《Dungeon Soul》 Awakening Pain. Massive migraine level brain pain. I think to myself, Is this the second time? The first time was a building collapse, and the second time was an explosion. Will I be in a different world this time? I think to myself, until I am blinded by a dark blue screen.
Select Starting Dungeon Monster
Goblin Small green humanoids with a high evolutionary variety.
Elemental (Select one element) Beings of pure attributed mana.
Kobald Scaly humanoids with a trace bloodline of dragons.
Undead Reanimated creatures.
Undead(Specters) Reanimated creatures with no physical body. (Affected by title [Specialized Mage: Soul])
Golems Animated constructs made of mana. (Affected by titles [Certified Mage: Golemancy] and [Certified Mage: Runic Inscriptions].
Something recognizable¡­ it means I am still in the same world as my second life¡­ or one very similar¡­ but, I seem not to be human anymore. I guess that last experiment really must have gone haywire¡­ Heh, that old king, if he knew I became a Dungeon he would probably jump for joy at the possible riches. But, depending on how that explosion ripped through the protective barriers, with little obstruction, I doubt the capital survived. Is selecting a starting monster like selecting a class before? But no, you had to be level 5 before class selection in my last life? Different rules? No I am probably overthinking it and the two have no relation. I start to ponder my choices, goblins are disgusting creatures that I would rather not interact with if necessary. Kobolds, while it is true that they have ¡®Trace¡¯ amounts of dragon blood, it was observed to be less than .01% and would take at least 10 class evolutions before they can even become even the most lesser of dragons. And for elementals, if I am a dungeon, I will probably want more people visiting me, and while the singular attributed mana will definitely attract a specific group of people, I feel it narrows my focus too much. Now I turn to undead. If I even dare to choose that I will be targeted by many holy churches, it is a vital requirement for some divine classes to vanquish ¡®Beings of great darkness¡¯ for a class evolution. And an undead dungeon classifies as that. Though it is affected by that one title, giving me more options¡­ As for the last one, Golems hold a special place in my heart, If my first life I had two majors in both Bioengineering and Robotic Engineering, so when I encountered the chance to learn golemancy in my second life, which had such similar characteristics, I jumped at the chance. I learned runic inscription to make more advanced golems, then I even delved into the rabbit hole that is Soul magic to make a golem capable of thinking, with great success. I wonder why the Golem option is only affected by those two titles though? I try to pull up my status screen, but to no avail. I can¡¯t even observe my surroundings yet, only the Monster selection screen¡­ I guess I shall choose the obvious choice.
Monster Selected: Golem
And with that, I felt the whole world light up around me, I could see all around me and could feel it too.. And taste it? It felt like all five of my senses combined into one. I quickly try to pull up the status screen again, and to my luck, it works.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Name: Odracir Hilers Race: Dungeon Core Class: [Unselected] Level: 1 Mind: 10 Body: N/A Soul: 10 Mana: 1000/1000 Health: N/A Titles: [Certified Mage: Golemancy] [Certified Mage: Runic Inscriptions] [Specialized Mage: Soul] Monsters: Golems (Select for more Options) Skills: [Mana Will]: Level 1 [Conjuration]: Level 1 [Dig]: Level 1 [Morph]: Level 1 [Create] (Status screen will only be colored once)
Barebones compared to my old status, all my titles for accomplishing special feats are gone, along with all of my skills that I learned over the years or got from my class. I seem to have a few innate skills, only ¡®Mana Will¡¯ being one I had never heard of. A new Tab called ¡®Monsters¡¯ that looks like the tab for ¡®Subordinates¡¯ granted by some specialized classes. Mind attribute determines you mana pool, different races get different bonuses from it, humans get 10 mana per attribute, dragons get 50 mana per attribute, and it seems dungeons get 100 per attribute. Body attribute works the same way as Mind, just for Health. I have never heard of anyone without a Body attribute, but it does align with stories of conquering Dungeons. There are two types of Dungeons, ¡®World Recognized¡¯ and ¡®World Spawned¡¯. Recognized dungeons can be anything from a Bandit camp, to a bear cave, the nuances for how they come about are not completely understood, but it has been recorded that those ¡®In charge¡¯ of those dungeons get special titles that give them rewards. To defeat them, you just have to kill the leader, and you get rewards for it. Spawned dungeons are dungeons with a dungeon core, they vary in how they look, but the unique thing about them, is that the monsters inside of them drop more experience, and that Cycling your mana inside of them, rewards greater amount experience. The way to defeat ¡®Spawned¡¯ Dungeons, are to fight your way through the floors of the dungeon, and make your way to the dungeon core, it is said that even the highest level warrior is unable to destroy the dungeon core, and the only way to defeat it is to enter a ¡®Contest of Wills¡¯ and battle it out mentally with the will of the dungeon. Should you win, then you have two choices, Either ¡®Destroy¡¯ or ¡®Conquer¡¯. Destroying the dungeon, grants a hefty amount of experience, and a special title. The dungeon will also disappear forever, and collapse. This is rarely done because it hurts the interest of everyone who intends to use the dungeon, and people who do so, unless either strong enough, or have a big enough backing, are usually killed in gruesome ways, unless extenuating circumstances are involved. Conquering a dungeon is much more common, when a dungeon is conquered, the person who did so, gets a portion of the experience which would normally go to the dungeon for a set amount of time, and can somewhat influence the dungeon, and they gain a title. The amount of time a dungeon stays conquered, depends on the ¡®Battle of Wills¡¯ which varies all the time. Soul Attribute, Does a variety of things, Increases the experience you get from ¡®Cycling¡¯ Increases your focus, Increases your Will, Etc. Basically, the higher your Soul attribute, the better you are. It seems to vary exactly what it does from person to person though, some getting different benefits. Skills, there are plenty of variations to skills, for example, A Miner and an Assassin both have [Dark Vision] while both will allow you to see the outlines of things in the dark, higher levels of the skill, for the miner will give a subtle glow to Ore, whereas for the assassin, it will show the heat signature of the living. Then there is Rarity, there are five ranks of rarity.
