《Dungeon Realm [Ecosystem-Based Dungeon Core]》 Chapter 1 ¡°Are you awake yet, Dungeon Lord?¡± Jacob woke up with a start to a stone room next to a floating fairy. It was slightly larger than his hand with white stone skin, silver hair, and a simple robe that draped over almost all of its body. Sprouted out of its back were two butterfly wings made out of a dark blue gas or flame. It stood weightlessly in the air, looking at him with an obviously worried fa?ade. He looked around to discover that he was in an underground room carved into a perfect dome. There wasn¡¯t an entrance or exit, nor was there any blemish on the smooth stone. In the middle of this unnatural room was a pedestal with an enormous, egg-shaped ruby pulsing like a heart with magical power. ¡°Dungeon Lord, are you ready?¡± said the fairy but he didn¡¯t bother looking at it. He looked down at himself. His entire being was made of thick shadow that was only barely translucent. He brought his hands to his face and looked through them; he bent them and moved only to discover that nothing felt wrong. He pushed his hands together and they barely resisted each other before going through. A million thoughts raced through his head. Was he dead? Was this all a hallucination or a dream? This didn¡¯t feel anything like a dream, and he couldn¡¯t recall ever being lucid in any of his dreams. If this wasn¡¯t a dream, then what was it? Did he get pulled into another world? Was this purgatory? ¡°Dungeon Lord, please answer me,¡± said the fairy with a stern voice, the sound waves imbued with some sort of power that influenced his mind. Dungeon Lord? That term was familiar to him. He grasped on to the only clue he had to explain what was going on, trying to recall why the words were familiar. Right, they came from the game called Dungeon Realm, one of his favorites despite losing a lot of interest recently. Why were those words used here? He looked at the fairy and suddenly his mind made a connection. The thing was just like a dungeon fairy, or as close as a physical being could be to the high resolution pixel art. If that thing was a dungeon fairy then¡­ He turned and saw the heartbeating ruby on a pedestal, the dungeon core, and came to the odd realization. He had somehow gone into Dungeon Realm, or something like it. ¡°I am¡­alright, Dungeon Fairy,¡± Jacob said, testing to see if his connections were correct. ¡°Good, Dungeon Lord,¡± replied the fairy, validating his absurd understanding of the situation. ¡°If you are ready, please open up your map. Just use the ability phrase [Map].¡± ¡°¡­[Map]?¡± Jacob asked. Suddenly, a 3D holographic map appeared in front of him like a holodeck from a science fiction show. There was a blue semicircle with a shadow, fairy, and heart icon within it. Around it were tunnels and caves painted in neutral gray and full of red figures acting and roaming like animals. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. It wasn¡¯t the exact same as the pixel art, tile-based, 2D Dungeon Realm, but it was incredibly similar. The icons for himself, the dungeon fairy, and the dungeon core were the same and so were the colors used. Blue meant his dungeon territory, gray meant neutral or unclaimed territory, and red meant hostile enemies. ¡°Please conquer these caverns, build your dungeon, then open an entrance to the surface, Dungeon Lord,¡± said the dungeon fairy. After the dungeon fairy spoke again, a hologram screen appeared in front of him.
New Quest ¨C Claim the Underground Create your domain, Dungeon Lord, and conquer all tunnels and creatures forsaken by the Overworld. Once done, create an entrance to the surface so that your darkness can spread. Reward ¨C 25 spirit points
He read and reread the screen, feeling a strange sense of deja vu. This quest came from the game¡¯s tutorial, something that he had seen only a couple of times. He didn¡¯t use the tutorial anymore, but seeing it here provided him a needed sense of familiarity. He could do this quest in his sleep. He turned to look at the jagged and naturally unnatural angles and paths of the cave system around him. There were monsters everywhere, but there were empty caverns that didn¡¯t have an entrance. Those were the ones that he needed to claim first. The player didn¡¯t have the power to directly terraform the environment or claim territory though. Instead that power belonged to the dungeon fairy; all that he could do was direct and command the fairy. He knew how to do this with a computer mouse, but he didn¡¯t have that here. ¡°Dungeon Fairy, how do I mark things and command you,¡± Jacob asked, gambling on the knowledge that the fairy was the source of instruction and tips in the game. ¡°Please use the ability phrase [Mark] to mark the environment or entities. I recommend using it with your map,¡± replied the dungeon fairy, its voice and movement robotic. Uttering [Mark], the map changed to white instead of blue. Using his mind, he created orange and yellow shapes for excavation and building respectively to test out how everything worked. The shapes appeared around him as he marked the map. He cleared all of his tests and then created a tunnel to the empty cavern near the dungeon. The fairy suddenly moved when he finished, floating through the air to the orange shape stretching out from the dome-shaped room. It stretched out its hands and an eldritch glow appeared, causing the stone to melt and deform like clay being sculpted by unseen hands. Slowly a tunnel to the exact measurement he had created appeared, and the empty tunnel was accessed. Then the dungeon fairy lowered its hand and its glow spread around it and covered it. Underneath roots of glowing light connected to the dungeon core appeared and started to grow into the newly accessed space. Jacob watched, mesmerized, as the fairy conquered new territory for the dungeon. With some much needed space, it was time for him to start fleshing out the dungeon. Chapter 2 At the start of any dungeon, the two most important things to get were defenses and a prison. Dungeon Realm didn¡¯t have a mechanic where you bought monsters, the only way to gain monsters was to capture and enthrall them yourself. Without monsters, the only way to protect the dungeon was through defenses like traps, hazards, and barriers. With the space he had now, he could begin creating the start of his dungeon. Defenses were the first thing his dungeon needed as he couldn¡¯t attack and the dungeon fairy was weak. This dungeon didn¡¯t have any flying animals from what he could see on the map, which meant that a simple spike pit would do. The cavern he had taken over would be the only path to the dungeon core and prison, at least for now. He created the outline for the spike trap in the map, widening the cavern in places and shrinking it down until the cavern¡¯s shape became a room. While the dungeon fairy began to transform the cavern, he created an offshoot for the prison. Gaining denizens for his dungeon was a difficult process to do cheaply. Not only did taming cost currency, but so did modifying and mutating them. The weaker the animal or organism became, the cheaper it was to tame them. Starving them in a prison was a cost effective way to do this without creating horrendous injuries. He didn¡¯t think that there were any animals in these caves that were worth the cost, but the prison was too important to procrastinate. He created several chambers with small holes that will allow air in and out so that his captives wouldn¡¯t die from suffocation. He needed to know how many soul points he had. While the animals in these caves probably weren¡¯t worth it, at this early stage it was better to have something. He floated to the dungeon fairy and asked for help. ¡°Use the ability phrase [Status] to see your dungeon¡¯s stats, including how many soul points you have.¡± Jacob quietly said, ¡°[Status].¡±
