Cyanocoral, or the plants, but from the Thermocoral and Thermobacteria, creating a near-black red grass called Cinderblade Grass, that, much like its ancestors, used thermal energy instead of sunlight, and was similarly weak to water.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! As such, it started growing in E1.1 and E2.5 with relative ease, as well as a small amount in E1.5 and E2.1, although the greater humidity of those two rooms meant they were far from common. The other three though, one in E1.1, another in E2.1, and the third in E3.1, were far more significant to Arcius¡¯ plans. They were all Origins. Origins were the first step on any world life develops on naturally, the common ancestor from which most life forms would develop. All of their descendants would share many of their physical traits, such as the number of limbs they possess, or where the organs are located. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, but mostly they were all the same. The Origin in E1.1 was somewhat like an amphibian, needing to be in the water at times to moisturise its outer layer, and prevent it from drying out. Interestingly, its outer layer consisted of thin, soft, flexible scales, as opposed to flesh, and it was herbivorous, living off of the Cinderblade Grass in the room. Naturally, as an Origin, it wasn¡¯t too complex, but it was enough. It possessed no legs to propel itself on land, but instead was like a snake for the most part. It had two sets of movable fins, one set was halfway down the body, the other just behind the sides of its very basic head, which was shaped like a shunt, with the joining edge lying horizontally, and a vertical mouth, as opposed to the more commonly seen horizontal one, which was like a primordial beak, consisting of no lips or teeth, just two blunt bone ridges that did the job instead. The thing had no way of smelling anything, but had some very basic ¡®sensors¡¯ for sight and sound, which would doubtlessly evolve into eyes and ears at some point. What was interesting about the ¡®eyes¡¯ is that they seemed to be designed to see thermal only, rather than the visual spectrum. This actually helped them distinguish the Cinderblade Grass from the Thermocoral, because the Cinderblade Grass is actually colder than the coral. A very useful adaptation, because it seems as though Thermocoral is not edible for them. They were also about as long as a finger, so not too big. Arcius chose to name them Primagin (Primary Origin) as they evolved in the E1 section. The Origin in E2.1 was a tiny fish, no bigger than a finger nail. They had a fairly typical fish appearance, except instead of the two sets of movable fins a fish normally has, they had one, located about midway down their body. They fed off of the algae in the water, as well as the moss and the fungus that grew on the edges of the island, and, most unfortunately, each other. They were cannibalistic, and seemingly also very territorial. They did not require meat to survive, clearly, but they would kill and eat any other member of their kind who entered their vicinity. The only reason they were still alive was because of an unusual quirk in their biology. It seems, not only were they capable of having thousands of offspring at any point, they were also hermaphrodites, and entered a sort of breeding frenzy once every two or three weeks. Of course, they didn¡¯t really care for the offspring all that much, and would happily eat them as well. Arcius chose to name these ones Secugin (Secondary Origin) The Origin in E3.1 was the largest, a little over twice the length of a Primagin, although it was very thin. It was a pure herbivore, feeding off the algae and, interestingly enough, Infirmanacoral. It had a total of three sets of movable fins. Two were located a little behind the head, one set above the other, rather than to the side, and were very long. When moved out from the body as far as they would go, they formed a sort of X-shape behind the head, and seemed to be used for controlling direction and ¡®braking¡¯. The other set was locate about three quarters of the way down the body, and were about half the size of the others, although they were wider and thicker, and seemed to be used for propulsion specifically. It¡¯s ¡®mouth¡¯ was probably the most interesting thing, as it was more of an opening, and little else. It seemed to eat by scooping up the algae and Infirmanacoral and then just swallowing. Naturally, following the pattern, he named them Tertiagin (Tertiary Origin). All three seemed to primarily use a primordial version of gills to breathe, although the Primagin version could also passively absorb oxygen from the air, so long as they gulped it in and kept moving. Looking over the environments all three could live in, Arcius decided to move some of each into other environments, some very suitable, others not so much. The Primagin were spread out to E2.5, an environment that was actually slightly better suited to them, as it had a larger amount of water for them to live in. They were also moved to E1.5, which wasn¡¯t perfect, as it was colder than they would genetically prefer, but did have sufficient Cinderblade Grass for them to survive on. He would have spread them to a less suitable habitat as well, but the only other room with Cinderblade Grass, the Primagin¡¯s food source, was E2.1, and Arcius decided early on that he wasn¡¯t going to put any of the Origins in another Origin¡¯s ¡®spawn point¡¯, where they first developed. He spread the Secugin further, as their food sources were both more common and more varied. He chose not to put them in E1.5 with the local Primagin, because there was so little water for them both to live in, that chances are the Secugin would first devour the Primagin, and then themselves as they simply wouldn¡¯t be spread out enough. A similar reason kept him from putting them in the other E1 rooms. However, he did put them in E2.5, alongside that local Primagin population, as there was more than enough space for both, even with the Secugin¡¯s territorial nature, as well as 2.4 and 2.2, as although they were hotter environments then the Secugin were used to, they were capable of surviving them. They were similarly placed in E3.4 and 3.5 for the same reason, although E3.2 was too hot for them. The Tertiagin were only able to be placed in the ¡®Arctic¡¯ rooms, E3.3 and E2.3, and would have been put in E1.3 as well, if there were any water for them to live in. The other environments were too hot for them, and the one time Arcius attempted to move them to the slightly warmer E3.4, they died very shortly after. Of course, these environments were now too small after the end of his 300 year break, and would only be detrimental to his creatures¡¯ development if they only had these, so he spent a couple decades re-designing his Dungeon. The number of rooms remained the same, but their environments changed. With the exception of the rooms containing the Mana Gathering and Magmatic Seal Enchantments, the others were all split evenly and modified to match the 15 E room versions, E1.1-1.5, E2.1-2.5, and E3.1-3.5. These themed rooms were also divided from those of other themes, with a voided environment placed in the connecting tunnels, essentially preventing any living theme from crossing to the other themes. He included each room of the same theme in the same designation, with the original E room of that theme gaining and an ¡®A¡¯ modifier. For example, the rooms themed on E1.1 were referred to as E1.1, but the original E1.1 was now called E1.1A although E1.1 was used when referring to all of the E1.1 rooms and the E1.1A room at the same time. After he did this, he quickly looked at his species list, and tried, and succeeded, to alter it, making it display the rooms the species were in as well as their name and rank.