[Common]
[Uncommon]
[Rare]
[Extraordinary]
[Legendary]
Rarity can affect anything from skills, to titles, to items, to even classes and monsters. There is alleged to be three other ranks, [Ancient] [Mythic] and [Unique]. But I have never personally seen them, so I am unsure. After checking through my new status, I look around at my new body, seeing it answers many questions. Before I died, Myself and others were working on a new type of Golemancy, creating a golem with a newborn soul. Golems, when not controlled directly, can only act under a rigid sect of instructions given to them, and the goal of this project was to make a golem with the capacity to think, many ideas were tried, but the limiting factor was always a lack of mana. One day, a researcher came in and said he had found a solution to our problems, he took out a box that was about 2 meters cubed. Made completely out of Lead, a metal known for blocking mana. He cast a spell and numerous runic inscriptions flare upon the lead casing, within it, a perfect crystal sphere, 10cm in diameter, and a flawless emerald green was shown. The marvelous part was the dense waves of mana being given off. Some high level mages were able to increase their levels quickly from a mediocre try of ¡®Cycling¡¯. One of the researchers by the name of Allison, who had a very high level legendary identification skill, said it was a legendary item called [Mana Well] that gives off endless mana. All the researchers were overjoyed, the item for the golem core was finally found. The body of the golem was made with many legendary metals, and special items were integrated, every millimeter of space was covered in runic inscriptions. All that was needed was the final ritual to create the golem core. And that''s where things went wrong. Something happened, and there was an explosion. And here I am, in a crystal strikingly identical to the so called, [Mana Well]. Domain After many ruminations on various factors at play, I look outside my core, at the room I have found myself in, it is a small chamber, no bigger than a beach ball, it is only now that I realize, that deep down, there is an urge to dig, to open a path, a path to breath. I excitedly used my newfound [Dig] skill, going on instinct making a path at a 45 degree angle. After what feels like days, I make a breach. It was like holding my breath under water, and frantically swimming up, then finally hitting the surface. It was so wonderful, sunlight streaking in and reflecting off my core. That is when another type of panic hits me. It is like the feeling of being naked in the middle of a shopping mall, and everyone is staring. About 100 meters from the surface, I frantically build a room about the size of a basketball court, and fill it with 5 earth golems. The panic fades, but is still present, an omnipresent warning, but one that is no longer blaring like tornado sirens, more like a reminder on an event calendar. I take a mental breather, and notice that my [Dig] skill went up a few levels, as did my conjuration from making the golems. I notice in my frantic digging, I do not realize where the dirt has gone. Then I realize, that my body automatically absorbed the loose dirt into my core, like one would a spatial bag. I can still use it, as doing that would not require me to use mana on the [Create] skill. On the note of that skill, I can only make things that I have absorbed in the past. How do I know that? It is another kind of instinct. Another thing I noticed is my ''Domain'' It allows me to omnipresently observe my entire dungeon, or just focus on minor points. the former is just general information, while the latter allows me to know everything about it. Something else that intrigues me, is the part of my domain at the surface, I can look outside of it, reminiscent as how I did when I was human, but is blurry, as if I need glasses. In that blurry sight of landscape, I make out a huge oddity, I appear to be in a basin that is massive in size, surrounded by mountains, with what looks like a river cutting through it. I appear to br on a mountain side, about 200 meters above the river level. There is a forest of trees covering the basin, and they appear to be tens of meters tall, densely packed. I cannot make out any clearings that would denote humanoid habitation, but I cannot rule out treehouses. The slope leading up to my cave seems passable by humans, the largest intelligent humanoid population. Most dungeons seem tailored towards the majority of their entrants, something I never truly thought about until now, Oh how I wish I became a dungeon researcher, but I may have never become one if I had in the first place. I ponder about my next course of actions. I debate on becoming a pseudo field dungeon, field dungeons usually are above ground with no underground networks, but they are usually destroyed because of how difficult they are to contain, but there are some that exist. I think about some people who discovered dungeons in the past, and bought up the land that contained them from neighboring kingdoms, making tons of money in the process. I remember a certain rune from my early days of learning runic inscriptions, it is said to detect nearby monsters, and would always go off upon entering dungeons, no indication was ever found out, except for some speculations that dungeons were large monsters, and entering them would be equivalent to entering a beast''s stomach.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. After some time, which was probably hours, because of the light of the sun was getting dimmer now, coming close to sunset. I decided, no matter what, I must own this basin, either as the dungeon itself, or as a ''Dungeon Noble'' as those who owned dungeons were called. With that decided, I start pushing my domain out of the cave and into the forest below.
