《Demon Dungeon》 1. Dorzath liked to think that the universe itself was his parent. He¡¯d awakened from shattered soul fragments of festering hatred and loss. He crawled up from the lowest depths of the Abyss, tearing apart other newborn hell-creatures for the smallest advantage, quickly growing in size and power and dominating those around him. New souls and hell-creatures alike, they all feared his passing for those first few moments. Calcified soul-stuff and half-formed creatures running in fear. He''d ripped his way through souls still clinging to their morality while abandoning his own if he''d ever had it to begin with. Souls didn''t retain any of their memories when they passed over. He was glad to be free of that chain, something he didn''t remember but could feel the echoes of its mark on his soul, a faint purplish bruise of morality and empathy. He''d been held back all his mortal life. Now he just saw the quivering soul forms around him as sustenance instead of fellow travellers/ The pleasure he took while taking everything from these cowering souls was indescribable. With every successful hunt, his dream-like body grew blacker in colour and nature. He preferred to hunt the weaker souls, watching them struggle as he waded through the Abyss. They''d scurry and skirmish, flailing desperately for the smallest flicker of hope. The sight filled some as-of-yet unknown craving. However, the Abyss pulled at him like gravity. Always pulling him up higher and higher like bubbles in water and so the fight to grow and survive was neverending. As he rose through the Abyss''s layers, his competition grew fiercer and stronger and the ''food'' grew scarce. He spent an untold amount of time fighting with other snarling hell-creatures over even the smallest scraps of soul fragments in the Abyss. After that endless expanse of bloodlust and violence, however, Dorzath had grown too big for the Abyss to contain and his soul was slowly rejected. This was the beginning of his ascension, and he savoured it with glee. He knew not where he would go, only that by now he had grown a deep lust for power. He''d ripped and tore, fought and stole, gorging himself on so much malice and self-loathing that his soul gained an almost physical weight and through this immeasurable metaphysical weight he''d gathered of what the universe called sin he ascended. His weight was great enough to eventually cross the divide which separated the real space from the dream space of the Abyss. In this liminal space, He was born. He was baptised by the universe as a demon. "Dorzath!" In response to his name, freshly baptised by the universe the land around him responded. He felt strength seep into him from the ground as his very body was rebuilt from a black sludge-like monstrosity into the universe¡¯s template of a demon, a two-meter red-skinned monstrosity with tiny black horns poking out of his forehead. That glorious moment of his baptism had seemed to stretch forever, but not long enough. He¡¯d barely drawn his first breath of sharp brimstone air before he was violently attacked by a group of human slaves. Slaves turned Slavers. They were enslaved to Duke Xukaxoz as prisoners of war, too weak to be used as batteries and too strong to be food in times of plenty. Dorzath was quickly pushed down to the ground, enchanted nets taking him down with ease. A group of tier 3 humans was strong enough to overpower someone without a Job easily, even if that person was a demon, he was practically a newborn with their experience and Skills. He¡¯d screamed and roared, he¡¯d flailed and struggled but the branding iron had come down nevertheless. And so he was Contracted, barely a minute after he¡¯d been baptised by the world. Dorzath had to meekly trudge behind them as they returned with him and a veritable horde of other newly Contracted demons and imps as they had been marched back to a black city on the horizon. In this cracked and red hellscape, the city drew your eye and drew your feet, eating up the distance between the two. He spent the next 10 cycles in training as part of Duke Xukaxozs army. # It was worth noting that while the black city of Nekh Zirgru contained demons in the form of every flavour of pain the vast majority shared a similar form to Dorzath. Those born in and around Nekh Zirgru were gifted with the form of its overseer Duke Xukaxozs, a proved valuable specimen to the Court. He¡¯d been thrown into the Academy, a breeding ground of violence and death. The Contract that had been unwillingly forced on him had forbidden him from attacking those deemed ¡®useful¡¯. For those demons at the bottom of the food chain like him and other newly-Contracted however, they were deemed ''very disposable'' and so they were encouraged to fight for dominance amongst themselves, to create the strongest soldiers possible. After the pain of having his freedom brutally taken away from him the instant he was born, he¡¯d thrown himself into it with relish. Dorzath gained the Tier 0 Job Demon Student within days, and for the next cycle had enjoyed himself immensely. He¡¯d enjoyed taking out his frustrations on those beneath him as they took out their frustrations on those beneath them, and on and on. Halfway through his first cycle though, he had fought and killed enough that he had unlocked the Tier 1 Job Demon Warrior. That had marked a turning point in his life, the point where his destiny changed from a footsoldier to that of something greater. On Ascension to a higher rank and the subsequent stat boost across the board, he had a rare moment where the bloodlust and hunger which normally lay settled around him like a thick cloud lifted for a brief moment. And at that moment, he was filled with quiet contemplation. He had realized then that the root of the terrible violence he inflicted on his lesser classmates stemmed from a quiet rage with the way things were. The fact that Dorzath, a demon, one of the few higher races in the universe had no control over his own life and was treated like cattle infuriated him. That knowledge burned within him a rage unlike anything else he''d experienced. It overshadowed all his conflicts and squabbles in the Academy and centred his mind. He was nothing in front of the Duke, a mere pawn to throw books and training materials until he became something useful. His life, which had been baptised by the Universe and recognised for his accomplishments in the form of a quick rank-up, was worthless. He had been given an immortal body but he would likely perish before he reached his 4th Job tier. He saw the problem clearly, he would not survive the challenges laid in his path. The injustice, the hate for the Duke and the newfound longing for his freedom lead to him making a dangerous choice that day. With what little rune-work that he knew innately, he signed a Contract with himself swearing that all of his actions from this point onward would be to undo the forceful Contract that he was placed under by the Duke''s slaves. He carved it into the underside of his long, serpentine tongue and so let it remain out of sight. In using a pure Slave Contract on himself he had effectively cured himself of one of demonkind''s greatest weaknesses, laziness. Contracts that actively controlled your every thought and movement were rare. Not only did they require active monitoring at all times, but they also drained the contract holders'' mana constantly, with spikes of increased mana drain whenever terms were rebelled against. Even Duke Xukaxoz hadn¡¯t put it into his original Contract, for fear of his army banding together to rebel against him. Most Contracts were under the command of his Generals'' and an uprising of Slave Contracts would cripple his leadership. By adding some leeway into the Contract under which the majority of his forces were placed, he introduced a sense of competition and strife among them. In this way the Duke created enough discord to prevent cooperation, but enough order to obey his commands. Of course, it was practically taboo to place yourself under a Contract with yourself, the only beings who would do so were suicidal humans or foolhardy demons. Demons are the only beings in creation which were created with instinctual knowledge of Contracts placed within them. Dorzath knew that he was better than those weak-willed demons, the ones he''d learned about in History at the Academy who''d sworn themselves into servitude to themselves. There was a lot of power a demon could gain in restricting themselves, but a poorly thought-out Contract was as likely to burn your mind to cinders as give you a power boost. They would be bound by said Contract until a sympathetic Enchanter took pity on them, or until they grew powerful enough to resist its effects through sheer power or will. The Contract he''d been placed under before his admittance to the Academy had taken away his free will but had improved his rate of growth and comprehension of new skills. He even had a plan when he had placed himself under the Contract, the Duke''s Contract was composed of high-ranked runes with an origin-ranked rune making up the core of its structure. So, therefore, all he had to do was become an Enchanter, a mage who specialized in rune-work and learn enough runes that he could undo the Duke''s Contract. He almost immediately regretted his decision to put such a simplistic Contract on himself. He continued to regret his decision for a long time. Every morning he woke up early and his body forced him to study runes relentlessly. He only managed to take breaks when he internally rationalized that taking breaks was good for his mind''s output. Communicating that to his Contract mentally, it seemed to be able to subtly pick up on his mental cues even though he''d never put that sort of function into the Contract. He thanked his race''s innate capabilities, it was the only explanation he could think of. Something he hadn¡¯t even considered was that his body had effectively taken on a life of its own at times, disobeying his every command, where to turn his head, what food to put in his mouth, and even where he travelled. But other times he had full control over his body, due to failings of the design of the Contract or shoddy construction, but he still had an irrational urge to study, either out of repetition or from his Contract he was unsure. He was also stuck in the bottom tier of classes, unable to move up because even though he had already changed his Job from Demon Warrior to the Tier 1 Job Demon Mage, there was a maximum time he could remain in the Tier Zero class before being ejected into the Army or moving to a higher class. His Contract made him maximize the amount of time he spent in each tier, learning rune languages to deepen his overall understanding of the rune arts before moving up to a higher tier of the Academy. Of course, he wasn''t the first to think of this, staying in a lower class was a good way to gain skills as well as prolong the time a demon was able to remain in the Academy, before going off to the Frontlines, a literal death sentence at tier zero to 2. If you weren''t a demon that was. Malice, hate, and Sin. A demon had to have a little of each one before being able to be reborn and then baptized by the universe. Of all the Sins they possessed and were driven by, Pride stood tallest. It forbade them from appearing weaker than they were and the effect was only ignored through massive power levels or through a Contract like the one that Dorzath had placed on himself. You could be mobbed at any time walking the halls of the Academy, either by lone demons with pride in their eyes or a swarm of imps. It was this constant burning desire to place themselves over each other like a furnace of spite and emotion that lay behind almost every action a demon made. It made them incapable of exploiting this blatant loophole in the Academy''s system, meaning the Duke could leave it in place to maximize the number of demons that entered his army who were of a higher tier. Not every demon was born with the same talent for savagery, so allowances were made for those few demons that wished to seek another path. From the perspective of a demon, this approach of waiting to further improve yourself was contradictory as moving up to a higher tier in the Academy gave you better access to equipment and teachers. It would rapidly improve your rank, something all demons craved. No demon would willingly stay at a lower tier in the academy, their Pride wouldn''t let them. Dorzath was beginning to see from his language study and his study of other races'' cultures that that perspective was also full of holes, however, as moving up early just quickened the time it took to send a demon to the Frontlines, which unless a demon was created a genius, was just a slow and inevitable death as a soldiers success meant they were forced to face tougher enemies. The enemies of the Duke were unending and unwavering, even survival on the Frontlines would just be death of a different kind. Reports of the war were not in the library but he could read between the lines of texts plundered from other races. They spoke of the might of the Legions and their Generals, but also of their heroes slaying footsoldiers by the thousands. The best you could hope for when graduating from the Academy was tier 3. Dorzath saw them from a distance sometimes, the way they made the ground and air subtly shake with their passing. Tier 3s made up the bulk of the legions. They were mighty and always made his hearts beat a little faster at the sight but his mind always drifted back to those passages after they left. They were nothing special within the Legions. If he wanted to survive he''d need to look for another way. He learned the Faerie, Common and High tongues, as well as a few Feral, although he was better at writing it than speaking it. He spoke the Deific tongue naturally, spoken by angelic, demonic and deific races. He also used the few books the academy had on the subject to learn about the different mannerisms used when communicating to other species who also used the Deific tongue, depending on what species you communicated with, the tone you spoke with put a different emphasis on certain characters, this in turn also extended to the runes each race used. On the day before he would be ejected, Dorzath could feel the quiet contentment of his Contract and sighed in relief as he went to his teacher, a crippled rank 4 Imp to notify him of his rise in rank, half a cycle after he''d ascended. As a higher-tier student, he finally moved on from the collection of languages he''d been studying for the last cycle and onto runes as he was finally given access to them. The difficulty of learning runes was exponentially more difficult with low mental abilities and with a non-magic-based job (They all received the same Tier 0 Job of Demon Student), so there was no point in giving access to them at Tier 0. The sheer number of runes he learned would melt the average Student''s brain. He''d started with Deific, as part of his first year of training had included knowledge about the Contract he was branded with, scattered amongst the useless pieces of knowledge he''d learned, was that his Contract was made up of Deific runes, the most powerful runes in existence with an origin ranked rune as its core. His Teachers had told them all many a time that tampering with their branded Contract could be felt and would be punished swiftly. All attempts to analyse his Contract returned the same way. Too powerful, too complex, too dangerous. After being frustrated with his lack of progress, and after convincing his Contract that the Deific runes he''d already learned had had little effect on his slave Contract, he''d switched to learning Common runes. The Common language was spoken in various dialects across the known universe, and due to its wide use and large population base of history and culture to draw on, the runes generated by the language were extremely strange and varied. The tongue had been developed by an old human Emperor, as a way of unifying his wide-ranging and powerful empire to have them all speak the same language, unifying trade and politics under one banner. After his empire had inevitably collapsed, the language spread from world to world. It was easy to learn and was designed to be a useful way to communicate. Of course, all language changes with time, causing the runes bound to the language to also change. The runes were varied, some having the same meaning or extremely similar meanings but this had diluted the runes over time, making them less powerful, but also easier to learn and use. For human Sorcerors often they were the only runes they could learn in their short lifetimes. Besides, learning the runes of each language was much more difficult than the languages themselves. To truly learn a rune and understand it as well as use it, it had to be imprinted in the mind. As a demon, when he was baptized as a side effect of the process several runes of the Deific tongue were imprinted in his mind. While being basic tier(categorization of runes was divided into basic, intermediate and advanced with power levels varying wildly within that list), they had allowed him to use a Contract on himself. Learning more Deific runes? Hellishly Difficult. Once his teachers and classmates of his new class at tier one of the Academy learned that he was trying to learn runes and become an Enchanter they identified him as a point of weakness within the class. After learning that he was nearly kicked out of the Academy Dorzath received multiple challenges a day. He could boast higher physical capabilities than was usual for a Tier 1 Demon Mage, he was a former Warrior and he was older than most of his classmates. He still received several losses, his Contract not giving him much time to practice combat. He wasn''t practised with spellforms so had to resort to drawing spells in rune form on pieces of slate and throwing them at offenders. His combat style could use some serious work. The injuries he suffered as a result of his losses slowed him down, however, letting him negotiate with his Contract once more for some free time. He savoured those moments, sometimes using the time to hunt down the weaker members of his class. He used his one free hour every day to carve runes into an obsidian staff, finally cementing his best spells of force magic into an object. As the only member of his class with a clearly enchanted object, and after being shown the unassailable power he now wielded, he was quickly left alone. That had been a welcome surprise to see that he could cow his classmates into submission, their higher mental stats letting them acknowledge the mightier combatant. The path of runes was rarely attempted, the path of Mages was powerful but demons preferred to use their naturally strong bodies to become Warriors (as opposed to weak-bodied imps, who had a strong affinity for fire magic). A Mage was more powerful than a Warrior, but many demons would prefer laziness over long hours studying and attempting to perfect their control over mana. Even within the underused Mage class of the Academy, Enchanters were considered to be a Job with a lot of effort for little reward. There were still hundreds within its class, due to the sheer scale of the Academy, and the fact that an average of ten thousand newly enslaved demons was brought into the city almost every day. He¡¯d learned his first ten common-tier runes halfway through his second cycle, a punishingly slow process, the difficulty of learning them was only mildly offset by the knowledge he had of the runes languages and their basic meanings. Dorzath had now qualified for the higher tier job, a Tier 2 Enchanter, but his Contract mercilessly made him maximize the full time of three cycles that he could spend in the Academy as a Tier 1 before being ejected. Nevertheless, with a higher-tier job, he could now combine runic symbols from different languages together. He finally made some small headway in the analysis of his branded Contract. He could comprehend most of the effects, things he already knew, but the knowledge still gave him a measure of satisfaction. His freedom was almost within reach. # His ascension to a tier 2 class on his last day raised more eyebrows and tentacles this time around, but Dorzath felt content with his progress this time. After he had spent a cycle enjoying the main benefit that came with his higher class, which was that he could now absorb the knowledge contained in a rune in a quarter of the time, he had become quite well-known after handing in an assignment in which he had proceeded to give suggestions to his teacher on how a real Feral tribesman would phrase the question. He''d been torn asunder for questioning the teacher, and it had taken an entire day to pull himself together, but his name was now known in the halls of the Academy. He was then asked by a fellow Tier 2, who was going to be shipped to a Feral frontline, notorious for their high rate of crippling the soldiers who were sent there, to ward his armour against Feral curses. After that with the small fame the soldier gained after being seemingly immune to some of the Feral tribesman''s attacks, Dorzath was slowly but surely inundated from all sides with requests for custom works. With the favours and gems he gained from running his side business, he managed to gain access to non-library books bought from Soldiers stopping through and trying to quickly sell anything they¡¯d looted off of the enemy. He wanted to get access to more runes from the Deific and High tongues, but he was restricted in his access and his Contract was content to just let him learn five different Feral runes which had nearly the same meaning. Dorzath felt unsatisfied with his learning progress, knowing that he could gain access to a higher tier and more powerful runes if his Contract would just let him accept the notification asking him if he wanted to move to a higher tier. It would never let him, Being a Tier 3 in a Tier 2 class would most likely get him a one-way trip to the frontlines. Treachery was accepted within the walls of the Academy, cowardice was not. He''d seen how with the rise in rank many of his classmates had also learnt to fear the frontlines. They were far more watchful of behaviour at the higher ranks. It was good practice learning the wide variety of intermediate runes and it helped him with his side business. His notoriety in making enchantments to aid in fighting off Feral Curses also helped smooth out his life at the Academy. He was surrounded at all times by his customers and potential customers. Just as he was entering his final cycle as an Enchanter, he happened on a book of Faerie runes which he spent nearly his entire fortune on in an auction, which then tied him over for his hunger for power and growth in his final cycle, even as he enjoyed taking down several Tier 2s and 3s in creative ways who thought themselves the better owners of the book. The book was the most comprehensive one he¡¯d ever read, clearly designed for Sorcerer¡¯s as an educational textbook, as opposed to where he sourced most other runes from, which were the history or storybooks of that race which he normally managed to pull one or two runes and their meaning out of, whereas this Faerie book had 462 runes. Even taking account of the fact that the Faerie ¡®language¡¯ was just a compilation of several races'' languages and so they had several runes describing the same action or object, it was still a sizable increase in his knowledge. In addition, Faerie runes were extremely rare as they were widely acknowledged to be the best Runes to use when enchanting Equipment and all factions were constantly in need of strong equipment, leading to their increasing scarcity. The Faerie runes were the most useful for equipment, the Feral runes were best used for forceful Contracts or ¡®Curses¡¯, the Deific tongue was best used for Contracts. The Common runes had so few runes that it was very useful for creating weaker but widely applicable equipment and spell effects. High runes had a great number of runes but they were mostly used for wide-ranging magical effects or persistent magic. All runes could be used for any outcome, but a learned Sorceror used the correct rune for the best possible outcome.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. Throughout this constant process of learning, the speed at which Dorzath was learning new runes was constantly increasing. The wording of his Contract had been very vague as he¡¯d been new to rune-work at the time. It stated that he had to do everything he could to remove this contract. At some point, when he was listening to a tier 4 Lecturer, they¡¯d said that the more complex runes were very difficult to learn and that that effort could be reduced by repeatedly learning other runes, or if it was a very powerful rune then learning similar runes would reduce its difficulty. While a higher tier Job was useful, he realized, he was already above an average Sorcerer''s comprehension speed, which he''d only reached because Dorzath had spent such a long time at each Job tier. The main reason for getting a higher-ranked Job was access to higher-ranked skills. In addition, every time you completed that Job''s main activity, you would level up, improving your body, soul and mind depending on the Job but due to being of a higher race, the increase that he gained from the levels was so small comparatively and would remain so until he reached his Tier 4 Job. Lower races like humans would receive a much greater increase from each level, until Tier 4 when both races would be brought into alignment. You would also gain something the Academy called skill energy every time you increased to a higher Job tier, with more being provided at higher tiers. The skill energy allowed the Job owner to have skills relating to that Job to rise faster, as well as allow them to evolve. The amount of skill energy received was limited though and the number of skills that could evolve was also therefore limited, another reason why demons preferred to move to a higher Job tier rather than stay at a lower one as eventually, their skills would no longer be able to evolve. He was currently capped at his Job''s main skill, Rune Drawing, an upgrade from the previous lower-tier skill Rune Carving, which meant he didn¡¯t have to carve into the surface of a material, he could simply trace his hands through the air above the material, creating a glowing hovering rune above the material which would then sink into the material, creating a perfect rune. At the higher class, his skill would be allowed to evolve, allowing him to gain access to the skill Rune Weaving, which would allow him to use rune chains, which he could already do, with some difficulty as well as cast runes independently of a material, which he could also already do with much greater difficulty. However, currently, if he wanted to use Runes in combat Dorzath had to use a Rune board, which had runes imprinted on it allowing for fast activation of them, which was much faster than the minutes it took him to draw a rune in the air. # Finally, the time came and on his last day in the Academy, his Contract allowed him to upgrade to Tier 3. The same Tier 4 crippled imp took his notice that he''d upgraded to Tier 3 and handed him back a notice to join the Tier 3 Sorceror class, a dedicated class for Sorcerors. While the Academy took a hands-off approach to most of its learning, once you reached Tier 3 it was acknowledged that you might have some potential. They put you in a dedicated room for your class and gave actual tailored education based on the student. If there was a chance that a demon might make it to Tier 4, someone worth 20 Tier 3s, they paid a little more attention. Dorzath, in his seventh cycle in the Academy, walked into his first Tier 3 Sorcerer¡¯s class with a smile on his face, he deactivated the trap on his seat and chair, handed back the offered pen with a rune to spray ink all over the user and answered every question he was asked correctly. Pranking was something of a habit by now, as well as a test for the awareness of an Enchanter, for the stronger ones could simply sense runes that were part of an object. A test he passed and then set the rest of his peers wondering how he''d managed to usurp the control the other demon should have had over the runework so quickly. # 30 days later though, Dorzath was unhappy, he¡¯d only managed to learn two higher-ranked runes, which was impressive for a new Sorcerer, but he was no closer to undoing his Contract. Even the Contract he¡¯d placed on himself wouldn¡¯t let him get rid of it, it had been carved into his tongue so he could simply cut it off, and then regrow the tongue but his Contract told him that that wouldn¡¯t help him remove the Duke''s Contract. He couldn¡¯t do anything without it in some way improving his chance of removing the Duke''s Contract, he couldn¡¯t justify a reason to let him do so. He was stuck with it. He would like to enjoy the level of power he¡¯d attained, but everyone he¡¯d entered the Academy with could destroy him with a flick of their finger now, due to their higher-ranked classes and skills. Even a Wizard he¡¯d cursed in his fourth cycle had gone on to become a Sage, a tier 4 powerhouse. He knew two others who had gone on to reach tier 4. Everyone else was dead. He was powerful in his way but the Duke¡¯s Contract was written in high-ranked Deific, something that the Academy was very reluctant to hand out runes for obvious reasons. As he was now a tier 3 he could gain access to higher tier clients as before many would refuse to have anything to do with him. His increased income satisfied the kernel of Greed that had settled in his hearts during his small war over his Faerie book. Dorzath could also attend higher-tier auctions, but he wasn¡¯t allowed into some of the higher-tier ones, often the ones with the most valuable items or foreign spellforms contained within relics. He was on the lookout for any advanced Deific runes being auctioned, but he wasn¡¯t the only buyer, there were much more powerful buyers out there than him, with much greater wealth and even if he did manage to buy one, it was unlikely he would manage to hold onto it as he¡¯d done with the Faerie book. The forces who would like to get their hands on it would likely be at tier 4 or 5. They were much more highly prized, as most demons had great struggles with understanding foreign runes, but runes in their native tongue would amplify most Demon mage''s power. He continued learning the new advanced runes that were available to him, however, although there were fewer than he was expecting, only twenty, and of those twenty, only five were Deific. It made sense, the Duke had introduced the Academy which helped raise cannon fodder for his army but to gain access to the truly powerful skills, weapons and runes that the Duke owned, a demon had to rise within the ranks of the army to ensure they didn¡¯t continue milking him for resources without giving something back. Everything good was kept on the frontlines. In addition, to advance to the next tier of job, a Tier 4 Grand Sorcerer, a demon only needed to learn 10 advanced runes, even accounting for the fact that some Sorcerer''s struggled more with some runes than with others just due to how they perceived the world, the Duke had still been overly generous with the runes he had offered. On the other hand, however, the Duke had likely judged that these runes were necessary to learn to survive on the Frontlines as a Sorcerer. Even considering all of that, it was still a generous amount of runes. But just over half a cycle later Dorzath found himself wanting more, as he¡¯d learned all of the high-ranked runes available to him. At this point his Contract had lessened in effect, it seemed that gaining mastery over so many