Species Rank Species Name Rooms
1. Secugin E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, E3.4, E3.5
2. Primagin E1.1, E1.5, E2.5
3. Tertiagin E3.1, E2.3, E3.3
4. Primordial Algae E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
5. Primordial Moss E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5
6. Cinderblade Grass E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5
7. Primordial Fungus E1.5, E2.1
8. Infirmanacoral E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
9. Cyanocoral E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
10. Infirmanabacteria E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
11. Cyanobacteria E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.2, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
12. Thermocoral E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5
13. Thermobacteria E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5
14. Prokaryotic Cells E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.2, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
Having done all of this, Arcius now looked over his status, and again considered what to do.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 425460/425460
Mana Regen: 85605/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 11199
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 14
Dominant Species: Secugin
Number of Bosses: 0
NAC - Additional Story Announcment So, as some of my readers are well aware, I had some issues a couple of times that prevented me from releasing a chapter on shedule. However, I have good news, such issues should no longer occur. Things at home have stabalised somewhat, so the only missed chapters will be due to special circumstances, such as a writier''s block moment that prevetns me from writing the chapter on time, although those shouldn''t be too common. Now that my shedule is more freed up, as a result of the stabilising, I have decided to start writing an additional story. Unlike The Dungeon Gods, which releases every Thursday, my latest story will release every Sunday. Currently, said story is named World Keeper AU, although the title will be changed once I''ve come up with something better (yes, I will accept suggestions for the new name. In fact, I''m begging you guys, please heeeeelp!). The story is set as an alternate version of the World Keeperstory created by Justin Miller, AKA karami92, here on RRL, and has been made with his permission.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Please, if you''re into these stories, do give them a go, and I hope you enjoy. -Keeward Chapter 10 Chapter 10 Thinking things over, Arcius decided to sleep for a few years, in order to let the inter-relations between his new species develop. Then, he looked over the enchantments and inscriptions he had learnt in his past life. There were many, ranging from simple AOE buffs and de-buffs to grand enchantments that could render entire nations nigh-indestructible to magical effects. Of course, the latter cost an obscene amount of power, all things considered, more so than even the Magmatic Seal. The Seal was great, but not only were its manipulative abilities restricted to a single element (Earth), they were restricted to a single part of that element (Magma), and they took a great amount of time and effort to use. As he was looking over them all, he found a few that caught his eye. There was the Territorial Guard enchantment, one bound to living things, that drove them to defend an area, as well as the Fields of Grand Strength and Suffering, which cast a large area strength buff and damaging de-buff respectively, and a few more. He chose to pause his deliberations for a moment to look at his creatures. The Tertiagin remained mostly the same, especially as they had no other creatures to deal with yet, being the only animals able to survive the cold rooms they occupy. The only real change to happen to them is that the combination of minerals present in E2.3 and E3.3 seemed to boost both their fertility and their aggressiveness. They weren¡¯t actively hunting and eating each other like the Secugin, and were breeding more regularly. Instead, they were more¡­ hot-headed. In E3.1, one Tertiagin stealing another¡¯s food just before it can eat causes annoyance in the ¡®victim¡¯, but nothing really comes of it. In fact, with their current level of development, the ¡®victim¡¯ soon forgets they were ever slighted. In E2.3 and E3.3, however, even if the ¡®victim¡¯ forgets why they are trying to attack the Tertiagin that stole from them, they still rush at it violently, trying eagerly to harm, but, strangely enough, not to kill. It seems even in this angered state they retain enough of their natural instincts and predisposition to avoid actually slaughtering the other Tertiagin. But, to sum it all up, they were more prone to aggressive, albeit non-fatal, responses and over-reactions. The Primagin and Secugin in E2.5, on the other hand, had a more interesting development. Their other newfound homes were moved into without issue, but here, two species overlapped one another. The Secugin held pretty much total dominion over the deeper waters, so long as they were as far as possible from the shoreline. The Primagin, on the other hand, were the rulers of the shallows nearer to the shores. This was probably because the Primagin¡¯s only food source grew on land, rather than in the water, meaning they had little reason to venture to the deeper waters. The Secugin, on the other hand, have no food on land, but plenty in the water. The result, was a status quo in which the Primagin and Secugin kept to the shallows and deeps respectively, and had little interaction with one another outside of the Secugin breeding season. Interestingly enough, the Secugin actually provide no real threat to the Primagin. The bodies of the Secugin were so weak that a casual flick of a Primagin¡¯s fin would kill them. Similarly, the scales of a Primagin were actually too tough to be bitten into by the Secugin. Their ¡®eyes¡¯ were weak points, but any time a Secugin tried to go for the eyes, it found out that the Primagin weren¡¯t any slower than them when the beak suddenly closed around them, ending their existence in an instance.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Sometimes the Primagin didn¡¯t even use their beaks, instead just flicking their head to the side, again killing the Secugin in an instant. In fact, the only real reasons the Primagin didn¡¯t live in the centre was due to youth safety as well as happiness. From the looks of things, whenever a Secugin happens to encounter and attack a Primagin, the Primagin is not really damaged in anyway by the bites, but they seem to be at least irritating to endure. Also, from the one incident, that Arcius saw, where a ¡®young¡¯ Primagin left the shallows for the deeps, it would seem that the scales of that youngling were not yet developed enough to withstand the Secugin. Primagin grow quickly, easily reaching maturity within a month, and live for about five times that long from birth to death. They also instinctually keep to the shallows while young, rarely venturing any deeper than that area before reaching maturity. Hence why the young tend to stay in the shallows as well. Also, of course, the Secugin breeding rate meant that, naturally, there was a pretty much limitless supply of them, so no real threat of Secugin dying off entirely, meaning that the constant irritations from entering the deep water, is pretty much there to stay. Following a similar vein, the only reasons the Secugin don¡¯t also live in the shallows are, first, because there are too many Primagin concentrated in the same are in the shallows, meaning that the Secugin kind of just die by accident whenever they g there, and second, despite the swarm of younglings produced in the Secugin breeding season, the teeth of the younglings are unable to harm the younglings of the Primagin, which is why the Primagin¡¯s younglings don¡¯t all die off every breeding season. Looking over these interactions, as well as the innate aggressiveness of the Secugin against their own kind, actually made Arcius worry for the future. If they fought against each other so much, how would they be able to deal with an invader? Sure that was a long way off, but when it inevitably happens, if his creature are fighting and killing themselves, they will be less effective at fighting off the invader. That¡¯s when it struck him. He had the perfect way to solve his problem. He turned to the Territorial Guard enchantment, and altered it, creating a new enchantment he chose to name the Eternal Duty. This enchantment would provide an innate connection between all lifeforms that it influences, causing them to case any hostility with each other upon its activation, and make them instead turn hostile towards anything that was not under the influence of the enchantment. He made it so that it would trigger when he sent a specific Mana code into the enchantment, and then spent almost all of his Mana carving the runes of the enchantment, not into the walls or the floor, but into the very DNA of every lifeform in his Dungeon. He made the Eternal Duty, not simply an enchantment in a room, but a part of the genetic code of every lifeform ¨C plant of animal ¨C within the Dungeon. This would ensure that not only did he not have to maintain the enchantment, and cycle it every century or so, but it would also forever be a part of them, even when they left the Dungeon, meaning they would still come to one another¡¯s aid in the event that he called for it. He tested it shortly after implementation. It worked beautifully. The violent versions of the Tertiagin stopped any hostilities. The Secugin stopped eating themselves. And, the Primagin and Secugin stopped fighting one another. Of course this all ended when he sent the signal to de-activate the Duty, but this was still great work. Arcius looked into his Dungeon, excitedly waiting to see what new developments would come about from all of this. Chapter 11 Chapter 11 Arcius decided to give things a century to develop further, but not before adding another 14,182 rooms for his Dungeon, to increase the space to use, adding them equally to the different E rooms groups. This boosted his stats as such.