After a few hours of slowly expanding my influence, I hit my first snag. A den of rabbits. Whenever I pushed my domain towards them, it would get close, then slowly rebound, pushing it back, but when they entered my domain, it was not disturbed, and I actually got little trickles of experience from them. I am curious as to why similar things did not happen when I crossed trees and insects and the like. It was not until I came across a Hawk nest, that an idea was formed, it was the levels of the creatures. Most trees and insects, do not have any levels at all, not even level 1. It was only when I came across something with levels, like the rabbits, that I was rebounded. Another thing that I noticed, was that my domain can only spread about 10 meters below the ground, before it feels like I reached a limit, something similar happens when I try to go up in the air. So sadly I cannot expand into the atmosphere and look at the surroundings. As I was expanding towards the ''Half-Way'' mark that is the river, I feel a burst of experience, not the trickle the small animals in my domain give me, but a burst, it happened fast, then did not come again, I frantically search for the cause, when I notice a hawk, feasting upon an unfortunate rabbit. Death, The fastest way to gain experience, to do so by killing. If it were not the fact that you could not gain experience from similar species, there would be endless killing. The reason for the classification of ''Intelligent Humanoid Creatures'' is that any included upon that list, will not gain experience from each other on that list. The likes of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, and other such races are upon that list, so while there are still wars for resources, it is not as intense as it could be. I snap out of my unpleasant thoughts as I have finally reached the river, and have encountered another problem once again. Whenever I try to spread my domain into the river water, it gives me the feeling of being ''Washed Away'' and my domain dissipates. I cannot go directly into the water, nor can my domain stretch across the river that is tens of meters across. I quickly think up a simple solution to a probably complicated question. I use the stone that I gathered within me, and made a vertical ''Bridge'' tens of meters tall, then fell it like a tree, making a platform bridge across the river, from beach to beach, slowly spreading my domain across, once it reaches the other side, going 10 meters down into the earth on that side, I absorb the bridge to see what happens. Nothing, the connect does not collapse, and I take a mental sigh I did not know I was holding. while I say that the basin was cut in half, I am on the smaller half, with the other side being three times bigger. I still cannot directly enter the river with my domain, but since it is only around 8 meters deep, I surround it with my domain. I continue my spreading of my domain, passing many animal dens, and claiming them when they leave, gaining experience from them even when they sleep. After what seems like many days (Judging from the Day/Night Cycle) I finally enclose the whole basin, curiously, there is no presence of shelters being built in the basin, but there are scraps of civilization left upon the beaches. I guess that this is not a major waterway, yet. I turn towards my dungeon source to enact my next two plans. Avatar I have two problems, the problem of land ownership and how to acquire it, and one caused by my dungeon core itself. Luckily, I have the solutions to both, just further testing is needed. Let''s explain the second one, which requires some knowledge of how Mana relates to experiences. Every creature in the world, (Except dungeons apparently) use a process known as ¡®Cycling¡¯ to turn mana into experience, areas with more dense mana, rewards more experience for cycling. Mana also migrates, at a slow pace, from areas of high to low. Now, my core constantly exudes mana, like all dungeons, so although I have claimed this whole basin, I am still very easy to find, following the flow of mana, which I do not want yet. Luckily, with my knowledge on runic inscriptions, I can prevent this. There are two solutions, and I will do both of them. One is to use ¡®Mana Flow¡¯ runes, to circulate mana throughout the basin in a constant spiral. This is generally used in gardens that grown magic herbs, for plants do not do well in areas of ¡®Mana Stagnation¡¯, and having a constantly flow of mana, promotes growth of all living creatures. Areas of mana stagnation are only good for areas to raise undead. The other solution is one using runes, and my knowledge on how Mana is generated, one by living creatures using mana in skills, the resulting ¡®Excess¡¯ flows into the world, and by chemical changes. (Dungeons are not included) So my plan is to use ¡®Mana Generators¡¯ something that every runic inscriptionist knows how to make, but annoys all who do. Runic inscriptions, when active, corrode any surface they are on. They require a flow of mana to start, then take the rest ambiantly from the world to run. Now, more mana equals more powerful runes, which corrode the materials faster. Now in the case of mana generators, they constantly produce more mana which the runes absorb, to run faster, which usually corrodes most materials in a matter of minutes, stopping the generator. This is not a problem, for any structure I build in my domain (Those not built by me are not affected) they automatically repair themselves. Now, some less knowledgeable may think that I could produce infinite amounts of mana this way. Sadly, there is what is known as the ¡®Runic Upper Limit¡¯ determined by the skill level in Runic inscriptions, which once they reach a certain point, they reach their peak efficiency. So this will flow my domain with more ¡®Mana Spots¡¯ so that tracking my core is harder. I start to work on that while I split my mind to work on the other project. Making a golem that can be controlled through the [Avatar] skill. This skill is very common among mages, for it is very easy to learn, and there are many ways of doing it. I start by making a golem, this will be a very special one for there are many special requirements. Normally when I make a golem through my [Conjuration] skill, it summons a rudimentary golem core that has some basic inscriptions on them, with an ¡®Ownerless¡¯ Mind rune. Golem dungeons are very profitable because of the golem cores dropped from the golems, that can be immediately ¡®Repurposed¡¯ by mages with the know-how to do so. Making any place with them extremely popular among everyone, for everyone can control golems with mind runes. I start to build a framework of iron in a shape somewhat resembling a human, bearings at the joints to facilitate movement beyond what a human can normally make. This will be what the inscriptions will be written on. I start to write various runes that will allow movement, create small shields to protect the golem so it won¡¯t poof in one fight. Some may think that runes are like