advanced runes, had given him some measure of control over less complex runes in the form of the Skill ¡®Lower Rune Control¡¯. He could now enjoy luxuries he hadn¡¯t had in cycles, like sleeping in a little in the morning. He¡¯d even visited a Succubus house every night for a month, leaving himself feeling refreshed. He¡¯d also taken the time to design some new equipment for himself. His staff had long been discarded in favour of his Rune board, giving him much greater control over all spell effects and the ability to change elemental sources at will. But the free hour he''d had every day up until now had been insufficient for both development and construction of long-term projects. It took him a month but finally, he had them. A pair of boots and a cloak with a hood. They looked entirely mundane to his pleased eyes. Bright red, with the texture of human leather, they could change their properties slightly at his will. At will he would have a range of new outfits for any occasion! He¡¯d enchanted them with several advanced runes, Faerie in nature for the most part but the materials had started to break down once he''d finished adding all of his effects. He''d been forced to use Deific to stabilise its grip on reality before the boots floated off into a Story, something that he''d heard about but had never encountered in his Contract-assisted training. The Deific runes hadn''t ruined the camouflaging nature of the items but it was close, and he would most likely be more identifiable by members of the Deific races in the future. He was well on his way to creating a Set, and a notification had popped up once he¡¯d completed them to ask if he wanted to create a Set. Being a production-type Job, where he could level up by weaving runes or creating items that function has always been open to him, but his Contract had restricted him from using it, as it would do little to further its goal. More flaws with the original Contract that Dorzath could see now that he wass no longer as keenly affected. He could have made a Set and distributed it but the army had to wear a distinctive armor, a Set all on its own which provided bonuses the larger your unit was and how high a rank you were. What Dorzath had been asked to do was etch Enchantments into them, which soldiers paid for themselves and helped keep them alive. The army''s Set benefitted the army as a whole but if Dorzath had managed to sell his self-made armour the demon responsible would be summarily executed. The Set he had made for fun and because he had been wearing his Academy uniform all this time, which gave bonuses to learning speed as well as skill growth. It was just that, now that he had some leeway with what to do with his body and his free time, Dorzath wanted to look good for the first time in his life. It was a strange compulsion he''d had for years, which had only worsened every time he caught glimpses of himself wearing grey rags in the corner of his eyes. They were the Boots of Lament and the Cloak of Lament. The boots were enchanted with mostly mobility effects, while the cloak was focused on concealment and improving his Rune Weaving speed. He accepted the notification, for now, he could always make more Lament-themed items later. He received a Set bonus of increased effect of mind spells as well as resistance to mind effects. Nice. Not something he had any protection in beforehand. Other demons would Lament when they saw them, that they didn¡¯t have such a fine cloak or boots. Dorzath laughed to himself as he pictured his peers and his teacher''s face when they saw what he wore. He''d wear a different look every day. In addition, they would know that he¡¯d made them himself, as it was taboo to wear another Sorcerer''s products yourself, it implied you were inferior and demons were beings of Pride. Dorzath had lost some of that Pride over the constant years of being mocked for not being able to raise his Job, but it was back and stronger than ever after having been restrained for so long. They would want to ask him about the process and what runes he¡¯d used. Maybe he should show off its transforming features? So that way they knew he¡¯d enchanted it with a higher rune, the Deific word for ¡®Change¡¯ to be specific. It was a point of pride to wear something with a higher rune on it, a status symbol, that only the most powerful demons could afford. He¡¯d wanted to use that rune on the Duke''s Contract, but he quickly identified the fact that the rune itself was already enchanted as part of the script of the Contract, which allowed the Contract to constantly morph and change itself as well as switch to another part of the body if the skin it was on was removed. Which he¡¯d found out. After much experimentation. He''d realised that much of his teacher''s warnings were fabricated on the nature of attempting to tamper with the Duke''s Contract. It was only on removal that a signal was sent to the Contract holder, but the runes were vulnerable to a large degree of tampering. He''d yet to accomplish anything with this knowledge but he could feel a breakthrough on the tips of his tongue. Dorzath spent time on his equipment, nearly 40 days in total. He¡¯d finished the cloak first and with the bonuses that it provided for Rune Weaving speed, he only took 10 days to finish the boots. Dorzath spent hours admiring himself with the clothes, trying what went well with them and what didn¡¯t and changing their forms to see what he liked best. He had an imprinted function instead of a shape on them, so that way the boots and cloak could turn into full-body protection if he ever needed it. He''d get around to finishing the set eventually. He''d always wanted to take pride in his appearance, but his Contract had deemed it pointless and so for the last few cycles, he''d been forced to watch as it wore the same dull grey robe to the Academy every day. His soul had been crying he realised. Dorzath realised belatedly that this wass likely the source of the mysteriously dangerous fate that demons seemed to face when using Slave Contracts on themselves. A slow destruction of the self until the soul says no more and returns to the Abyss. While he had fond memories of his time in the Abyss, a return trip would most likely result in his swift imprisonment once more. And a return to terrible clothes. The materials had taken two-thirds of his fortune to purchase, but he¡¯d gotten them cheap from a Dungeon Master. He ran his hands over the fabric admiring the seamless rune-work, invisible to the naked eye, before leaving his small house, a privilege provided by the Academy for reaching tier 3. Now that he¡¯d reached tier 3 and learned all of the new runes they¡¯d provided him he¡¯d reached the limit of what the Academy could provide him. At this point, Dorzath was just enjoying the privilege of not having to be sent to the frontlines. And that was how he stayed for an entire year, learning the occasional rune and still enchanting equipment brought to him for additional income, but his growth had slowed down considerably. He had the option to move to tier 4 any time he wanted to and become a Grand Sorcerer, but that would mean forfeiting the rest of his time that he wanted to spend on himself. He was enjoying his time, but he knew that he was essentially just counting down at this point. In just over a cycle he would have to join the Frontlines and he wasn¡¯t cut out for fighting he¡¯d known that when he was offered the Tier 1 Job, Demon Warrior. He would probably survive for a time and maybe even make the leap to tier 5, but his path would end there. The jump from Tier 5 to 6 was so far that it was said to take most Tier 5s waiting a hundred years at the peak before they were able to make the jump. It was really something that Duke Xukaxoz, was at Tier 7, supposedly the limit of tiers. He was supposedly powerful enough to fight against Greater Gods and win, although he hadn¡¯t been seen fighting any battles in hundreds of years, as his very presence not being on the Frontlines was a deterrence against all-out attacks from the enemy. In addition, this wasn¡¯t the only Hell, and Duke Xukaxoz wasn¡¯t the only Duke, there were supposedly tens of other Dukes, although they were each located very far from each other, where their domains wouldn¡¯t come close to meeting. The universe was a big place. When he¡¯d heard that information in a lecture recently, Dorzath had done a double-take on the stupidity of his decision to try to remove his Contract which was invented by someone as old and powerful as the Duke. # So Dorzath was feeling gloomy. He hadn¡¯t gone to the Academy that day, he had a meeting with a client which would provide much more value towards him meeting his goals. Dorzath shook his head, even now with the influence from his Contract almost gone, he still fell into the old habit of evaluating the value of doing something by how much benefit it would bring to his goals. He was very tempted to just turn home and creating a barrier and lie wrapped in blankets for several days. Suddenly a voice intruded on his thoughts, as he was passing down a busy street in redtime, the time of day when the sky was more red than black. ¡°Ho there! Interested in becoming master of yourself? Interested in unlimited wealth and military power? Yes! You Sir! I¡¯m talking to you! Please talk back! Can you hear me! God, I¡¯m lonely!¡± It stood under one and a half meters tall, with brushed black fur covering its limbs, it had a round body and face. It was an Incubus, a male pleasure demon, an evolution of an imp, a hell-creature who¡¯d crawled out of the Pit with not enough soul fragments to receive a full baptism, but had received one later on in its life after obtaining enough. It wasn¡¯t a pure-blood demon and so would never be able to fight on the Frontlines, and so was delegated to menial tasks for the rest of its life. ¡°Yes?¡± Dorzath turned towards it, mildly interested, and this wasn¡¯t the pleasure sector anyway, so it probably had something good to say. ¡°The third Dungeon Master expedition is about to begin, in just over a cycle and they are recruiting!¡± It handed him a flier, very glossy with a drawing of a hooded demon at the front of it laughing. Dorzath wasn¡¯t sure why maybe it was enjoying the pile of naked humans behind it or the pile of gold. ¡°Remind me again what the mortality rate was for the last Dungeon Master Expedition?¡± The Incubus¡¯s face fell visibly as he muttered under his breath. ¡°90%¡± Dorzath sneered, this Incubus was clearly trying to swindle him, it was more due to luck than anything else that any of the Dungeons had managed to succeed. That rate was more than five times greater than the Frontline yearly death rate, and in addition, he was a Sorcerer, he would be able to survive much longer on the Frontline as he would be given the easiest missions in exchange for powerful equipment and the fact that Sorcerers could teleport a team of soldiers out of enemy lines and so were one of their main priorities when choosing who to protect. He strode away as he admired the way his Cloak of Lament billowed dramatically as he left. Behind him, the Incubus cried out pitifully at his leaving back. ¡°Wait! Please wait! The expedition has changed, deployment has been improved immensely with covert appearance behind enemy lines! All DM candidates will also receive an extra year of specialised training and education at the Academy!¡± That last sentence had caused Dorzath to come to a halt. He slowly turned on the Incubus who had been trailing him while sobbing pitifully. ¡°If I was interested, would I be able to leave the course before I finished it?¡± The incubus¡¯s head bobbed back and forth frantically as it answered. ¡°Yes, yes absolutely, in addition to that the benefits of being a Dungeon Master are truly incredible if you survive, there is a very short progression path from tier 4 to 5 and one of the DM¡¯s from the first expedition has already hit tier 6!¡± Surprising. That was very fast, supposedly the first expedition was just under 30 cycles ago. So the Dungeon Master went from tier 3 to tier 6 in 30 cycles. That was blisteringly fast, and even with the high previous death rates, Dorzath started convincing himself that this was a good idea. In addition, the Contract, now diminished in influence to a voice in the back of his head, also agreed with him. # Half a cycle of time passed, in this period Dorzath had managed to acquire two Faerie high ranked runes at an auction and from a sweating demon soldier who looked to be happy he took it off of his hands. The educational year had been taxing even for him, who had the ¡®Advanced Memorization¡¯ skill, but he was glad the army had included it. There was so much vital knowledge, geographical, political, as well as about the myriad species that a Dungeon could have. Dungeons were like low-level gods, they took the belief and soul energy in some cases, from the people or things that entered them, their ¡®followers¡¯ and used that to grow in strength, size and the creatures they controlled. In doing so, they didn¡¯t harm the people that entered them, they could stay within them for an indeterminable time, as long as their basic bodily needs were satisfied. One of the DM¡¯s of the first wave, who we were told to look to as an example, had built a habitable city in his Dungeon, which was then populated by local humans, and in doing so had reached incredible growth levels. However, after a time a Dungeon is attacked by the forces of nature, as apparently they are somehow an offense against one of the Greater Gods, one of the omnipresent ones, and so he sends his servants to attack Dungeons periodically. That happened in this case and the city was destroyed, but the monsters in the lower levels which were vastly stronger than the city were able to repel the attacking force. Nevertheless, the city was destroyed and nobody ever settled in the Dungeon again, at least not in large numbers like before. That Dungeon Master accomplished quite a large number of incredible things with his ideas, and Dorzath planned on copying most of them. Another DM hadn¡¯t included any monsters in his dungeon, just building a massive maze, with traps to extend the time the ¡®adventurers¡¯ spent there, with the occasional treasure chest in there as well to incentivise people to come back. Dorzath learned a great deal and was slowly preparing to leave the Dukes Hell for the first time, closing up any outstanding contracts, and buying any trinkets or base materials he thought would be useful. He also designed his third piece of equipment, a belt that had a pouch. Unoriginally the pouch was several hundred times bigger on the inside than the outside, and as the idea was so unoriginal, he decided against giving it the name Lament. # Finally, the Duke cut his learning time short as his advisors realised that they would be needing a much greater number of resources than they were initially forecasting. They were expecting that once the Dungeon Masters had reached tier 5 to be using 50% of their resources to supply the Frontlines with whatever they needed or required. This mostly included specialty weapons or disposables which would be a waste of the armies time to collect and manufacture, but could be produced instantly using the power of a Dungeon. They were expected to stay in constant communication with their assigned General after a brief settling point however as they¡¯d had a case in the past where a DM had severe trouble producing blight steel, as his Dungeon was a Feral/Forest type, and the General had run up against an Angelic horde and was nearly wiped out. They didn¡¯t have to tailor their dungeons to suit the army''s needs specifically, but some flexibility was required. Unfortunately, this would require a blood-binding, an ancient ceremony which would allow them to communicate over long distances via thoughts, as Dorzath and the other DM¡¯s were to be placed behind enemy lines. The General wouldn¡¯t have access to his thoughts, but Dorzath still felt uncomfortable at the thought of being bound to another demon. However this was an equal contract, and the General couldn¡¯t force him to do anything, but he would have to obey his superior officer''s orders as part of the Dukes Contract. On their final day, our teacher of class D - 23 a DM himself, but tier 5 so he was able to leave his Dungeon for extended periods of time, told us all a very crucial piece of advice. ¡°Try not to kill.¡± Dorzath thought about that one for a while. The teacher had warned them against killing too many challenges, as it would bring attention down on them. Dungeons did occur naturally through meteor showers, and there were several thousand of them per planet, but in the beginning stages before they formed consciousness, they were extremely incompetent, and it was rare to see someone killed by one on the first or second floors, even if they were Tier 0. Dorzath knew that he would have to hold himself back from interfering too much, he couldn¡¯t make his monsters or traps too strong, or else people would believe that his Dungeon was one which had something sentient controlling it. That had a higher chance in resulting in him being reported to the higher-ups of a faction, who would quickly realize that the DM was a demon and in an effort to cut off their supply lines would destroy him and his dungeon. # Finally, the day arrived, and as the sky went from a cold black to a warm red in Hell, Dorzath, first of his name, was named Dungeon Master and implanted with a Dungeon core fragment, obtained from one of the enemy Dungeons. He and ten others were shunted one at a time into the gap between spaces by a Tier 6 Rulecrafter, one of the Generals aides. The gap was untraceable and also unfortunately fairly random. Dorzath knew that he was being sent in the general direction of a collection of human worlds, but he could land on anything. With a nod of respect to his peers, Dorzath was swallowed up by a silver crack in space. He felt pulled in several directions, with cold tentacles, hands and other appendages coiling around him. He kept his eyes firmly shut as you could turn insane by what you saw in the Gap. Dorzath didn¡¯t resist and slowly felt pulled out of the collection of appendages as he floated softly to his destination. Time passed like treacle, and then with a pop, he was outside. He felt his Cloak of Lament coil around his entire body quickly, in response to an external threat being detected. He opened his eyes hesitantly, hoping that he hadn¡¯t appeared in a nest of vipers or something similarly disgusting. Ah. He was in space. He could sense beyond his Cloak to a limited extent, and the space outside was devoid of air. He tapped the necklace on his neck, which popped open to form a bubble of glass around his head, with his Cloak accommodating so he could look around. There was a cluster of rocks, no, meteorites floating nearby. He took a step forward with his Boots, which had an Enchantment to produce a small cloud of air when he stepped, either to avoid a large fall or to evade or for something like this, as it turned out. Dorzath drifted to the center of the mass of rocks, stopping in the center. He reached out and took a small chunk of rock, slicing it in half with his claws and started tracing above it. A Rune looking like an open lidless eye sprang into existence after a few seconds. It was wide open and glowed with a strong purple light. It sank slowly into the rock and released a blinding light. Slowly, the stationary and inert rocks floating around him started moving towards him. It was a high ranked rune, from the High tongue, ¡®Gravity Sink¡¯ it was a combat rune and one use of it was to send out tethers to things in the surroundings of the user, pulling the objects towards them and creating a shield, it was useful to set it up as a quick defense before weaving something more complex. The same effect could also be accomplished with lower-ranked runes, but for a greater cost and with less effect. With small bursts of air from his boots, Dorzath moved together with the large mass of rocks, as they moved together at the same speed. He floated in the air meditating to suppress the violently shifting dungeon fragment inside of him, while he was surrounded by a ship of rocks. He had an artifact picked up from a Faerie slave, which measured the largest local mass, and pointed him in its direction. He continued on through the black void, oddly reminiscent of home at night if it weren¡¯t for the freezing cold that accompanied it. Hell was never cold. It was a stark reminder to Dorzath that it would be many cycles before he could return home, even for a brief period. After several days of constant meditation to conserve his mana usage while also keeping the dungeon fragment suppressed, the pain had grown from a dull ache to biting cold, that he felt deep inside. Dorzath just had to bear with it, he had to wait until he found a suitable location before being able to grow his dungeon core, but all the while the pain grew more intense. Dorzath had hoped to stagger his arrival so it wasn¡¯t too close to the arrival of the other demon DMs. They had learned from every previous Dungeon Master expedition, and while not failures, the amount of successful Dungeon Masters was still extremely low. The one thing that was drilled into him over the last cycle was that if his Dungeon was discovered to be owned by a demon before he reached tier 5 then he had a 90% chance of being destroyed. Dungeons were created all of the time, so it wasn¡¯t too strange that ten were created at almost the exact same time across the universe, but it was best not to create those types of patterns in the first place. Finally, an outside influence started to draw on his cluster of rocks as they were pulled into a planet''s gravity. Dorzath helped the process along, using his Boots of Lament, and within the hour the temperature within his makeshift rock ship started heating up as they entered the atmosphere. He cut off the mana that he was still supplying to the ¡®Gravity Sink¡¯ rune and around him, the rocks flew away into different directions, while Dorzath followed after them with another function of his Boots, ¡®Hover¡¯. He saw that the meteorites all landed in a general area, and chose somewhere within the invisible lines that he drew for the area that he could land in that wouldn¡¯t be suspicious for a Dungeon to appear there. Dorzath chose a town, with an abandoned stone church on the outskirts, and hovered slightly above it, several kilometers above it, concealing himself with the Cloaks function ¡®Change¡¯, and ordering it to make him look like the sky. He took out a protective artifact as well as a piece of rock. Supposedly this rock was a part of a destroyed palace, owned by a renowned earth mage, a Nation Crafter. The interesting property of the rubble was that when imbued with even a small amount of mana, it gave the owner an incredible amount of weight, making it a useful protective artifact, although it required the user to keep both of their hands on it at all times. When Dorzath activated it, it greedily started sucking in his mana and he immediately lost control of his mana. He was violently flung down towards the ground, the protective barrier barely defending him from the heated air, which quickly caught fire. He desperately tried to angle himself towards the roof of the church, releasing minute bursts of air from his Boots, he¡¯d wanted the impact to look like a real meteor but he¡¯d also heavily underestimated the speed at which he was traveling. He still barely hit the church, obliterating one of the few remaining upright pillars still standing. He plowed through the broken slabs of stone flooring, powering through, deep into the ground. When the protective barrier ran out of energy, however, Dorzath with great effort let the rock fall through his fingers and he lost his incredible mass. The stone became inert and lifeless once he stopped supplying it with mana through direct contact. Dorzath looked around at the hole he¡¯d melted into the ground, only several meters wide and deep. He tapped on a few balls which he brought out of his belt. It was a pain to have to dig into the ground to develop your Dungeon, so it was easier to have someone do it with manual labor. Or something like what he''d just realized. The balls opened up as spindly metallic legs opened up out of the sides and the rest of the body shaped into shiny drills as if made of a liquid and not the silver-colored metal that they were. Dorzath had obtained these wonders off of another Faerie craftsman, this time a contractor instead of a slave, so he¡¯d traded the maker an enchanted hammer. It was one of the Faerie mutations, a mix between a monster and a pureblood, actually a fairly common occurrence as the purebloods were prolific breeders, one of the few things which meant they were still alive. The Faerie was ball-shaped but could manipulate its metallic body to produce massive arms or tiny tweezers from its body, it had made a deal with one of the Generals, which allowed it to live under the Generals protection. It had built up a small brood, maybe it would create a new race all of its own, but it would only be supplied with protection as long it continued creating useful artifacts, similar to the ones Dorzath had traded from him. They were made of a shape-memory alloy which returned to their design once supplied with mana. He¡¯d already told the little things how he wanted his first floor to be, they would just take the time needed to do so. Finally, in the tenth cycle of his life, Dorzath sank to his knees, placing his hands on the crystal shard sticking out of his chest. He accepted the System notification to ascend to Tier 4 with the Job Dungeon Owner. The shard in his chest brightened to a searing white light, while Dorzath threw back his head and screamed from the searing pain.
Name Dorzath
Race Demon
Tier 3
Job Sorcerer
Level 20
Skills Rune Weaving (3) Language Mastery (2) Rune Comprehension (2) Lower Rune Control (1) Material Shaping (1) Detect Danger (1) Oppression (1) Mana Control (2) Ward Equipment (1) Intensive Memorisation (1)
Higher Runes Change - Deific Gravity Sink - High
Spells Rune spell: Binding Ethereal Chains (2)
2. Dorzath woke up. The moonlight hit him in the face. It was so blindingly bright that he could feel himself wincing, but why hadn¡¯t he closed his eyes? He could feel his body wasn¡¯t responding in the way he was used to. Ah. He remembered now. Dorzath the core looked around once more at his surroundings with his new set of senses, while being very conscious of the fact that he was close to his entrance. In the small time that he¡¯d been unconscious those wonderful machines had already hollowed out the beginnings of a corridor. He was aware that this must have happened but he realised that he couldn¡¯t see anything that was outside of his area of influence. He didn¡¯t have time to check his skill list so he just reached out on instinct, activating the skill mana sense, using it to sense in which direction the tunnel had been dug, before proceeding to shakily float up off of the ground and slowly hover in the direction of the tunnel. Dorzath was more than a little wary right now, he was a newly formed, level one Dungeon core, an angry human could kill him right now if they wanted to. Around him he could see that there was empty space, before there walls of blue some distance away, which was how he could perceive walls of earth he didn¡¯t own, using Mana Sight. He moved at a small insect¡¯s pace, but eventually, a wall of shifting blue appeared in front of him, as he¡¯d caught up to the machines who were still digging through the earth. Dorzath took a deep imaginary breath. He¡¯d known he would be powerless but it was another thing entirely being completely separated from his runes and equipment. Those thoughts were useless though and a familiar twinge from his persistent self-made contract to stop being so lazy helped shake him out of them. He swiftly activated a new skill he¡¯d just received, Essence absorption, which allowed him to lay claim to ¡®mildly¡¯ unclaimed sections of land. The surrounding blurry walls of blue mana were slowly replaced by their true appearance, dirt walls, as he took control of them from the weak grasp that the world had. The process was slow, but Dorzath had levels in the tier 2 skill Mana Control which improved his efficiency, as well as his rate of improvement immensely. Before the night was over he¡¯d reached the end of the initial 150m long corridor that he¡¯d planned out. He¡¯d also claimed the entirety of it as well as a core room that had been created for him at the end of the corridor. He could see that the moonlight which was entering his entrance had faded, a sign that the world outside was approaching morning. It was going to be morning soon and he had yet to create any minions! Quickly his training took over, reminding him that there was an order in which he was supposed to do things. He pulled up his status screen for a reminder of what options he had available to him with regards to skills.
Name Dorzath
Race Demon
Tier 4
Job Dungeon Owner
Level 1
Skills Rune Weaving (3) Language Mastery (2) Rune Comprehension (2) Lower Rune Control (1) Material Shaping (1) Detect Danger (1) Oppression (1) Mana Control (2) Rune spell: Binding Ethereal Chains (2) Ward Equipment (1) Intensive Memorisation (1) Mana Sensing (1) (NEW) Terrain Manipulation (1) (NEW) Create Monster (1) (NEW) Essence Absorption (1) (NEW) Dungeon System (/) (NEW
Higher Runes Change - Deific Gravity Sink - High
He had a wide array of new skills that were now available to him, but the one he was mainly interested in was the only skill on there that had no tier. Dungeon System. It gave Dorzath access to a new section of the System. Just as the production, ruling and combat jobs all had their own minorly differing aspects and advantages of the portion of the System that they could access, so did the Dungeon jobs. The reason why it was displayed as its own skill, and using up vital skill energy in the process was partly due to the massive benefits received from the one skill. The System would be remiss in not balancing itself when such a clear advantage from one job was shown. Dungeon System. The skill gave access to the Dungeon Shop, as well as a unique interface for interaction with a DMs own Dungeon, much like the one a production class might use, but much broader in scope and use. The skill had so many features and subskills built-in that it was worth the massive amount of starting skill energy used several times over, but it was also the one way that a Dungeon could survive without any prior experience or preparation like what Dorzath had done. He tapped on the skill in his interface, using non-existent hands, as he was now a core for the foreseeable future. It brought up a separate interface, one with options leading to Dungeon Management, Dungeon Rewards, and the Dungeon Shop. Dungeon Rewards was the Systems way of balancing out the fact that a Dungeon would have terrible odds of making it to tier 5, and the fact that in order to become a Dungeon you needed to be at the limit of tier 3 unless you were created a Dungeon in which case you had even worse chances of making it tier 5 as you were hunted as a resource by the higher factions. Tier 3 was also a limit that most species had trouble surpassing. For such a great sacrifice in immediate strength, the System always had a way of partially balancing itself out. The Reward section was very limited however so it would require a miracle to become a capable Dungeon without any backing. Dorzath brought up that section of the interface and looked over what he was presented with. He¡¯d only accomplished one thing as a Dungeon so far, creating himself, and so there was only one reward available for activation.