Dungeon God: Arcius
Dungeon Name:
Mana Capacity: 1134560/1134560
Mana Regen: 191970/year
Faith Capacity: 0/0
Faith Regen: 0/year
Number of Entrances: 1
Number of Rooms: 25381
Number of Floors: 1
Number of Species: 14
Dominant Species: Secugin
Number of Bosses: 0
After doing so, he left to meet up with Aisha, for a game of normal chess this time. Things went as normal, for the most part, with the two of them discussing current events within their respective Dungeons. Although the two had become fairly decent friends, neither was willing as of yet to fully disclose what they were doing, but they did discuss some of the unusual creations within their Dungeons, as well as issues they had each had. Apparently, Aisha¡¯s most dominant creation at this time was, strangely enough, a micro-organism. It had evolved on accident within the Dungeon to become a sort of cross between a bacteria and a virus, possessing the more mobile features of bacteria, but the reproductive mechanisms of viruses, although both were enhanced as well. These Micro Devourers, as Aisha had named them, were able to rapidly move ¨C individually ¨C from one end of her Dungeon to another in less than a week, a shocking speed considering the fact that a) they¡¯re micro-organisms, and b) Aisha¡¯s Dungeon was at minimum 1.5 times as big as Arcius¡¯.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. What¡¯s more, like how a virus infects a host¡¯s cells, turning them into ¡®breeding factories¡¯ to produce more of itself, the Devourers did the same on a larger scale, and even did so to each other. This actually wiped out most forms of complex life within her Dungeon, although it had created an evolutionary arms race between the Devourers and a type of hyper-regenerative and rapid-breeding fungus within her Dungeon. The result, was that most of her remaining complex lifeforms were teetering on the edge of extinction, save for that species of fungus, which she had named Ever-shrooms due to their tenacity. These Ever-shrooms had thrived, and were basically the only reason those other complex lifeforms were still around, as they were all herbivores that fed off the fungus. Although this development did mean Aisha¡¯s Dungeon was going to be much harder to invade in the future, it also hindered the ability of her Dungeon to produce sentient species. When Arcius expressed his concern on the matter, however, Aisha surprisingly dismissed the matter by saying, ¡°Truth be told, Arcius, I¡¯m not actually aiming to be a Racial God.¡± This surprised Arcius, ¡°Really? I¡¯d have thought everyone would aim for it. I mean, it is one of the more powerful Authorities.¡± Aisha chuckled at this, ¡°It¡¯s true that on the surface it looks like the best position for a hopeful God, but when you think about it, it has a surprising number of drawbacks. First, being a Racial God means you¡¯re basically damned to inter-deity politics. Oh, maybe you won¡¯t have to solve issues between Elemental Gods or Political Gods, but you will have to do a lot of negotiating to use the other Gods to benefit your species in some way. After all, while a Racial God does have the authority to order other Gods to aid his people, doing so rashly and without consideration for the wants and desires of the other Gods does nothing more than paint a target on their back, plus the other Gods only have to obey the letter of his demands, not the spirit. Therefore, if the Racial God wants the aid done right, and without making him and enemy to all other Gods, he needs to negotiate, which inevitably drags him into politics.¡± Arcius wrinkled his brow at that, ¡°I¡¯ll admit, I didn¡¯t think of that.¡± Aisha smiled, ¡°I doubt anyone did. I also doubt anyone realised the second problem with being a Racial God: work! As a Racial God, you are, essentially, responsible for an entire species. Sure you can interact with them very rarely, and allow them to develop on their own, but if you want them to go down a specific path, that means putting in a lot of time and effort. This is especially true if you want to significantly impact culture, as that requires decades, if not centuries of constant work to guarantee that they develop the way you want them to.¡± He nodded, ¡°That all makes a lot of sense. Still, I think I¡¯ll stick to this path. It¡¯s pretty damn hard to study all the intricacies of evolution, and to test it in its entirety, without watching a sentient species develop from an Origin. Now that I have the opportunity to do so, I¡¯m damn well not gonna miss this chance if I can help it. Guess I¡¯ll just have to try and avoid needing the help of other Gods.¡± She smirked at that thought, ¡°Good luck with that.¡± ¡°So then, Aisha, if you aren¡¯t trying to get the [Race] Authority, which one are you after.¡± ¡°[Knowledge].¡± ¡°[Knowledge]?¡± She nodded, ¡°Yep, I¡¯m looking to become a Scholar God. See, my goal isn¡¯t so much to experiment with new things, or to understand profound concepts. Such things would probably make me a God of Evolution with the new things available to us to experiment with, or an Enlightened God on the other hand. No, I just want to know everything I can.¡± Arcius arched an eyebrow at that, ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± Aisha smiled and nodded again, ¡°Pretty much. Ever since my helper told me I could create books from my home segment, I¡¯ve been studying in a Library I created in my Dungeon every time I can. Turns out, so long as you keep it separate from the rest of your Dungeon and the world, something like that can actually be made for free in a separate ¡®micro-realm¡¯ although it does cost a fairly big Mana cost for upkeep. Plus, if you try to take one of those books out of the ¡®micro-realm¡¯ it costs a lot of Mana, more so than anyone would really want to spend now.¡± ¡°Huh, that is very interesting. I might see about making something like that myself.¡± After that, they played several more matches of chess. Arcius actually came out as the overall winner, beating Aisha at 11 of their 17 matches. They said their goodbyes, and then returned to their homes. After sleeping a century, as he intended, he returned to his Dungeon, eager to see how things have progressed once more. Chapter 12 Chapter 12 When Arcius returned to his Dungeon he was pleasantly surprised by the development of his various species. He actually had eight new species, seven of which developed from his Origins, and the eighth came about from the Cyanocoral. Said eighth was known as Primordial Plant, a very apt description as they couldn¡¯t really be labelled as a specific plant type, unlike Cinderblade Grass or the other Primordials he already possessed. These Plants were thin, green, stick-like entities with yellow-green orbs at various intervals, such as when the shaft splits into two, or bend in another direction, as well as on the ends. Interestingly, although not surprisingly, it had evolved to handle rooms of a more average temperature, although it could survive an increase or a decrease to a certain level. As such, it was found in rooms E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, and E2.4. When it comes to the other seven, however, two evolved from the Primagin, two from the Secugin, and three from the Tertiagin. From the Primagin, there were, as he came to call them, the Prima-Biter and Primer-Grazer. These two laid down the foundation for more typical carnivores and herbivores. The Prima-Biter had evolved from the interactions with one of the new Secugin species, and had become completely carnivorous, barring a small amount of plant matter, roughly 6% of its total intake. The Biter was about the same size and shape as a Primagin, with its main distinguishing features being more developed fins and musculature, improved thermal vision, and a very, very sharp beak. In fact, it was more of a blade at this point. It seemed to hunt primarily by dashing in and slicing its prey with its blade beak, before dashing away again. Rinse, repeat, and eventually, it would probably die. Because of its meat diet, it could be found in rooms E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, and E3.4. The Grazer, as its name suggests, was an herbivore through and through. But unlike the Primagin, it wasn¡¯t restricted to Cinderblade Grass, and was able to devour the Primordial Algae, Moss, Fungus, and Plants on top of said Grass. It was about 1.5 times the size of a Primagin, and also had evolved to need to spend about half as long in water in order to moisturise its scales. Other than that, nothing else much changed between it and the Primagin, and it could be found in rooms E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.2, E2.4, and E2.5. From the Secugin, came the Giga-Secugin and Thermo-Secugin. The Giga-Secugin, as their name suggests, were essentially just larger Secugin, possessing many of the same habits and characteristics as well, although their mating season came every 4-5 weeks, and they didn¡¯t have quite as many offspring, although