coding, which is semi-correct, but it is also like making a puzzle, two runes of the same type close to each other will interfere with each other, making them ineffective.The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. As I continue filling the iron structure, I get to the final few runes, one that will essentially make people believe my golem is a real person (as long as it looks semi correct) with the rune promptly named the ¡®Gloss over¡¯ rune, it is a rune which can affect even high level people, should they not be paying close attention. Then the mind runes, and some others that will allow me the basic five senses. And on each hand, flamethrower runes. After all the rune work is done, I use the [Create] skill to create mushroom flesh in the shape of a human, using a different mushroom to give black hair, and one to make green ¡®Eyes¡¯ and rabbit bones to make teeth, instead of iron, and placing a ¡®Speech¡¯ rune before I forget about it, something I did one too many times. Lastly, I make some clothes, most fabrics cannot support runes, because even the weakest rune breaks a few strands, untying the whole thing and destroying the rune¡¯s foundation. I decide to go with a basic lightweight leather armor, made from condensed rabbit hide, I put the fur on the outside since I won¡¯t actually feel the rubbing, and it will make my avatar look more stylish. I copy the staff I had as an Intermediate mage, a 5th rank class. It is a [Uncommon] quality, but it is more expensive than some [Rare] quality staves, For it has [Quick Casting] trait. Sadly, the copy I have made is subpar, for it is made of normal oak wood. But it was not uncommon for ¡®Avatars¡¯ to have trash equipment, for people always worry about them being destroyed. After I have everything I believe done, I connect to the mind rune for preliminary test, merely using the mind rune does not make it an avatar, and the feedback is rather clunky, I prepare to gain the [Avatar] Skill, which is [Uncommon] quality. I make minor adjustments to the runes, the I turn my focus to the mind rune. The way to get the avatar skill, is to focus on a controlled creature, and ¡®Split apart of your will into it¡¯ it is simpler than it sounds, at least for the experienced. I do what I remember my former teacher told me to do, as well as my own experiences, and eventually there is a pop, and the feeling of split views happen, I am simultaneously looking at my whole dungeon, as well as through the golems senses, then I gain a notification.
Gained skill [Avatar]
[Avatar]: Level 1 *Able to control (1) Avatar. *Able to use (10%) effectivity of skills through Avatar. *Range of Avatar (100) Kilometers.
Although it is kind of weak in the low levels, every ten levels of the skill gain an additional avatar, and every level gets +1% effectivity, and 10 kilometers. The highest I have seen anyone have it was that old king, who had it around level 47, mainly from using them to do administrative work. The amount of times his avatars were assassinated though¡­ was absurd. Anyways, I start doing exercises with the avatar to ease into the control, then I walk it towards the beach, where an already prepared boat, with a basic air jet rune in the bottom to go upstream. At this moment, I wonder if I meet people hostile to humans, for it was not uncommon when I was alive because at that time a lot Humans were dicks to most other races. I go with a simple heavy black cloak, and then set off up the river, if I meet no one until I reach the river source, then I will go back down stream. Oddly enough, a weird phenomenon happened when my avatar left my domain, it has a domain of its own, though it is only five meters and doesn¡¯t seem to be able to expand, nor contract. The implications of this is unknown, but as my avatar sets off, I turn back to my dungeon proper, I will need to start preparing it for when adventurers come. Town in sight My dungeon proper, not the basin in its entirety, but my little hole in the ground, is rather trash. The one room with a handful of earth golems, with the only reward being their mana stone cores, is not the makings of a great dungeon. The largest of dungeons I remember, have a very delicate balance of ¡®Risk vs Reward¡¯. I want to lure beings in, as dangerous as it sounds, so that I can get stronger. Some may question my morals that I had from being a human, and if luring beings to their deaths was ethical. Well, I''d like to put them in my situation, whether I get stronger, or I get enslaved/killed. Not a very hard choice for me. With any existential questions of ethicality aside, I started digging in my memories from my younger years on earth, when video games were frequent in my life. I remember one particular game that I believe I can base my first couple floors off of. I take metally note that I will probably have limited space for the first few layers, as I am above normal ground level in a mountain. I start off by making one hundred rooms, about 30 square meters in size, and 10 meters tall. Now I connect each room with a 5x5x10 meter tunnel. I briefly remember a skill common among craftsmen called [Schematic]. It was acquired by consistently making something 1000 times, and the use of the skill was to create a schematic, which then allows the schematized item to be made almost unconsciously, with almost 100% accuracy. I was about to make 900 more rooms before I hit myself in the head mentally. I started creating 1000 stone rectangular prisms 5x1x1 centimeters. It was actually a mentally taxing process, that I did not realize before. The second I finish making them, I gained the skill and something seems to snap in my mind, I create thousands of more rectangular prisms, something that previously took hours, now takes minutes. With the skill [Schematic], anything I make can be saved as a schematic, combined with my dungeons natural repair mechanism, I can make a variety of room layouts, and when one room is ¡®Cleared¡¯ by an adventurer, it instead of being returned to the identical room before, it can select from a wide variety of layouts reserved for that room. I look at my current floor layout of barren interconnected rooms. I immediately started using the [Schematic] skill, starting with the first room layout. In the first layout, I have 5 small earth golems, and a chest, I make a mental note to make chest layouts that govern all the chest I place. I feel like it needs to be more sinister though, something I need to include in all rooms.