Reward Available: 1 Random Base tier monster blueprint
When Dorzath mentally selected the option, a spinning wheel was presented to him, with different black outlines of monsters present. He held his imaginary breath as it started to spin, the problem with this type of reward, is that he¡¯d have to always have at least one summoned, as although DMs had largely absolute freedom in deciding how their Dungeon would be managed, this reward was supposed to be a way to shape unaware Dungeons growth in a helpful way. Unfortunately, it did just end up being something of a hindrance to the aware ones in some cases, and if the monster he received was a low-tier dragon or something similar, then he would have high-tier angelic forces send down a beam of light in no time to destroy him. He would prefer to have just brought a basic monster with him, but the number of times he would need to break down a monster in order to get its blueprint was ridiculous unless he created them himself. Gradually, the multicoloured blur of the wheel slowed down, revealing individual colours, the attribute of the monster that he would be given. He was hoping for a nice and weak grey attribute monster, so he was disappointed when the wheel stopped on a red tile. Maybe it could still be a Salamander, which was arguably just a very fat lizard, and considered so weak that a base tier human child could end one. /Monster Chosen/ /Base Tier blueprint of an ¡®Imp¡¯ has been awarded/ Fuckkkkkk. # Keizane was startled out of her sleep by a massive impact. She nearly fell out of her perch from the shockwave and heat which was released, but her tails as always balanced and caught her so she corrected herself. Her toes curled around the smoldering plank she used as a bed as she looked down at the brightly lit up hole in the ground in the middle of her home. Her four tails were splayed out behind her as she tried to sense if that was a monster that had landed in her home. There were some minor mana fluctuations but nothing major and her head cocked to the side as she considered whether that meant there were precious stones down there. She liked precious stones. Before she could make a decision however, a blinding light lit up the sky and a horrible scream like a dying treant being burnt alive echoed in her ears. Her ears pressed flat against her head as she whined in distress from the disturbing fluctuations coming from that hole. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. She toughed it out though and after what felt like hours the noise and the light stopped. She remained frozen in place however as even while she was in her daze she was able to tell that she was sensing a tier 3¡¯s aura, and quite a powerful one too. It was gone now, but that just meant that the tier 3 had control of themself again. She was unsure what to do, she really didn¡¯t want to leave this place as it had been her home for over a year now, and she¡¯d had a lot of fun playing with the humans from the village. But on the other hand, a tier 3, even a wounded and in pain one like what she¡¯d heard coming from that hole wasn¡¯t something she could fight off. Keizane knew this but she remained in place anyway. This was her home, she wouldn¡¯t let anyone chase her away, not again. Not ever again. She stealthily approached the hole, body flat to the ground as she reduced her noise and presence, casting ¡®Minor Illusion¡¯ using one of her tails. Keizane poked her head over the rim, hoping desperately that the tier 3 didn¡¯t have anything which let them see through illusions. She was greeted with a bare hole, uniformly made of packed brown earth. She could see there was a tunnel stretching away in a direction away from her home but she didn¡¯t care, she was just glad that whatever had made that terrible noise earlier was gone. Keizane rejoiced, dancing and yelping in happiness. The tier 3 was gone! She didn¡¯t have to leave! She made herself think rationally after just a few more minutes of jumping around. There was a tunnel, but the tier 3 could still come back, so she should cover the hole with something. This was a good plan. She noticed that one of the few remaining pillars still standing had been obliterated while another had been toppled over as the tier 3 came in through the wall of her home. Keizane cast ¡®Weak Gravity Manipulation¡¯ and lifted one of the now much lighter pillars over to the hole and dropped it in. It fit almost perfectly, and unless the tier 3 was a pure strength type, which was unlikely considering she could tell from the fluctuations that the thing was humanoid, it wasn¡¯t coming out through that hole. Keizane went back up to her plank bed and flopped down, falling asleep easily now that she knew the problem had been taken care of. # Dorzath groaned inwardly, this was not going to plan. Even a death-attribute skeleton would be better than what he¡¯d just been given. He forced himself to calm down as he was just getting freaked out, so he slowed down as he went down the list of advantages and disadvantages. Advantages, like Dorzath an imp was a member of a higher race, it had high growth potential as well as a higher base magic affinity than almost any other base tier monster. He¡¯d also been around them for much of his short life so far and so knew practically everything there was to know about them, including their evolutions and patterns of skill gainage. Demons, in general, had a high magic affinity, but imps picked up affinities quickly, a product of not having collected enough energy to be baptized into a demon, the gap left them open to absorb other types of energies relatively easily. On the other hand, they would struggle immensely were they to attempt complex magic like runework, most of the magic they used was highly instinctual. Disadvantages, he knew from his studies that imps were highly disloyal even to the Dungeon Master that created them and needed a Contract to make them do practically anything. Even when placed under a Contract they would scheme to find any possible loophole they could, unlike a demon who would simply accept their new life of servitude with grace. They were also ugly, and annoying, and would complain about literally everything. Also, they were an extremely bad first monster to have as they would straight-up attempt to kill the Dungeon that created them almost immediately as they had no other monsters to protect them. And even if that could be controlled (which was a big if), and this was the most important point, if he was trying not to look like a Dungeon that was owned by a demon, then maybe it wasn¡¯t a good idea to fill his Dungeon with FUCKING DEMONS! Dorzath took deep imaginary breaths in an attempt to calm himself down, trying to mimic the feeling of breathing with his thoughts and memories. First things first, the imp would quickly be created nearby to his core. This was dangerous, and he would have to use the limited authority he had over the imp to order it to stay in place, while he could manipulate the ground around it to form a prison before the creature realised what was going on. He also had a few life-saving treasures if that didn¡¯t work, in the bag where he had dropped it when his body disintegrated. /Summoning free copy of base blueprint/ The notification came through, startling Dorzath as he activated a shield type artifact. A summoning circle was lit up in front of his core, fractals widening from nothing as the circle burned bright with magefire as the imp was summoned forcefully from nothing, bypassing the normal creation process of an imp. Thankfully this lengthy process allowed Dorzath to begin using his new skill ¡®Terrain Manipulation¡¯ to begin making a hardened rock prison around the summoning circle, he¡¯d finished the bars and was making a frantic start on the roof of the cage when the fire of the circle built up into a crescendo, and the imp was formed with a bang. It looked around curiously, slowly turning as the cage was finished in front of it. Eventually, its fiery eyes alighted on Dorzath the core with interest. It walked forward, as if in a trance and frowned when it saw the rock cage in front of it. Dorzath was worried that he hadn¡¯t made the bars thick enough as it clawed at them, but his fears were dissuaded when he realised the claws had all the same impact as a housecat. As if confused, it stroked its smooth grey chin, before snapping its fingers and producing a fireball, which it hurled at the bars. The fireball detonated lightly in a small radius of a few centimetres as it reached the bars. Dorzath panicked, he hadn¡¯t planned for that, normally he would just ward the cage against fire, but he hadn¡¯t yet discovered how to use runes without hands yet if he even could, it was likely he''d have to wait until he had a body. If so, he would have to wait until he reached his tenth floor and grew a body before he could use his runes again. The rock was fine though, it was Dungeon hardened rock able to resist a tier 0 fireball with ease. Just to be safe though, Dorzath poured more and more mana into the cage, sealing up the gaps in the cage and hardening the rock several more times. He was then confident that only a tier 3 would be able to crack the stone cube he had made. Dorzath would open up the cube once he had a more powerful monster, however, and have them kill the imp for him. He¡¯d finally relaxed, ready to get to the business of building his Dungeon, when a feeling of wrongness came over him like his skin was inside out like he was about to explode from something building up inside of him. The answer to what was going on was quickly screamed into his head by his subconscious. ¡®There¡¯s something blocking the entrance to your Dungeon!¡¯ Instinctively, Dorzath activated Essence Absorption and he could feel the building up sensation slowly deplete as whatever was blocking his entrance was gradually absorbed by him. He only let himself relax however when the notifications about him having absorbed the material came into his vision. Whatever it was, it was made of holy stone, so probably one of the columns he knocked over in his entrance to the church. It also gave him a considerable amount of life energy. /Life Energy 12-42/ With that unexpected series of messes taken care of, Dorzath began the process of building his Dungeon. He would have liked to have the machines make him some rooms branching off of the long corridor which his Dungeon was currently in the form of, but he¡¯d learned in his studies that the System wouldn¡¯t recognise them as Rooms if he hadn¡¯t made them himself, and he couldn¡¯t apply any rules to them. However, he now didn¡¯t have anything to populate them with, having sealed up his base tier monster. He had prepared contingencies for this, however, in the case that the base monster he received was unsuited for his environment or was too strong or noticeable, or even too weak, as it was possible to receive an ant as your base tier monster. Therefore, he accessed the Dungeon Shop using his interface, putting one of his ready-made disposable pieces of low-tier enchanted equipment up for sale, asking for a base tier blueprint of a common no attribute monster. One of the things most Dungeons struggled with was providing large enough incentives for people or creatures to enter their dungeon, and keep returning. One way of doing this was to provide pieces of equipment or weapons as rewards for defeating the various monsters or obstacles located within. Dorzath didn¡¯t have the option to reward his challengers in that way yet as he was still level one, but other DMs weren¡¯t and gaining a piece of enchanted equipment to use as a template to reward challengers was an enticing trade for a common base-tier monster. Dorzath received several offers, with DMs seeking to outbid each other by offering more and more powerful monsters, which made him grit his non-existent teeth in annoyance. Eventually, Dorzath chose an offer that also offered a wide selection of materials, as well as a template for a no attribute wolf cub. Dorzath also received offers for higher tier monster blueprints if he had any other pieces of equipment. It only required an intimate knowledge of a monster to acquire a blueprint of it, but some of the higher tier ones had some strange conditions to unlock them, but copies could be shared at a low cost. Dorzath was willing to make some of the trades, but he could only make a trade once a month due to being a Tier 4 Dungeon Owner and not a Tier 5 Dungeon Master. /Trade accepted/ /Blueprint received/ /Cobalt received - Cobalt unlocked as a material/ /Iron received - Iron unlocked as a material/ /Grass seeds received - Grass unlocked/ /Apple seeds received - Apples unlocked/ /Blood moss received - Moss unlocked, Blood Moss unlocked/ /Silver coin received - Silver unlocked/ /Life Energy 42 - 193/ Dorzath was happy with the resources he¡¯d been given, but he decided to create his first monster as he could see from the sunlight pouring in through his entrance, that it was daylight outside. If someone did come to investigate why there was smoke coming from the abandoned church, he wanted them to be able to tell that he was a Dungeon, and also allow challengers to come quickly. He was feeling much more distressed about not having a body than he thought he would, it was already getting on his nerves and it hadn¡¯t even been a day since he¡¯d lost his body. He got on with the business of creating his Dungeon. Creating a monster was a strange thing. Before he gained the skill even if he gained the blueprint for the wolf it would be like a bunch of random information, zeroes, and ones, graphs displaying adaptation characteristics as well as brain maps displaying neuron paths, all being downloaded into his brain, and only with the skill Create Monster could he understand the information and how to use it. Dorzath now had all of the fundamental knowledge on how to create a wolf cub, he knew that all he had to do was keep that knowledge in his head while moving his mana into that shape. The process of it being created was fascinating as flesh, blood, and bone were created out of nothing and slowly pushed into the shape he desired. He could also alter the structure in small ways to make the creature stronger or smarter but that would lead to him gaining a skill for it if he pursued that path, and Dorzath had no desire to be involved in that kind of micromanagement now or in the future, so he just let the spell/skill do its thing. Eventually, the structure finished its work, but the wolf cub just stood on the floor, not moving, its eyes dull. The skill prompted him to act, and Dorzath added in the final piece of the puzzle, a small shred of life energy, which through its natural growth would keep the monster alive. Life energy if left alone would grow higher and higher, even without intervention, and it was through this energy that a life was maintained, and it was how his monsters were maintained. As his monsters were made and not born they were actually more efficient at using life energy and so didn¡¯t require food or rest. Once inserted, the wolf cub was animated, its eyes darting around, its tongue-wagging, its chest moving and it barked once, as acknowledgment or thanks for being created Dorzath wasn¡¯t sure, the cub hadn¡¯t developed enough to the point where it could begin to speak a dialect of Feral, so it was just a bark. He communicated mentally to it that its orders were to patrol the section of the first third of the corridor. He then created two more cubs to patrol the other two-thirds of the corridor, with orders to remain there even if their brothers were attacked. /Life Energy 193 - 178/ He wanted to just complete 4 rooms branching off from the main corridor, which was the maximum number of rooms he planned to put on his first floor, but knew that it was suspicious for a new dungeon to have 4 rooms immediately after arriving. He could probably just burrow down to his 3rd floor right now with the mana he had at his disposal from being a tier 3, but a tier 1 naturally made Dungeon wouldn¡¯t have nearly as much mana, so he had to take things slow. It would be a couple of months before he could reach the 3rd floor. He¡¯d known this beforehand, had planned around it, but it was still frustrating to be so weak and frail. He started on his first room, closest to his core room of the four planned rooms. The room was simple, three by three metres with a low ceiling which would cause a human entering it to crouch. It wasn¡¯t meant for them, however. Dorzath covered all available surfaces in moss, leaving a small circle in the centre though. He broadcasted his intention, that the wolf cubs would be remade here when killed, and that they were to travel to any one of the three unguarded regions and patrol there. When he did so several options popped up in response. /Choose from the options displayed below/
Rule Cost
Rename room to the Moss room. (Gives bonuses to moss cultivation and speed of moss growth within the room) 5 LE
Set respawn point of existing wolf cubs to the Moss Room. 10 LE
Cubs spawned in the Moss Room will patrol one of the unguarded sections of the Main Corridor of the First Floor. 1 LE
Reduce the cost of Cubs spawned in the Moss Room. 10 LE
Removes ¡®Playfulness¡¯ from Cubs spawned in the Moss Room 20 LE
Dorzath was surprised by the depth of the Interface, half of the things on there weren¡¯t his intention at all when he had originally designed the room, but they were very useful. He was also curious about what this ¡®Playfulness¡¯ was and brought up the blueprint of the Cubs to inspect it.
Name -
Race Wolf
Tier Tier -1
Job Child
Level 1
Skills Playfulness Bite
Dorzath was curious why the tier showed -1 before he remembered that most creatures couldn¡¯t even get their first real Job before becoming a pre-adult, while this one was still a Cub. The skill ¡®Playfulness¡¯ was revealed to be a skill that evolved when they reached maturity. It caused the wielder to have trouble listening to commands, and would frequently cause them to get bored and wander off as well as cause them to have lacking killing intent. Overall, a quite useful skill for a real wolf cub as it caused them to have high curiosity and so they experienced varied skill growth, but for a wolf cub in his dungeon, it was very annoying. Already he could see that two of the cubs he¡¯d created were rolling around together, while the other one was just asleep on its side. The skill looked like it was already having a significant effect. So Dorzath selected all of the options available, mana hadn¡¯t even been listed as a resource needing to be consumed as the System knew he had so much of it, and he barely felt it leave him, but he did notice his life energy leave him like gravity and the shine on his core diminished slightly. /Life Energy 178 - 132/ The circle in the Moss Room had a paw imprint into the dirt floor, and the moss all throughout the room grew much more vibrant and thick. What he did feel was the mana cost of having named the room and he estimated that a twentieth of his mana had been used in the process. Dorzath was seriously considering building another room as he¡¯d quite enjoyed making that one, even though a newly formed dungeon shouldn¡¯t really have any rooms, and he was pushing it with one when he felt something drop down into his Dungeon. 3.
  1. 3
Keizane was thrown into consciousness roughly as her maturity tail slapped her awake. There was someone walking around. Keizane froze in place as she thought about that for a second. Was it the tier 3? It couldn¡¯t have been, no way it had the strength to move that massive pillar, it was humanoid, she knew that for sure. Even if it had moved the pillar, she would have heard, that thing was massive and the only reason she could lift it was because Weak Gravity Manipulation was her highest levelled skill, she used it like breathing and with the same effort, although that pillar had been a bit much even for her. So who was this person then? Keizane didn¡¯t recognise him as one of the humans who normally came up here to harass her, this was her home now, and they just needed to accept that! He wore a simple shirt and trousers stained from dust and ¡­ stains. He wore a longsword at his waist, hand constantly at the ready on its long hilt. He seemed weak, she could take him. Keizane cast Weak Gravity Manipulation on herself, and she sprung from her perch in the shadowy alcoves of the worn-down church at a ridiculous speed, the wood cracking under her fingers and her mind scrambling to think of her next movement as she rapidly bore down on the man under her ¡®Light Gravity¡¯ state. She landed right behind the man and entered her ¡®Heavy Gravity¡¯ state as she thrust out with her tails using them as a whip. She hadn¡¯t gotten the skill ¡®Tail Whip¡¯ yet, but she was still a tier 2 under the effect of all of her attacks having greater weight. The man blocked her attacks with the flat of his blade with apparent ease, but sank down to a knee momentarily under her tails barrage, while his hand bled where he gripped his sword with his unprotected hand. Keizane briefly thought she¡¯d won but the man seemed to quickly recover and then push her back with ease sending her stumbling back as she was knocked briefly off balance as her soft paws gripped the rough earth for purchase. She gritted her teeth however and growled at the man hoping to frighten him but his face remained flat and unresponsive. Stupid hu man. It was smart to be afraid of her. Her tail whipped around and pointed at him, casting Weak Gravity Manipulation on his body, to make him heavier, as he seemed like a fast fighter, so it was better to slow him down a little. He stumbled a little under its effects but didn¡¯t even fall or collapse and just seemed to make a couple of practice movements like he was testing things out. He seemed to recover a little momentarily and could fight on instead of being incapacitated like she would have liked. Keizane frowned, it had taken her weeks to learn how to move effectively under the influence of her Heavy state. It just took this human under a minute. She was wary of what other tricks this one had. She cast Minor Illusion, making it seem like tails were attacking when they weren¡¯t, and the man barely managed to fend her off, flailing against attacks that weren¡¯t there, and struggling to move at high speed while he was slowed down. This reassured Keizane, and she went further on the offensive knocking the man around with her tails, like a rat in a trap. She sent him flying up into the air, but lightly catching him at the apex of his flight before smashing him hard against the ground. She swept his legs out from under him and pounded on his stomach until he managed to get a lucky slice out while still lying on the ground. Her normally pale and slender white tails became dyed with her red blood as the fight progressed, while his body looked soft and tender from all the things she¡¯d thrown him into, and he had splinters sticking out of him in several places. His eyes widened as he was knocked around the broken church for the fifth time, crashing through some rotting crates and he finally brought his sword around to bear on her. He¡¯d gone on the defensive up until that point because of her elusive nature, but he seemed to become aggressive after being thrown around like a piece of meat. In addition, she¡¯d used quite a bit of mana, so he¡¯d probably judged that she¡¯d run out. His moves weren¡¯t bad, he seemed to be using some kind of art in his movements as they seemed stronger and more powerful than his aura would suggest. His movements were slow, but his sword had a deceptively long reach. He advanced, ducking around her slower lashes with her tails at a longer range, then when he got closer, he hid his sword behind him to make her unsure of his attack range while angling his body to avoid her close-range downward smashes. Suddenly and with no preemptive moves, he jabbed forward with his sword, piercing through her body and the tail she hastily used to defend herself. Her other tail (shaky from the pain) tried to cast Weak Gravity Manipulation on him again, to slow him down further as he was now closer and the effect of the spell would be greater, but he just slapped the tail as it lit up, interrupting it from casting. He took another step towards her, pushing his sword in deeper and she screamed as the sword grated against something inside her. He stepped in further, possibly preparing to rip his sword out and finish the fight by ripping a massive wound in her side, but his eyes widened just before he did so. Too late, she thought. Her other two tails had extended behind him, lit up with green glows which were rapidly depleting her mana reserves. Air spiraled forth into arcs, which were then spun at the human. He somehow knew, letting go of his sword and throwing his body backward. He was too late though, and the Air Blades ripped through him, one taking chunks out of his neck, but the other only lightly nicked his waist. He was dead either way. Curiously he ignored her entirely, and just sprinted while stumbling like he was drunk out of the church. She would live, he would not. Kitsunes had curious bodies, no matter what Job they took, their bodies, souls and mind would all improve at the same rate every level they received, except for their vitality. This made them a very short-lived race, and so they cultivated a skill or habit you could say. Maybe 80% of their time they spent napping, and in doing so they all raised the tier 2 skill Sleeping from Napping, it gave them a high Vitality as well as an extra well which they could draw from if ever injured. So when Keizane pulled the sword limply out of her chest and tail, the wounds sealed themselves together instantly with a wisp of steam. She slowly pulled herself up to her familiar plank bed, all of her resources extinguished, but just thankful there had just been the one attacker this time at least, but she could rest now at least ¡­ Her body convulsed as her heart was impaled on a blade, piercing through her bed and coming through her blindspot. Her tails thrashed around momentarily, while she tried desperately to heal herself, but her flesh just reformed around the motionless blade and withered away as the organ was prevented from remaking itself. Her tails continued to thrash helplessly with a mind of their own though, even as Keizane had already resolved herself to her fate. Slowly her flesh gave up reknitting itself as her well ran dry and her thoughts slowed. She closed her eyes, and the tails grew still. # Dorzath felt something drop down through his entrance and into his main corridor. It was taking some getting used to, being able to zoom into one section of his Dungeon, while also being aware of everything going on inside of it at once. He eventually figured out how to look at the new challenger though, and gulped. Shit, it¡¯s a tier 2. He thought. The tier 2 was tall, carrying a sword, and male. He had a splash of new skin around his neck, either from having used a potion recently or he just had a bad birthmark, if it was the latter, at least Dorzath would be able to tall this one apart from the other humans easier. On the other hand, Dorzath was a little disappointed that the first challenger was so much more powerful than his Dungeon was currently, one of the things he¡¯d enjoyed doing in hell was trapping, those seeking his Faerie book of runes, in a maze of mirror world, and watching them struggle to get out. It was the struggle he enjoyed, or maybe it was the suffering, but either way, when a challenge was too hard or too easy he received no pleasure from watching a challenger go through it. The tier 2 hesitantly walked down the tunnel, but why did he have his eyes closed? Oh. Dorzath had forgotten to put any light sources in, as a Dungeon, he now had no need for light in order to see. But other less evolved beings still had a need for light in order to see. So the tier 2 human was walking down the corridor, sword at the ready, but with his eyes closed, using his powerful senses to pick up on the sound of even the smallest of movements. A growl from the wolf cub made him hesitate, but once he figured out how close the growl was to the ground, he stepped forward and ran through the cub in one movement. He held his sword in place though, Dorzath wasn¡¯t sure why maybe he was posing? There was no one around to see him though¡­ He stayed that way for a while, before pulling the corpse off of his blade and pushing it over to the side, up against the wall. He continued onward, faster now that he was aware of the danger he would face. He disposed of the next two cubs with a casual slice of his blade, cutting them down and moving on, with no pause in his movement, none of that ridiculous posing he¡¯d done earlier. There was some evidence of an art in his movements, so Dorzath thought he was probably a Swordsman. He reached the end of the corridor, and tried to enter the Moss room, but hit his head on the low ceiling, he retreated and continued onwards down the corridor, hastening his steps when the soft glow of Dorzath¡¯s core reached his eyes. He entered the core room, the final room of Dorzath¡¯s Dungeon with wide eyes. He reached out with his hand to touch the core, while Dorzath tensed up, ready to activate any of his protective artifacts at a moment''s notice. The human didn¡¯t do anything suspicious or shady though and proceeded to lay his bare skin against the core. It¡¯s glow diminished as a large amount of Dorzath¡¯s mana was sucked into the surroundings, and the man lit up with a blinding flash of red light, disappearing from Dorzath¡¯s sight. Dorzath sighed inwardly, that hadn¡¯t gone too bad, all things considered. The human was clearly familiar with dungeons to some extent, which was unsurprising considering he was a tier 2. The human had known about the fact that if you conquered a Dungeon then you could either choose to destroy its core or do the logical thing and touch the core and be warped back to the beginning of the Dungeon, thereby allowing yourself and others to reap the rewards of the Dungeon multiple times. He¡¯d been planning to start work on his second room for this floor, but he could use the Swordsman having arrived as an excuse for his rapid increase in size, he¡¯d gained over 2 life energy for every minute that he was there, which was more than enough to build out another room. /Life energy 132 - 157/ Before he did that though, he absorbed a few of the materials he¡¯d brought with him, camouflaged in his pouch below his core. He didn¡¯t absorb all of them, and he¡¯d gained enough levels in Essence Absorption by now that he could pick and choose what he wanted to absorb. He didn¡¯t want to absorb everything he¡¯d brought so far, as life energy made his core shinier and smoother, making it look more like a living thing than an object the more life energy was inside it. Of course, it was very unlikely that someone that familiar with Dungeons would arrive at his, but Dorzath chose cowardice and safety over boldness and danger. /Cow leather absorbed - Cow leather unlocked as a material/ /Mana Crystal absorbed - Mana Crystal unlocked as a material/ /Bone dust absorbed - Bone dust unlocked as a material/ /Assorted woods absorbed - Assorted woods unlocked as a material/ /Life energy 157 - 436/ Now that he¡¯d had a look at a tier 2 of this world and seen what level of technology this world they had, Dorzath was relieved, it looked like he¡¯d arrived at one of the border worlds, where they were aware of the War, but not one where recruiters would come regularly, due to the low level of Mana concentration in the air leading to weaker troops. They also had steel, that tier 2 had a steel sword, which was good, and meant they had progressed away from mud walls in some cases. Dorzath had seen the church he¡¯d arrived in but it was so run down he was unsure as to what century it was even from. Technology levels changed as nations rose and fell, and that could have been an ancient relic from a previous era. It also meant he could be less restrictive with the things he offered as rewards. He planned out his next two rooms, thinking that was a suitable amount for his current level of development. Unaware, naturally created dungeons ranged from the carnivorous to the pacifists, and they were as varied in personalities as much any other race. But the one thing they all shared was a desire to have people or animals enter their dungeons, and to keep them there for as long as possible in order to passively absorb life energy from them or to consume them and obtain a large portion of life energy that way. Dorzath was looking to emulate and copy their behavior by creating features in his Dungeon that would be designed to keep people there as long as possible, even though he really was in no need for more life energy for an extended period of time. For his second room, and the one he was going to place closest to the entrance, was a resource room, something people would come to and regularly stay in for extended periods of time. He chose iron, there was some in the ground around him probably so it wasn¡¯t too strange for him to have encountered and absorbed it and learned how to make it. He hollowed out a room, making it have a high ceiling, making it clear that this room was made for humans to use, and made it approximately 6 by 6 meters this time, he willed a large chunk of iron into existence, trying to get started on progress towards the skill Material Creation, something he would need if he was going to be supplying the army. He felt his mana dip downwards noticeably, and brought up his personal interface, as opposed to his Dungeon interface, to check. His mana had dropped by about a tenth. The cost of creating materials was greatly reduced when using the interface, and even greater if he put in place rules to reduce its cost, but if he obtained the corresponding skill the cost would be reduced even further, which would be very important when he was mass-producing equipment for the army in the future. Dorzath was literally creating something from nothing, which was far more difficult than simply shaping what was already there, or altering its properties, like what he¡¯d done with the rock cage. Really, if he wanted to create something from nothing, he would use the Dungeon interface, which would cause him to use life energy, life energy was the energy in all aspects of creation, the building blocks of life and death, and so it was incredibly efficient at creation. Dorzath knew from his studies, however, that while he was experiencing high levels of life energy gainage currently, that it severely levelled off when he reached the higher number floors. The chunk of iron he surrounded by dirt, making it so challengers would have to really work in order to dig it out. Dorzath willed a few more chunks of iron into existence inside the walls, having some corners stick out here and there to signal that there was something in the walls. Once again he thought about what sort of rules he wanted to be put into place for this room. He wanted the room to restock itself with Iron, but only once the challengers had left the room, there was no point making it too easy after all. He liked to watch them struggle. Once more the System responded to his intentions, while also giving him options he hadn¡¯t even thought of.