the difference was hardly significant. They had also lost some of their heat tolerance, but in turn had gained some cold tolerance. Interestingly, it was actually a younger, less distinct version of the Giga-Secugin whose interactions with Primagin had led to the development of the Prima-Biters, which happily tried to feed off of them as well, although the success of such action varied. They were found in rooms E2.1, E2.3, E2.4, E3.3, and E3.4. The Thermo-Secugin were potentially the most interesting evolution, as they were an evolutionary path that Arcius hadn¡¯t even considered. It turns out that the Primagin returning from the surface to the water in their rooms would knock a decent amount of Thermocoral into the water. Not large enough to put the Thermocoral species at risk, but still a large amount. In E2.5, where Primagin and Secugin could both be found, the Thermocoral that fell into the waters, during the brief periods before they died and were destroyed by the surrounding water, had quickly become something akin to a delicacy to the Secugin, containing many of the nutrients they need to survive. During these semi-frequent feasts, at some point in time, some of the Thermobacteria, which was dragged along with the Thermocoral, as well as remnants of the Thermocoral, combined with the cells of the Secugin, in much the same way as mitochondria became a part of animal cells. This led to the creation of the Thermo-Secugin, which was actually capable of performing the same Thermosynthesis as the Thermobacteria and Thermocoral, although it naturally needed more than that to survive. A side effect of this development was that Thermo-Secugin were the same near-black red colour as the Cinderblade Grass, although its other physical characteristics were the same as a normal Secugin. In fact, it would not be too surprising if the Thermo-Secugin eventually replaced the Secugin completely, although it was a bit off of that at the moment. It could be found in rooms E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, E3.2, E3.4, and E3.5. From the Tertiagin, came the Micro-Tertiagin, Tertia-Leech, and Tertia-Drifter. Micro-Tertiagin were, as the name suggests, smaller Tertiagin, approximately a third the size of a normal Tertiagin, which actually made them smaller than the Primagin, but bigger than the Secugin. Nothing else really changed about them, save that they were no longer as cold-adapted as they once were, but could now survive in warmer climates, hence why they could be found in E2.4, E3.1, E3.4, and E3.5. The Leeches were very interesting, as they had evolved a double-row of razor sharp, saw-like teeth that ringed their ¡®mouths¡¯. They were technically carnivorous, although it was more accurate to call them blood-suckers. They ate meat as well, but their main course was blood. They fed by latching onto their prey with their inner row of teeth, and then spinning, allowing their saw-teeth to cut into the circle of flesh they had latched onto until said circle came away from the body, promptly being devoured by the Leeches. They remained latched on using their second, outer row of teeth after the flesh comes away, and then would drink the blood coming out of the wound. Because the rest of their physicality was nearly identical to an ordinary Tertiagin, they could only survive in rooms E3.1, E2.3, and E3.3. Finally, the Drifter were a strange evolution at this time, as they had started down the kind of evolutionary path that would, a long, long, long, way down the road, lead to similar species to Jellyfish, They had become approximately double the size of a normal Tertiagin, although most of the growth went onto width rather than length, as the length from head to tail was only about 10% more than a normal Tertiagin.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Most of that width, though, was not added meat, or bone. It was buoyancy, a type of buoyant gel that seemed to be related to mucus, and it caused the Drifters to, as the name suggests, drift about, much like the Infirmanacoral. Tertia-Drifters rarely had children, and seemed to spend much of their lifespans in hibernation, only spending short periods in an active state. To make up for the rare breeding, though, they seemed to have evolved to produce quintuplets in 90% of case, with the remaining 10% being sextuplets or septuplets. Thanks to the fact they were more heat tolerant, but no less cold tolerant, than normal Tertiagin, they could be found in rooms E3.1, E2.3, E2.4, E3.3, E3.4, and E3.5. When Arcius looked at the Species table now, this was the result.
Species Rank Species Name Rooms
1. Giga-Secugin E2.1, E2.3, E2.4, E3.3, E3.4
2. Secugin E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, E3.4, E3.5
3. Thermo-Secugin E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, E3.2, E3.4, E3.5
4. Prima-Biter E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5, E3.4
5. Micro-Tertiagin E2.4, E3.1, E3.4, E3.5
6. Prima-Grazer E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5
7. Primagin E1.1, E1.5, E2.5
8. Tertiagin E3.1, E2.3, E3.3
9. Tertia-Leech E3.1, E2.3, E3.3
10. Tertia-Drifter E3.1, E2.3, E2.4, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
11. Primordial Algae E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
12. Primordial Plants E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.4
13. Primordial Moss E1.1, E1.2, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.4, E2.5
14. Cinderblade Grass E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5
15. Primordial Fungus E1.5, E2.1
16. Infirmanacoral E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
17. Cyanocoral E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
18. Infirmanabacteria E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
19. Cyanobacteria E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.2, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
20. Thermocoral E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5
21. Thermobacteria E1.1, E1.5, E2.1, E2.5
22. Prokaryotic Cells E1.1, E1.2, E1.3, E1.4, E1.5, E2.1, E2.2, E2.3, E2.4, E2.5, E3.1, E3.2, E3.3, E3.4, E3.5
Arcius observed their behaviours. Of all the interactions that had developed, the Secugin were the least changed, with the only alteration in their behaviour being that they avoided the Drifters like the plague. Apparently their gel was toxic to the Secugin, as well as the Giga- and Thermo-Secugin. Interestingly, the Biters and Leeches were alright with it, in fact it seemed to be more beneficial to the Leech diet than blood. The Primagin and Tertiagin were a close second when it comes to the fewest changes, as they both had to adapt to predatory versions of themselves. The Primagin had actually become slightly territorial, striving to keep the Biters away at all costs. The Tertiagin, on the other hand, were simply more aggressive, even outside of E2.3 and E3.3. The Giga-Secugin and Biters had formed a sort of predation cycle, devouring one another in rooms E2.4 and E3.4 at a near constant rate. Honestly, it wouldn¡¯t be surprising if they developed a deep, instinctive hatred of one another at this rate. The Thermo-Secugin had stayed mostly the same as the normal Secugin, however, they had come to dominate E3.2, AKA the Boiling room, as they were the only multi-cellular organism capable of surviving inside. Naturally this meant they pretty much devoured themselves exclusively, but Arcius was hard pressed to find space in the E3.2 rooms that didn¡¯t contain a few dozen Thermo-Secugin. The Prima-Biters were very aggressive, and would even assault other organisms regardless of whether or not they were hungry. However, they would not hunt, or even deliberately attack, each other. After a bit of investigation, Arcius found that this was because of their own thermal signature, which was subtly different from any other organism, including the Primagin. This difference produced an instinctive reaction that the organism possessing it was ¡®not prey¡¯, hence the lack of cannibalism or intra-species combat. The Micro-Tertiagin were one of the most prolific non-Secugin species, as well as one of the most docile, second only to the Grazers, who actually didn¡¯t fight the Biters off all that much, but would do so if young were involved, having formed the beginnings of parental instinct. The Leeches were a curious species, both as a species and from a study standpoint. When not hunting, they would constantly explore the rooms they resided in, and would rarely send long in the same area, although they seemed to instinctually remember good hunting spots. They also wouldn¡¯t hunt the Tertiagin too often, despite hunting other Leeches. This seemed to be because of a strange, almost pheromone like substance given off by Tertiagin, that convinced the Leeches that the Tertiagin were ¡®not tasty¡¯. They would hunt and eat Tertiagin at desperate times, but otherwise not at all. Truthfully, there wasn¡¯t much to say about the Drifters, as they interacted with