Dungeon Status ¨C Level: 1 Core Health: 50 / 50 Soul Points: 0 Infamy: Null Dread: Null
He had zero soul points, which was interesting. Having no soul points to start wasn¡¯t too much of a detriment, however it did mean that his reality, or maybe dream, was based off of the game at hell difficulty. This meant that the enemies were stronger, he gained less soul points, and other mechanics were harder. It was concerning. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Having no soul points in his account made his decisions easy. There simply wouldn¡¯t be enough to capture and modify any of the monsters that lived in these caves. He would have to wait till he created the dungeon entrance before he could begin creating his own monsters. He created the outline for the tunnel as the dungeon fairy finished creating the room full of spikes. The tunnel was intentionally long as it would give him more room for defenses later, as well as creating more distance from the dungeon core. However, that was something for later. While he waited for the dungeon fairy to finish carving out of the prison and tunnel, he decided to spy on the type of monsters he would find. There were many different types of underground monsters from the game, and knowing which type was immensely helpful. He floated through the walls using his map to find the nearest monster. Despite the lack of light, he could still see as if he had darkvision, and when he found the monster he felt phantom pains in his stomach. The monster was clearly undead, some sort of alien beast that wandered around the caverns as a zombie. The thing had six legs and reminded him most of a wolf, with dead muscles peeking out through the patches of skin and fur that had decayed. Just being near it he could feel the unnatural hunger of the monster. That made things difficult. Spike traps worked against most animals and monsters, but undead were the exception. He looked around and discovered that there wasn¡¯t anything but bones covered in rotten dust. They didn¡¯t eat, didn¡¯t need to breathe, didn¡¯t need their organs to work or their blood pumped; they had few easy weaknesses beyond magic. He looked back at his map and counted the amount of monsters as he checked all of them. All eight of the monsters were undead. They all seemed to wander around braindead, only regaining some life when they got close to each other. They seemed to want to eat each other, but kept backing off as if intimidated. He groaned to himself from having to deal with these monsters. Then all of them turned their heads in unison, all looking in the same direction. It took him a moment to realize, to his horror, what had happened. Every undead monster rushed toward the newly created tunnel, their hunger no longer pointed at each other. The dungeon fairy noticed this and stopped doing anything, and the undead didn¡¯t notice it as they rushed through. When they reached the spike pit, the first few undead were pushed off and into the spikes, immobilizing them. The monsters then stepped on the bodies of their new comrades until they fell into the spike pit. Seven of the undead monsters fell into the spikes, one used their bodies as platforms and managed to pass over the trap. ¡°Dungeon Fairy, attack it!¡± Jacob shouted but it was too late. The zombie wolf rushed through the small tunnel into the core chamber and it reached the dungeon core. It raised one of its claws into the air, then it struck the pulsing red gemstone. Pain poured through Jacob like a cascade. Rather than scratching the rock, it felt like every attack was directed onto his soul. He couldn¡¯t think for a moment as he felt the harrowing pain. His mind seemed to open up and become stuffed with information like everything, from the rocks in the walls to the dust in the air, was shouting or speaking to him. The dungeon fairy reached into the spike room and held its hands forward like it was grasping an invisible ball. A white light converged and condensed into an orb of magic power that crackled and sparkled. It pushed the ball forward and launched it. It traveled slowly towards the monster; to Jacob it was like the ball was being chained down by time. The ball always kept moving forward though, and eventually it touched the monster. It exploded into white lightning that wrapped around and blasted the undead with magic. The dead of the wolf monster glowed with malevolent purple as the curse that kept it alive was damaged. The monster was stunned for a moment, the magic crackling around it after the attack. Then it turned around and stared with pure hostility at the dungeon fairy. Chapter 3 The dungeon fairy started to charge up its next attack and the undead rushed towards it. It wasn¡¯t able to finish its attack before the monster attacked him, the claws tearing through the fairy¡¯s flesh. The attack caused the dungeon fairy¡¯s magic to dissipate and the dungeon fairy to be launched back. The wolf jumped forward and raised its claws, striking the fairy again¡­and falling into the spike trap. Whether it was a part of the dungeon fairy¡¯s AI or just a lucky coincidence, it was led to a part of the spike pit that didn¡¯t have a body covering it. It had become incapacitated, but at great cost. The pain was no longer mind braking, fading to a maddening burn on his spirit. The dungeon core gained several gashes and heavy scratches from the monster. Arguably worse of all, the dungeon fairy was wounded, its cuts unraveling into something resembling clouds or cotton made of light. He can heal the dungeon core, but the fairy can only recover over time. He sighed in relief that the monster was finally defeated, though it wasn¡¯t dead. All of the monsters were still ¡®alive¡¯ in their undead way, writhing as the spikes caused crippling damage to their bodies. He needed them dead, and quickly if he wanted to be sure of his and the dungeon¡¯s safety. He said, ¡°[Mark],¡± and marked all of the monsters to be killed. From a safe distance, the dungeon fairy slowly attacked and killed them one at a time with its attack. He watched as they all slowly died, refusing to turn his back until he was sure. Only when the dungeon fairy stopped attacking did he finally feel safe. There was no doubt in his mind that this wasn¡¯t a dream, that it was reality, and it was a reality where he was in danger. He didn¡¯t need to be a genius to identify that there was a connection between him and the dungeon core. He shuddered at the thought of what would happen to him if the dungeon core was destroyed. He needed to make sure what happened never repeated. With a sober and razor-focused mind, he looked over the embryonic state of his dungeon and started to review what he knew. Normally, there would already be an entrance to the surface in the situations where the underground animals weren¡¯t undead. In scenarios where there were undead in the underground or no enemies, there was a chance that there wasn¡¯t an entrance and he needed to create his own. With a quick look at his map he confirmed it. He needed to improve his strategy, and he needed to open up the dungeon soon. The dungeon core required soul points both to heal and to feed. He needed more soul points, and the only way to gain them at this early stage was through attacks from the Overworld. It wasn¡¯t just about killing things; the dungeon core needed to be open to the surface to be able to gain as many soul points as possible. That was the reason why he didn¡¯t block off the dungeon core with stone¡ªany protection gained became bitter from the loss of important currency. He had only gained a few soul points from monsters because of this. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. He needed to make this dungeon as good as possible before creating the entrance. He looked at his map and began to come up with a plan to take advantage of the shape of the caves and caverns that minimized the slow process of terraforming. He needed to focus on defenses, creating a complex and multi-layered fortress. However, he also needed to design this in a way that allowed for future plans beyond the first wave of attacks. Adventurers were the most important part of the game, and they were the ones that he would need to design around. That was for later, he needed to just survive the starting onslaught. He went to the spike room and examined the conditions of the spikes and dead wolf monsters. Many spikes were broken or damaged, especially the ones underneath the slain undead. They needed to be repaired, and the bodies disposed of. It was painful for him to be wasteful, normally corpses were a good source of food for the ecosystem or had other uses. Undead ones were often the exception, and in this case there was no point in keeping them. He went into [Mark] mode, and marked the room for repair and the corpses for disposal. The dungeon fairy appeared and caused the corpses to sink into the ground and disappear. Then it used its eldritch light to melt the broken pieces of rock spike into the ground and regrow all damaged spikes back to how they were. He started to create new outlines for the tunnels and caverns for his dungeon. Where he could, he made the layout confusing. A convoluted path helped spread out the animals across more spikes, and also helped him identify animals that he might want to tame. With the opening of the entrance, he needed to create defenses for flying enemies now. From his experience, spikes from the ceiling were the best way to deal with birds or bats as their wings were easy to injure. These stalactites needed to be long though, and that length would make them easy to break. Flying creatures were fast though and were often the first animals. Finally, Jacob created a cliff that the first onslaught would have to scale to get to the dungeon core. He hoped that the many spike pits would slow down or scare any animals that the Overworld gods sent, but if that wasn¡¯t the case then they would be stopped here. With a sheer incline, only flying animals could get past it easily, and he had set up ceiling spikes at the top for them. He double and triple checked everything in the dungeon. It was ugly, painfully ugly. One of the best parts of the game was making a pretty death trap; he kept reminding himself to be patient. He waited as the dungeon fairy carved and molded the underground to his dungeon. Once all of the dungeon was finished, it was time to create the entrance to the surface. He thought about what type of entrance he wanted, but he decided to keep things simple for now. Instead of a spiral staircase or some other grand entrance, he chose to outline a simple sloped tunnel. The dungeon fairy started carving a tunnel upwards, and with each step upward the fairy seemed to fade. It dissolved into an eldritch light that kept creating the entrance. And then it broke into the surface, and sunlight flowed from the opening. Then a chorus of animal cries and screams announced the incoming attack. Chapter 4 There was a tidal wave of animals, all of them similar to the animals on Earth but all of them were alien. Some looked like squirrels, others badgers, some looked like sparrows, some looked like wolves¡ªthough these lacked the six legs of the undead monsters. They all had fantasy or outlandish features such as antlers and horns when or where they shouldn¡¯t, odd patterns, or strange colors like blue or cyan. Like he expected, the birds were the fastest as they flew over the jam of animals and into the dungeon. They were among the first to be injured or killed. The flood of animals followed quickly. As he watched, floating above them, he came to an interesting discovery. Many of the smaller animals were being trampled by the bigger ones. Within each of the animals¡¯ eyes was a glimmer of madness, a strange wrath that drove them to venture into his dungeon. They didn¡¯t coordinate or act with a strategy, they were simply driven by instinct and manipulated emotion. He wasn¡¯t sure if the undead monsters had this mania, their eyes were too dead and inanimate. From the lore that he remembered, this was the anger of the gods. Or maybe this was the result of a divine decree or command. Dungeon Realm wasn¡¯t known for its lore. He watched them rush into his dungeon and instantly get lost. Many of them seemed to have a very vague idea of where the dungeon core is or the path to it, but that didn¡¯t stop a large portion of the animal army from going down the wrong paths and falling into spike traps. The animals reacted to the deaths of their ¡®allies¡¯ and grew more hesitant to danger unlike the undead wolves. Many of them went back and tried to find a path forward but there wasn¡¯t one. This caused an unexpected stalemate and halted their progression even if only for a little bit. This would have been a good time for him to find good animals, but he didn¡¯t know how to access any of the animal¡¯s stats. He floated to the dungeon fairy to ask. ¡°Dungeon Fairy, how do I summon the screen for status from animals and enemies and¡­such?¡± Jacob asked, trying to articulate what he wanted. ¡°Use the ability phrase [Status: Target] to view the status of a target. You can also use [Status: Mass] to view the status of all potential targets within an area,¡± replied the dungeon fairy as it hovered above the ground and stared into the distance. Jacob had no idea how he could view all the status of many targets at once, but if it was possible it would be very beneficial. He floated to the largest group of animals, and used [Status: Mass]. The world froze. Every animal in the room with him stopped moving and became absolutely still statues as screens appeared above their heads. The world had been paused like a game; he didn¡¯t even think it was possible for him to do it. He wandered around and found that everything had been paused, even the dungeon fairy was unresponsive when he tried to ask it something. Not all animals had status above their heads, only the ones near where he used the ability phrase. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. He looked through all the status screens of the different animals, trying to find ones that he would want to keep. There were two types of animals that he needed at the beginning of any dungeon, defenders and utilities. With the burns on his spirit from the dungeon core, he prioritized defender monsters over utilities. No matter the type of monster he needed, a starting animal needed to be omnivorous as food would be unstable. He didn¡¯t need a defending species either, all he needed was a singular guardian to act as the final boss and protect the dungeon core. He kept searching before he found one that he liked.