Name Room the ¡®Basic Iron Ore Room¡¯ Makes room produce iron ore naturally over time. 10 LE
Differ quality of iron ore extracted according to the skill of the challenger removing it. 5 LE
Make Iron ore only reappear once challengers have left the room 1 LE
Install Sturdy wood door to the room 5 LE
Lock the door to the room until the monster guarding it has been slain. 5 LE
Again, the mana requirements would not appear, Dorzath¡¯s mana pool was so far above the requirements it would be insulting to have it shown, he suspected it would finally be shown when he would not be able to afford all of the rules shown.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. He chose the option to name the room, he could do the same thing to a monster, but doing so was such a spectacularly bad idea for him considering he was trying to stay under the radar. He also chose the option to install the door and to make the ore only appear after the challengers had left. He left the other options there, he would grab them in the future, to make it seem like his Dungeon was growing slowly and steadily rather than in rapid bursts. /Life energy 436 - 420/ Dorzath spent the rest of his free time making and remaking simple objects and weapons, trying to use up Life energy as well as unlock blueprints for basic objects. /Life energy 420 - 306/ /Basic tier wooden stick created - Basic tier wooden stick unlocked as an object/ /Basic tier wooden shield created - Basic tier wooden shield unlocked as an object/ /Fire-aspect Mana Crystal created - Fire-aspect Mana Crystal unlocked as a material/ Dorzath desperately wanted to just improve his main corridor and add lights, but he knew he was already pushing the suspension of disbelief of his challengers by having two rooms. It was just so frustrating! Before he could get himself worked up into another frenzy however, the next batch of challengers arrived, led by the man from earlier. His wolf cubs had already long ago respawned so he had no worries about them mistaking his Dungeon for a normal cave. They dropped down one by one, he should do something about that, maybe add some stairs? There were 4 of them in total. The Swordsman, an older woman who was tier 2, a young boy who was still tier 0 but wore a serious look. Finally a big man, only tier 1, but they all looked to him with respect. The Leader? The boy took the lead, after being handed a thick glass jar by the elderly woman, which he promptly shook and it released a weak but usable light. The Swordsman, not that much older than the boy, tried to hold him back, but he strode forward with a grin on his face while unsheathing a ¡­ blade of questionable quality. With a collective sigh, the rest of the band followed after the boy. The boy didn¡¯t hesitate when he encountered the cubs, holding them down with one hand wrapped in cloth and stabbing them several times in the chest until they stopped moving. He¡¯d come prepared with a way to deal with these monsters. When the rest of the group reached him, he held up his dripping trophy proudly before throwing it into a bag. The rest of the group looked on proudly while not interfering, and just observing the Dungeon around them. They reached the first room, and the big tier 1 man marveled at the room, looking at all the places in the wall which had iron ore with a critical, and then deeply satisfied look on his face. They moved on however as they had no equipment with them, but Dorzath was happy that the function of the room had been quickly picked up, he hated dealing with stupid people. The boy claimed all of the other kills as well, leaping ahead as though he was worried the others would steal his kills, even though not one of them moved a muscle the entire time. He took his time though, not out of sadism, just lack of ability, but the others seemed content to wait and discuss the Dungeon. Dorzath was both gratified that he didn¡¯t have to hear their meaningless conversations, he knew they would just be discussing how incredible it was to have a Dungeon arrive in their town and how lucky they were anyway, and at the same time regret that he wasn¡¯t quite advanced enough to pick up on their conversations yet. The boy gained a level when he reached the end of the Dungeon though, and he and all the others seemed quite happy for him, maybe a little too happy, maybe children took a long time to level up? Dorzath had never studied Human cultures as in-depth as he had other species, they were just very uninteresting and also one of the least advanced species. He was close to ascending now, probably just one more level and he¡¯d be there. They walked out of the Dungeon though, although the boy seemed to want to try teleporting, his elders held him back. Dorzath understood why, they wanted the Dungeon to develop faster, and it was well known that using a Dungeons teleportation function would deplete it of mana. It was actually a way that fearful kings would try to halt the development of Dungeons. On their way out, the Swordsman dropped an oiled torch on the ground before leaving. Dorzath didn¡¯t hold back and absorbed the torch as soon as he was out of sight. It was clear that he was unhappy about the lack of light in the Dungeon and was hoping that if the Dungeon absorbed the blueprint of the torch, it would provide some to challengers when entering. Unluckily for him, Dorzath had a plan and torches weren¡¯t on it for some time. /Oiled Wooden torch absorbed - Oiled Wooden torch unlocked as an object/ That object combined with the passive Life energy he absorbed off of them which then increased his Life Energy once again. /Life energy 306 - 360/ As soon as they left, Dorzath stopped holding back on the upgrades for his first room and bought the rest of them. /Life energy 360 - 350/ He also formed a third room, almost identical to the basic iron ore room, except this one would have a random tree which would grow rapidly over time, he placed his first trap in this room as well. Dorzath wasn¡¯t a big fan of traps in general, but Dungeons were generally expected to have a few of them every now and then. It was a rock which hung over the door which would be released when the door opened. Unless someone sprinted into the room they wouldn¡¯t be hit by it, and it was a gentle reminder to the challenger that they were still in a Dungeon, which was an extremely dangerous being. This would hopefully cause them to slow down a little and increase his Life energy gain. That new room along with the trap set him back in Life energy considerably. /Life energy 350 - 304/ Dorzath also created his fourth room but didn¡¯t add an entrance, leaving the room buried in the earth. In this room, he placed a wolf cub and placed a few mana crystals in the room. He would need to advance to his next floor in a little while and there would need to be more advanced monsters for that floor, he was planning to have tier 0 wolves on that floor. He could unlock that monster simply by placing his monster alone and then waiting for six months for it to age and unlock the System and the tier 0 job. Dorzath did not want to wait six months. He could also accelerate the wolf''s aging though by doing what he had just done now. Mana Crystals when directly ingested tended to cause rapid skill growth as well as mutations. He would end up unlocking quite a few variant species of the wolf cub first, but on the list of potential mutations was simply the more aged version of the species. The best part was that it wouldn¡¯t be strange that he could spawn higher tier versions of the monsters he already possessed so quickly as many Natural Dungeons sometimes had more advantages than the Created Dungeons like the one Dorzath had. Amongst those advantages was the fact that they often started with tier 0 monsters, but only started creating them on their second floor. His LE started to quickly plummet as he started to spend it so frivolously. Dorzath was fine with the spending however as the challengers would never know, and it also reduced the shine on his core slightly. It was a win win win. Before moving forward though Dorzath decided to make a list of his priorities moving forward, as he kept getting sidetracked in the process of Creation, and he was annoyed at himself for shifting so far away from his plan, even though for the last ten cycles he¡¯d had limited freedom. He¡¯d enjoyed living an unorganised life for a brief time, but he¡¯d fallen back into his old patterns of strict self-organisation when he was studying to become a DM and he felt uncomfortable falling out of them again for even a short period. Dorzath¡¯s list:
  1. Finish the first floor
  2. Finish entrance
  3. Obtain a weak tier 0 monster
  4. Start the Second floor
  5. Kill the Imp
  6. Get a body
He carved everything into rock, practicing his Terrain Manipulation once again. Once he had everything laid out in front of him, his focus was sharpened once again. It was one thing to know that you had a lot to do, but it was another thing entirely to see it laid out in front of you. His personal Contract whispered that there was one last thing to add to that list, but Dorzath ignored that voice. By becoming a DM he had effectively chained himself to the demon army for eternity, and he knew it. He was fine with it though, he was a god unto himself within his Dungeon, and once he reached tier 5 he could form a body which even if destroyed outside his Dungeon, he could still reform himself within the Dungeon for limited cost. He was fine with the current situation. Really. His cubs had barely all respawned when that tier 0 boy was back, carrying his glowing flask. He was making Dorzath consider expanding the length of the main Corridor and adding more cubs along its length. He¡¯d wanted to start his first floor off being extremely weak and then raising its difficulty if even the tier 0¡¯s didn¡¯t consider it difficult. The only reason the Corridor was so short was because the machines he¡¯d used to create it would overheat if used for too long, but Dorzath had severely underestimated his own speed at manipulating the environment around him, so at this point the machines, while being initially useful had already reached the limit of their usefulness. He¡¯d brought along a fierce little girl, who while mildly terrifying was also struggling to drag a sword along the ground behind her. Wait, how did a small human like that even lift something that heavy, without even a tier 0 job? The girl just dropped the sword as the boy quickly outpaced her after slicing through the cub. Dorzath was happy to accept the gift and quickly absorbed the sword, hopefully, that would make the girl cry. It was always funny to see the shapes a human face made if you prodded them enough. The girl failed to catch up to the boy however as he was older and considerably more advanced. In addition, he didn¡¯t even need to hold the wolves down, he simply waited and then darted forward when they leaped at him like he knew where they were going to be. Maybe he¡¯d gained a skill? The girl finally caught up to him just as he finished off the last cub, and he grinned at her triumphantly, while she made a facial expression which Dorzath couldn¡¯t place, was that the one they made when they were h***y? Unlikely, this little one was still very small. He picked her up and carried her on his back, as they kept going forward. What were they ¡­? Ah. They were attempting to do the very thing they were just forbidden from doing, teleportation. Bad children. A problem in every species. By his own species standards, Dorzath was still considered a child, even though he could slay kings. He also understood rebellion, sometimes all he wanted to do was rip a fellow demons head off, but his Contract prevented him from doing so. He applauded these children for rebelling, even when he could not. The mana loss for transporting a tier 0 and a no tier would be made up in minutes, so he didn¡¯t care about that. As Dorzath¡¯s attention was focused on these two children however, the inexperienced dungeon core wasn¡¯t paying attention to the rest of the Dungeon. The two children rounded the corner leading to his core room, but before they could marvel at his beauty, a bear fell out of the wall. A bear-shaped wolf broke through the reinforced dirt like it was well, dirt and screamed its rage at its existence into the air. A tier 1, evolved Abomination teen wolf. In his excitement at being so clever and forward-thinking like he had done so, Dorzath realised at that moment that he had failed to consider the dangers of what he had attempted to do in his hidden fourth room. Something normally attempted on tier one monsters, he had just left a base tier monster alone with a mountain of evolution catalysts, normally reserved for safe use on tier 2 and above monsters to ensure predictable results, and only just now was he quickly realising what a mistake that had been. The boy didn¡¯t freeze up though, instead, he grabbed the small human and screamed something at her, probably ¡®stay here while I go get help¡¯. The girl saw through the obvious ruse and ran away stumbling, while the boy was left behind trembling as he faced the tier 1 Abomination, which was actually close to ascending to a higher Job. If Dorzath had put one more Mana Crystal in that room both of the children would be dead right now. Dead. Dorzath mentally slapped himself. Focus! If a challenger were to die this early on, there was a very real chance the villagers would wall his Dungeon up, or worse destroy his Core and sell it. He was less scared of the second option because he had an artifact which could wipe that town off the map, but the first option made him feel sick. That boy could not die. The boy. He probably had at least one skill, but he would much prefer to know in detail so he could plan out how best to help to influence this impossible fight in his favor. In response to his thoughts, a notification popped up asking him if he wanted to put in place a rule to be able to read challengers status screens as they passed through his Corridor. The cost was 1000 LE and over half of his available mana, but there was little he could do with mana in this situation anyway as the Abomination wouldn¡¯t listen to him, a wonderful feature of his Job, using an artifact would make the boy realise he was more than a Dungeon, and Terrain Manipulation would take too long and the wolf would just move out of the way of his snail-like ground and wall movement. Dorzath quickly burnt through a large chunk of his available materials to absorb, discarded his notifications and let out a gasp which almost felt real as the Life energy left him, tiring him out tremendously. Thankfully he didn¡¯t have a body, or it was unlikely he would be able to move right now. He brought up the boy''s status screen.
Name Invim
Race Human
Tier 0
Job Tracker
Level 5
Skills Predict Movements (1) Steady Hands (/)
Okay, the boy was going to die. Dorzath had hoped he had something like a Wolf-Killer Job, with specialised wolf killing skills, because that was the only way he could see the boy, no, Invim getting out of this alive. He had an inherited skill, which happened occasionally if your parents were powerful enough, but it was used mostly for ranged weapons, and even if he had a ranged weapon, it would have to be firing an arrow crafted by Dorzath if it had any chance of killing an Abomination. Abominations were just that, abominations. They couldn¡¯t breed, couldn¡¯t sleep, couldn¡¯t even communicate, and generally after being created they would seek out and destroy whatever made them before killing themselves. Even this one was just repeatedly hitting its head into the floor with enough force to shake the Dungeon as if trying to get rid of the weeping pustules and sores which covered its entire body. Invim shifted slightly as if thinking he could make a run for it when the malformed and melted wolf snapped its head up looking straight at the boy. Invim froze, before throwing himself to the side with all the force his tiny legs could probably muster. The Abomination blurred, before seeming to reappear where he¡¯d just been standing, biting down hard through the floor, and then, because it was insane, it continued chewing through the earth. Invim was actually lucky, Abominations had a skill which forcefully raised their tier when they faced their creator and gave them a lock on ability which made them never lose sight of their target. Right now he was facing a very distracted Abomination, which gave him ¡­ nothing. The boy was still going to die. Dorzath watched as they continued their dance, with the Abomination blurring in and out of existence, and the boy nimbly moving out of the way each time. One time it abruptly continued chasing after the boy normally even after he¡¯d dodged its blurry attack, and Invim used the chance to get a couple of slashes in with his dagger, rolling past its attack and coming up slicing through its rear tendons, it hobbled briefly before shaking its body as a wave of steam washed over it as its wounds closed up. The limitation of the boy¡¯s skill was obvious as the wolf used the skill inside the cloud of steam, but the boy clearly had no idea. It appeared in front of him, biting into his body across his stomach before he could even try to react. It had its jaws around him while he screamed and wailed. He was sobbing as the jaws of the pustulent wolf crunched and ground into his ribcage. Through his mad flailing, and through some weird miracle he still somehow held onto his sorry excuse for his knife all this time, he stabbed it deep into the wolf¡¯s eye. He quickly seemed to figure out what he¡¯d done as he pushed deep, twisting his knife as he did so. The jaws of the wolf opened wide as it screeched in pain and howled up at the dirt roof of the Corridor. Invim rolled away out of its mouth, quietly sobbing as his body shook in fear in pain and fear as he tried to crawl away from the monster, towards the exit. The wolf was distracted, maybe he had a chance? Dorzath knew Invim was just deluding himself, but for some reason, he couldn¡¯t quite work up the effort to mock his facial expression at that moment. Curious as to what was going on, Dorzath looked inwards at his mental world where his sins fought for supremacy over his actions, wondering which one was driving this action. His inner thoughts were telling him something new, something he hadn''t heard before. All his life his body made of sin was always pulling him in several directions, as his greed, lust, sloth, pride, envy, rage and gluttony fought for control over his body and actions. Most of the time Dorzath just let them fight it out in a mental war inside his head, as most demons did. Most of the time his rage, pride, and greed were the ones to come out victorious as they were the strongest sins he was constructed of. But now his sins were quiet. Like they were trapped behind glass and for this very moment, Dorzath was free to make a choice regardless of his sin''s opinions in the matter. Maybe this was his contract? Maybe it was something else, but who cares. His subconscious thoughts were telling him to help, and his conscious thoughts agreed. He felt a strange need to help this boy, and he was thinking up reasons to himself to rationalise this strange need to save the boy. The reasons were mostly for his own sanity and because he didn''t have the time he needed to think this over. Maybe it was the fact that they both were rebellious children, even close to the same age, the fact that he¡¯d struggled so much, given him so much ¡­ Entertainment wasn¡¯t the right word to use here, but he didn¡¯t know the right one to use. Was there even a word to use here? He liked watching the boy struggle, and he wanted to continue to watch the boy struggle. He was being greedy, but that was just his nature. And with that thought. the barrier between Dorzath and his sins was back down again, and they were back influencing his every action again except for the thought about protecting Invim, which stayed. Dorzath threw the matter about being momentarily released from his sins to the back of his mind. Dorzath went into his bag with his Essence Absorption, using it as a feeler to locate ¡­ there! He didn¡¯t have time to figure out how to send the object to Invim, he just brute-forced his way through the process, absorbing it, then willing it into existence in front of the boy along with a random bow from his memories. He was a Dungeon, and so a god within his halls. The Universe pushed back in weak defiance that he was breaking the laws of energy. This was his Right! He roared at the System and the universe as his Rage reared its head for the first time since he was Student, and pushed through the force pushing against him with his mana. Mentally exhausted from his endeavors, and partly worried he''d overexerted himself slightly Dorzath saw the brilliant blue light of Dungeon Creation as the universe bent to the will of a tier 4 and then saw nothing as black hit him like a tidal wave. # Invim knew it wasn¡¯t right, he knew it was selfish, but he didn¡¯t want to die. Why couldn¡¯t Helen have stayed behind? She was really strong for a six-year-old, or somebody else, anybody but him. The ground. He was on the ground. He could feel it in his hands. He remembered thinking about how clean and smooth it was. He¡¯d never seen ground that smooth before. Up close though, it was filled with imperfections, just like everything else. Just like this Dungeon and just like him. He was still moving, wasn¡¯t he? Could he feel or his hands or was that just his imagination? He had to be moving because if he wasn¡¯t then that meant he was going to get caught, and if he got caught then he was going to ¡­ No. Don¡¯t think about that. His arm was tired, so he couldn¡¯t feel it, that was all. His eyelids burnt bright red as something lit up the world around him, but he didn¡¯t want to open them to see what it was. What if it was the wolf-thing? Maybe it could do magic like Old Hag, but that would make it a tier 2 monster, and he would never survive fighting a tier 2 monster, nobody would. What would Emmet do? He¡¯d get up and fight. But Emmet was strong, and he was weak. So what? His thoughts seemed to be angry at him for some reason Would he lie here, waiting here to die? No. He wouldn¡¯t. So what are you going to do? What are you going to do Invim? Invim opened his eyes. Before him, forming from nothing, like magic, was a beautiful arrow covered in strange glowing symbols. It was like nothing he¡¯d ever seen before and it lay there floating in the air beside a silver bow. It was long and sharp with a shaped handle, like something out of a fairy tale. He reached out, his left hand took hold of the bow. It fit, it belonged in his hand. The arrow gently floated around him and into place, nocking itself on its own as Invim pulled himself up off the ground and looked up at the monster. Its crazed and bleeding eyes stared back at him, gleaming in a way they hadn¡¯t before, as it waited there in silence frozen in place. What was it waiting for? He was dimly aware of notifications sounding off around him. He just mentally thought yes, hoping they would leave him alone, knowing that if he broke eye contact with this thing he would die. His hands hurt, maybe they were broken, who cared. His hands hurt, but they were steady. Always steady. He could do this. Then it was like the world around him changed all at once like he was watching two versions of the monster at once, like he was different all of a sudden, like the world was different. He felt more confident, but the thing across from him, the thing that used to be a wolf. It was different now. Or maybe it was always the same. Either way, he could see it in a way he couldn¡¯t before. He knew that it was in pain, that it was asking for release, that this wasn¡¯t the way it wanted to live. That this thing standing motionless across from him, it wasn¡¯t a monster, it was a Hunter. In one motion he raised the bow up, never breaking eye contact with the thing. He brought the string up to his cheek, he¡¯d never used a bow before but it was like he was in a trance, like he was a hero in a story, his hands just knew what to do and he let them. The glowing arrow flashed as he felt drained all of a sudden, and like a pin drop in an empty room, it broke the silence. He knew it would though, he saw it before it happened. He knew the bow would flash, and that look of recognition in its eyes the thing holding it in place out of respect, out of acknowledgment, something he would see in a human, not in an animal or a monster, would disappear. He knew it would blur in and out of existence, and he knew that once it blurred out it would appear behind him, jaw wide. He knew all of that would happen. And then it happened. The arrow flashed, the beast blurred and vanished. In one movement, Invim spun and dropped to a knee, almost waiting for the beast to reappear. It dropped back into existence but he knew that it knew that it would die. He knew what he would see but he looked anyway. The last thing Invim saw before his vision turned to white, that he saw with his eyes and not with his mind, was the open eye of a fellow Hunter, thanking him.
Name Invim
Race Human
Tier 1
Job Hunter
Level 2
Skills See Movements (2) Steady Hands (/) Bow Proficiency (1)
4. 4. Dorzath woke up. He could feel stabbing pain coursing through his body, like needles were coursing through his bloodstream, tearing open gashes and gouges as they went. Wait. He didn¡¯t have a body though. He remembered his teacher mentioning something like this during one of his first lectures. He didn¡¯t have a body anymore, but he was created with one and it was too strange not having one. His mind and subconscious couldn¡¯t adapt that quickly, and so when something was wrong he would still feel it as physical pain. He recognised this sensation however from his short time spent duelling when he had a physical body. Mana Overuse, or rather to be more accurate, in his blind rage and need for more power he¡¯d reached for mana which wasn¡¯t there and he¡¯d used the atmospheric mana in the air. It was like lava pouring through his veins, he¡¯d done it once on purpose when he¡¯d had a body. Even though it was a terrible idea and he hadn¡¯t wanted to do it, his Contract had made him do so, to check if it was an efficient way of training when it was used in controlled conditions as opposed to using it in the heat of battle. All it had done, however, was knock him unconscious for several days. Unfortunately, Dorzath had no way of dealing with the effects other than simply lying there and waiting for his core to recover. It had a series of very small cracks running down the length of it and he didn¡¯t want to risk further damaging the one thing that was keeping him from returning back to the seething pool of hatred and despair which had birthed him. He could still use his power as a Dungeon though, as the Dungeons operation continued without him and it needed no input from him with all of the monsters he made being bound to a dedicated spawning area. He could still spend life energy, but using mana would literally just cause him to blackout as well as exasperate his condition. The boy Invim, he was safe though. He wasn¡¯t quite sure what came over him, but he wouldn¡¯t be doing anything like that for a long time. For one thing, he was a demon, it was very strange for him to save the life of a human. In addition, creating that bow for him had possibly roused the suspicions of the village as to his true nature as a Created Dungeon. If the village managed to move past this situation then it would be fine, if not he could simply take them off of the map and continue building himself without any regards to concerns over speed. It would be slower without the ambient life energy absorption that challengers brought, but he would manage. For now, he allowed himself only to buy upgrades which solely required life energy. He had quite a bit leftover from the death of the Abomination, who wasn¡¯t considered his monster any longer and so it was quite a profitable kill. The main Corridor was wrecked, that arrow of his could wipe out a tier 3 so he wasn¡¯t too surprised, but with Abominations, it was better to be safe than sorry. He bought simple things, an upgrade to make the main Corridor repair itself over time if damaged and another which made it so every time it was damaged it came back stronger. He also set a pile of torches by the entrance finally, in a bucket which one of the villagers had provided him with, maybe the tier 2, with life energy going into making more appear over time if they were used. He also used the Dungeon Interface to create another wolf cub in his fourth room, and this time left it with a single mana crystal. He would take things in moderation this time, but he still needed a more powerful enemy for the second floor. The cost was expensive as he was using pure life energy instead of Mana with LE in combination, the most effective mix. You could use either form of energy in place of the other but with severely diminishing returns the more you upset the golden ratio of 1:1. At first, Dorzath was worried he¡¯d frightened away any potential challengers, but slowly more reappeared over time. Most children who entered with parents escorting them in case another tier 1 showed up. None did, he made sure of it, and the challengers took home their prizes probably just happy at the chance to have meat on the table. It was a pitiful existence these humans lived, but they would be getting none from Dorzath. He''d already used up several cycles worth of emotion saving that boy, and at great personal cost to himself. It took him almost a week, but the cracks finally healed themselves over, Dorzath took it slow at first, he could have levelled up by now by burrowing down, the notification had been there as soon as he finished his second room. The only requirement for levelling up as a Dungeon was reaching half the number of available rooms for that floor. He¡¯d now reached all 5 maximum rooms, but he would wait a while longer, just to make sure his injuries had fully healed. During that time he extended the length of his main Corridor, so there were now 5 wolf cubs along the length of it instead of just 3. He also made the corridor a little wider and taller. He also made the surrounding three walls of the hole which was the entrance into his dungeon into a set of semicircular steps, so people could walk rather than drop into his Dungeon. Finally, on the final hour before he was due to descend, and under his careful supervision and watchful eye, a wolf cub evolved into a tier 0 Biter, a teen wolf. His LE count had improved tremendously over this time as both the iron and wood room had been well received and used since their creation, bringing in the highest LE numbers as the quality of materials extracted was improved when a higher tier with higher tier skills was the one doing the extracting. This made the quality of the wood and ore mined in his Dungeon higher than that of the surrounding area, that and the fact that it was always in a predictable spot, made it well sought after by many of the non-fighter jobs in the village, as it allowed them to quickly and easily level. Over time, Dorzath started to see even the children entering his Dungeon had better equipment than before. He was ready to descend. He was a little sad that he hadn¡¯t seen Invim though, he hoped he hadn¡¯t frightened him away. He mentally tapped on the notification, again this was something that he could do instinctively as a Dungeon Owner, but it would provide him with a skill, which although would lower the cost of descending, he would rather keep his skill energy for something more worthwhile.