the world around them very rarely. When they did do so, it was either to devour enough sustenance to enter hibernation again, or to breed. The most interesting thing about them was that, during their feedings, they would often leave the area they fed in devoid of plant life for a while. Having observed all of this, Arcius decided to leave the Dungeon again while he considered his next move. After all, there were only another 409 years left until the first reports would be submitted. Chapter 13 Chapter 13 After leaving his room, Arcius decided, this time, to head to an Arena on his own. You may need two or more to begin a fight, but one could use the room to train in. It had been too long since he last practiced, and even longer since he tried to experiment with magic. Entering the exercise area, Arcius noted that Arena 1 was the only vacant room, with Arena 2 occupied and Arena 3 set to Private. As such, he entered, and made his way to the centre of the participant area. Interestingly, he tried to set the door to enter the participant area to Private, something he once saw done outside of Arena 3, but found he could not. It seemed that the door was only set to Private when an actual match was taking place. When he reached the centre, he began his old training routine. First, he sat down in a crossed legged position, and began to meditate. Slowly, but surely, he opened his mind to Reality, and attempted to attune it to a specific attribute, one after another. First was Fire, the concept of thermodynamics. Electrons, positrons, plasma, heat, fire, electricity, all of it. As he contemplated Fire, Fire Mana started to cycle through his body, creating visible lines of red light that flowed into his body through the Calvaria, flowing down his body, and exiting through the Perineum, before flowing up ad around to the Calvaria again. This formed an image not unlike those of magnetic fields. Because of his level of understanding of Fire, these lines were translucent, but only slightly rough. After completing 100 cycles of Fire, he attuned his mind to Earth, the concept of foundation. Stone, pressure, strength, geomagnetism, gravity, all of it. The lines around him changed from red to brown, and starting flowing in the opposite direction. Because his understanding of Earth was greater than that of Fire, the lines were more opaque, and less rough. Next, he attuned his mind to Wind, the concept of motion. Sound, hurricanes, breezes, gusts, circular motion, kinetics, all of it. The lines became grey, and flowed in the opposite direction again. His understanding of Wind was actually weaker than that of Fire, so the lines became less visible than with Fire, and became much rougher. Finally, came Water, the concept of adaptation. Rain, snow, ice, tsunamis, softness, osmosis, diffraction, all of it. The lines became blue, and changed directions again. At this, the lines became near-totally opaque, though they were still somewhat see-through, and also lost almost all of their roughness, a sign of his great understanding of Water. Having contemplated The Four Elements, he moved on to The Opposites. He started with Light, the concept of transparency. Photons, illusions, mirrors, crystals, the photoelectric effect, all of it. The lines continued moving in the same direction, but become pure white. They became slightly rougher, but no less opaque. Then he contemplated Darkness, the concept of opacity. Dark matter, anti-photons, dark energy, secrecy, all of it. The lines changed directions, and became so black, it was as though all light in the area was being sucked into them. They became a bit rougher and more transparent. Next he moved onto the Cycle of Reincarnation, starting with Life, the concept of the beginning. Growth, change, joy, birth, all of it. The lines became a vibrant green, but stayed flowing in the same direction. They became completely smooth, but not fully opaque, symbolising his near total understanding of Life¡¯s link to Death, in other words Rebirth. Obviously, next came Death, the concept of the end. Decay, stagnation, despair, burial, all of it. The line became a sickly green, seemingly embodying the concept of the eldritch on its own, and flowed in the opposite direction to Life. Similarly, but slightly differently, to Life, they became completely opaque, but not completely smooth, again symbolising his understanding of Rebirth.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Finally, at the end of it all, came Destiny, the concept of time. Space, infinity, the finite, fate, freedom, possibility, all of it. The lines became colourless, and ceased to flow in any visible manner. They became chaotic, seemingly shattering in several areas, as though they were made of glass. They became so transparent you almost couldn¡¯t see them. This, was the result of how little Arcius truly understood about Destiny, despite his great achievements in the use of Destiny magic. Having completed the first part of his training, and thus gathered a large quantity of Mana of all attributes around him, Arcius began the next stage, he started mentally manipulating the Mana to take various shapes, starting simple, with cubes and spheres, and becoming more complex, with tori, and even multi-dimensional shapes, such as hepteracts. Each Mana-type produced its own influence on reality as it was manipulated. Fire produced heat, and had flickering flames upon its surface. Earth caused shards of stone to float around it in orbit. Wind produced soft breezes that flowed around it. Water chilled the air, and caused snow to fall from the Mana. Light, shone brightly, while Darkness seemed to suck away all light. Life produced a calming, almost happy feeling, while Death produced one of unease, and fear. Finally, Destiny caused flickering images to appear on the surface of all objects its Mana was used to make. These images were possible futures, but only a fool relied upon them to predict what may be, for they were disjointed, and often only showed the least likely event to occur. These exercises trained control, an important tool for any magician. Having finished them, Arcius now dispersed the Mana, having now spent almost a whole day training, and thus completing said training session. Most magicians would have taken longer, and trained in chants and hand signs as well, but Arcius had already progressed beyond such things, and as such didn¡¯t need to train as long. After all, chants and hand signs existed solely to help the user focus their efforts, and didn¡¯t actually improve the related spells is any way. Now Arcius decided to experiment, particularly focusing on how to use Divine Mana in a fight. He had several theories and hypotheses, but trying to put them into practice showed only how little he could do with it. Trying to mimic the effects of other attributes without converting the Divine Mana to that attribute, only resulted in Mana explosions, although a more interesting (read: terrifying and quite devastating) effect occurred when he tried to imitate Destiny Mana, that being a twisting of Reality nearby, to such a degree that it cracked open, revealing a nothingness beyond, through which, a twisting something that simply should not be emerged. It was impossible to describe, but one thing Arcius knew instinctively, was that if it so much as touched him, he would cease to be. It was fortunate, then, that a surge of Mana that Arcus could not identify swept though it and the crack, erasing them both. Note to self, Arcius thought, never experiment with Destiny Mana through Divine Mana ever again. Another hypothesis that was proven untrue was the idea of creating unique Divine-only spells, but this too proved impossible, not even producing an interesting failure effect. Instead the Divine Mana would simply dissipate and convert into other attributes. However, he did stumble upon a very useful effect. Because, as a God that could inherently utilise Divine Mana, and he could convert Mana of other attributes to Divine Mana and then back to other attributes, he found out that he could manipulate a spell that was functioning, by changing it to another attribute¡¯s version of the same spell. He couldn¡¯t manipulate what the spell was any more than usual, but its attribute could be changed. This was especially interesting with how different attributes affected things. For example, changing Titanic Gusts attribute from Earth to Wind had no real impact on the effect of the spell, but changing it to Light created an intense flash. Not very damaging, but quite disorientating. Similarly, changing Disc of Weight¡¯s attribute from Earth to Wind only created a suction towards the Disc, but changing it to Life actually sucked all life energy it was aimed at into the Disc, releasing a healing pulse upon the spell¡¯s release. This also allowed him to negate spells by converting their attributes to Divine and leaving them there, as this caused automatic dissipation. As he experimented more with this new magic, he heard the