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I remember a simple rune developed as a prank by some random aspiring inscriptionist. It was lovinging called ¡®directional dyslexia rune¡¯. It was placed at all intersections of a very populated capital city. Basically, if you decide to go left, you will think your right, is actually left. It left several people confused for three days before another inscriptionist saw through it, and removed each rune. I decided to add this rune to every room layout on this floor, rendering maps ineffective, not that the changing layouts wouldn¡¯t make it hard enough to map. I also add doors to each room that close upon entered, and opens when all enemies are defeated. I then start to make a variety of different rooms with different obstacles and varying rewards, still relatively simple and danger level low. I use the schematic skill to populate these rooms in reality. Watching as they randomly fill up with the various layouts, I think to myself what rules govern how each room is chosen. I realize that I actually can not do anything more, limited by my resources and level, I can not make a second floor, nor add more creative layouts. I am now just an unknown hole in the ground, I am not getting experience in enough amounts to level, the variety of small animals giving experience had diminishing returns, no longer giving me any experience. I then remember to add another, disconnected room, it is basically an outer ring with a few mana generators and mana flow runes. As I start getting bored, I mentally snap to my avatar, after several days of slowly going upriver in an endless slew of mountains, I actually come out of them, the river going past the mountains. This peculiar geography messes with my head, but I was never the best geographers in either of my lives. After a few more hours of mountains turning into plains, a city appears in the distance, instead of arriving from the unused river, the boat is stored as I make my way to land, about a kilometer from the river, I hit what seems to be a main road. It seems to be deserted. I slowly make my way towards the city kilometers ahead. As I get closer, my hopes are somewhat dashed as I get closer, what I hoped to be a city, was barely a town. I crossed my fingers and hoped that there will the basic facilities to enact my plan. Walking one foot in front of the next, I arrived in front of a large gate, a guard standing with a bored albeit somewhat surprised look. The guard kept his emotions as he said with a placid voice, ¡°Three coppers for a day, 18 for a week. If you do not renew your entry permit, you are subject to -¡± and then he started in a monotonous voice listing off punishments. Not unfamiliar with the general laws of various kingdoms, entry tax being common, I hand over 18 coppers I swiftly made and took out of a hidden ¡®Pocket¡¯. I make my way into the town without much scrutiny. A map on the side of the road shows me the general layout of the city, noting the bookstore and the administrative building, I head to the bookstore first. The town seemed to be have little wood in its construction, making me suspect a quarry was somewhere nearby, for I did not see any trees on the horizon. I amble on my way with the occasional odd stare from passersby. Big Purchase One thing I found out about very early in my life in this world, when I was an aspiring mage, was information always cost money, there were no public libraries when I was alive, either you had to go to the bookstore, or pay to be admitted into a school to use their library. But there was a distinct difference in what the two offer you, if you want general knowledge, go to the bookstore. If you wanted information on how to progress your skills, or gain them, then school libraries were the answer. There are some private libraries some people have, that if you have the connections, you can enter. I myself had a small library that mostly consisted of my research notes, not valuable to me, but some people would pay money for access on occasion. I walk down the road and enter a small quaint storefront that designates it ¡®Rook¡¯s Books¡¯. Inside has at a glance, 800 books, a rather large amount for the area, but could just be the change in times. I look towards a counter, and there is a middle-aged man with graying hair. He is transcribing a book it seems, he briefly looks up and nods with a ¡°Welcome dear customer.¡± and looks back down. I look at the rows of books, they seemed to be organized into general seconds ¡®History¡¯ ¡®Laws¡¯ ¡®Geography¡¯ etc. I make myself over to the geography section, and I just start grabbing every unique book, next to the geography stack is a few bins of maps. I take one of each after confirming they are different. The storekeeper is giving me a curious glance, as I bring more and more books to his counter, taking practically one of each book, regardless of what they are. He got concerned at one point until I flashed him a couple of gold coins, I nicked one off a food vendor (Which I returned after I made more), then he calmed down and went back to transcribing with more enthusiasm. After I cleaned out more than three quarters of his store, was there were no more books on display, I walked up to the counter and asked if he had any skill books, which was a no because this place is too remote. Skill books are items from the system which directly give skills, and they are almost always in hot demand. People with high levels of a skill can go to people with scribe classes or similar, to have skill books made. I absorb all the books, luckily space type storage items and skills are somewhat common, so the shopkeeper is not too surprised. I make my way towards an inn, I have to sort through the books and read the important ones first. I find a small inn that has a few rooms open and pay a few copper coins for a single night. I pull out the large maps showing the continent, and finally confirmed something that has been bugging me. Where my dungeon core is, is exactly where the capital city was, but now there are mountains there, a small cluster of mountains in an almost perfect circle in the middle of a vast plains. I scramble over the geography and history books before I understood what had happened. About 150 years ago, give or take a few years, a huge elemental explosion happened, there were firestorms and tornados, tons of water just everywhere, and mountains started growing, these phenomena lasted for about fifty years before they died down. It took another 50 years before it was explored. It is filled with a large variety of avian beast. There are three rivers going through the mountains, that would be prime merchant highways, if not for the high level beast living in the way. After finding some reasons why there were next to no people, I sigh with some relief. I then turn to the books on law, I found that the ¡®Earth Spike¡¯ Mountains, are bordered by three kingdoms. I look at laws for land acquisition, and as it was in the past, with most laws being standardized from kingdom to kingdom, All I have to do is pay a fee to anyone who has claims on the land. I plan to buy all the mountains, it will definitely cause a huge stir, but I will still do it, I look at the cost for land and find one for ¡®Frontier Land Acquisition¡¯ which is luckily identical between the three kingdoms, just some minor price changes. I started calculating the money cost, and if I weren''t a money printer, I¡¯d probably pale. It will take me at least three days to just make the amount of gold coins required. Luckily coins are judged by weight to be ¡®System Worthy¡¯ if your coin is not within a specific margin, then it is not considered coins, this ties within many merchant and related classes.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. There are no worries about price inflation, because of the prior mentioned merchant classes, use coins to convert to experience to level up, so more coins are always welcomed. Every class can level up from killing, but every class has specific ways to level up besides leveling skills. I head down to the innkeeper and pay for a week. I return to my room and start ¡®Printing¡¯