Do you wish to level up?
It was an interesting phrasing, but he would leave the analysis of the Systems intricacies to the Scholars. His LE plummeted as he clicked on the option to use a combination of Mana and LE. /Life Energy 400 - 150/ Interestingly the cost wasn¡¯t even a third of what he¡¯d paid for that upgrade which allowed him to see the status screens of challengers, while in his first floor main Corridor. Immediately, he could feel the sensation of levelling up, a new feeling for him as through tier 0 - 3 levelling up had only been accompanied by a small rise in physical strength as Dorzath was created a Demon, one of a high tiered race, and so levelling had a limited effect on him. DMs received an equal upgrade to all of their characteristics. For Dorzath who¡¯d never had a physical Job, it was a massive upgrade in durability and survivability. His Core would resist a tier 2s blows at this point, although probably not that tier 2 Swordsmaster¡¯s blows as the influence of an art had unpredictable effects. Below him, a dirt room was created, and he could feel a pulling sensation on him, like the gravity of entering orbit, pulling him downwards. Dorzath complied with the sensation, allowing himself to be shunted as he was in his previous core room, and then suddenly he was in his new one as the surroundings around his core changed slightly. He quickly created a set of stairs leading down to the new floor, as the feeling of being trapped had started to build up, and he had no intention of repeating that terrifying experience again when he¡¯d had his entrance briefly sealed off. Dorzath wanted to do something with his previous core room, which had become the fifth room of the first floor while he¡¯d brought his previous fifth room with him as he could use it for experimentation purposes he had in the future as he¡¯d done in the past both successfully and unsuccessfully. Maybe if he continued using it for that purpose the System would recognise that and give him some relevant upgrades, he¡¯d tried already, but it seemed the System disliked artificially evolving monsters in weird and unpredictable directions. He thought and thought, even as challengers saw the new entrance to the next floor and excitedly dashed down the stairs, only to be greeted with disappointment as they found there was only one room and it was the core room. Slowly the challengers, who were mostly children, with some adults there to collect resources, trickled out of the Dungeon as the light outside faded. Nobody wanted to walk in the dark, so they left in groups, taking a torch as they left. Eventually, Dorzath fell upon what he thought was the perfect thing to use the old core room as. He wasn¡¯t going to put a mini-boss on the first floor, as he would for the later floors, but he did want to start to encourage the challengers to be raiding in groups. So he put a nest in the centre of the floor, and spawned three wolf cubs there, binding them to that location in the process. They were gathered around a pile of rocks, out of which sprang a statue. It was a boy, holding a bow and aiming it at a wolf. He didn¡¯t put any of the actual details of the wolf, like it''s bleeding eyes and open sores, on the statue, and instead left it purposely vague but made it massive, to emphasise the terrible odds the boy had overcome. Hopefully, this would serve to emphasise that he was a peaceful Dungeon and that what had happened had been a terrible mistake. With this, Dorzath discarded the matter of the Abomination, it was dealt with and he could stop caring. The boy Invim, he had probably ascended through taking part in such a high stakes battle and had even received a tier 2 artefact, the silver bow which was enchanted with a self-repair function as long as silver was supplied to it, and enhanced durability. It also gave any arrow fired from its extra piercing power. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. He was lucky to have entered the Dungeon that day. Lucky. He thought that even after that expenditure he would be fine in terms of suspicion levels if he were to go about building out a rough outline of the floor so far. This time he wanted to build several rooms in a sequential pattern, so in order to reach the next floor, you had to pass through every room on the second floor. It had to be simplistic though, he would love to spruce things up a little at this point, but once again he didn¡¯t want to risk revealing his full strength. Thankfully he had a few grass seeds which he¡¯d received along with the base tier blueprint of the wolf, and some had blown into his entrance anyway. From the descent of the stairs, the first room was a battle against the only enemy type on this floor, the tier 0 Biter wolf, which was both a small challenge, a measure of the challenger''s power and one last warning if their power was lacking, to turn back before it was too late. Dorzath planted tufts of grass at random points around the room, not enough to hide the young wolf, but enough that the next room wouldn¡¯t be too much of an abrupt shock. In his next room, he raised the ceiling to a height of 5m, but he would alter the ceiling further when he had the right skills later to make it look different. For this room, he planted thigh-high grass and widened the room to his greatest size yet, a staggering size of 500m by 300m. The room had three trails which he plotted through it, one which took a long, almost scenic route, but would have the highest encounter rate between challenger and monster. The second route would take the most direct route, cutting straight through the field of grass to the exit on the far side, and the third route was somewhere in between, allowing the challenger to fight monsters, but also not serving as too large of a detour, unlike the first route. He set the room to have it''s own respawn ability and set an area of the field to be the wolves resting spot. After they ascended to tier 0, a normal wolf would have their tier 1 skill Playfulness evolve into the tier 2 skill ¡®Roughhousing¡¯. While it meant they would still follow orders, the skill meant the monsters would occasionally seek out each other to engage in mock fights, during which they would experience massive skill and level growth. In this way, Dorzath would obtain the blueprints of many different mildly stronger wolves for free, by just having them engage in mock fights occasionally in the resting spot. The challengers could run into the resting spot, but only if they went off of the path, which was suicide even for a tier 1 as the wolves were practically invisible in the low grass. Dorzath bound ten wolves to that room, with the ability to hunt as a pack if a tier 1 attacked. He moved on, making a small 1m by 1m dirt space as the next room but leaving it bare, even though he had Mana and LE to spare. Maybe now that he had tier 0 enemies, Invim would finally return ¡­ Dorzath recoiled at his thoughts. Where had that come from? His Contracts fluctuations were low, so it was clear that neither of them was affecting his behaviour in any way. Maybe this was a side effect of his Job? Some Jobs could warp the user''s personality, far away from what it used to be. It was quite useful for a demon as it made them more focused and inquisitive the more advanced they became, but for other races, it could be quite a problem. Dorzath wasn¡¯t sure how the Job Dungeon Owner would affect his personality though, other than making him more interested in his monsters and their development. He threw the stray thoughts away as a new day was reached, and challengers stumbled into his Dungeon, the young adults and children were rubbing their eyes especially. His first five cubs were quickly eliminated and strung up, their fur stripped and meat separated, bones were kept separate. It was remarkable their efficiency, but then again the weak needed to maximise every small benefit they received. One group of tier 1 adults strode forward, however, maybe three pieces of metal armour between them, but they were the best equipped out of any challengers who¡¯d raided his Dungeon so far. They walked past the other ¡®challengers¡¯ who were mostly there just to farm resources. Dorzath pulled up their status screens absentmindedly, lazily scrolling through them. Honestly, this entire process was tiresome to him, pretending to be weak was so boring, he just wanted to tunnel down ten floors, build a maze, and fill the entire thing with tier 3 minotaurs. It was necessary, however, although he was confident he could dig down the first 15 floors by his own effort, the journey to floor 50 was a marathon, not a sprint, and he would need willing challengers all the way for that. They would be unlikely to journey past the fifth floor if all that awaited them was certain death, even though they were just so annoying, always shepherding their children like they were made of glass, and then congratulating them when they did a terrible job-killing his monsters. They should follow Invims example more, any human child who could go against a tier 1 Abomination and survive on their effort was okay in Dorzaths book. His thoughts were drifting back to Invim again, and Dorzath forcefully jerked his consciousness back to the statuses of the challengers about to raid him. Without the chains of his old Contract, he was steadily slipping back into a demons laziness. They were all tier 1, a Guard, a Follower, an Ingredient mixer, and a Trapper. They were also accompanied by the tier 2 Swordsmaster from before, and Dorzath took the opportunity to take a look at his status screen.
Name Femmet
Race Human
Tier 2
Job Swordsman
Level 5
Skills Detect Danger (1) Sword Mastery (2) Fast Reflexes (1) Fighting Proficiency (1) Weather Resistance (1) Carry Load (1) Intuition (1) Second wind (1)
Sword arts Osshold Basic Proficiency - Intermediate
Not bad, for a human. Although humans were a less advanced species, who were slow to grow, they had a few advantages which were supposed to even them out according to the System compared to the higher-ranked species. One of these advantages was an ability to learn and create arts with ease, at least compared to other species, who might have a few arts here or there, but mostly self-developed ones by tier 6 and 7s, which were difficult to teach to lower tiers due to the complex concepts and ideas contained within. In contrast, humans were able to use arts at all levels, and even a lower grade world like this one had arts which it taught. This ¡®Femmet¡¯ was at Intermediate proficiency, which meant he had mastered the movements of the low tier, and was working on understanding the broader image or concept of the art, but had comprehended enough that flashes of the image would probably occasionally slip out whenever he fought, strengthening his attacks and movement. Unlike a skill, an art worked on a concept of belief and integration with the user''s mind. The user would meditate, possibly with some guidance from an instructor. Dorzath knew that this process was simply harnessing the small amount of life energy which was produced naturally by a person, and binding it together with the concept, giving the idea life and allowing it to have a physical presence in the real world. It also meant that if a user of an art were to meditate and attempt to grow their art in a Dungeon they would experience massive growth due to a large amount of LE energy in the air. This was risky for the Dungeon, as higher tier individuals had been known to just take the life energy straight out of the Dungeon Core, giving them immense growth in their art, but also damaging or if done frequently, destroying the Dungeon Core. It was impressive that a human had done so well at a young age, but compared to higher grade worlds, this was nothing. The group approached the final room of the first floor, the Follower and the Ingredient mixer fingering their wooden clubs nervously. Dorzath had initially been concerned when he saw a Follower enter his Dungeon, but he was relieved to find that he was a Follower of one of the non-purified Gods. They were a little surprised once they saw the statue, but the Swordmaster was unfazed. He motioned the Guard forward, towards the three cubs, who held his spear steadily, with a wooden plank strapped to his hand. Out here, the Guard was probably a veteran and he¡¯d probably never encountered something more dangerous than a tier 2 bear. He caught one of the cubs in a thrust, pinning its corpse to the ground briefly, before retreating back to one spot as the other two approached. He had an Ingredient mixer behind him, but he was wary of being bitten either way as a small cut was better off being healed naturally than with a potion. The Swordmaster was just giving him levels, a Guard was an easy to acquire Job, but hell to level for the lower tiers. It had an extra five levels which improved the user''s body but gave no skill energy. Very little experience was actually given from doing any guarding, and a Guard would do very little killing, so this man would have likely been stuck at tier 1 for the rest of his life. He actually gained a level in killing the cubs, however, which made the pitiful human actually cry a little, before he was chided by the Follower. They continued onwards, weapons at the ready. The wolf in the first room was quickly spotted, which reassured Dorzath once again that he wasn¡¯t dealing with idiots. Once again, the Guard took the kill and he was overjoyed at the fact that there were tier 0¡¯s on this floor, allowing him to actually level. He strode forward, taking the lead while the other members of his group followed behind, curiously looking around. Dorzath had added some rocks mixed in with the dirt for the walls on this floor, if just for variety''s sake. The group was mildly surprised when they saw the next room, however, including the Swordmaster. To Dorzath it just looked like a big room filled with grass and wolves, but he was sure that to the humans, it looked like they were now outside. Dorzath had just whitened the roof of the room, mixing in an element called clearstone, which naturally produced a strange illusion from it which made its surroundings look like the sky. To the challengers, however, it would appear that the Dungeon had gained a skill called ¡®Mimic Environment¡¯ which mimicked either the environment a Dungeon had been in or the landscape surrounding the outside of it. They took the third path, while the Guard took care of the rest of the monsters. They didn¡¯t have much trouble, however, as the monsters were ordered to leap well clear of the surrounding grass and landing on the path, before attacking the intruders. If Dorzath really wanted to kill them he could just order the wolves to engage in sneak attacks, which would surely take out the entire party. Once they reached the end of the room, they were visibly disappointed to see that the next room was barely started, but the Guard was grinning from ear to ear, as based on his wild yelling not that long ago, he¡¯d managed to level up again to level 5. The rest of the group chose to use the core to teleport back to the entrance, while the Guard walked back, slaying a few more wolves and collecting the bodies of the ones he¡¯d killed earlier. Now that a group had been down to check the new floors difficulty, small groups of children and young adults were allowed, with supervision. Dorzath also increased the number of wolves bound in that first room to 25, as some wolves were almost always in the resting spot, and some challengers could go longer than ten minutes without seeing anything. He also widened the room slightly, too slowly for the humans to notice, but some of them were looking around quizzically as they left at night. When they left, Dorzath took the opportunity to slightly change some of the paths, as the first path needed to be changed to take account of the larger space. In addition, some of the paths crossed each other in place and the challengers, especially some of the smaller ones, had gotten confused and gotten mildly lost. He reduced the number of times they intersected, but made the first and longest path, run close to the resting spot in one place, which although the wolves couldn¡¯t attack challengers on the path while they were in their resting spot if the challenger stumbled into the spot themselves¡­ Dorzath was initially worried about killing a child and setting the fury of the entire town on him, but he realised that anyone who travelling alone was likely a tier 1 so it was unlikely to be a problem. He also thought any child would realise how stacked the odds were against them and retreat immediately. He also raised the grass level so it would come over the eyes of the smaller ones, but not obstruct the view of the taller ones. As the town developed, it would likely only be the youngest who would use these lowest floors, and Dorzath would rather design the floors with that in mind now than have to go back and change things later because he was unhappy with the layout. Dorzath still didn¡¯t have the ability to have his monsters drop anything, and it would remain that way until he reached his third floor, but he still wanted the challengers to be incentivised to enter his Dungeon, the more people who entered him regularly, the faster his growth could be. He thought and thought but eventually came to the conclusion that the challengers would just have to be happy with the skill levels and advancement the Dungeon provided. When the challengers entered the Dungeon in the morning, they were surprised at the changes that had taken place, and that gleeful Guard was yelling loud enough he made the wolves cringe with their sensitive hearing, but he threw himself into hunting in the first room with a cold intensity. As the day progressed, and he¡¯d taken the majority of the kills that day, he was spoken to by several of the other bigger humans, no, adults after which he walked out of the Dungeon, a curious expression on his face as he then proceeded to kick several of the Dungeon walls and floor for no reason at all. Dorzath was shocked at the blatant disrespect. He would be punished when he returned. 5. Femmet - Down the rabbit hole The sun beat down on Femmet like a merciless forge god, forging his newest creation from the lowliest iron to the greatest Artefact. The boy grinned as he remembered the witch telling him that story, ending with him asking what the god made and the witch turning and pointing at the ground beneath his feet. That was weird, how did you make something that big in a forge anyway? How big would a forge need to be to make the world? Jenert had a huge forge, but the biggest thing he¡¯d ever seen him make was horseshoes for that noble last year. Such a huge forge, and such a small horseshoe. Femmet sighed. How small was he, compared to the world? A voice yelling from afar startled him out of his thoughts, and he gathered up the balls of dirt which lay around his legs on the ground, placing them in his basket, before running back to the house. Maybe if he finished his work early today, he¡¯d be allowed into town for a little while, long enough to play a little bit. He was told off, and he deposited his potatoes on the ground for his sister to clean, before running back out to the field to pick once more, before returning with a heavy basket and a tired back, only to be spurred on by another nod and a few more words from his mother. And again. And again. When he finally finished the sky was purple and blue, but Femmet was too tired to care, and the thought that he might be able to head into the town to play had all but died in his chest. His father was home though. He saw the Book on the table when he got home and knew immediately. That Book went everywhere with his father. He got a hug, the man¡¯s huge frame enveloping him like a blanket. Femmet was happy, the day had been hard, but he was happy now that he got to see his Father again, he always smelled like warm bread. It might be better to say that the Holy Book was a part of him, and when his Father had become a Priest it was the connection he had to his god. Without it, he was just a man, but with it in his hands, his Father said it was like he was a part of his god and his god was a part of him, and he could draw on his power, through the Blessings that his god had granted to him. His father prayed, and once again Hodon the God of Life, Blessed the food, and it shone lightly making it look a little brighter and giving it a little sparkle before Femmet desperately shoveled it into his mouth. His stomach had been grumbling forever. His mother raised her hand up high, ready to strike him down for rudeness, but father intercepted her with his own, as well as a smile, a chuckle and a shake of his head. Femmet grinned, the crunchy potato visible in his mouth. His sister laughed, hand over her mouth in a poor attempt to disguise her rudeness. Femmet was annoyed and tried to stick his tongue out at her, but he choked on his food, thumping his chest. The whole table was laughing now, except for Femmet who desperately, tears streaming, took a swig of water before glaring at everyone in the room. They just laughed harder though, and he tried to stay mad but even baby Alice was gurgling, so he eventually joined in. # It was several months before Femmet was allowed out of the house for anything other than farming, but he managed to get a skill in that time, ¡®Weather Resistance¡¯. It wasn¡¯t especially useful, although it would mean he could enjoy the sun without it burning him, but that was largely pointless now that his skin had darkened. His father had called it a blessing from Hodon, whatever that meant. It would be useful in the winter though, his parents promised him, but Femmet had wanted something cool like ¡®Enhanced Strength¡¯. Berant had gotten that one in the spring and had been bragging and showing off forever. He¡¯d actually beaten some of the adults in arm-wrestling, although Berant had to stay in bed for a few days after challenging his own father. That had been a mistake. Now he got to show off what? His lighter skin? He decided not to tell them, they¡¯d just laugh at him. Femmet tried. When he got close to their Spot, one of the old men called out congratulations, an old tradition which he¡¯d forgotten about, just loud enough for them to hear him. His gang rushed over, surrounding him and asking him. Femmet had to tell them eventually but they all just rolled around laughing when they heard and he wished he¡¯d refused to tell them. The rest of the day they flicked water at him while laughing, watching it fall off him like he wasn¡¯t even there. At least until the witch intervened, scolding them for wasting water on something pointless, doing something nice for once. After the first few days, they got bored though and did what they normally did when they got bored and nothing interesting was happening, mock fights. They headed out a little away from the town, the adults always misunderstood, and sometimes the little ones would crowd around, watching. Today, some of the little ones thought they¡¯d tried to join in with the fun. Berant had always won, making the fights boring and nobody wanted to fight him, and at a certain point realized, and had come up with a new rule where he¡¯d just told them all to get him at once. All of them, against all of him. That was what made this game fun. The best part was, either one of them could win. After Berant sometimes reluctantly tapped out, they could finally get to each other, turning it into an all-out riot. He¡¯d heard the adults use that word on them once, but Femmet didn¡¯t think it sounded bad, it sounded good. Sometimes Femmet thought that this was all he wanted out of life and that he was envious of Berant who¡¯d earned the Job of Scrapper the summer before last, the first one out of all them to get a job. Then he remembered how much trouble Berant had been in for that. The bruises had been there for months. They finally let him out of the house now, and they were less mad at him after he¡¯d gained his Enhanced Strength skill, he even said his dad had smiled at him the other day! Either way, he would be a burden on his family for the rest of his life, or at least until he officially became a Guard. The rest of them either had the tier 0 Worker Job or the Helper Job. They lined up, eight against one. One of the girls, the one Berant liked maybe, she walked in the middle of them gave them both a steely stare. Probably for the mess they¡¯d caused last time, and the only way none of them had got in trouble from all the blood, had been that nice Follower lady who¡¯d been passing by who¡¯d helped them out with a quick Blessing. A rag flew into the air and the girl sprinted away. They charged, Berant charged in, noticeably faster and bigger. He grabbed hold of somebody who missed with their punch, grabbing him by the leg and swinging him around and throwing him at somebody else. He had some space from that, although he got an overeager kid with his swing. He¡¯d used that move before and they were ready, the boy who¡¯d had a kid thrown at him dodged out of the way. Femmet dived for Berant''s legs, grabbing him mid-thigh, but a slap to the back of his head made him see stars and he crashed into the ground. He¡¯d done his job though. Berant had been distracted enough for Tolo to come flying in, his hands wrapped around Berant¡¯s neck as he dragged him to the ground, his ¡®Sure Grip¡¯ skill meaning he stayed stuck on him even as Berant rained blows down on his arms, flailing behind his back. He fell, and Femmet woke himself up enough to realise that Berant was on the ground, and he grabbed the thrashing legs in front of him, holding them together with a vice-like grip. That new kid, Invim, was pretty good too, and between the two of them, they managed to hold his legs down. Eventually, they had him so tight that no matter how much he tossed and turned, he quickly realised his loss and conceded loudly. After that, they stopped holding back, it was dangerous to actually hit each other when Berant was involved, and they¡¯d collectively agreed that they could only hit each other when he was down. Femmet was one of the last three left standing, but he was taken out by a flying kick to his stomach which kept him on the ground in a world of pain for a few minutes. Berant wanted to go again a few more times, he would level up quickly from these fights and this was one of the few chances he got to do something like this. They all ended up panting and laughing on the ground a few hours later, a little bruised but happy, but when Femmet explained the bruises away he told his mother that he¡¯d fallen. They wanted him to become a Land Worker, the more he fought the less likely that would be. Femmet was okay with that, he liked the farm, and planting, maintaining, and everything else which came with it. He knew that eventually, everyone would get too old for this, and in three years most of them would be married or gone off to the city. He knew that, so he always tried to enjoy his time with them. # The following Summer, Femmet was bored again. He was thirteen now, but he was still a Worker. Everyone else was fine with it, he¡¯d actually got his Job fairly early, and he was only considered a failure if he failed to reach tier 1 before he turned fifteen. Berant was a Guard now, and he¡¯d stopped his mock fights a long time ago, he was just unbeatable as a tier 1 combat Job holder compared to a group of tier 0 non-combatants. Either way, Femmet had gotten his second skill ¡®Carry Load¡¯ which helped him carry heavy weights, and helped him move a little easier when he was tired. That was great, but he¡¯d been stuck at level 5 for over a year now, he should have gotten his advancement by now. He was starting to see his family look at him weirdly, out of the corner of his eye, when they thought he wasn¡¯t looking, did they think he was useless, that they should have had him become a Follower as well? One day, his mother and sister decided to go with his father to the church, his sister was a Helper and his father was assisting her in that path, using his insight and experience to teach her the religion. Femmet used to get mad when he¡¯d learned that they¡¯d only had him in order to till the land so that his parents could devote themselves to their God, but now he had his Job he took a strange pride in being the protector and provider for his family. They wanted him to take care of the house and farm by himself that day, and make sure to check in on now toddler Alice every now and then. It was the first time they¡¯d given him that much responsibility and Femmet was overjoyed when they told him. His mother was harsh but she had probably seen how unhappy he was at the moment and tried to lift his spirit. Femmet strolled throughout the house for most of the morning after his family had left, calling himself master and laughing to himself for a while. The cold was creeping in, he could tell because of the slight crunch in his steps as he finished the last of the harvesting. There was some low mist creeping about as well, the ground was too hilly in this area, it just collected any fog which wandered about. He¡¯d been given some new seeds by a trader, who promised that they would grow well in winter, and Femmet was looking forward to planting them. If he tried different plants, it would be likely he would be able to unlock the tier 1 Job Land Worker. He enjoyed the cold air and left his coat in the house, Weather Resistance staving off the worst of it. The morning went by quickly before Femmet remembered that he had to check on Alice, she would be stuck indoors about this time and would be very bored. He strolled back, the last of the potatoes weighing him down even with his skill helping. He looked over at his blurry house in the distance, then froze in his tracks. He saw from afar that the door wasn¡¯t covering the entrance properly. Alice.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. He dropped his Load at his feet, desperately throwing himself forward across the icy ground as he slid and crawled towards the door, his mind punishing him in a thousand ways with terrible, red pictures of what he¡¯d find inside. He still had a mind though and thought the situation through before entering. Femmet didn¡¯t call out when he slowly entered through the broken doorway, scratches or maybe sword marks cutting deep into it. It was quiet. His breath was the dominant sound in the house. It was the only sound. His breath, foggy and loud slowly quieted as Femmet forced himself to listen. There was nobody else in the house. He relaxed briefly, thinking whoever or whatever had attacked had gone, before calling out. ¡°Alice! Alice! Hello? It¡¯s Femmet!