door to the participation area open up behind him. Chapter 14 Chapter 14 Curious as of who it was, Arcius turned around. Entering through the door was the male elf, followed by the female elf. They were talking about something, though Arcius could not hear it from where he stood, and they stopped once they noticed him standing at the centre. He took a quick moment to look them both over. The man was dark skinned, a sign of Noir Elf heritage, although it was a few shades lighter than average, so a Blanc Elf could probably be found in his heritage. He also had dark grey hair, a sign of Moon Elf heritage, probably one of his parents, as he lacked the distinguishing pale eyes of a full-blooded Moon Elf, for they were instead a dark brown. He also wore relatively simple clothing, the kind you would expect to see on an average, every day citizen of one of the Moon Nations. The woman was golden skinned, possessing strong Sun Elf heritage, but her hair and eyes were not the typical golden colour of a Sun Elf, instead the hair was red and the eyes were blue. The blue eyes indicated that one of her parents was a Blanc Elf, but the hair¡­ red hair is basically never seen among the elves. It¡¯s so rare that some believe the concept to be a myth, and those that do believe it is fact tend to be the crazies who rave on about demonic heritage. Arcius, however, believed it was probably a mutation of the same Sun Elf gene that produced golden hair, nothing more. Her clothing was more interesting, it was an elegant dress of golds and blues, more commonly seen among Havarashi, a clan of elves who live in seclusion on Havar. They believe that some kind of terrible demon is buried there, and it is there duty to keep it contained. They would probably also be labelled crazies, had there not been a group of five massive skeletons found strewn across five of Havar¡¯s seven continents, one so massive its ribcage was initially mistaken for a mountain range. Because of this, and other evidence, the Havarashi were reasonably popular among elves of all kinds, and because of their perpetually neutral nature to any matter outside of Havar, they were often called as mediators in disputes between elven nations. When they fully turned towards him, Arcius nodded towards the man and gave a respectful bow towards the woman, as was expected in Havarashi culture, before speaking, ¡°Hello. I¡¯m sorry for being in your way, I was just experimenting with my magic. If you wish to use the Arena, than please let me know and I will leave.¡± Their reactions were¡­ interesting. The woman¡¯s eyes had widened in surprise when he bowed, before quickly giving a return bow while he spoke, but the man had reacted differently. Or, I suppose it would be more likely to say that it had not changed since he saw Arcius. From the moment he noticed Arcius¡¯ presence, his expression had been little more than a cold, hard, glare. The woman responded, ¡°It is quite alright. These places are for everyone, so it is only natural that you might be here. We were hoping to use this area to train our own magic, so there should be no issue if you decide to stay with us.¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Arcius smiled, ¡°Thank you for the offer, I might just do that. If it¡¯s not too much to ask, may I know your names?¡± The woman again responded, though she eyed her partner curiously while doing so, ¡°Of course. I am Lilia Ahn¡¯Raysha.¡± The Ahn¡¯ prefix meant she had achieved one of the Senior ranks among the Havarashi. ¡°My companion is called Richard Halver.¡± Richard continued to remain silent, and from Lilia¡¯s continued curiosity of him, it seemed this was not usual. Richard had a problem with him, even Arcius could tell that much. Deciding that confronting this issue would be detrimental to the both of them, Arcius decided to withdraw. No point in starting anything here and now, and if it became problematic someone like Lilia would likely step in to sort things out. ¡°My name is Arcius. Truthfully, do I am curious to see how a Havarashi experiments, I should probably turn in. I have something important to do soon in my Dungeon, and rest is always recommended to maintain good productivity.¡± Lilia, it seemed, did not fall for it, but from how her curiosity of her companion¡¯s behaviour seemed to be turning to concern, she clearly understood there was an issue, and did not call Arcius out on it. Unfortunately for all involved, however, life is a democracy. And all who live are given a vote. As he moved to pass by them, Richard suddenly lashed out with a glowing fist. Arcius barely jumped out of the way of this, before a window appeared in front of him saying he had been challenged to a fight. Lilia reacted in shock, doubtlessly having received a message asking if she wanted to participate or observe. ¡°Richard! What are you doing?!¡± Richard¡¯s response was cold, direct, and addressed to Arcius, ¡°Go ahead human. Run. Like your kind always do.¡± Arcius sighed, and, to the shock of Richard, accepted the challenge. If Richard was already going to be confrontational, than he might as well get this over with now. Lilia was teleported from the Arena, likely to the observation area. Richard recovered to his own shock quickly, and made the first move. His body glowed golden, and Arcius knew he was fighting a cultivator, not a magician. Deciding to end this quickly, Arcius cast a Solar Field, filling the Arena with fire and light. It wasn¡¯t the most powerful spell one could cast with Fire and Light Mana, but it was particularly effective against those of Noir Elf heritage. Their eyes were several times more sensitive in light than most other races. Richard shrieked in pain and backed off, clutching at his eyes, while Arcius ended this. He had fought cultivators at this level before, and they had one fatal flaw. They spread out their magical defence to their entire body, weakening it, instead of focusing their power on protecting their vital spots. Case in point, Arcius¡¯ Crystal Blade, a Light and Earth combination spell, cleanly separated Richard¡¯s head from his body. Richard was teleported away, and the Solar Field was cancelled out. Arcius waited a few moments before turning to leave, when Lilia opened the door. She bowed to him, and he bowed back, before she spoke, ¡°I apologise for Richard¡¯s behaviour. In these past few centuries, I have not known him to act like that in front of anyone. I am sorry you had to deal with him.¡± Arcius waved aside her concern, ¡°It is fine, you could not have known, after all, I¡¯m the only human here. Truthfully, I had hoped to avoid such a confrontation, but whatever gripe he has with humans is far harsher than I thought.¡± She nodded with that, then smiled. ¡°So then, do you happen to have some time now for practice?¡± Arcius smiled back, ¡°I could spare a few pointers.¡± Just to make everyone aware. So, here we are again. I''m here today to apologise once more to everyone. My uncle, who used to live in the USA, is now moving here to England, and is going to be staying at my family''s home until he can get a place of his own. As such, throguhout today, yesterday, and into tomorrow, there have been a lot of preperations being done for his arrival. Becasue of this, I was unable to sort out this week''s cahpter for The Dungeon Gods, and might potentially be unable to post this week''s chapter of World Keeper AU as well, although you should assume it will be posted unless I post something like this there. Once again, I apologise for being unable to meet my own deadlines. Thank you, all of you, for reading this, and for supporting my story thus far, you rock! :)Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. An update on my status Basically, things have been busy, and I''m starting to get more work coming in, so I''m not likely to keep to my schedule for the coming weeks. I''ll try to post if I can, but if I can''t, there won''t be anything. Chapters that are posted will continue to be posted on their assigned days, that being: Thurs for The Dungeon Gods, Sun for World Keepr AU.