It looked like a bear, though instead of purely brown fur there were patterns of green and sky blue. It had the characteristic [Reinforced Skeleton] that increased its strength and defense. The best part of all was that the animal was only at level 6, which meant that it wouldn¡¯t cost him too much to tame. He took advantage of the paused state of the world to continue to examine the status screens of the other animals in the dungeon. He was worried that summoning more status screens would cause the dungeon to unpause, but that didn¡¯t happen. He didn¡¯t find a better animal than the bear, either they were too strong, not strong enough, too old, or already injured. Once he was done, now he had to deal with the mechanics of capturing animals. The dungeon fairy had the power to move things; for example, it could take a corpse from one dungeon level to another to feed in case of a famine or such. However, there are flaws to the mechanic. Moving an animal that was hostile to his dungeon had a chance to fail and get the dungeon fairy injured. During the capture, the dungeon fairy was also vulnerable to the other animals that could attack it and thwart the capture. He also needed to unpause the world. He couldn¡¯t ask the dungeon fairy for advice as it was frozen. Or maybe he could, but he didn¡¯t know how. However, he learned enough ability phrases to guess what to do. He said ¡°[Unpause]¡± and the world resumed. He marked the bear he wanted, and then he marked a spot in the air where he wanted the dungeon fairy to fire from. The dungeon fairy slowly floated to the spot before it started to charge up its attack. It lost its invisibility and all the animals were drawn to it, but it was in the air and there were few flightworthy birds left. The dungeon fairy finished with its charging and launched its magic. The magic moved towards the bear and struck it, causing it to be damaged in an aura of magical lightning. This attack created a frenzy. Many of the animals were focused on the dungeon fairy, but the frenzy spread to the animals beyond that room. Those animals¡¯ mania flared and caused them to lose their fear of the spikes and to rush forward. Many died and many were used as platforms to reach the other sides of the pits. It took some time, but a number of animals were able to reach the cliff that he had made before being stopped. Back in the room with the bear, the dungeon fairy kept attacking it until the health bar above its head was less than half. Many animals lost interest, but the bear and a few others remained resolute. He marked the other animals to be killed and waited painfully for the dungeon fairy to kill them all. Only when the bear was alone was it safe for him to capture it. Chapter 5 After marking the bear and the destination, one of his prison cells, the dungeon fairy floated to it and started to melt. It became a pure white curtain, almost like milk made from luminous marble, and it began to cover the animal like a bubble. The bear thrashed and tried to rip the dungeon fairy off of it. The bear had been weakened though, and the dungeon fairy managed to fully wrap around it and restrain it. Then the bear in this bubble of light started to sink into the ground. It seemed to have fear in its eyes, though maybe that was just Jacob¡¯s hallucination. He watched mesmerized as the bear was fully devoured by the ground. He summoned his map and watched the icon of the fairy traveling underground at a faster pace. He then said, ¡°[Pause],¡± and the world froze. He quickly moved to the prison to watch the bear be delivered. ¡°[Unpause].¡± Slowly, the white bubble with the bear emerged from the floor like a plant sprouting. Once the bear and bubble were fully out of the ground, the bubble unwrapped itself from the bear and transformed back into the dungeon fairy. The bear was stunned for a moment before it jolted back to life and roared, looking around for the dungeon fairy but unable to see it. The dungeon fairy was both invisible and intangible to attacks unless it was using one of its powers. When it was terraforming, attacking, or transporting; it allowed entities to not only see it but to also damage it. There were a few new scratches on the dungeon fairy adding to the fluffs of light on it. Jacob floated back to the cliff and the animals at its bottom. A few more animals were trampled due to the constant attempts to scale the cliff. He had found the only animal that he wanted; now was the time to clear this wave and gain the much needed soul points. He marked all the animals to be killed then he marked the top of the cliff for the dungeon fairy. Cleaning out the animals was tedious due to how slow the dungeon fairy was attacking. Beyond the room with the cliff, he had to position the fairy above spike pits or at the top of the taller rooms to safely shoot the invaders without putting itself in danger. In small rooms without a spike pit, he had to micromanage it to kite the animals into more advantageous rooms. After waiting and stress, he was finally done. He was sure that there were animals on spikes that were still alive, but they would die soon. Now that he had successfully fought off the massive wave of enemies, it was time for him to start improving and renovating his dungeon. There were a few animals that he had spared, though those wouldn¡¯t be alive for long either. Those animals were brought to the prison as well. He needed sacrifices to start the fledgling ecosystem of this place. In Dungeon Realm, there were two different ways to create dungeon monsters. One was called Mutation, where he captured an animal, brainwashed it to be loyal or indifferent to the dungeon, and then modified it to better fit the dungeon¡¯s needs. The other way was called Spawning, where he used an animal as a vessel to create wildly different organisms. The dungeon didn¡¯t have the power to create life, only to change and enthrall it. For a food chain, basic sources of food like plants would be immensely expensive to create through mutations. Likewise, using spawning to slightly modify an animal would result in pointless death. The animals he captured were already injured to the point of requiring healing, a problem for mutation but a benefit for spawning. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The beginning of any food chains were producers, usually plants back on Earth but that wasn¡¯t definite here. It wasn¡¯t uncommon for challenges such as creating a food chain completely out of magic carnivores to exist and be a plausible, though hard, strategy. The best and basic starting producers were mushrooms or some form of fungus. Plants thrived best in soil while fungus such as lichens grew well on solid rocks. By feeding on the power of mana that flowed from the dungeon entrance, a basic fungal crop could feed his dungeon until he gained another floor.
Dungeon Status ¨C Level: 1 Core Health: 42 / 50 Soul Points: 96 Infamy: Null Dread: Null
He had gained around 92 soul points from the first wave of enemies, enough to begin playing. He floated over to the dungeon fairy to ask it for advice; mutating and spawning were spells and he didn¡¯t know how to cast them. ¡°Dungeon Fairy, how do I cast spells?¡± ¡°If you already have the spell in mind, then you just say its name like an ability phrase, Dungeon Lord. If you don¡¯t know what spells you have access to, then you can say [Spell List] to find out.¡± Jacob returned to the prison and found the most injured animal he had captured. He extended his hand towards it and said, ¡°[Spawn].¡± A new screen appeared in front of him just like from the game, this time it was sensitive to his touch. He started by selecting the type of organism he wanted to spawn (he picked fungus) and then he began selecting the characteristics and attributes that he wanted from it. There was color, shape, behavior, reproduction, and magical qualities to consider. The fungus he created was going to be called Scarlet Teeth, a red colored mold that grew teeth-like stalks and could grow on stone walls, though it preferred to grow on corpses. It could reproduce through poop like many seeds and lacked any magical qualities. This wasn¡¯t a good species to keep after his dungeon was working, fungus tended to mutate quickly without something to keep it in check. However, it was incredibly vital and resilient, something that he desperately needed at the beginning.