¡± He kept yelling as he strode throughout the house, their furniture was wrecked, but Alice was nowhere to be found. He found blood marks in their room. Blood, but not much of it, then again children didn¡¯t have very much blood. Femmet had seen someone bleed out though, a thief, who¡¯d come from their village. He¡¯d been publicly executed and Femmet remembered seeing the massive lake of blood which had come from his stump and thinking there was no way anybody had that much blood in them. So she was still alive, she could lose a little blood and still survive. Alice was alive but hurt, and someone or something had taken her. There was a trail, he could see it now, so clearly, like drawing a finger through the mud. Oh. He¡¯d gained a new skill. That didn¡¯t happen normally, did it? Femmet cast aside those thoughts. Alice. He had to find her. Mother had put him in charge, which meant it was his responsibility to find her. He hadn¡¯t protected the house. He would die before he let anyone kill his little sister. His thoughts were racing so fast he couldn¡¯t move as he thought quickly. The signs he was seeing, the trail he could follow here, it would go quickly, he couldn''t afford to go to get help. Maybe that Trapper Lartan, he could find his sister, but it would take too long to find him, he had to leave quickly, before his last hope of saving his sister was gone. He took his coat and his father''s sword, mostly symbolic he¡¯d been told, but useful for a wandering priest to defend themselves. It worked better when put in the hand of a Believer of Hodon, but he¡¯d been eating blessed food all his life and his father was a Priest, he received the full benefit of the sword on his body. He wanted to outfit himself better, maybe with better armor but there was no time, the trail was disappearing by the second. Then he was gone. # Femmet tracked the attacker down far beyond where he¡¯d ever been before, but he had no choice, the trail disappeared after a little while, the monster, he was sure it was a monster based on the tracks it had left behind, it¡¯s imprints in the earth were washed away after a while. If he was a Trapper like Lartan then it wouldn¡¯t be a problem but the skill he¡¯d awakened, ¡®Intuition¡¯ was not a tracking skill. He ignored the prompt that was waiting out of sight, it had appeared since he¡¯d picked up the sword, but he wouldn¡¯t accept it. He loved Alice but he wasn¡¯t going to throw the rest of his life away. He had a duty to his family, he had a duty to take care of them. He had confidence he could kill a little monster, even without ascending to a combat Job. He headed in the general direction that the trail had been heading in before it ended. A little further on, and the desolate land around him faded away finally giving way to a large wall of trees up ahead, a remnant of the people who used to live in this land. His Intuition and his common sense told him that was where the monster was, where Alice was. He stepped with purpose, but tried not to step on the newly fallen dried leaves, monsters had better senses than humans. A familiar scream sent him running through the greenery surrounding him, throwing caution to the wind. He reached a small glade. Alice was ¡­ alive. She was alive, but two small dogs were playing with her legs. No, two small wolf cubs were savagely biting deep into her legs causing her to scream out. They would have trouble getting through, she¡¯d had the skill Toughened Skin since she was a baby, but there was definitely a pool of blood underneath her. If she was an adult, the wolves would have broken their teeth on her, but she was a barely walking child. Femmet dashed forward, swinging downwards with a yell, cutting deep into the wolf''s body. The other wolf dashed back with a yelp, as a chorus of howls sprang up around him. Femmet got his arm around Alice, swinging her up onto his shoulder awkwardly, while the howls were quickly accompanied by a much louder almost roar. It resonated through all of them, making the forest itself vibrate with rage, keeping all of them motionless until the sound faded away. As the roar faded away, Alice who was in his arms screamed out, in fear or pain, he didn¡¯t know. Femmet could only helplessly try saying things his mother said when he was ill to make him feel better. He kept murmuring to her as he kept moving through the forest, his Intuition popping up every now and then to remind him that he was being hunted and tracked. He had his sword out in front of him, but it was in one hand, his other being used to keep his sister on his back, and his breathing came fast. He¡¯d been running for a long time to get here. There were noises all around, and the loud one was just getting louder, which his Intuition told him was probably their leader, and the one who¡¯d broken into their home. Why had she taken Alice? Why had she kept her alive? His Intuition decided that that was a good time to tell him that if he didn¡¯t start running now, at the rate that that roar was getting closer, it would catch up quickly and die. Femmet didn¡¯t think, he didn¡¯t have time, so he just picked the direction with the least sound and ran. The plants whipped at his legs as he ran, while he breathed deeply and quickly due to carrying Alice. He briefly considered dropping her as he panted furiously and he heard the baying echo out from behind him. He remembered Alice back there, bleeding and screaming as the wolves played with her. He was his family¡¯s protector, their provider, he would die before he let one of them die. The barking behind him increased in volume. They were behind him. Femmet used a tree to catch himself and then duck behind as a wolf had caught up to him and snarled and bit at him. He held it at bay with the point of the sword, unwillingly to attack and possibly miss. When it darted in, he swung forward with his leg, sending its light body flying. He looked around furiously, waiting for it to return, but it seemed that once he¡¯d scared it off, it was unwilling to return. He took a quick break. Femmet squatted to his knees as he breathed deeply, even as the howling echoing around him quickly increased in volume. He took deep shuddering breaths, Alice was okay for now, she seemed to be asleep somehow, was that okay? He hoped she was okay. She needed to be okay. His Intuition was screaming at him to take the Job advancement, it was the only way he was getting out of this alive. He¡¯d assumed it was a small wolf or maybe tier 1 wolf at worst based on the damage to his home, but from the number of monsters around him, it seemed to be similar to that one they¡¯d killed last year, a Wolf Mother. An adult had died fighting that thing. He was the guardian, the protector of his family. If he died here, then Alice died here, and he¡¯d have failed his family. He had to take the Job. He took a deep breath, then jabbed his finger forward resolutely towards the blue box, even as he saw a wolf cub dart through the forest towards him. A Warrior gripped his sword tightly, and then in one smooth motion, took a fierce step forward while thrusting with his sword. It pierced into its eye and out the other side. It was stuck there, hanging freely from his sword, dragging it down due to the weight. The Warrior staggered to his feet and kicked the corpse off of his blade. The rain started up again, but he had no time to enjoy it as the rest of the monsters were coming, and he was in their home. He¡¯d have to fight his way out. He couldn¡¯t outrun them, they were wolves, he was a human. He¡¯d have to stand his ground, use the trees as cover, and hopefully, it would prevent them from surrounding him thoroughly. Although he¡¯d be restricted in his movements. The Warrior set Alice down to the side gently, he¡¯d need two hands for this fight, and he didn¡¯t need the extra weight. He waited, trying to settle his breathing. Two more, tier 1s by the size compared to the ones before. He backed up briefly before Femmet forced himself to stand his ground to protect Alice. They reached him at the same time. One leaped high for his neck, the other went for his ankle. His sword was long, he pierced through the lower wolf in one strike, and bringing the full weight of his body to bear with the strike, taking the opportunity to hide behind his blade as the wolf bounced off, snarling, claws scratching and sliding on the blade, before retreating back into the greenery. The Warrior wanted to pursue, to remove the threat, but the wet leaves would make movement unpredictable. Also, Femmet reminded himself, he had to protect Alice. The Warrior was content to wait while leaning against the tree as he rested, his adrenaline pumping as his Intuition furiously tried to figure out what direction the next monster would come from based on their previous howling. One to his left, two to his right, plus the one which had run off earlier. The louder one roared out again, somewhere ahead of him, the same intensity as earlier, which given the distance he¡¯d run meant it was following him. These monsters were natural predators, the warrior had to remind himself of that, they could track him easily, every one of them. They could move silently, he had to be ready to respond instantly at any time. These new instincts, he was still getting used to them but they were already used to him, he just had to trust in the Skill, and in his own skill. The Warrior was probably surrounded, it was too long since he¡¯d last heard a howl. They were waiting. What for? For their leader. He couldn¡¯t let that happen, he wasn¡¯t sure he could fight off a tier 2, let alone a tier 2 and a pack of wolves at the same time. So he needed to go on the offense. But Alice! Femmet reminded himself furiously. He needed a way to make them attack him. His Intuition flickered in the back of his head, weak now from all the work it had done, pointing him towards a memory, and their behavior so far. They were group animals, and they liked to attack in groups, perfectly in sync with each other''s movements. So they wouldn¡¯t react well to one of them being tortured and hurt. He stuck his sword into the corpse he¡¯d discarded earlier. He flung his sword around, slowly turning so he pointed it in every direction. One of them finally snapped, wanting to save its family member. A blur of motion in the corner of his eye and his sword responded, cutting through the air and into its head. He felt pain in his leg and turned to see a wolf clamped onto his calf, biting deep, its eyes rolling. The Warrior flicked his blade, sending the wolf tumbling to the ground as it gurgled and tried to stand before its legs gave out beneath it. He sliced into the wolf''s side, cutting deep but not deep enough. The wolf leaped away, and the Warrior fought the wolf for his blade in a brief game of tug, before pulling it free and sinking to one knee and punching it on its head. It sank down to the ground, but he didn¡¯t have time to finish it as another wolf crept up on him from behind, breaking a twig and alerting him, before leaping at him. He blocked with the sword, and the wolf¡¯s jaws clamped around the sword instead of his neck. Its momentum was strong though, and this one was big, maybe tier 1. It continued forward, pushing the Warrior down to the ground. He tried to get up off the ground when the jaws of the wolf left his blade, but it leaped on him again and this time its jaws found purchase on his arm, which he¡¯d raised instinctively to block the attack to his neck. Femmet cried out as tears fell from his eyes, before screaming at the wolf and hitting the wolf again and again with the hilt of his sword, still clamped on his hand like it was a part of him. It finally fell off him and dropped to the ground, long after he stopped feeling anything in his arm. It lay there, dazed and unmoving, before quickly coming to itself. It quickly ran, turning into a grey blur and disappearing quickly into the dark forest around them. Femmet wanted to lie there on the ground, but the Warrior got up with a groan and readied himself for the next attacker, before reconsidering, and throwing a brief contemplative look at the limp body lying on the ground. Alice wasn¡¯t his concern right now. There were too many enemies for him to waste effort on protecting somebody useless to his survival. They knew where he was now. He had to move. ¡°No!¡± Femmet spoke out loud. It was like he was having to fight these strange new instincts inside of himself, he remembered now, that he¡¯d done something similar after accepting his first Job. It was like there was this other person in his head, telling him to work hard, to take care of his family, to be the person they needed. To be their protector. To be their Worker. The memories came pouring in like a flood through a broken dam, one after the other and sending his mind reeling. Then who was he? What was he? Was he a Worker, or was he a Warrior? His overworked Intuition feebly raised itself up deep inside and gave him a reply. ¡®You are Femmet¡¯ Who was he before he was a Worker then? All of a sudden it was like he could see the best parts of his life on repeat, the fights, his friends, the church, his food. So this was his life. This was good. He didn¡¯t want to live for his family, he never had. He¡¯d cried for a week after getting his first Job. How had he forgotten that? It wasn¡¯t needed to take care of his family. His family had never done anything for him, he was created to fulfill a purpose, to take care of them while they worshipped their god. And now, after they¡¯d made a boy who would take care of them for the rest of their lives, they¡¯d had Alice, who was going to get the life he¡¯d always wanted. He¡¯d worked for his whole life, for no reward, and through no choice of his own, and now he¡¯d ruined his life to save the life of the girl who¡¯d ruined the rest of his life. Femmet took a deep breath. The Warrior turned and walked off at a slow jog, towards the edge of the forest. Behind him, Alice stirred on the ground. # The Warrior lurched off into the forest, staggering occasionally, and taking brief rests by leaning against trees. His strength was flowing out of him, from every point that he¡¯d been successfully injured, and he had no way of substantially recovering his strength. His breaths were coming faster and faster now, even when he had no enemies to face. His levels were quickly rising though, he¡¯d hit 3 a while ago, the only thing which was keeping him standing was the small surges of energy that they brought. A growl behind him sent him spinning to respond, his shaky sword outstretched in one still working arm. It was a big one, either tier 1 or close to the next tier, either one was bad for the heavily injured him. He couldn¡¯t run, it was too fast, he¡¯d be dead in three steps after he turned his back on it. So what to do? It was a wolf, they liked to go for his weak points, like his neck or his ankle earlier. It was in front of him, it would go for his neck. He just had to be ready. He waited, eyes watchful, breathing fast but steady. It didn¡¯t move. Why? It was hesitating. Why? Its eyes were trained on his sword. More specifically, the thin layer of blood which was covering the blade. Ah. So this one knew he had killed before, had killed his family, and was afraid, not of him, but of his weapon. He just had to make it stop being afraid. He stumbled to the side, his useless arm steadying himself on a nearby tree, but his blade dropped and bounced off of the ground. Like the wind, the wolf darted forward a grey blur of teeth that was in front of him before he had time to react. He didn¡¯t need to though, he was already moving. His unsteady hand had been moving, placing the hilt of the blade against the ground, wedged into the earth, while he had toppled over it, looking on the verge of collapse, but reinforcing the limited structure he had made with his body and sword. The beast leaped at his throat, turning itself into an unstoppable force of momentum. It leaped when close, and Femmet couldn¡¯t help but notice the teeth of the wolf ever so close to his throat, before he turned away with a grunt of effort, rolling away to expose the point of the blade as it slid between the jaws of the wolf. As the full length of the sword was devoured by the beast, shrill screams of panic emerged from its throat, its paws clawing at the earth, and then the hilt, as it tried to knock it away, only serving to knock it around further inside its stomach. It whimpered then growled fiercely as it tried to claw at Femmet, who scrambled away. It whimpered for a while longer before a pool of blood slowly poured out of its head, and it grew still. Femmet stood up, he¡¯d gotten himself under control now, it was no longer like he was trapped inside his own body at times, he was making all the decisions right now. For the first time in his life, he was making his own decisions. Finally, he spotted the tree line up ahead, and he quickly took off running away from the edge, mud splashing under his feet. His whole body hurt, but he knew that he didn¡¯t have long to make it back to the village before the wolves caught up to him. He fell several times and the mud stung his eyes, whenever he opened them, so he kept them closed. He relied on his ragged Intuition to tell him if he was going the wrong way. He was running, body barely upright, legs barely moving when something stopped him, something hit his stomach. His sword whipped around him in a large arc, hopefully, that would keep whatever it was at bay, while he furiously wiped the mud from his eyes. Stupid. Stupid! He knew the wolves were close, just because he hadn¡¯t heard howling in a while, his guard had gone down. He continued turning slowly, thrusting out unpredictably while he scrubbed the mud from his eyes. Voices murmured around him and he thrust in the direction of the closest one. Wait¡­ A familiar embrace took hold of him stopping his sudden motion and keeping him still while a warmth spread throughout his body, warming even the coldest place inside of him. The smell of bread filled his nostrils. The last thing he heard before slipping out of his Father''s grasp unconsciously was someone yelling to bring some water. 6. Floors
Dorzath wanted his first boss monster to be special. It was the first passably useful monster that he would have under his command. Boss monsters, unlike normal ones, were bound to the Dungeon steadfastly and could not disobey a direct command. In addition, while they didn¡¯t retain strong memories of every fight that they participated in which would allow them to gain strong experience and defeat challengers with ease, they did, however, gain sentience over time and gain a mild personality. Its depth of thinking and final strength of character was dependent on their tier and race, a higher ranked version of either would produce a free-thinking creature, and a combination of the two could produce a borderline genius. It would be able to hold a short mental conversation with him, which he missed a little. Dorzath was sure that a lesser creature would collapse with the mental strain of being unable to communicate or speak out loud for just under two months. But as it was, he just felt a mild irritation in the back of his mind that there was no one to share the wonders of his Dungeon with. His third floor was finally complete, but when he¡¯d first unlocked it he¡¯d had to resist the urge to immediately create his first boss after reaching his third level. It represented a small hurdle which he could place between himself and the challengers, and even the short time he¡¯d spent with his Cloak of Lament already had him missing it, specifically the fact that it would ignore the attacks of lower tiers, absorbing the blows like nothing. Nevertheless, he was here now and his experiments with his Mana Crystals had borne fruit, he¡¯d produced several variant species of wolf, and nearly had one for every one of the basic elements, with a few variants thrown into the mix. He put his first tier 1 of his Dungeon, that he¡¯d created with careful use of his mana crystals to be a monster who would fight challengers, as opposed to the wide variety of monsters he¡¯d created using forced evolution, who were used as nothing more than a means to provide the challengers with an incentive to enter his Dungeon. He¡¯d used a tier 1 Hunter wolf as the base. It had been altered slightly, so it was no longer a pure wolf, but a hybrid. It was one of the earth based variant species he¡¯d created, the most common of the hybrids he¡¯d made. Due to the abundance of earth around the creation process, some of its essence had contaminated the mana crystals. Dorzath wasn¡¯t actually wanting a specific evolution or change, which is why he¡¯d let the changes play out as they were. It was a minor change, subtle enough that there had been no different Job unlocks, but the wolf was sturdier than the average wolf, which combined with its regenerative capabilities as a boss, would make it a problematic enemy for the challengers. Dorzath had decided he needed the monsters he created from this point onwards to be more difficult. He¡¯d watched a small child wander about his Dungeon unattended yesterday, and it had caused him to reflect on the fact that perhaps his Dungeon up to this point had been a smidge too easy. He had also unlocked the blueprint, curiously named a Rockchaser wolf by the System, and so quickly summoned the creature in the large room he¡¯d designated as the boss room, the last room before his core. It was bigger than a normal wolf, coming up to the waist of a normal human he estimated. Golden eyes, with sparse brown fur in places, but the skin which showed looked almost identical to rock. Its claws were short and stubby, but its limbs looked like columns. It was probably likely to smash rather than bite or slash and even had the skills associated. Dorzath opened the new section of the interface which had appeared after he¡¯d reached level 3. Promote. It allowed him to raise monsters to Bosses, Mini-bosses, and Leaders. For now, he could only use the mini-boss function, as a boss could only be raised once every five floors and there was no point in using the Leader function. Although a Wolf Leader would be powerful, there just weren¡¯t enough of them or enough space for them to be utilised that it was worth raising one. Dorzath pressed on the Accept notification, and before his eyes, the wolf grew in size. It was now at the chest height of a human, and its skin had been polished to a shine, with the fur sticking out like black rocks on a desert floor. Its skill, Hard skin, had been raised to tier 2, Rock skin. In addition, it could make the ground underneath the challengers grow soft or gain short spikes, more of a hindrance than a danger really. Overall, Dorzath was satisfied, it was a marginally higher level of difficulty than before, but hopefully, it wouldn¡¯t be a problem. The challengers had started coming in groups, while most of them were a higher tier or level than their attacker, it was still difficult dealing with more than one opponent on your own. Alone this boss would be difficult to defeat, but Dorzath had faith that the humans weren¡¯t entirely incompetent. They would have struggled to grow into their space in the Universe as a powerhouse force if that were the case. Speaking of the third floor, he¡¯d adopted the layout of the second floor and as his creativity was running low when he was designing, he¡¯d simply made the rooms on the third floor a quarter larger, and placed three times as many monsters in each room. The monsters could also attack in groups of four or five, which considering the pack like nature of wolves upped the difficulty considerably, but in response the challengers had begun to explore in groups. After he¡¯d finished the second floor, Dorzath had also received another pleasant surprise in the form of Invim. He¡¯d started visiting the Dungeon again, using the bow Dorzath had given him. In fact, Invim was part of the reason why he wanted to raise the difficulty of his Dungeon from this point onwards. When he¡¯d delved several days ago, he¡¯d quickly reached the lowest floor, dispatching the monsters with ease, that tier 2 skill of his letting him easily dispatch the monsters. Dorzath missed watching Invim fight that Abomination, he missed watching any of the challengers in his Dungeon struggle. There was a fine line between struggling and death. All he¡¯d done was raise the bar so more challengers would be closer to that line. He¡¯d been taking it easy on the challengers, because he was afraid of several outcomes, of no one entering his Dungeon, of one of the higher-ranked forces being alerted to his presence here on this planet. But he felt like he could relax now that he¡¯d embedded himself into the Village and proven himself to be such an asset. A System notification appeared on his Interface, the product of a Rule that he¡¯d set, alerting him that someone tier 2 or over had just entered the Dungeon. It was that Swordsman again, he¡¯d been gone for several weeks if Dorzath recalled correctly. He was accompanied by a tier 1 Clerk, who was holding a roll of paper which he was taking notes on. Dorzath was getting a strange feeling from this Clerk, and he spent the LE which he¡¯d been steadily accumulating lately, on an option which let him understand what they were saying, which was cheaper because he¡¯d already purchased the option which allowed him to see challengers statuses, the two were closely related in that way. As the upgrade finished forming itself into existence, Dorzath briefly went through the Clerks Status, this was the first person entering his Dungeon who looked at least mildly educated, and his clothes were clean with few marks on them. He was curious where this little man had come from. Going through his Status, Dorzath noticed he had standard, low-tier skills, except for a skill called Analyse Surroundings. Why ¡­ ? Ah. He was here to check the validity and safety of this Dungeon. Dorzath had heard of these kinds of people or organisations in the past, but they were relatively uncommon in human worlds, only occurring in the safest or most organised countries. In addition, while Dungeons weren¡¯t so rare that no-one had heard of them suddenly appearing, it was a waste of resources to have an organisation devoted to measuring and cataloging new Dungeons. Sure there were probably thousands on this planet alone, but that number probably only changed once every few years, and within a country''s borders that number would be likely to change once every hundred years. As the upgrade finished forming, Dorzath tuned into the human''s conversation. # ¡°Sir Femmet, how long did you say this Dungeon has been formed for?¡± ¡°Just under 3 months now.¡± ¡°Very good, very good.¡± Notes were made while the pair stood still, the ¡®Femmet¡¯ dispatching approaching cubs with a casual flick of his sword. ¡°If I can ask you to accompany me further in?¡± The Clerk contrary to his tone set off on a brisk walk, not sparing a glance to the Swordsman who quickly followed behind. The Clerk seemed to be oblivious to what was going on, marching forward at a fast pace, while the Swordsman danced around him, his art flickering in and out of existence like a Glowbug. The Clerk would also stop suddenly, and bend over his writing pad, irrespective of the Swordsman''s positioning. Dorzath lost the ability to listen in on their conversation after the first floor, but he was enjoying the sight of that arrogant Swordsman being forced down a peg or two. Dorzath liked struggle but he hated it when people powered through his Dungeon like it was nothing. The Swordsman was being forced to advance at a breakneck pace and was visibly sweating on the second floor. When they reached the third floor, he had to raise his hand for them to stop. They finally reached the boss room, where Dorzath had gone with an iron lattice gate, which rose up into the ceiling at their approach. They both seemed a little hesitant, but the Clerk, after a short conversation, seemed to shoo the man onwards. It was a straightforward entrance, the room opened up to reveal a massive room. Dirt walls, a sort of sandy brown, with black outcroppings of rock, not any sort of unique material, just altered with mana to be harder and look shiny black. In the center of the room, Pulvi got up off of the ground, his eyes snapping to the Swordsman and locking on. It was a characteristic that Dorzath had given him, he always focused on the strongest physical fighter in the room first. The Clerk barely had time to take a couple of stumbling steps backward, and Femmet to settle into a stance before Pulvi roared at them. It wasn¡¯t a skill of his, but it was intimidating nevertheless, as seen by the Clerk running to the now shut gates, and pulling on them desperately. The Clerk quickly realised he wouldn''t be able to get through and retreated to a nearby corner to stay out of the way. The Swordsman made the first move, as his art flickered with a bright silver colour around him, (it had been enhanced since the last time Dorzath had seen him use it) as he brought his sword high and then low, hitting a bell which briefly sprang into existence with his swing. The bell released a cone of silver at Pulvi, knocking him over and sending him rolling. Femmet advanced forward, his body propelling itself in a burst of speed which looked like a skill but it could have been Fast Reflexes or Second Wind.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. His sword was thrust forward suddenly and violently, its tip glowing with a silver light that left a gleaming trail in the air. Pulvi had gotten up quickly though and batted the sword aside, touching the non-glowing parts of the blade. The sudden attack left him open though, and the Swordsman whipped his sword back around with a sudden flicking movement and moved past the wolf. A line of silver ripped down Pulvi''s side, causing him to cry out in pain, but the wound was shallow. The Silver light seemed to burn him though, and even as it dissipated, Pulvi was howling in pain. Instinctively, Pulvi had softened the ground around him into the mud, sending Femmet sprawling with the abrupt change in terrain, and giving Pulvi time to recover. The sword no longer flickered silver, suggesting the Swordsman had exhausted his connection to his art. Pulvi had no such issue, however. He roared and leaped, bringing his pillar-like legs down hard in front of Femmet, causing the ground around the impact to rupture. He used the earth''s rupturing to boost his skill, and the cracked earth grew spikes. The spikes weren¡¯t long, but they were still sharp and aimed for Femmets lower body. They pierced into his legs, although the impact seemed to be a little dulled, as he still had legs afterward. With a cry of pain, the Swordsman stumbled back. He staggered, before steam rose from his legs, as his limited extra health pool tried to repair the damage, only fixing enough to slow and not stop the bleeding. With a grunt though, his breathing suddenly slowed, and the tip of his sword briefly glowed silver, before it was thrust directly into the beast''s eye. The mini-bosses body shook as it tried to repair the damage, but the sound of a bell tolling rang out and a gush of smoke poured out of all of its orifices. The bell had released a silver wave that had spread throughout the inside of Pulvi''s body, cooking and melting it from the inside. Even a mini-bosses regeneration couldn''t keep up with that. It was only to be expected, after all, a tier 2 was several times stronger than a tier 1, and only Pulvi''s mini-boss status had helped close that gap. The Femmet person sat back with a sigh, and the gate was raised, but surprisingly the Clerk was rushing over and tending to his wounds soon after, his courage had seemingly returned after the mini-boss was slain. There was no danger of it being recreated while they were still in the room, a mini-boss was only remade once a day, and he was just created. Dorzath switched his attention elsewhere, although he was surprised to see the mini-boss had smoked away, he¡¯d forgotten they did that, leaving a rough circle of black steel on the ground. He hadn¡¯t assigned the monster to drop anything, and it was curious that that was what had dropped, and not a part of the monster. His Evolutions were coming along nicely, he¡¯d reached tier 3 in some of them, although those things barely looked like wolves anymore, with bodies which were more made of smoke or rock rather than flesh. He had the ability to use wolves for the next several floors He also thought that while he¡¯d liked the grass and moss themes of the first few floors, he wanted more diversity and a different biome for the following floors. He was thinking of something sand themed or maybe rocky mountains. He wasn¡¯t sure yet, but he was planning to use the Store to purchase some of the relevant materials, he still had plenty of artifacts, some of them duplicates for this very purpose so he would still be able to absorb their blueprints later. He could have just purchased any possible material he would ever need in advance, but his teacher had advised him that it was hard to build a relationship with a fellow DM and he should take every opportunity that presented itself. He would prefer to just exchange with his fellow DMs but there was no search function for that very purpose. Dorzath reached out to the DM he¡¯d talked to before, asking if he had any tier 0 or above blueprints for anything related to an arid environment. He left materials out of the exchange, hoping to bargain for them later. /I do, yes. What do you have to trade?