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Thanks again for being patient with me. Filler so I can post this: afafefjiaefaihgiahgihgiahighaihgaiehgiahgieahighiaehgiahgaihiahgihgiaehgiehighdihgiahgaehiaehgieahgieahgiaehgiaehgiaehgihaegieahgiahigheaihgieahgiaehgiahigahig Chapter 15 Chapter 15 In all his time, Arcius believed he had encountered every type of person there was to find. Not even his encounters with the people of the other segments (in other words, the other Dungeon Gods) had dissuade him of this notion. Until, that is, he encountered Lilia, or to put her in other terms: A. Sane. Dreamer. To put things into perspective, a quick lesson on how magic works is required. Basically, magicians and cultivators used magic through an act of will via a unique ¡®twist¡¯ in their nervous system. This ¡®twist¡¯, commonly called the Mana Node, creates a bridge of sorts between the signals of the nervous system and the Mana in the environment (including the caster), which is also why different types of magic are easier to cast in the related environment. However, these Nodes are small, and the connection they form to the Mana is actually quite weak, hence why magic was about more than simple imagination, although that forms the basis of magic, and instead also required unhindered concentration on the spell or action taking place. For small spells, like a simple lightning bolt, very little time is taken on the act, so your concentration is only focused on that task for a short amount of time. The longer the time that the caster¡¯s magic is influencing the spell, the longer they need to concentrate on it. Phantom Shroud, for example, requires that the caster focus part of their attention constantly on the idea of the Shroud to prevent it from collapsing so long as it is used. This was also the reason so many magicians and even cultivators fell for the crutch of using ¡®casting items¡¯ such as wands, as well as hand signs and incantations for their magic, not because they are actually necessary, but because they are used as focusing tools. Casting spells and the like without the need for such things, as is the case with Arcius, is in fact a very high level technique, and usually requires a few decades of training to achieve, with Arcius only taking 17 years, only failing to beat the ¡®record¡¯ as it were by 7 months. This gives you a decent idea on magic, and how it is used. All of these rules listed above though? Dreamers break every single one of them. As was mentioned before, the limited size (and also complexity) of the Mana Nodes limits the abilities of magicians and cultivators to influence Mana. Many attempts to alter these Nodes have taken place, but all resulted in failure. The Dreamers could be considered nature¡¯s exemption, however. Their Nodes are actually located within their brains, specifically within and connecting the occipital and parietal lobes. These ¡®Dream Nodes¡¯ are far larger than Mana Nodes, and many times more complex due to their location. Because of this, Dreamers are able to effortlessly create magic via simple thoughts and ideas. ¡®Thought made manifest¡¯ is a very real concept around them: if it can be done with Mana, and they are imagining it, it will be done. Unfortunately, however, this power comes at great cost.Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Every Dreamer that Arcius has seen or heard of, save for now, has succumbed to the same fate: the complete inability to distinguish between dream and reality. To them, reality is but an illusion, and a poor one at that, and as such, they care little for the condition of that illusion. It is not uncommon, when they are found, to find Dreamers twisting entire civilizations into what are known as Dream-beasts, creatures created by the imaginations of Dreamers, which normally exist only within their minds. Dream-beasts are as such unique to every Dreamer. Most places Arcius visited had a kill-on-sight order for any Dreamer that appeared. Lilia was a notable exception to the rule of crazy however. For reasons even she herself does not know, she has managed to maintain her understanding of what is and is not real. And this in turn made her not only a truly unique individual in this universe, but also one of the most powerful, even without being a God. During their practice session, she continuously demonstrated as such, including one occasion when she actually created Earth-type Mana Gems from her power alone, a feat all but impossible to even a Dungeon God outside of their Dungeon. They proceeded to spend several hours training, including one incredibly short lived battle, in which Lilia inverted and magnified a thousand fold Arcius¡¯ Life spell Shell of Spirits, turning it into a potent Death spell that near-instantly rotted his body to dust and bones, with the bones not far behind, all too fast for his new magic negating technique to even be considered for use. Needless to say, they both quickly agreed that further sparring was fairly pointless with such a great disparity in their respective abilities. That¡¯s not to say the rest of their training was pointless, however. During their session, Arcius learnt several interesting new tricks to manipulating Mana without casting a spell. One such trick allowed him to complete a technique he had been working on for some time, but was never able to succeed at making. This technique was Mana Forging, creating weapons and armaments out of Mana without solid form. The issue he always had in the past was that a ridiculous amount of Mana was needed to forge a simple dagger, and it would dissipate shortly afterwards. However, by duplicating Lilia¡¯s method of Mana manipulation, which involved a series of fractal vortex designs coupled with a triple helix shaped current flowing throughout, then although the price was still steep, the weapon would remain until its Mana was depleted through use, rather than with time. Experimenting with this, Arcius found that different types of Mana could and indeed did produce a great variety of unusual effects. A Fire Mana sword could simply be a sword on fire, or it could simply be really, really hot (surprisingly effective). It could also initiate fission upon contact with a target if used correctly. An Earth Mana shield could simply be very, very tough, or it could increase gravity massively directly in front of it to dissipate attacks from the front. All in all, very interesting, and definitely warranting further study. As it was, Arcius and Lilia chose to end their session here, and parted on quite amicable terms, albeit with a remnant of wariness from Arcius over her status as a Dreamer. Now it was time to return to the Dungeon, and progress once more. The Long Overdue Explanation To put things quite simply, my muse up and aboandoned me when it came to writing in general. with everything I was dealing with, from increasingly greater concerns over Uni, to various other pieces of work that needed doing seeming to multiply out of nowhere, I simply couldn''t find the time or motivation to do anything with either The Dungeon Gods or World Keeper AU during term time. Couple that with my bigger holidays either starting up with important family matters, such as the spreading of my Grandparents'' ashes, or starting on the eve of quite possibly my most disastrous failings in any educational environment to date, and I, quite undersstandably in my opinion, had very different things on my mind than writing. As such, I simply stopped. As I mentioned above, there was supposed to be an announcement of this, but I sadly seem to have forgotten it amongst, well, everything else. Now however, now I am beginning the process to make my return. This announcment, being posted on both my current stories, not including the Notebook, is the first step in this, but only the first. What I am doing, is thus: I am currently expanding where I post my stories too, intending to post all my work from here on on both this site, as well as Spacebattles, a neat forum whose fictions I found comfort in during my darker time, well, the saner fictions anyway. It is my hope that in so doing I may be able to reignite the spark of my inspirations for The Dungeon Gods sooner rather than later, due to reading through it all as I post it anew. Similarly, I hope it will help me with World Keeper AU, espiecially as I feel incredibly close to a breakthrough on the rest of the story.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. I am also considering creating an Ideas thread on Spacebattles, where I would post various different snippets and concepts from a multitude of story ideas I have had over time, in the hopes that doing so may get my creative juices flowing faster. That''s basically everything, so check the post-chapter A/N for a recap of the announcement, and I hope to see all of you again soon. Cheers, and thank you all for being some of the greates readers an Author can hope for. Declaration of Death and Rebirth So, first, before anything else, I''d like to apologise for my, frankly, atrociously long absence, with minimal-to-no communication. Uni... did not go well for me. At all. I ended up with a pretty bad case of depression, though thankfully I never reached a point of needing anti-depressants ad the like, which severely negatively affected both my work at Uni - causing me to both never do anything close to well, despite Maths beign one of my best subjects, as well as to drop out after my second year there, for reasons I''ll get to shortly - as well as my time outside of Uni, hence why I wnet so completely dark. Fortunately, I have really good parents. My mother realised something was wrong almost immediately, but both her and my father were constantly stonewalled by the Uni on grounds of "privacy protection" despite the fact that we''d signed paperwork negating that. Coupled with my own stubborn refusal to acknowledge the problem even existing, and my