Would You Like to Spawn {Scarlet Teeth} for 27 soul points?
Jacob pressed yes and to anybody other than him, nothing happened. However, when he brought up the animal¡¯s status, it gained a new characteristic: [Infected]. He didn¡¯t stop there though, just having one instance didn¡¯t work. Despite the injuries to the animal, there was a small chance that the immune system killed the fungus before it could reproduce. So he saved its DNA and used that to spawn another instance of it in a different corpse. While the chances of both corpses fighting off the infection wasn¡¯t zero, the chances of that were so small it wasn¡¯t worth worrying about. Besides, the animals were dying and once they were dead, the fungus would flourish unimpeded. Chapter 6 Stor felt his skin scream as he ventured into the forests. Normally there would be birdsongs and animal cries as the wind rattled and played with the leaves and grass blades. Now, the wind played alone¡ªthere were no sounds of creatures. These forests were ancient, and there were good reasons why mothers and elders told nightmarish tales of the place. It was old, so grandly old, and there were many old things that lay hidden in it. Stor was a hunter, and all the years he and his ancestors had ventured into here, there had never been a day of silence. There were old titans that lived here, or so the legends went. Only the power of those forest kings could cause such suffocating silence this far into the outskirts. He had no idea whether this all was a terrible omen or a coincidence praying on his paranoia. All that he did know was that no one in his village would get much sleep tonight.
Jacob watched the bear slowly get tired. He had waited so long that he was half tempted to strike it a few more times with the dungeon fairy¡¯s magic. While the fairy¡¯s magic didn¡¯t cause expensive injuries, resurrecting an animal cost a small fortune. The mania in the animal caused it to waste energy when it shouldn¡¯t, and now the bear was beginning to falter. There were two types of brainwashing that he could use, enthrallment and assimilation. Enthrallment transformed animals into direct minions, giving him power to command and direct them. However, enthrallment caused the animal to lose a lot of its independence. It also caused the animal to produce very few soul points when it died. Assimilation simply caused the animal to lose any hostility to the dungeon. Jacob couldn¡¯t use assimilated creatures in an army but they didn¡¯t require his input to move and they gave many more soul points when they died. Unassimilated animals produced more soul points though. This bear was going to be enthralled and turned into one of his boss monsters. He waited more as the bear kept wasting its energy; the only reason animals could go days without eating was by conserving their energy. It kept getting more and more weak as it kept moving and thrashing against the solid stone. Finally, the bear collapsed. He watched its heavy breathing as it tried to put itself back on its feet. He wasn¡¯t going to lie, he felt a little bad about it. He liked bears back on Earth and this was a very beautiful bear despite its somewhat alien appearance. He extended his hand to the bear and said, ¡°[Enthrall].¡±
Attempt [Enthrall] for 7 Soul Points?
Seven soul points was still more than he wanted to spend as there was a chance the enthrallment failed. He was running out of time though. ¡°Yes,¡± he replied and the bear started to cry from the mental anguish of the spell. It thrashed despite its exhaustion and injuries as the enthrallment tried to overtake its mind. The bear lost its vigor as it fought the spell, and for a moment Jacob thought that the spell would succeed on its first go.
[Enthrall] Spell Failed
¡°¡­Shit!¡± he snarled through his phantom teeth. If he had waited longer, the spell would have probably succeeded the first time. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°[Enthrall],¡± he said again. This time the cost was only 5 soul points, and he didn¡¯t have to wait long for the spell to succeed the second time.
[Enthrall] Spell Succeeded
Immediately he felt a connection between him and the bear where there wasn¡¯t one before. What was shocking was that he realized that he already had a connection before this to the dungeon fairy and hadn¡¯t noticed. He could command any creature he enthralled, but there were limits. The commands he could make were similar to the dungeon fairy, he could mark locations for it to go to and mark enemies to attack. There seemed to be a good chance that he could say commands instead of marking like with the dungeon fairy, though the bear wasn¡¯t in a good situation to try that.
Dungeon Status ¨C Level: 1 Core Health: 42 / 50 Soul Points: 33 Infamy: Null Dread: Null
He looked at his status screen¡ªhe had only 33 soul points left. That wasn¡¯t much when it came to mutation¡­first things first, he needed to heal the bear. He used the dungeon fairy to transport a corpse from the dungeon into the bear¡¯s cell. The bear could sniff the food, but because of its dependence on him it struggled to move of its own volition. Jacob had to baby it and mark the corpse as food for it to eat. The bear struggled to get back on its feet as it moved to its meal and started to eat. It would take time for it to recover naturally, but Jacob wasn¡¯t bothered by it. The bear by itself was a decent enough guardian for the moment. He returned to the bodies where the Scarlet Teeth were growing. Veins of red were growing within the dead flesh, showing that the fungus was growing well. The edible stalks hadn¡¯t started to grow yet, but from what he could tell they were getting close. Jacob left the prison ceiling and summoned his map. The dungeon before was ugly and crude, something he designed in a rush. Before the second wave came, he needed to update and improve many parts of his dungeon. He just wished that he knew when the next wave was coming. Wait, it felt like he was forgetting something. He stopped what he was doing and started digging through his memories to find what he was missing. It had something to do with the next wave, wait, whatever happened to his starting quest? The quest at the start of this adventure about claiming an entrance to the dungeon. Normally the quest icon would be flashing back in the game, but he didn¡¯t have that here. He deduced the ability phrase for this and said, ¡°[Quest].¡±
Quest ¨C Claim the Underground (Completed) Create your domain, Dungeon Lord, and conquer all tunnels and creatures forsaken by the Overworld. Once done, claim an entrance to the surface so that your darkness can spread. Reward ¨C 25 Soul Points [Claim]
He had 25 soul points waiting for him this whole time! While he wished to smash a rock against his head, he claimed the much-needed soul points. He was about to return to the dungeon when a new quest appeared.