/ Dorzath ran his Mana Sense over the objects in his collection, some of them having been damaged in his mad scramble to absorb energy to save Invim. He picked out a damaged tier 3 sword, more of a long dagger or a shortsword really. /A damaged tier 3 weapon/ It was possible that the advanced Dungeon might be able to restore the sword, it would depend on what kind it was. Even if not, a challenger would still be happy with a tier 3 sword, it became increasingly difficult to acquire high tier equipment the more powerful you became, and it was likely repairable by human hands if that was the case. /I would prefer an undamaged tier 2, a weapon preferably/ Dorzath had several pieces just like that, but he was reluctant to part with them, it would be a long time before he was able to create equipment again himself, so he had to ration it out when he could. /Only equipment, apologies, although I do have a few foci and some arrows/ They went back and forth, eventually coming to an agreement. Dorzath hadn¡¯t traded the previous month so he was able to send off two items, an enchanted tier 2 arrow, of which he had hundreds, and a tier 3 cloak, which would protect against light magic and allow the wearer to be elusive in darkness. In return he received a tier 0 pangolin blueprint, a Sneaker. He also received several building materials for what he¡¯d determined would be a sand type environment, at least until the tenth floor. He¡¯d also received a base tier scorpion, which he was very thankful for. The DM had been strangely generous, it was possible that he too was hoping to develop a trading relationship. Something to watch out for, his motives were unknown. Powerful DMs were scary existences, close to immortal and surrounded at all times by an army. Occasionally though, being an immortal existence was mentally tiring, and they might decide to stir things up a little. A bored Dungeon was one of the scariest things in existence, and although calling them mad was an exaggeration in Dorzaths opinion, he¡¯d heard stories¡­ Resolving himself to be more wary against future interactions with fellow DMs, Dorzath grinned a wide grin in his mind and finally got ready to tick something off his list which had been there for a while # Night fell. The Dungeon was emptied, except for the Guard who¡¯d decided that he would stay a little longer on the second floor. Dorzath had checked, and saw that he was fast approaching the upper level of his Job. There were very few conditions required for upgrading the Job of Guard, other than levelling it, as it was such an arduous task in and of itself. Either way, he wasn¡¯t a threat to Dorzaths plan, and so he continued on regardless of his movements. The mini-boss Pulvi got up with a start, eyes gleaming like black diamonds. The low light from the ceiling above signalled that it was night-time for any stray challengers still wandering, but continued to be usable as a source of light. He strode out of his room, slinking past the iron gate, with a surprising amount of grace considering he was made of rock. He approached the core room, and Dorzath watched as he obeyed the commands he¡¯d just been delivered mentally. Pulvi approached the stone cube which had been reinforced several times over, so it now sat a towering height of 4m. The humans had been curious about what was within it, but thankfully none of them had attempted to break into it. He rose up on his hind legs, and then in an abrupt motion, brought his paws down on the cube. The Cube shuddered but held. Dorzath could have simply reduced the structural integrity of the cage, but the small flicker of amusement he received from the mini-boss convinced him otherwise. The mini-boss backed up a little, then sprinted at the cube, the surrounding ground accompanying him, slowly building up a layer around his limbs. Pulvi brought his limbs down again, their increased mass showing as the wrecking ball-sized limbs cracked the surface of the cube. Again he raised his large frame up, bringing his ball-sized paws down in a massive blow, this time with large pieces flying away. It was messy and by the end of the process, Pulvi¡¯s rocky chest was shaking from the effort. But eventually the cage cracked open, revealing the imp. Or rather, the space where the imp was supposed to be. Dorzaths Mana Sense exploded forward, he had not been able to monitor what was going on inside the cube for several days now, but he had attributed that to the imp experimenting with mana while he was bored and growing to dominate the area around him. He saw the interior of the cube, scratch and burn marks covered the walls, old marks though, with the earth having hardened around the impacts. Covering that layer though was a new layer. They were fresh and wet, marked with fire and blood. They were runes he realised, only two of them from what he could see, and it had taken the imp several practice runs, but he¡¯d managed to successfully carve the runes and then activate them. Dorzath recognised the runes, they meant loosely ¡®Call Home¡¯. Some Demons used it as a way to communicate with a superior, or if they were on a scouting/probing mission. It required the user to know exactly who they were contacting however, and that imp should never have even encountered anyone, let alone formed a connection with a demon or something otherwise. Dorzath thought the situation over, the imp had clearly been teleported away, but by who or what he had no idea. This was puzzling, but also gratifying as it meant the imp was no longer his problem. He had sent Pulvi here as he was confident that it could easily eliminate the little imp, and he¡¯d reached the third floor so he no longer had to keep the imp continually summoned. Either way, the imp was no longer his problem, and if something had the power to reach into his Dungeon and teleport an imp away, there was little he could do about it. Even the runework he knew would be unlikely to stand up to a force that strong, and he wasn¡¯t even in any position to be using runework currently. Dorzath felt he had done what he could with this situation, and any further measures he could take to protect against this unknown entity were out of his reach, or would break his cover. He would like to message the General, but if he accidentally interrupted him while he was engaged mid-battle, the fallout could be catastrophic. Their connection was less of a mutually beneficial relationship and instead a superior who would be ordering lists of materials occasionally. So he once again devoted himself to the task of further refining his Dungeon, and thinking of possible layouts for his upcoming fourth floor. # A month later, Dorath looked over the challengers entering his Dungeon, and the few who¡¯d made it to his desert-themed fourth floor, the Swordsman, Invim, the Guard, now a Wall Defender, and a tier 0 Novice. Invim and the Novice were making short work of the tier 1 Poison Stingers that Dorzath had deployed on the floor. As he watched though, their efforts quickly brought more running. They were at and below the tier of their opponents so their ability to quickly eliminate their enemies was slow. But as he watched, Dorzath was quickly shown why a Novice was considered the most powerful tier 0 job to receive. The female Novice advanced, no weapon in hand, the village was far too poor to provide the resources to support a Novice after all. The scorpion they fought, a big black monstrosity with its tail reaching their waists in height, clacked its pincers. Its stinger whipped forward at a blinding speed but was intercepted by an arrow from Invim whose eyes were staring fixedly at the fight in front of him, even as he fired to the sides, to repel and kill the advancing reinforcements. She dashed forward, her speed that of a regular child but in her hands frost started to form and as she reached the scorpion her hands whipped forward, lightning-fast. The frost sprang forward, like it was alive and skewered the scorpion through the head in one breath, and then going further and pinning its body to the floor. The tail jerked forward, however, the scorpions death spasms doing more damage than it did when alive, as the blunt side of the tail smacked into the girl, sending her flying into a sand dune. Invim was already racing to catch her, but it seemed even his sight had limits as he had failed to warn the girl. The girl was fine however and she¡¯d already reached her next tier, although Dorzath would have to wait until they reached the first floor again to inspect what she¡¯d received, although if he had to guess he would say Ice Mage. He was very happy with how this floor had gone. The design was simple, and he¡¯d asked the DM he¡¯d received the materials from for advice for a desert theme, hoping to further their business relationship in the future as well. He¡¯d recommended a wide-open layout, to mimic a natural desert with the occasional trap, and to save the Pangolins as an attacker, and leave to them the creation and maintenance of the traps for the floor. The Pangolins took to traps like a fish to water. After a brief period of trying to get them to forcefully ascend by placing complex machinery near them while they consumed the mana crystal, and finally unlocking a tier 1 Trapper pangolin, he¡¯d quickly unlocked their tier 2 and 3 versions within the day. The tier 3 version had somehow created a bomb almost immediately and managed to accidentally set it off, saving Dorzath the effort of having to kill it, but raising questions about how useful it would be on later floors. Either way, they were small and fast and would be continually trying to reinvent traps, using their sand dune surroundings as well as the rock walls which ringed the room. Nobody had died, which was surprising considering the lack of traps up to this point but people had quickly adapted and would visibly tense up whenever they saw a tiny pangolin run past in front of them. Overall, Dorzath was happy with the layout of the floor, although he only had three of fifteen rooms completed so far. He was also planning to modify this floor in the future so that it was faster to traverse, but for now, it would be linear, with one room after the other, and almost ten minutes to travel to a new one, with just over a kilometre of distance for a challenger to cover for each room. What he wasn¡¯t happy about was that he¡¯d received his first communication from the General, it was just a formal check-in, to see who¡¯d survived their first few months, and to check if anyone needed quiet assistance. The other objective of the communication, however, was to check in with his relative position to the Frontline, and the estimated time until absorption by the army and eventually the Duke. It turned out Dorzath was the closest of all of the DMs to the Frontline, while not actually being a part of the space which was generally designated as the Frontline. While his primary purpose here was to generate resources, his secondary purpose was to provide support and potentially conquer the planet before the army arrived. According to the Generals predictions about his approach he estimated that the army would reach his position in just over 30 cycles. That had strangely put a damper on his mood. Dorzath was enjoying himself. After he¡¯d accidentally put himself into a slave contract with himself for several cycles, his life was miserable, and the only reason he had managed to force his way out of it was that he¡¯d gained his Skill to manipulate low-tier runes. Even after that, he was just planning on delaying the time until he reached the Frontline by as much as he could, maybe he might have rushed off to the war at the first chance he got, but after speaking to and serving so many tier 3 and 4 soldiers, the brutality had turned him away. Becoming a Dungeon Master was fun. He loved it, he loved watching the humans grow, it made him imagine gritting his teeth in excitement when he thought about Invims fight with the Abomination, with the Swordsman''s first fight with Pulvi, and the one he¡¯d just witnessed with the Novice, he was intensely curious what kind of challenger she would become later on. While he had turned away from the path of a Warrior a long time ago, violence still seemed to set a fire in him. So yes, he was a little unhappy, because no matter what challenges he threw at the challengers, no matter how many monsters, it would be pointless in the end. The Demons army¡¯s advance was unstoppable, no matter the efforts of the angels or the humans. These humans would die. But it would be fun to see how many demons they could take with them as they went. 7. Femmet - City of Bells Femmet slowly rolled into wakefulness. The thing below him, the bed. It was wet. He was still wet from the rain, from the forest. The air, it felt uncomfortably warm, as if it was pushing in on him like a heavy blanket. His mouth felt rough and dry, so he limply opened and closed his mouth, trying to get that dry sensation out of his mouth. Suddenly and without warning, something cold was violently thrust into his mouth. The cold water suddenly slipping down his throat was then quickly rejected by his throat for going too fast. He sat up, coughing now and heard the sound of apologies fill the air around him. The world was still hazy to look at but nevertheless he thought he recognised the voice. Still barely awake, Femmet turned to greet his older sister Feme. ¡°Thanks for that. You¡¯ll make your future husband happy with bed technique like that.¡± After repeating the joke he¡¯d heard the old men in town say before but didn¡¯t fully understand, he winced. The pain had hit him then, a slow ache coming from the bites on his limbs, as well as the sharp burning pain which came from the familiar feeling of the Witch¡¯s herbs, it reminded him of when he was little and he¡¯d first started working the field before his skin got tougher. Back then she¡¯d given him treatment almost daily. His whole body felt tired still, and stiff like the cold from the forest was still inside him. His sister''s slow chanting, faltering at first but quickly picking up, entered his ears. His body or rather the area around it lit up, a bright golden light, flickering at first but then strong and steady as it covered his entire body like a second skin. Femmet felt the smell of warm bread enter his nostrils, and turned to see his sister''s worried face fill his vision. ¡°Nice Chant.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± Happiness, followed by sadness followed by pity. The half-forgotten already memory of what he¡¯d done in the forest, of what he¡¯d remembered, reared its head in those moments. There was just too much between them now, Femmet could practically taste it in the air, and that statement he left hanging there, it soured the quickly brightening mood. It had never been there before, or maybe it had, he¡¯d just chosen to ignore it in favor of the idea that he was useless instead. It was so obvious, how had he never seen it before? That look on her face, that pity, the same expression that he¡¯d seen reflected on his mother''s face occasionally as well as on the adults in town. They all knew what he was and why he was born. He was a slave, a workhorse bound by chains of family. How had he ever mistaken that pity for anything else? All this time, he¡¯d been blind to his parents, to what they¡¯d done to his life. Femmet wanted to be happy for his sister, he really did, it was a wonderful thing to be granted your first Chant, and normally they would hold a special service to celebrate her and give thanks to Hodon. Normally. Normally the Priest''s daughter wasn¡¯t dead. Maybe prompted by Femmet''s sad look or the stress of using the Chant, but Feme started to cry. # A lot had happened while he was asleep. His father had found Alice''s dead body and together with Berant and his father, the three had dispatched the tier 2 Wolf Mother, as well as her pack of 30 young wolves. They were a frightening Job to encounter on a monster as they could create and sustain base tier wolves only, on mana alone. Berants father had managed to ascend, which had made the mood marginally lighter, but the whole town was still grieving his family¡¯s loss. Femmets family worshipped Hodon, the god of life, and so they were the family people called upon when someone hurt themselves or needed treatment. Unlike the Witch, they didn¡¯t swear at their patients or give them smelly potions which hurt just as much they helped sometimes. The whole town was grieving with them. However, Father was holed up in the church, and so it had fallen on Feme to nurse Femmet back to health. Without the Witch¡¯s help, who was apparently still gloating about their loss, she had turned to prayer, and last night, her prayers had been answered. Femmets mother was just relieved that he was okay, however, and they had spent the day together in mourning. For Femmet, it was torture. He already regretted his decision to leave Alice behind, he¡¯d regretted his decision as soon as he¡¯d awoken and he regretted it still. His mother and sister didn¡¯t blame him for their loss, to them, he¡¯d just done all that he could in a terrible situation. Of all of them, Femmet cried the hardest that day. It was his fault that Alice was dead. # His father had returned the following morning, clad in pristine robes and with a basket of offerings to the family from those in the village who were saddened by their loss and had made the trip to the church to offer their condolences. Seeing a large number of gifts didn¡¯t improve Femmets mood. It was a quiet dinner. The laughter which had been present at their table just several nights ago was gone. And for once, Femmet had something else on his mind other than getting as much food into his mouth as physically possible. He knew that he had to tell his family the truth of what happened with Alice because while Hodon was a god of life and not of truth, it had been drilled into him since young, to tell the truth. Femmet decided to make a compromise with his beliefs and spoke up, shattering the icy silence which wrapped the table. ¡°I have something to say.¡± His father paused in his slow movement of transferring food from his plate to his mouth, looking Femmet straight in the eyes, before nodding to himself. ¡°Out with it then.¡± A deep breath, followed by his cutlery landing on the plate, mother was a stickler for manners. ¡°I ¡­ When I was in the grove with Alice¡­¡± They were all looking at him now, and it froze him to the spot, but thinking of the looks those wolves had given him, compared to that, this was nothing. Femmet shrugged the sensation off and continued speaking. ¡°There were too many of them, even with the sword, it was too much. I just ¡­ I couldn¡¯t handle it. If there was any other way I would have done it. I just took hold of the only way out of there, the only way I could get out of there alive.¡± He looked them in the eyes now and saw how the light in their eyes changed from sadness to anger after he spoke his next words. ¡°I ¡­ I ascended while I was out there. I¡¯m a Warrior now.¡± # Travelling was a curious thing, Femmet reflected. The road to Osswold, it was long and hard with the occasional hole which he had to watch out for. Nevertheless, he was enjoying the journey, it was fun to see new people, to see other villages both larger and smaller than the one he¡¯d come from. But the curious thing about traveling was that with every person he met, the friendships back home, and his relationship with his family, they all seemed so small. He still missed his sister though, and the memory of the man that he¡¯d thought his father to be. Even the people he met for barely a couple of hours, they all had something to be doing, somewhere to be going. Compared to his family, who were content to live the same days over and over for the rest of their lives ¡­ it just seemed so pointless. Very quickly, he had cast aside the memory of what he¡¯d done, his Intuition helping him in that regard, doing some subconscious mental housekeeping while he slept. Like most mental skills, it had a rather broad function but wasn¡¯t especially powerful so it also provided him with a mental boost, or so he¡¯d been told, which contributed to making his mind healthier and allowing it to do things it couldn¡¯t before. He travelled for two weeks, his short sword saving him from the wandering beast and scaring off the violent looking men. The whole village had celebrated his departure, showering him with gifts of food and money, both because he was a Priests son and out of pity. The moment he¡¯d chosen this Job to save his sister, his future in the village was doomed. Above all else they were practical people, that was what the Witch had always said, and there was no way for him to continue his Job there. His gifts from the villagers had let him sleep in a bed when he had the opportunity, but more often than not he slept in a bush just off of the side of the road. It was more comfortable than he was expecting though, but that was mostly due to the burst of levels he¡¯d received in the wolves'' care. It took him two weeks of travel, passing through denser and larger towns as he went, but eventually, he reached the walls of Osswold. He heard the bells before he saw the city clearly, a clear sound which rejuvenated him and sent him scrambling up the hill ahead of him. He saw it then. The city was ¡­ he didn¡¯t have words to describe how large it was. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. He looked down on the city as the hill he stood on gave him a wide view of the entire city. Thick walls encircled the city, with some small buildings outside, and another layer of thick walls further inwards. Placed around the grey-roofed city was the main attraction of the city. Bell Towers which rang out for every hour of the day. All eleven of them towered over the surrounding buildings, massive constructions of red brick and open-topped roofs, with massive silver bells the size of a house looking out over the city like shining beacons. Osswold, the city of bells. Supposedly the bells rejuvenated travellers and first-timers to the city. The gate was easy enough to get through, he just showed his recommendation letter to the guard and they gave him directions when he asked. His father was enraged when Femmet told him that he¡¯d become a Warrior. He¡¯d bellowed for hours that he¡¯d lost two children until finally sending him out of the house. Mother was more compassionate, giving him a blanket to last through the night until they sorted him out later but they still refused to allow him to stay under their roof. A Warrior was someone who could only grow through death, they could not gain Job levels any other way, and so was almost the opposite of everything Hodon stood for. Hodon allowed the taking of life but only under strict circumstances. Not even mentioning they¡¯d lost a massive investment, they were both angry. That night in the rain and the cold had only helped reinforce the image and long-forgotten memory that his parents were not good people. Pious people, but not good. Nevertheless, he was still their son, or so mother had said to him, and so father had written him a letter of recommendation and sent him off to a place which would receive him. The recruitment office asked for his age which Femmet was initially concerned about. It wasn¡¯t a problem however, as they simply said he would have to remain in training until he turned sixteen. Femmet had spoken to many people on his way to Osswold and had learned there was a war going on, which possibly contributed to their willingness to accept volunteers, even if they were underage. Just like that, Femmet joined the army. # The training was hard. Femmet had always had a hard life, farming was not easy and his hands were so calloused by the time he was eleven they had no trouble holding a blade by the edge and not being cut. Nevertheless, most of the people he trained with were men, who looked down on him for trying to be a soldier. ¡®Little soldier¡¯, they called him. They were so much better than him with a sword that it was a joke. Femmet struggled every day, even to keep up with the most basic of exercises for the entirety of the first month. When sparring, which Femmet thought would be where he proved his worth, the gap in experience was quickly revealed. He learned fast but these men had been learning most of their lives, and so his morale was quickly drained away with every successive beat down. Most of the people here were foundlings, who¡¯d been taken in by the city when they were little and trained their entire lives to be a Soldier. They were all waiting to turn sixteen and they could be moved off to the frontline, where they were warring against a relentless enemy to the south. They were all the same age, but the gap between them was immeasurable. They were men, with cold eyes and even colder fists, while he was still a boy, who up to a month ago had been learning how to become a Farmer. # After the first month, Femmet finally woke up with considerably fewer bruises than when he¡¯d first started. The other trainees had stopped the bullying or at least it came less often now that they¡¯d accepted him and that he was here to stay. Not that he minded sleeping outside so much, as the cold did so little against him. He nodded to the leader of the group Kyal, who¡¯d been a foundling since he could barely walk and was a level 6 Soldier. He was sitting up against the wall as he looked over the room. He probably hadn¡¯t slept much. From what Femmet had learned of him, his skills were focused on endurance and outlasting his opponents. Nevertheless, his skill with the blade was so great he could beat most Initiates in half a breath. The man''s steely gaze locked onto him, and he motioned at him to sit down even as the others got up and went to the mess hall. Once the room of evenly spaced beds was empty he slowly got to his feet and walked over to him with a measured pace. Femmet swallowed. Kyal was known for being ruthless to the group, but he¡¯d been a fair man from what Femmet had seen of him. His mind raced as he went over the last couple of days in his head to remember if he¡¯d gotten in any fights or done something to annoy one of the other trainees. Kyal stopped a meter away, and his hand drifted towards the blade which hung at his waist. ¡°We¡¯ll be getting a special instructor today.¡± ¡°Oh ¡­ uh, okay.¡± He chuckled to himself. ¡°It¡¯s important you pay attention, but just don¡¯t embarrass the group. Just keep your head down, this is mostly for us and not for you. You¡¯ve been doing well so far, so don¡¯t go messing it up yet by taking something which isn¡¯t meant for you.¡± And then he left, leaving Femmet alone with his thoughts. # The instructor was an older man, who wore fine clothes and had a shiny sword at his belt. The drill sergeant didn¡¯t have to call a halt to the sparring as the initiates were already lining up in front of the man as soon as he¡¯d entered the yard. Femmets partner left him on the floor, but he scrambled up off the floor and sat down at the back of the group. The man didn¡¯t introduce himself, he just spoke directly to the sergeant, but didn¡¯t take his eyes off of the group of initiates sitting before him. ¡°They¡¯ll be needing iron this time.¡± The Sergeant picked on the newest member of the group, a new foundling who was only twelve to help him bring the cart of swords around. Once everyone had a sword, the lesson began. ¡°You,¡± He pointed to someone sitting in the second row, ¡°demonstrate the basic movements.¡± The man shakily walked over to the instructor and angled himself side on, before moving into a procession of sword movements which while slow-moving, followed on from each other, the movement finished with him striking the floor which rang out with a ringing sound, eerily similar to the bells which rang out throughout the day. He sat back down with a smile on his face however, one which the instructor echoed with his own face. He walked back and forth while speaking to the group. ¡°As always, I don¡¯t have much time to teach you. I¡¯ll do what I can in the time I have, however. What your fellow initiate just demonstrated was the basic movements of Osswolds sword art, which was developed by King Tiberius the First over two hundred years ago, in an effort to create a unifying art for both the nobility and men at arms of the time. This sword art turned this nation from a small nation to one of the greatest powers on the northern continent. King Tiberius was the man who built the bell towers which the city is so famous for. This sword art is a reflection of the city''s strength and the nation''s strength, which is why initiates are required to have Basic proficiency at the bare minimum, before representing the city in combat. Nevertheless, it is both a privilege and an honor to be able to learn it, and you would do well to listen carefully to the words I speak, both for your military prowess and your social standing later on in life.¡± As he spoke he motioned Kyal to stand, who looked both proud and deeply uncomfortable, which was an unusual thing to see on the stoic man. ¡°As so many of you are graduating this year, the city has decreed that Corporal Kyal will be taking command of his own unit on the frontline, with many of you taking the places in said unit. If you require further teaching in the sword art at the Basic Proficiency level then he has been ordered to oblige you. For today, however, I will be teaching you how to acquire proficiency in the Intermediate to Advanced stages.¡± The instructor then discarded his overcoat and then his shirt in front of the group before drawing his sword. ¡°To practice at the Basic Proficiency level, all you need to do is repeat the movements while also picturing the bell towers. To truly practice the sword art, however, and to harness this great nation''s true strength, the very essence of the silver bells has to be imbued into your every sword strike. To vanquish your enemies with the power of the city is your privilege as soldiers of this great nation.