talent at lying to myself about things being better than they actually were, and you can see why it took a while to fget things sorted. Eventually, my mum cornered me late at noght, when I was too tired to lie to myself about how things were, never mind anyone else, and got me to acknowledge how bad things had become. I have been recovering since then. That was a couple years back, and I have made progress, while simultaneoudly hampering that progress at times by trying to make promises I wasn''t yet ready to keep regarding my writing. My apologies to anyone I contacted in the intermediary time regarding potential updates to these stories, I should not have made what promises I did. Not too long before the new year, I made my biggest step forward - returning to work on various projects, which, in theory, included my writing. The only problem was, the "schedule" I had worked out for myself, was not able to accomodate much beyond some Youtube stuff I''m also doing. The good news, is that I''ve managed to get an actually workable schedule now, one that allows me to dedicate a good amount of time to writing, allowing me to make a proper return. Which leads us to the topic of the title. I am both announcing the long-overdue death of both my stories, as well as the eventual rewriting of both as well. Starting with my piece of original fiction, The Dungeon Gods It has simply been too long to continue things precisely where I left off, not helped by me losing most of my old notes and data on this story, as I hadn''t yet got into a habit of properly backing such things up online at the time I was writing it. As such, before I rewrite it proper, I''m going to be rereading everything I''ve written, including the extra information in the Notebook. I''m then going to give serious consideration to how I''m going to handle the systems in the story, in order to avoid falling into some of the older pitfalls that caused me many problems behind the scenes. One thing of particular note I''m going to be giving serious consideraton too, is possibly adjusting the game-like litRPG systems to make them less rigid, and maybe replacing them with a more narrative-based system instead. Once I''ve reached a point where I feel satisfied with what I''ve got, I will begin actually rewriting the story itself, and will be borrwing methodology from my Youtube upload system. Full details on that will be found on the section titled "The New Upload Schedule".This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Once I''m ready to begin uploading the rewritten work, I will do so under the name "The Dungeon Gods: Evolution" in one of two main ways, which I''d like your feedback on. The first Idea I had, was that I''d simply delete the old work already here, rename the title, using the already existant page, but the thought has occured to me that some value might still be had in leaving the old chapters up for people to see, as well as the problem of the existing reviews for the old work being wrongfully linked to the new one. The second, and one I feel more and more like I should use, is to upload the rewrite as a new story entirely, leaving only a link to it here upon its release, and adding a [DEAD] tag to the title of the old work. All of this will likely take a while regardless, so don''t expect any actual story updates for a while. Now, to move onto, World Keeper AU Much like with TDG, it has simply been too long to continue right away, and a good amount of my notes are also long gone. Unlike TDG, this was a fanwork of World Keeper, and that story has progressed siginificantly since I started writing WKAU, and I haven''t been keeping up with it. As such, before rewriting, I will not only be rereading everything already present, but I also want to read through all of World Keeper. This will make it easier tog et back into writing my own story, as well as make it easier for me to see just how much of an AU I intend to make it regarding things that hadn''t yet been showcased when writing WKAU, but, from what I''m given to understand, have likely now been revealed in canon. Once I''m satisfied, I''ll start the actual rewrite, and much like with TDG, the new schedule for the uploading will be in the "The New Upload Schedule" section. Once I''m ready to begin uploading the rewritten work, I will do so under the name "World Keeper: Reboot Error" in one of two main ways, much like with TDG, which I''d like your feedback on. The first Idea I had, was that I''d simply delete the old work already here, rename the title, using the already existant page, but the thought has occured to me that some value might still be had in leaving the old chapters up for people to see, as well as the problem of the existing reviews for the old work being wrongfully linked to the new one. The second, and one I feel more and more like I should use, is to upload the rewrite as a new story entirely, leaving only a link to it here upon its release, and adding a [DEAD] tag to the title of the old work. All of this will likely take a while regardless, so don''t expect any actual story updates for a while. Now, finally, we get to, The New Upload Schedule The schedule I intend to use for both writing and uploading is similar to the one I now use for rcording videos for Youtube, and part of my new working schedule. With regards to the writing, all that needs to be said is that I now have a priod of approximaely 24-30 hours per month I''ll be spending writing, and doing things directly related to my writing. This should hopefully allow me to more consistently produce at least some content for all fo you. Chapters will, like before, be a minimum of 1000 words long, not including chapter titles and A/N sections. Whenever a chapter is finished, it''ll be added to the baclog for chatpers to be uploaded. When chapters are resent in the backlog, they will be uploaded every Wednesday (British Time), preferably around midday to ensure they seem to be on a Wed regardless of timezone. It is worth noting that, when I say they will be uploaded every Wednesday, that is only if there are any chapters done to upload. To make it easier for you, the readers, to know how much more you can expect when a chpter uploads, I will add a count of how many chapters are currently in the backlog to the post-chapter A/N. My various stories no longer will have seperate upload days, but will insted upload on Wed regardless, so long as no chapter for that story has been uploaded that week. That means that, if I have a chapter for both WKRE and TDGE available at Wed, and none have been uploaded yet that week, both will upload. That covers everything. Thank you all again, for all the support you''ve given me, and sorry, again, for how little I''ve posted in recen times. Small Rewrite Progress Update The Problem: While planning out the rewrite for TDG, I came to a realisation of two main problems with my current strategy. 1. Because of how long the planning is taking for TDG, neverming what I''ll need to do for WKAU, it will take a long time for either of those rewrites to bear sufficient fruit for anything to be released. As the entire point of starting up these rewrites was to try and actually get stuff out there again, you can understand why this bothers me. 2. A side effect I noticed recently is that the longer I take planning, the more daunting the prospect of writing becomes, in turn hampering my planning motivation. Added to this is the fact that it''s been a while since I''ve properly written anything, so I find myself nervous about the quality my writing may or may not be of. Both these Problems are potential motivation-killers that could undo much of my progress in recovery, so I''ve been trying to come up with a workaround. And I believe I have it.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The Solution: Given that the core of this issue is that I''ve not written anything in a while, the obvious solution is that I simply need to write. However I don''t want to just start on the rewrites because of the aforementioned issues of it still being in the planning stages to avoid some previous pitfalls and wanting the rewrites to be of good writing quality. Enter a idea I had a few days ago. A story idea that popped into my head, and that I couldn''t help but explore a little, for a meta-narrative told from the perspective of the story written as a consequence of that narrative. The more I looked into it, the more I found myself enjoying it, and the more I wanted to write it. So that''s what I''m going to be doing. While I continue to work on the plans for the rewrites, I''ll use this new story as a way of stretching my writing muscles again and getting back into the swing of things, as well as to improve my writing ability some more so I can feel more confident about starting up said rewrites. I''ll post a link in the Post-chapter A/N when the first chapter''s up, but stay tuned for "The Epic Tale by Charlie Wilson and Oliver Maxwell", coming sometime in the next few weeks.