Over the next few days I was making enough gold coins to make someone cough blood, sadly I did not have access to higher levels of currency. (Copper>Iron>Silver>Gold>Platinum>Mithril 100 of each denotes the next) I went to the stores around the town, and bought some seeds and metals. There was not a large variety of stock, I got potatoes, carrots, and cabbage seeds. I also got aluminum and silver. I will have to travel to a larger town in the near future. I have to buy blueprints for various public buildings and to design a large city, luckily I won¡¯t have to pay for labor. I make my way to the administrative building, a little giddy about how many people will flip their hats. I always had a mischievous streak in me. I come to the front of a basic stone building, nothing indicating it is a government building except a small sign ¡®Land Purchases and Disputes¡¯. I push open the door and a little bell dings. I walk in and there is a young lady at the desk, looking extremely bored. She raises an eyebrow and ask, ¡°How may I help you Sir?¡± Odracir smirks, ¡°I would like to purchase some land under the ¡®Frontier Land Acquisition'' law.¡± The receptionist seems surprised, but pulls out a large map anyways. ¡°Where would like to purchase, all the areas in green are unclaimed, whereas red is claimed. Blue is disputed by neighboring kingdoms, so you will have to pay money to them as well.¡± she says. I look at the map and see that luckily the entirety of the Earth Spike Mountains is covered in blue. Odracir takes a deep breath, then he points his finger on the map and circles the mountains, ¡°I would like to purchase the Earth Spike Mountains entirely.¡± You could see the young receptionist mouth drops open before she seems to gather herself and says, ¡°Are you s-s-sure s-sir?¡± with a nod from Odracir she gulps, ¡°T-then do you want to pay directly, or pay over time?¡± One word is said from Odracir, ¡°Directly.¡± At that a box appears in front of him.
Notice!
You are about to purchase land from the ¡®Ashrine Kingdom¡¯. You chose to pay directly, the amount will be deducted from your [Internal Storage Skill] If you wish to continue select yes.
[Yes]/[No]
Odracir is at first confused about the skill he did not know he had, but then realizes that it just did not show in the status screen and has been using it all along, this is common with racial skills. He selects yes and receives a few prompts in succession.
Notice!
You have purchased land from the ¡®Ashrine Kingdom¡¯ As you purchased as a frontier, you will be subject to the frontier laws, you can add laws to your owned land by your discretion.
The land you are purchasing is disputed by another country! Please also purchase the land from them to avoid disputes!
Notice!
You are about to purchase land owned by the ¡®Hroving Kingdom¡¯ from another kingdom, to purchase the land directly from the ¡®Hroving Kingdom¡¯ Please select yes.
[Yes]/[No]
Notice!
You are about to purchase land owned by the ¡®Defer Kingdom¡¯ from another kingdom, to purchase the land directly from the ¡®Defer Kingdom¡¯ Please select yes.
[Yes]/[No]
He selected yes again to both prompts, and all the generated gold coins were taken and deposited into the respective kingdoms treasuries. He nodded to the slack jawed girl and turned around and left to make his way to the nearest large city that contains a builders guild. Causing Distress While Odracir was leisurely making his way towards a bigger city, several people were deeply distressed. In a large hall, There were 13 people sitting at a round table, the only difference between the chairs was that one was slightly bigger than the rest. The bigger chair was occupied by a middle-aged man with graying hair, a shiny gold crown on his head, The King of the Ashrine Kingdom. He looked around at the men and women seated at the table around him, the respective heads of their noble houses. The King looked towards an older woman, ¡°Madame Shriker, as you may be aware already, this hasty meeting was convened because of a large purchase of land that borders three kingdoms, ours included. What is the information on the buyer that we have?¡± The older woman, Madame Shriker responded, ¡°Sadly, the information we have is too little. We have the name of the buy as Odracir Hilers, and that was what we received from the system information. We looked at the reports of the major organizations in the three kingdoms territories, as well as the foreign noble houses themselves, and no movement either.¡± She shook her head, ¡°We sent spies to track the buyer, but he will probably disappear before we can find anything useful. As for the funds that were spent, we do not believe any nearby organization has such spending power.¡± The king sighed and waved towards a younger noble who was eager to speak. ¡°Your majesty, why do we not just attack them, and reclaim that land? By the opulent spending of this organization, they seem rather rich!¡± the young noble had a gleam of greed in his eyes. The King, and several other more knowledgeable nobles groaned. Finally the King spoke, ¡°Not only is that against the laws of the kingdom, risking losing your noble class, as a frontier province of the three kingdoms, they have a certain diplomatic immunity, and all nobles are forced to protect them against the threat of attacking enemy kingdoms¡­ lest we invoke penalties among ourselves.¡± The [Noble] class has many variations, they are generally powerful when it comes to commanding and boosting those under them, but it also comes with strict penalties. They can not easily break the laws of their kingdoms, they can not be harsh towards loyal subordinates, and they have to promote a general wellbeing. There are some [Noble] classes that are less than savory, but those people tend to silently die during their sleep. In this world, citizens are generally protected by the laws rather well, with the corrupt being few and far between. The corrupt kingdoms lost most of their citizens, which are needed for certain classes to gain experience. No citizens equals no experience. The king sighed and looked towards Madame Shriker, ¡°Well, inform me if the spies do find anything.¡± He then looked towards another Older male noble and said, ¡°Sir Drazo, Send a diplomatic envoy to the Earth Spike Mountains in 30 days, they should have established a city by then.¡± Sir Drazo nodded and said nothing. The King sighed again and said, ¡°Meeting adjourned.¡± and walked away.