¡± The look from those assembled must have mirrored Femmets to some extent, as the man chuckled before wiping his head clean of nonexistent sweat. ¡°I know, I know, it didn¡¯t make much sense to me as well the first time I heard it. I find that with initiates a practical demonstration often works far better than a speech.¡± The man drew his sword. Slowly, the already silver sword grew brighter, until it left white spots in his vision. He practiced the motions the other initiate had gone through earlier, but his sword left a silver light in the air which was blindingly bright. ¡°Anyone with Intermediate Proficiency can use this technique. Effectively it¡¯s just coating or imbuing your sword with the energy of the sword art, which most sword arts use as their Intermediate Stage. This energy will burn through flesh and skin and bone, as well as being indescribably painful if it so much as touches the skin. It is very likely that the vast majority of your commanding officers and leaders will be at this level in the future and it is also likely that it will be the highest many of you will go when it comes to the Osswold sword art. But for those amongst you who strive for greatness both for yourself and for this nation, watch and learn.¡± The Instructor''s body sped up suddenly, and Femmets Intuition scrambled into overdrive as it struggled to keep up with and recover his movements. In the short time which he¡¯d had the skill, this was the hardest he¡¯d ever seen it work. Even though it was just a mental Skill, the energy behind the dance-like display in front of him was making his heart beat faster and faster in time as the movements in front of him accelerated. There were words that the Instructor was saying which Femmet was unable to hear properly, or it would be more accurate to say that he was too focused on one of his senses to pay the others any mind. There were silver afterimages left behind in his movements, which seemed to step away from the whirlwind of motion and form their own separate silver bodies that stood at the guard position around him. They were almost see-through and with the light behind them and beneath their metallic skin, it made them seem almost unreal. Above him meanwhile, a large silver bell seemed to form in the air above him. The bell seemed more real, and cast a shadow over the training grounds with its incredible size. It was similar in size to the ones he¡¯d seen here almost every day, Femmet realised. Abruptly, the whirlwind of motion ceased and the silver bodies around the Instructor still stood at a guard position, holding their shiny swords in a silver wall between the crowd of initiates and the Instructor. The man raised his sword up high, before suddenly bringing it down. In Femmets mind, however, his Intuition was slowing the moment down several times, letting him see the hidden details of the art. He saw the blindingly bright light on the man''s sword, followed by the solid-looking bell, and finally the shimmering but fragile-looking soldiers. He saw the sweat on the man, his look of intense concentration, the smile in his eyes and from his mouth he saw he was a sustained puff of white fog. The sword hit the ground, allowing Femmet to see on a much larger scale and with a much clearer image, a version of what the other Initiate had done earlier. The light on the sword seemed to slide off when it impacted with the ground, spreading into a circle around him, before rising up and reinforcing the bell above him, increasing the intensity of its brightness, before it slowly began to tilt to the side. The bell rang out, releasing a massive circle of silver energy which blasted outwards in a wave over Femmets head, stirring up his hair and the hair of the initiates around him. Femmet stood up to watch as the circle covered the entire city, while not diminishing in brightness the entire time. With a grunt, the Instructor heaved his sword up and over his shoulder. Although visibly sweating and breathing heavily from performing that sword dance in front of the group, the man still sported a smile, finally catching up to his eyes which had betrayed his enjoyment of the dance. ¡°So, *huff* *hah*, any questions gentlemen?¡± Unfortunately, Femmet knew that this was what Kyal had warned him against, he was still too much of an outsider to be worth an answer from someone this powerful, at least in the eyes of the Initiates. Either way, it was irrelevant, as Femmet could feel his head was getting too hot and his eyes too watery. # The burned-out boy rose to his feet unsteadily, prompting the unfriendly gazes of his peers from around him, which quickly softened as he once again collapsed to the floor he was very familiar with, but this time with blood streaming from his nose. # It was the now-familiar pain that woke Femmet up first. His eyes didn¡¯t want to open as his brain struggled to catch up to what he¡¯d done. He¡¯d really fucked up this time. Kyal was going to kill him for ruining the instructor''s demonstration, whoever they were. They seemed important, with their shiny clothes and sword, not to mention that he¡¯d made silver bells appear out of nothing! Femmet could feel himself getting his head around the idea of what the instructor had been talking about, just from his words alone. He¡¯d gotten the notification that he¡¯d reached basic proficiency in the sword art, what he¡¯d been working towards all this time, and he¡¯d fucked it up. All he had to do was keep his head down, not ask questions, and he would have benefited immensely. A groan escaped his lips at the thought. ¡°Hey, he¡¯s awake!¡± Femmet was furious with himself, now he¡¯d attracted the attention of the trainees. Great. Maybe if he pretended to be extremely weak, they¡¯d make it easier on him. He¡¯d finally gotten them to stop treating him like a piece of shit as well! Femmet faintly fluttered his eyelids open. What he saw surprised him. The whole group was gathered around. The surprising part was none of them looked mad! Okay, maybe one or two in the back row, but most of them just had looks of relief or concern on their faces. Making his way through from the back, was Kyal. He got down on one knee next to Femmets bunk, still with that expressionless face looking back at him. ¡°You okay recruit?¡± Femmet quickly forgot about pretending to be weak and put his back up against the back of his bunk bed. ¡°Yes sir. I don¡¯t really know what happened back there. Sorry if I ruined the presentation for everyone.¡± Kyal waved it off. ¡°The General didn¡¯t even blink and carried on as usual. Have to say though, you chose the worst time to pass out.¡± General!? Wait what did he mean the worst time? ¡°What?¡± ¡°Yeah after you left he gave one-on-one tutoring to most of us, sad to say it, but you¡¯re probably the weakest with a sword at the moment.¡± ¡°But ¡­¡± Femmet¡¯s flustered reply died on his lips as he looked at the grins of the men around him. Kyal¡¯s face remained as impassive as always, however. ¡°Rest up quick. Words come down from on high that we¡¯re being deployed to handle a rogue Novice in one of the stable towns.¡± With that, Kyal turned and left without another word. ¡°Hey Kyal, that was a joke right? Right?¡± # Femmet recovered quickly and found he gained more from the incident than he expected. Within a week, he was outfitted and sent off on his first mission. What he first thought was going to be a training mission, to bloody the blades of those in his group who hadn¡¯t seen combat, turned into a whole new frontline, a war which threatened to engulf his nation from within. 8. It had been five months now since Dorzath had arrived on this tiny rock and decided to grace it with his presence. Five months of slow improvement, of having to hold back his new instincts of wanting to kill anyone who got near his core. Five fucking months. It was taking too long. He¡¯d been told that this would happen. That the restlessness of constantly having to hold himself back would get to him eventually. So he¡¯d been giving himself little rewards of emotion and frivolous spending like the over expensive upgrades he¡¯d purchased, and that incident with Invim. Nevertheless, this sensation of feeling like he was constantly chained by responsibility had been building for too long. So that night when the adventurers left, he went on a spending spree. He developed his second mini-boss, this time for the fourth floor. A pangolin, both because they were the first monster he¡¯d created that genuinely vexed the challengers and because he disliked scorpions and most of their higher tiers involved a high degree of stabbing power, something Dorzath was reluctant to introduce to his Dungeon due to the severe lack of armor present on the challengers. Another variant, this time also earth attuned. Interestingly this one had naturally been generated, it had evolved within the Dungeon naturally without any interference on his part. It seemed the challenger''s general reluctance to engage them had meant they¡¯d rapidly gained experience, and after being exposed to the mana-rich environment for so long this one''s affinity had slowly been shifted so it was more in line with its surroundings. This process of a monster naturally gaining an affinity actually rarely happened in nature unless a monster found a mana-rich natural resource. Nevertheless, this one had simply gotten larger than its brethren, and due to the fact that it was also at its Jobs level cap, its size was actually fairly considerable. Once Dorzath then put it through the process of becoming a mini-boss it then grew even more, to the point that it was at chest height with a human male. It was still fairly useless in combat, however. The process had given it an evasion skill, however, which Dorzath supposed could potentially have some combat applications. ¡®Roll¡¯ Just increased the speed at which it rolled as well as increasing its maneuverability. Furthermore, its ¡®Trap affinity¡¯ skill had also been enhanced and seemed to be where a considerable amount of the energy for the transformation had been funneled to. The tier 1 skill had ranked up into a much more useful skill. The tier 2 skill called ¡®Natural Traps¡¯ had some interesting effects. It didn¡¯t require much control from the user which was useful considering it was a monster. The skill made the natural environment around the user naturally change to become traps in nature or change the environment into something trap-like. It was fairly frequent in occurrence but had limited effects. Nevertheless, Dorzath was still very impressed with the skill. It seemed to be invaluable for a close-quarters fighter, as much of close combat was dependent on the environment and your opponent making the smallest mistake could have a large impact on the fight. He looked into the big black eyes of the dumb creature looking up at him, the bright glow of his core reflected in its eyes as though it actually comprehended him. He was saddened by the fact a skill this useful was wasted on a monster this stupid. Nevertheless, this fight would prove to be a considerable obstacle for the challengers. Unlike the previous mini-boss, this one wouldn¡¯t be a test of strength, or at least it tested wits more than combat prowess. The boss chamber would have a long rock corridor, leading to a wide-open room. The room would be twenty meters tall, with a steep slope of sand one side facing the challengers as they emerged from the tunnel. The Pangolin would be waiting at the top of the sand slope, looking down on the challengers as they entered the room. The trick to this fight would be time. The longer the challengers took to reach the Pangolin, the more its Natural Traps skill would begin to affect the environment, and the harder it would be to take him down. He supposed that ranged attackers could take advantage of the Pangolins limited ability to move, but they would be surprised by his ability to move courtesy of his Roll skill. Overall Dorzath was happy with the floor and the mini-boss and decided to move on, but not without giving his newest addition a name. /Set ¡®Dungo¡¯ as the mini-bosses name?/ ¡®Yes¡¯ Then the only thing left for him to do was to descend. The mana cost for levelling up had risen further still, but thanks to the tier 4 levels pushing his mana capacity higher still as well as his tier 1 to 3 mage background he was in no danger for several more levels, of needing to stockpile mana. Eventually, however, he was going to have to start using LE as well when he descended but for now, he was more than glad to make up for the difference with his mana as LE was comparatively harder to acquire and therefore rarer but by no means rare. Dorzath just liked to have a stockpile saved up in the case of an emergency. The frantic battle against the Abomination had left him feeling entirely too vulnerable afterward, not a sensation he was willing to repeat. He relished the feeling of his core growing slightly firmer and smoother at the process. There was also a considerable size increase this time as well, as he¡¯d finally reached level five, the first of many milestones. It was for this reason that the supply of fresh dungeon shards was still firmly flowing. As Dungeons got more powerful their cores increased in size. This also meant that when the Army devoured a planet and discovered a powerful Dungeon controlled by the opposition, they would be able to split it into hundreds of shards to be shared with the lower-ranking members. In a way, Dorzath reflected, the propagation of the Dungeon species was similar to that of certain plants. The fifth floor would follow on from the previous floors in layout, but with the monsters being created at the middling levels for their Jobs. This would hopefully introduce a new layer of difficulty for the approaching challengers. In addition, Dorzath also changed the previous two floors in terms of layout, adding the occasional rocky chasm in the rooms, leading to a steep mana cost as it massively increased the size of the rooms. At the bottom of these chasms, Rockshaser wolves prowled, similar to Pulvi in species but obviously much smaller in size and stature. This would potentially add a layer of lethality to those floors which hadn¡¯t been there previously. The wolves could also potentially somehow crawl out of the chasms, but they were designed for firmer surroundings and so would struggle on the sandy dunes. Furthermore, as an incentive to enter into the chasms, Dorzath created small chunks of silver ore placed randomly within. He wasn¡¯t sure as to the relative value of the metal, but if his studies had taught him anything, a sure-fire bet to make when dealing with humans was that they loved shiny things. He liked this new design, challengers who would fall into the chasms could potentially find themselves with enemies all around as the Rockchasers surrounded them inside and the scorpions descended the walls on either side. Dorzath also threw in a little suggestion to the minds of the pangolins present in these three floors that they should throw sand and rocks down on any challengers unfortunate enough to fall down the gap. It was the result of the new skill he¡¯d recently unlocked, possibly as a result of constantly trying to mentally communicate with the non-boss monsters in his Dungeon. ¡®Plant Suggestion¡¯ allowed him to plant a suggestion in someone or something''s mind. Dorzath had deliberated about whether learning the skill was a good idea or not. He had never picked a Job which enhanced the mind and so had never received similar skills before. Ultimately however he decided it would be required later when he would inevitably be dealing with hostile elements entering his Dungeon and as he was now, it was the first skill which he could actually use effectively to combat challengers. The skill was just that, a suggestion. It couldn¡¯t make someone do anything they would otherwise never do, but it worked very well against monsters who had simple minds, as well as potentially humans who already had a hate for each other. Nevertheless, it was another Skill he could use, while the large majority of his powerful skills, including his one tier 3 skill, were useless for the moment while he lacked a real body. Dorzath supposed that he could eventually train this new core body into learning how to manipulate runes, but that just sounded like a lot of effort. For the fifth floor, Dorzath was able to make the rooms even larger than before, with the first room on the fifth floor being almost four times as large as the average room on the fourth floor. Throwing in some mirage stones embedded into the walls, a trade Dorzath had made just the previous day for the base blueprint of a family of birds which had taken roost in the dilapidated church above him, and the walls made the room seem endless. The dunes stretching out forever when entering the fifth floor made it seem rather enchanting, or so Dorzath thought. Dorzath also used the mirage stones on all fourteen of the desert-themed rooms for the previous floor. The result was that when a challenger would enter the floor, Dorzath thought it would seem like they had entered another world, with only the wooden door behind them and the door ahead of them signifying anything else about the world that they had entered. Of course, the mirage stones effect only worked when someone was sufficiently far away, as the challengers approached the walls, it would be revealed to be once again just a rocky wall with shiny stones embedded within. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. The stones could actually be taken out of the walls, but doing so would cause the entirety of that floor''s monsters to head to the offender''s location. The mirage stones, after all, were powerful natural resources that would rarely come into being in a lower-tier world such as this. Simply giving them away like that seemed ¡­ wasteful in Dorzaths eyes. Nevertheless, a tier 4 would be able to successfully flee the floor he estimated, and he would wait in glee to see if anyone that powerful would dare to try to steal one of the stones. Oh, he gave himself shivers just thinking about it! # Berant was the first down the stairs that morning. Femmet had hogged the mini-boss to himself all of yesterday, saying that it was too difficult for the rest of them. Screw that. He was a Guard wasn¡¯t he? A Wall Defender now, and granted his new skill Hold Fast worked better with other people and when he was actually protecting something, but either way, he was a Tier 2. Femmet had no right. He went off to the city for a few years and came back with a shiny sword. So what? Berant had been the one to stay behind, to deal with the growing population of the village and the nagging of the elders. The death of his father last year had been hard. Harder still had been filling his shoes. What right did Femmet have to come in and act like he was the one in charge? He wasn¡¯t an idiot though. He¡¯d seen the wounds Femmet had had when he¡¯d limped back into the village, the first time he¡¯d fought the beast. Even with those fancy potions from the city, the wound was still ugly. So he¡¯d brought back-up in the form of Katrin the Ice Mage of the town who also happened to be Invims little sister. She still looked up to him, even though she was a genius who he had no doubt would quickly surpass him. They strode into the boss room, and to her credit, she barely flinched when the gate came down with a clang. Berant hadn¡¯t actually seen the boss before, so he was shocked when a pile of rocks got up off of the ground. Femmet had told him it was a big wolf but that was an understatement. It glanced at Kat, but Berant wasn¡¯t having it. This was his fight, she was just here for backup. The sound of his spear tip smashing against his new shield, formed from the black iron Femmet had sold to him from this very boss, brought the beast''s attention firmly back to him. It breathed deep and the growl it produced smashed into him like a physical blow, sending his feet sliding back along the ground. He held fast though, and he remained upright. This thing looked slow, it looked heavy, heavier than him. If it got on top of him he would die. If it managed to push him down he would die. Okay. Berant shifted his weight. ¡®Let¡¯s try not to die¡¯ he thought to himself. He wouldn¡¯t be counting on any support from Kat, she hadn¡¯t managed to make any spells yet so the best she could do was get in close to something and then cover it in ice. Still very impressive but dangerous, as her body was weak. The battle began with the beast leaping onto him, jaws wide and aiming for his head. Berant had to take a step back and catch the beast with his shield while keeping the battle low. He forced the weight of the thing downwards, so the leaping beast was sent crashing to the floor as he manipulated its body with the flat edge of his spear and a shove from his shield. It was slightly stunned as the sudden impact sent it crashing to the floor. The earth around where it had been knocked into the ground was softened like clay, lessening the impact and allowing it to get its feet under itself quickly, but during that time Berant had slipped his spear down the side of the beast, resulting in long but shallow cuts. The things underbelly and sides was where it had less of that black-rock like stuff. Femmet had told him that was where it was strongest, well that and its paws but Berant had no intention of striking it there. It was whimpering now, the cuts had sealed up quickly but not before releasing a large amount of blood that had spread and reached even Kat¡¯s feet. It darted forward again, this time clawing at him with its paws. Each impact hit him with greater weight than cutting power as the earth was clinging to it like a newborn, turning its reasonably sized paws to anvil sized ones, but either way, he stayed upright. His spear darted in again, once to prick its eye and once when he thought he spied an opening to its neck, but wasn¡¯t fast enough to capitalize on it. The battle stretched on, with Berants new shield accumulating scratches all the while, and dents as the impacts from the beast grew heavier as it attached the earth to its strikes. Berants breathing was stable though, his one tier 2 skill shining through, Greater Endurance. He could go a week without sleep and still fight off monsters from outside the village. Nevertheless, he struggled in fights against enemies of his own level of strength. He had no active skills and could fight better than any man in the village but it wasn¡¯t enough for him, who¡¯d witnessed the power of the Priest of Life and his father in action. He was lasting longer than the monster however, it grew weary quickly as it was forced to divert more and more energy to healing. Over time the sheer lack of blood in its body would tire the thing to death, but Berant had done that before and the System gave you skills based on your actions. He wanted to end this fight now. His spear and shield proficiency skills let him know that he could bait the monster. He let his shield hang low, no longer protecting his upper body. The wolf wearily took steps towards him, changing into a sprint at the last second before leaping at him, the earth having taken up a life of its own, and wrapping around the beast''s front half in a mockery of armor. Berant dropped his stance at the last second, his body lining up to his spear and shield which were already in position. The beast''s jaws were wide open as it received the spear in its mouth before it plunged through the weak resistance of the roof of its mouth. The feedback he received from the vibrations as the spear squelched its way into the beast''s head told him it had reached the monster''s head. Nevertheless, Berant kept the spear where it was until the thing had smoked away, not wanting to be caught off guard by its incredible recovery power. Then, like magic, he got the notification he was hoping for. # Dorzath watched with amusement as the tier 2 man danced around. It seemed he was rewarded for his efforts to defeat Pulvi, and in contrast to his normally solemn appearance it seemed when he celebrated he went wild. Although not as wild as a demon, Dorzath gave him a 4 for effort. With that, the start of the delving day began. The 1st floor, as always, was hectic as people took iron and wood home with them with the wolves acting as the first regular source of meat most of them had ever had. Dorzath hadn¡¯t decided what he wanted to do for his 6th floor, but maybe it would be something to do with food, enticing the humans down to the deeper floors as he gained more LE the further down they ventured. Interestingly enough, halfway through the day, a man in a full suit of armor descended into the Dungeon, setting off alarm bells as he was revealed to be a Tier 3. Dorzath began to charge up one of his weaker destructive artifacts in preparation for him trying to harvest his core. He made it to the fourth floor fairly easily, blitzing through Dungo in one massive leap which bypassed the traps and the room in its entirety. A gauntleted fist burst through its head and upper torso, annihilating it completely. Neither Dorzath nor the man stuck around to see what it dropped after it dissolved, however, and the man continued his breakneck pace towards the bottom of the Dungeon. The barely finished rooms after that didn¡¯t give the man pause either, and it was only when confronted by the soft glow of Dorzaths core that he finally stopped. The man must have sensed something, maybe a skill which warned him of his impending danger as a cloaked artifact waited out of his sight, for a command from its owner to activate. Either way, the man continued on with his motion, which thankfully turned out to be just placing his hand on the dungeon core. He turned into a blinding red light before vanishing from Dorzaths Mana Sight. The sigh that Dorzath released then was almost audible, with the Dungeon giving a slight tremor in response. The challengers within the Dungeon had barely entered the 4th floor, and so it was likely Pulvi would be able to be respawned before they arrived, slowing down the challengers and giving Dorzath some breathing room. Dorzath deactivated his artifact, stowing it and his bag of other treasures in his bag underground beneath his core. He prepared to develop his Dungeon further. He knew it was a poor decision and it was unwise, but he felt what had just transpired was unacceptable. He knew full well that as weak as this world was there were still tier 3 and 4 forces on the planet. Even with his bag of Artifacts that would have been entirely too close if that challenger had decided to eliminate his core. While it was obvious that he was here for some other purpose, Dorzath had no idea what for and had no way of finding out. He could be waiting for the core to develop further before harvesting, or it could be that he wanted the core for himself to develop limitless resources. He didn¡¯t know and he couldn¡¯t find out. While he wanted to preserve his identity as a normal core partly for his survival and partly to have the villagers keep entering him, that tier 3 had frightened him. Dorzath had built 14 rooms on the previous floor, each one 5 kilometers in length and width. On this floor, he could build 18, excluding the boss room which he would merge two rooms together to form. Each of the desert-themed rooms was going to be 20 kilometers in length in width. In addition to this, his advanced measures also included bringing the level of the monsters from middling tier 1 at level 5 or 6, up to 9 or 10. Dorzath felt the Tier 3 had torn through his monsters too quickly, and while he was initially planning on having middling tier 1s on this floor and upper-tier 1s on the next, he felt he had to increase the strength of his monsters much faster than that. It was unacceptable what had happened to him today, it wouldn¡¯t happen again. If someone that powerful was allowed near his core again, he couldn''t wait to see what they would do, he wouldn''t. He would simply obliterate them from this life and play detective afterward. The tier 3 had simply run past most of the monsters on the 4th and 5th floors, so Dorzath put in choke points in front of some of the doors between rooms. Assembled in front of the door were several rows of scorpions, with Rockchasers hidden in front. On either side were steep rock walls which the pangolins would once again drop objects down to land on the enemy''s head. This wasn¡¯t a ¡®suggestion¡¯ in the mind of some of the monsters, but some monsters which were created here, for that very purpose. In addition, Dorzath had seen how it always chose the shortest path on the upper floors of 2 and 3, the Tier 3 must have spoken to the villagers and asked for information on what was the shortest path. Dorzath didn¡¯t want that to happen ever again. It was expensive, just a measly 5000 LE, but by broadcasting his intentions in the right way for the floor as a whole Dorzath had finally got the right upgrade he needed. It effectively ¡®randomized¡¯ the floor layout for the 4th and 5th floor for each person. So anybody entering the 4th floor could either go through all 14 rooms or just 2. Of course in the event that a hostile entity was entering his Dungeon, they would of course go through the maximum number of rooms possible for each floor. It was at that moment when Dorzath began to feel someone mentally ¡­ poking at him. He quickly realized it was his newest mini-boss Dungo who had just now respawned, well before the challengers would have entered his boss room and wondered what was going on, thankfully. The creature had a message for him. It wasn¡¯t words, not yet, the base monster wasn¡¯t powerful enough to be forming words and even with the upgrade to its body and mind it still wasn¡¯t there yet. Nevertheless, there was a feeling that Dorzath could sense from the young monster, and the feeling was somehow communicated to him, the monster had something to show him. His Mana Sense was quickly moved over to the monster, looking over at what he had to show him. The creature was holding a pouch, looking at it in confusion. Dorzath gave the monster a mental nod of acknowledgment at its very welcome gift. The monster seemed very confused by its arrival, which possibly meant the Tier 3 human in full armor had managed to let himself get robbed by the Pangolin and he hadn¡¯t noticed. It was rather curious and made Dorzath want to look into the possibility of developing a Job chain of Pangolins which would be able to steal challengers items, but that was a very quick way of making challengers never want to enter your Dungeon again. The Pangolin was able to exit the door to its boss room and arrive in the core room via another upgrade Dorzath had purchased, which allowed for transport anywhere throughout the entire Dungeon from any of the doors. This upgrade was considerably more expensive than the previous ones, but its cost was decreased by the fact that Dorzath had purchased the previous ones. Dorzath mentally shooed the pangolin back to its boss room, before quickly absorbing both the pouch and its contents in one smooth wave of action, he¡¯d finally reached level 100 of the Skill and its performance was eons away from what he started with. Unfortunately buried amongst the notifications of the objects he¡¯d absorbed was a rather troubling one. /10 Divine Coins received - Divine Coin unlocked/ Shit.