New Quest ¨C Fight Off the First Wave (Completed) The gods of the Overworld have sensed the emergence of your dominion. Fight off the first attack and show the power of your dungeon. Reward ¨C 10 Soul Points [Claim]
Jacob looked at the new quest in stunned silence before sighing. He really wished he could kick himself. Chapter 7
Jacob watched the timer till the next wave slowly ticked down. He realized that he would have had much more time if he didn¡¯t wait around like a moron for that stupid bear to weaken. He sighed again, this time the burn from the damage to the dungeon core flared in his soul to remind him of the consequences. The first wave only had basic animals in its roster, trying to overcome his dungeon with numbers. The next wave will have a much more powerful beast, powerful enough for him to need a different strategy. Spike pits of stone didn¡¯t do much to a monster with earth magic after all. In the third and fourth waves the true magic beasts would appear and wreak havoc, then on the fifth attack he would only have to deal with a single entity: the boss that commanded these creatures to attack. That was for him to think about later. From his experience, the biggest problem that the second wave can bring are creatures with earth magic that allows for them to tunnel through his obstacles. These sorts of threats were the reason why he needed to get his bear quickly, though a normal animal like that would struggle against any form of magic. The layout of his dungeon was still the most important. Instead of relying on spikes though, this time he needed to rely on gravity to deal damage as spikes were too easy to damage. Before the first wave he didn¡¯t have enough time to create multiple floors, now he didn¡¯t have a choice. In Dungeon Realm there was a difference between floors and layers. A layer was akin to a district in a dungeon, while floors were the different layers within a layer. For example, one layer could be a lava level while the next one could be based around ice, but two floors within a lava layer would only be about lava. In the game, creating multiple floors was a hassle due to its UI. When he created the cliff, he discovered that creating different elevations here was still hard, though because of different reasons. Instead of having to try and connect the different maps of the floors together, the geometry of the 3D projections on the map required him to keep moving everything around. Ultimately though, there was no other way for him to gain an edge. He had only enough time left to create two floors and try to create a complex three-dimensional maze to confuse and break any intruders. Having to jump down a cliff, evade spike traps, climb up a shaft, fall down another, all just to get to the dungeon core; there was little chance for any animals to persevere without strategy. He created a few outlines to try and imagine what the dungeon could be. This required a modified thought process from the game. He decided to create the path to the dungeon core first, then add all the branching paths and traps after. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. To be safe, he created four drops that he hoped would be enough to shatter bones of even defensive magic beasts. At the bottom of each drop he placed spike traps that he hoped would kill a few before they get destroyed. An important part of his strategy were claustrophobic tunnels. Magic beasts tended to be large creatures, meaning that small birds wouldn¡¯t be as big of a problem as before. He wondered if causing the tunnels to become smaller would be beneficial. Cramped tunnels could cause the magic beasts to attack each other, similar to how animals were trampled in the previous wave. He finished with the outline of the path from the entrance to the dungeon core, and then he created outlines for all the deviant paths. He made sure to make all the other paths as attractive as possible, so that the creatures would choose in the incorrect spacious tunnel instead of the correct small, twisting one. The dungeon was still ugly, and it pained him. When he was bored waiting for the bear to weaken, he imagined how he wanted this top layer to become. It was cliche, but he really liked caves as a starting layer. However, caves weren¡¯t the best. While it wasn¡¯t important now, adventurers would become the very core of the game. Making his dungeon as ¡®attractive¡¯ as possible was necessary. A cave typically didn¡¯t attract attention in the same way a carved stone staircase did or stone bricks. He decided to compromise, this layer would be an abandoned mine shaft, have some cave features and the little human touches. He shook his head and returned his thoughts back to the present. He had finished the main outlines for the dungeon and the fairy was busy transforming everything. With the new influx of soul points, he needed to mutate the bear now. He looked at the 68 soul points in his account and decided it was better to heal the bear. He said, ¡°[Heal],¡± and spent 15 soul points to heal a quarter of the bear''s health. That gave back its ability to walk and move without too much pain. ¡°[Mutate].¡± Through mutation, he could change any aspect of a creature, such as increasing the length of their limbs to giving them magic properties, and these changes would be passed onto their descendants. The bigger or more powerful the change though, the bigger the cost.
Now that he had enthralled the bear, there was more information on it. His eyes fell on the characteristic [Reinforced Skeleton], which was revealed to only be minor. There was a type of magic called [Reinforcement] that improved defense and attack, which paired well with its stronger bones. That magic was cheaper than most and had among the best utility-per-price. That didn¡¯t make it cheap though, it cost 36 soul points to mutate into the bear. Money was meant to be spent though. He also spent another 15 soul points to give it the characteristic [Thick Skin: Minor], leaving him only 2 soul points left. The bear fell to the ground as its bodily structure was slowly altered to gain these new abilities. Jacob left it and floated to the entrance to the dungeon. He could monitor and change the dungeon from anywhere, but there was something that he wanted to look at. He reached the entrance to the dungeon and looked out. In between the dungeon and the Overworld was a distorting membrane like the film of a water bubble. Through it he saw the world outside. There were animals, but none of them acted like animals. They all just sat there and watched the dungeon. He almost believed that they were watching him. Chapter 8 Jacob watched the animals as the timer as the second wave ticked closer. The madness last time was still in their eyes, but it was like each of the creature¡¯s minds were disconnected from their bodies. For a few moments, it was like he could see illusive strings connected to their limbs from the sky. He hadn¡¯t ever questioned the lore reasons for why the dungeon was attacked in waves. He always assumed that it was because Dungeon Realm was a game. In front of him though was evidence that there was something more to this. He wasn¡¯t sure how deep this reality was to the game; there was a chance that he was seeing things that weren¡¯t there. There were only seconds left until the next wave and the animals started to become restless. There wasn¡¯t a barrier stopping them from entering his dungeon; something was intentionally controlling them. His dungeon lord system seemed to track and accurately predict these waves. He wondered if perhaps the dungeon lord system orchestrated everything. The timer reached zero, and the animals started their attack, like they watched the timer as much as him. There were many of the more normal animals like the last wave, but there were several that were obviously stronger. Around these were aura made of the mana that leaked out of their bodies. These were magic beasts. Their features were similar to