In a rustic throne room, a Minister kneels and speaks to the King of Hroving, ¡°Your Majesty, there has been a major land purchase, the Earth Spike Mountains, they bought it through the system at base price, no negotiators were sent.¡± The King speaks to the minister, ¡°Were any laws broken?¡± the Minister shakes his head.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The [Law-Abiding King] then speaks, ¡°Then we shall do nothing except monitor the mountains.¡± The minister hurriedly nods and leaves the throne room. The king speaks to himself, ¡°I wonder who would pit three kingdoms against each other, to guarantee his own protection, a dangerous game.¡±
In an office of the Defer Kingdom, a Redheaded young girl burst in, ¡°Father, you said you would buy the Earth Spike Mountains as my personal hunting grounds! Now someone else already bought it ahead of you!¡± A middle-aged man with a full head of bright red hair, rubbed his temples as he explains, ¡°I was ready to send negotiators to the other two kingdoms, but who thought someone would beat me to the punch.¡± The young girl whined, ¡°Father! You must buy them back, I already promised my friends I would rename the mountains in my name!¡± The king then said in a melancholy voice, ¡°Dear Daughter, he paid each kingdom the base land cost in direct payment of gold coins, that is over three billion gold total, much more than that mountain is worth.¡± The young girl had a fright at that amount of money, she only gets a monthly allowance of a few thousand gold each month, even if her father negotiated with the neighboring kingdoms for the land, he would at most have to pay a few million, never reaching the billions. Although the Earth Spike Mountains are huge in size, they are barren. Very few minerals were discovered by various prospecting teams, and along with the various monsters, makes it an almost unlivable place, except for hunting. She only wanted the mountains so she could rename them in her name, never would she force her father to pay so much on one of her small whims. She then looked dejected, ¡°I guess they won¡¯t be called Alara Mountains¡­¡± She then looked at her father with burning eyes, ¡°I want to meet the buyer¡­ while I may not own them, I could probably pay them to change the name!¡± The King laments having such a narcissistic daughter, exactly like her mother.
While two kings were lamenting their fates, and one not caring, the carefree odracir just arrived at a much larger city. The main tell was the inflated gate fees. As it was still early in the day, he made his way towards the beast pet shops, already fantasies of them becoming fierce dungeon monsters. He came to a street that had a particularly horrendous smell, the street was filled with shops that sold everything from mounts to vanity pets. Without a care in the world, he entered the first shop on the street, coincidentally, one selling mounts. He looked towards the shopkeeper and said, ¡°How much for every animal you have for sale.¡± The shopkeepers look went from one of friendliness, to one of annoyance, ¡°Haha, you type of people think this is a funny joke! I¡¯ll have you know, everything cost 8 platinum, 86 gold, and 87 silver! Exactly! No negotiations!¡± And, while the shopkeeper was feeling smug, a bag of 887 gold coins was dropped on the counter, ¡°Your sign there says complimentary beast holding bags?¡± The shopkeeper was floored, before he scrambled to pack away every single mount in the store, he also made calls to the ranch that own the business to pack every mount except the breeders. The shopkeeper was incredibly respectful. This was one of the lower end shops, but a similar scene repeated itself in nearly every shop on the street. One particular shop was very interesting, ¡®Dave¡¯s Doppelganger Eggs!¡¯ Doppelgangers are weird monsters, they lay eggs, which all look identical, but any monster can hatch from them, even dragons. Another noteworthy feature is that they all recognize parents on first sight. But Doppelgangers are almost impossible to capture or tame. The owner of this shop was lucky, he once acquired a doppelganger egg, that contained a doppelganger, he then had his pet create a large pack, and he harvest the eggs every breeding season, he then made a killing making a shop, the only thing preventing him from going to bigger cities was a lack of funds, which he now had! After cleaning out the beast street, Odracir continued his mad buying spree with the book and plant streets next, before they could raise the prices! Rumors started floating around about a mysterious mad rich man who would buy just about anything. City building After a few days of reckless spending, I slowly started making my purchases closer and closer to my main goal, the builders guild. I was never a good architect, I was decent, but for the builders guild, their whole lifestyle revolves around it. And the main thing I want from the building guild is their city blueprints. I¡¯ll be the first to admit, even with unlimited resources, I could not build a city without help. I want city blueprints, as well as blueprints for every necessary building. I mainly want the high density buildings, because my area to work with is rather small, being the basin, and I can¡¯t go down or out, but only up. I finally made my way into the builders district after passing the craftsmens district. There are tons of warehouses, and one giant administrative building, the builder¡¯s guild. I slowly made my way to the guild and walk inside, and they seem already prepared for me, a young gnome lady is manning the counter with a few stacks of planks besider her. She smiles brightly to me, ¡°Welcome to the builder¡¯s guild sir, you have a very large reputation, we here at the builders guild have already prepared everything for you, everything from basic to advanced, we would also like to sell you masterwork blueprints, but we are not authorized to do so.¡± Piles and piles of blueprint planks, each at least 150 planks thick. Many are probably really close in design, and probably barely qualify as a unique blueprint. There is everything from bed frames, to city blueprints. After I acquire these, I could single handedly build a city, although I will only do the important stuff myself, then sell out some plots of land. Also, another thing that catches my attention, the books of runes for the various blueprints. With these I will be able to roughly judge the advancement of runes in this kingdom from when I was alive. If they are more advanced than my time, all the better, if they are a little behind, I will have to do a lot of work to change it to my standard. I did not get a chance to properly study the blueprints from the craftsman''s guild, which probably has some minor intersect with the builders guild. I then make my way towards the mages guild, which was more enthusiastic than the rest, research cost a lot of money. And they did have three skill books! Something that no bookstore had. I hope the warriors guild has some too. But it is getting late, and most shops are closing. I make my way back to the inn.
An ordinary group of adventurers made their way into the city, occasionally signaling with their hands, as they are walking they overhear some people talking, ¡°Sue, I heard your potions shop was ransacked by the big magnate, oh how I wish I took the storekeeper class back then as well.¡± They stopped and turned their heads in that direction, before continuing on. As they made their way closer and closer to the nearest inn, they heard more and more rumors about the ¡®Big Magnate¡¯ Their footsteps noticeably increased, hoping to get to a secure location before they can report their findings. The walk into the inn and pay for two rooms, one for men and one for women, as is usual for adventurers. They filed into one room and a woman, the ¡®thief¡¯ of the group took out a communication orb, a man, the ¡®Tanker¡¯ of the group, starts speaking into the orb, ¡°Delta One, reporting in, we arrived at the city closest to the incident.¡± He then taps the orb before continuing, ¡°There have been vast amounts of rumors of a ¡®Big Magnate¡¯ who is buying out everything money can buy.¡± He taps the orb again and says, ¡°Awaiting orders.¡± He taps again and waits. Eventually the orb lights up and a voice sounds out, ¡°Investigate his purchases, stay away from direct contact for now.¡±
My Sixth sense was picking up trouble, I faked going back to the inn and jumped the walls at night, I heard there was an auction in a neighboring city. The city also has access to a large branch of the Adventurers Guild. The Adventurers Guild, unlike any other guild, spreads across almost the entire world, in every humanoid kingdom.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Now, they may not be liked everywhere, but they have a lot of clout. The adventurer''s guild has two separate ranking systems, One that is based on strength and contribution, the metal ranking system. The other is meant for merchants and other non-combat classes, the number ranking system, there are 10 number ranks, and you earn them by paying coins. There is a few days before the auction starts, and at least a day or two of walking to the city, because I have to prepare more gold coins. I also just got tons of things to try out in my new land. And that next city is just barely within range of my skill.
The first thing I do is immediately level the ground completely, removing the grass, animal dens, trees, etc. I also block the view from the river with large stone walls, making it look like the basin here never existed. I replace the dirt all the way down to stone with quartzite that I just recently acquired, even managing to change the riverbed to it as well. I make the slope of the land 1 degree facing the river. I make 1 meter of basalt gravel, then two meters to top quality soil. Now, I use a type of grass called five elements buffalograss. This is a fast growing hardy grass that is resistant to fire and is magic resistant. I also chose it for another reason. With one seed, I can cover the entire basin by supplying mana to the seed, once it grows large enough, it will evolve and be a plant monster that is easy to control for me. Once it gains sentience as well, it can be my eyes and ears for the whole town, no one will suspect the grass. It also purifies the air extremely well. I toss in a grayish purple seed the size of a fist, and start supplying it with mana. It starts slowly at first, before rapidly spreading, it crosses under the river, while also tapping into it, before popping up on the other side, before long the roots cover the entire basin, I am manually controlling the growth of the seed right now, because it only has basic plant instincts. Once everything is covered, thick green grass grows up from the ground before stopping at three inches tall. My dungeon is constantly replacing the nutrients in the soil during this process. Now that everything is grown, I still keep feeding it mana as it strengthens itself, finally a limit is hit and no more can be fed. Soon, it will gain sapience, but it will take a month or so. I rummage through the acquired blueprints, these blueprint planks are amazing items, with the use of runes, it projects a realistic 3d image, that can be broken down and shown piece by piece, as well as the order to build them and everything. I rummage through a few city designs, none of them I really like, but I do get good inspiration of what a city needs. I need four main things before I do anything else, a town hall, roads, sewers and lastly docks. I decided to build the town hall first, and center everything around that. Most of the designs I got from the builders guild is based upon different types of stones quarried in the plains. I decided instead to use steel reinforced ultra-high performance concrete. I make the steel framework, a 4 stories and a basement. I then do something that would be called extravagant and stupid by anyone who knows runes. I start weaving anti-divination and shield runes throughout the framework. If this was a normal town, the runes would destroy the steel within a day, luckily it is not. I then place a meter of concrete in all the walls. I then build the interior and exterior according to the design. When I became a dungeon core, I gained the ability to remember old and mostly forgotten memories. My first few years of college I tried HVAC and electrical engineering, and although I did not stick with them, I still remember the earlier classes. Instead of making complicated rune systems that I will have to pay people to repair without looking suspicious. I decided to use my accumulated knowledge, I built an electrical framework through the building. Lights and light switches, an HVAC system, and in my personal room, I fit out a modern kitchen, something I have wanted for a long time, it is hard to cook with runes. I build a second basement below the current one and build some electrical generators using runes. As I build more and more I debate building a bio-computer. I do not have the special lab grown brains as I did in my first life, but if I could procure a mind type monster, I could probably make something similar¡­ As I am in deep thoughts I finish the town hall, and start roads, a sewer system, and the docks, I made a stagnant lake that can take in ships, that won¡¯t be affected by the river. All of these are done quickly.