the fantastical yet mundane animals with their strange patterns and features, however compared to them their alien characteristics were exaggerated. Their horns or antlers or claws were unusually ornate, their coats supernaturally pristine, and their presence radiated power. The normal animals rushed off like last time without any thinking or strategy, but the low-rank magic beasts didn¡¯t. The madness of the Overworld gods was still in their eyes but, perhaps due to their magic, they were able to resist. That didn¡¯t make them intelligent though, just more aware in spite of their impulsiveness. The colors of their auras were just like from the game, and their colors revealed the type of magic they used. Brown represented earth magic, light blue represented lightning, green represented plant manipulation; these magic beasts were still low level and didn¡¯t have the power for complicated magic or spells. Not all magic was created equally. Lightning magic for example was flashy and did good damage, but within the dungeon it wasn¡¯t that useful. Earth magic was usually much more dangerous. Using the radiance and color of the auras, Jacob narrowed down the beasts that he needed to prioritize and worry about. There were many that had earth magic but only two had enough mana to make him worried. Then there were the two others that had a lot of mana, one was a bird with light¨Cgray¨Ccolored wind magic, another was a deer with tree-like antlers that had plant magic. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. These four were the strongest of this wave and the ones that he needed to be most worried about. Most of the animals and magic beasts failed to get up after the first drop. Normal animals didn¡¯t have strong enough bones or muscles to tank the fall damage; many bones shattered from the impact. Many of the magical beasts weathered this first challenge better, gaining a limp instead of getting crippled. The birds were the ones that ventured the farthest at first¡ªespecially that bird with wind magic. Wind magic, even at basic, increased perception and intuition when navigating the dungeon. The magic bird was able to send out and feel the wind, easily discerning which paths were dead ends. That didn¡¯t stop it from diving into a tunnel that got smaller, which ended up breaking its wings. Ironically, it was the other, weaker birds that avoided injury instead of one of the magic beasts with the most mana this wave. The convoluted mess of tunnels, vertical shafts, and changing sizes had its intended effect on most of the animals. Many of them got lost in the multi-level maze; Jacob doubted that he could find his way better than them. The two earth magic users though were different. Earth magic was naturally defensive, allowing for them to strengthen their bodies as they fell. They began to expand his tunnels or simply create their own, though it was a long and slow process that they didn¡¯t have the patience for. Still, they were able to neutralize many of his traps and defenses. The plant magic deer was also a pain as it had a weak healing power. It wasn¡¯t much, but it made Jacob very uncomfortable at the thought of the animals healing themselves. The bird, now forced to waddle painfully on its stumpy legs, even started using its wind to guide the animals. He didn¡¯t want to, but he sent out the dungeon fairy to attack. He chose to rely on hit and run tactics, though even then it didn¡¯t do much. Almost all the magic beasts had some form of attack spells, and while weak individually they were combined with others in the group. Instead, he focused on attacking the earth users as their spells were much slower to cast. Eventually the upward shaft needed to get the dungeon core was discovered. Normally this would be the end, but the two earth magic beasts collected a gather of others to defend themselves from the fairy. Using this, the two beasts combined their power and started to create their own tunnel. Except they didn¡¯t create it upwards. From what Jacob could tell, they used their magic to sense that there were tunnels on the other side of the stone, tunnels that they couldn¡¯t access. They were creating a new path and skipping a lot of the spikes and defenses he had created on the utmost floor. While they were still only on the second floor, and the dungeon core was on the first, this made him very worried. He needed to kill them, but he wasn¡¯t sure what the best way was. This wave wasn¡¯t even that strong or tactical compared to what he will face later. He had anticipated some of this, but the primitive cooperation between the different animals was hard for him to overcome with only spikes and a fairy. His mind raced to come up with new strategies to deal with this predicament. Some were from the game, others were new ideas to take advantage of new variables of this reality. He needed to think outside of the box¡ªand he needed to act quickly. Chapter 9 The force of animals broke through to another part of the second floor and started to explore. Within a large cavern with several tunnels towards spikes and dead ends, the animals gathered together. Almost all that were left were magic beasts, on edge and ready to attack everything. The dungeon fairy appeared in the center of the room, charging up an attack for a moment before stopping and fading back into nothing. The animals instantly summoned their magic and attacked, but by then their target had disappeared. Instead, their spells attacked each other. They were probably not intelligent creatures before they were sent into the dungeon, and with the divine madness they had only the most basic abilities of cooperation. Many before this were already injured and weak from their grueling invasion. A solid number of the animals fell to these spells, and the rest became blinded by rage and attacked back in retaliation. The two powerful earth magic beasts and the powerful plant magic user were the few that didn¡¯t attack back, though they were weak enough to hide and flee. Jacob floated in shock at the scene in front of him. He had expected for something more to happen, for the animals to band together or stop attacking each other quickly. Instead, it turned out that he had overestimated the enemy. It seemed that the intelligence he had perceived was mostly luck and instinct, or maybe it was some influence from the strongest magic beasts. In the fourth wave and maybe the third, there will be a rank of magic beast called a general who can command and coordinate the animals they fight with. Perhaps this was what happened here, only to a lesser degree? He didn¡¯t know, and he was too tired to figure it out. With this, the wind magic bird died or was fatally injured from the crossfire. Most of the magic beasts were dealt with. Now, he had to deal with the final few enemies. The three surviving strongest beasts were something he would deal with later, right now he was more worried about cleaning up the remaining weaker magic animals. He had forgotten the strength and power of many weaker spellcasters¡ªsomething he falsely thought he could get around. However, he tried his best to avoid killing when it wasn¡¯t necessary. At the third wave, he would need to have a small army of his own. While the bear would be his strongest weapon, it was hard to resist tens of spells attacking at the same time. After all other animals were dealt with, he then planned around the strong deer. The thing had plant magic but it lacked any decent ranged attacks, which the dungeon fairy would be able to take advantage of. This contrasted with earth magic, which did have a ranged spell where they summoned small rocks and pebbles from the ground or walls and shot them. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. For the earth magic users, it was time for him to introduce the bear. He marked the bear and the dungeon fairy floated off to transport it to the location he needed. Currently, those two were separated from each other. He didn¡¯t want to give them the chance to reunite. The bear slowly rose from the ground and the dungeon fairy unwrapped from it. Jacob then gave the bear a command to attack the closest earth user. The bear walked through the cave till it came to the lone magic beast. It screamed and summoned a ring of small rocks and dust that floated around it like asteroids around a star. It tried to fuse the pebbles into a larger rock and shoot it at the bear, but its spell took too long to cast. The bear roared and almost bumped its head on the low ceiling and swiped with its claw. A very weak magic aura clinged to its striking claws as it lashed out. The basic reinforcement spell combined with its strong claws and carved through the earth magic and into the scaled skin of the magic beast. The magic beast cried from its injury and used earth magic to cast its own inferior version of reinforcement. The bear roared again and attacked, its claws still ripping through the earth using lizard. The bear was only barely a magic beast. Compared to the enemy it was fighting, its aura of magic was too slim to compare. However, it was naturally strong and heavy, when allowed for it to attack much better. Even without reinforcement, it would still be able to do damage. The battle attracted the other earth¨Cusing beast, which joined in the battle. During the attack, Jacob used the dungeon fairy to attack and distract these two monsters and reduce the strain on the bear. The dungeon fairy¡¯s attack had an interesting effect on aggro. Those hit by it caused them to develop a slight fixation and tunnel vision on the dungeon fairy. This was the reason why the bear didn¡¯t flee as it got injured and why the undead wolf at the beginning stopped attacking the dungeon core. This was enough to cause the monster to forget the bear and open themselves up to attack. The bear¡¯s claws ripped through both of the monsters until they were fatally injured. He had no intention of adopting these animals into the dungeon; earth magic would always be troublesome no matter which side used it. He didn¡¯t want to constantly clean up his destroyed dungeon after a battle. The plant magic deer though was a different story. Plant magic had healing applications, and it wasn¡¯t too expensive to outright change its magic to healing if he needed to. Plant magic was also naturally useful for a utility monster. He wasn¡¯t going to risk it by having the bear get involved, instead he sent his dungeon fairy to reduce its health. The deer¡¯s magic was naturally restricted due to the lack of plants in the dungeon, with it only able to use it through the wood antlers on its head. Leaves and vines grew from the antlers to try and shield from the attacks. The deer rushed towards the dungeon fairy to attack. Jacob anticipated in time and the dungeon fairy turned intangible before it could gain new damage. He kept trying but the deer was faster than he expected and while it didn¡¯t have a ranged attack, its vine whips had a longer reach than he realized. He led the deer to the upward shaft that led to the dungeon core and floated the dungeon fairy out of the deer¡¯s reach and kept attacking it. He was half tempted to use the bear to help, but he forced himself to be patient. Slowly, the deer got weaker, until it became too exhausted and fell to the ground. Chapter 10 Jacob sighed as the stress he gained started to melt. He had survived the second wave. He had also learned how he had both over and underestimated the enemies at this stage, though it made him worried for the next wave. He wasn¡¯t going to forget his quest this time and instantly claimed the extra 20 soul points when he got the chance. He spent the rest of the time looking through the animals and separating the corpses from the salvageables. He needed to fill up his dungeon as fast as possible, and that meant that he needed to create some more minions. The growth beds for the Scarlet Teeth were taken from their cell and placed in a pile that served as a mass grave. Several stocks of the fungus had started to grow from it and were ready to eat. He gave the bear a few corpses for it to binge eat and recover energy. After that, he returned his attention back to his empty dungeon. While enthrallment was superior for battle, it was a detriment outside of it. There were spells that he could use to summon and command assimilated monsters, but they were expensive and far too simplistic to rely on. The solution to this problem was the same one that the Overworld forces will use: unit generals. If he created a single monster that was enthralled that commanded assimilated monsters, then he could get more than the best of both worlds. He wouldn¡¯t have to micromanage as much, he could use more of the dungeon¡¯s strength, and it assisted in creating themes for dungeon layers and floors. He had no plans on turning his bear or the plant magic deer into a floor or layer master yet, it would be too expensive of a project for him to handle. He needed to create something more than a weapon, he needed a keystone for the life on this first layer to develop around. This layer was going to have the appearance and theme of an abandoned mineshaft. This layer also needed to be easy to help lure in adventurers. He began narrowing down the sort of monster he needed. The most basic monster a dungeon could have was a rat. They were omnivores, reproduced easily, and naturally cooperative. They weren¡¯t what he needed though; they ate too much and were rarely constructive. He didn¡¯t think that a mammal was right for the job. Birds were out as this layer didn¡¯t have the space for them. Reptiles weren¡¯t tickling his fancy, and amphibians and fish needed water to work. That left him with insects or a species of walking fungus, and Jacob didn¡¯t want to deal with the latter. Insects were actually a popular species group in the game as they were capable of doing anything. They could create dungeon structures, farm, attack, and hold other species in balance. They were also excellent for creating fodder. What sort of insect would be best for an abandoned mine? He could create some lore or backstory for this, but that was a waste of time at the moment. Instead, the best insects were one that could help him defend and create value. Spiders were out, they were best for creating traps. Flying insects were also out. That left ants. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Ants fit everything he needed. They created fodder, could build and farm, and their queen could be enthralled while the rest of them were assimilated. More than the other potential monsters, in his mind ants fit much better within an abandoned mine. There weren¡¯t any insect type magic beasts that attacked the dungeon, meaning that they would need to be spawned. Unlike something like fungus, there was a much greater chance of failure too. Spawning didn¡¯t just magically create new lifeforms, the sacrifice served as the metaphorical womb or vessel to develop and nourish it. For fungus this wasn¡¯t a problem, spores were incredibly small and didn¡¯t need much development to become active. For a more complex organism, that was different. There was a real chance that the host would collapse before the spawn was ready to be independent, like an egg breaking before the bird was ready to hatch. He didn¡¯t want to kill many of the other animals he had captured. These animals were the foundation of his dungeon¡¯s monsters, and while he didn¡¯t need them now the other layers will need residents. These were his stock for the next few layers, as it would take a long time for the sixth wave to come. There were other things he needed to think about too. It had been about two to three days by his very rough estimate and his monsters needed a source of water. There was a lot of moisture in the raw meat still soaked with blood that his bear ate, but it should be starting to become dehydrated.
He had gained well over a hundred soul points from this wave thanks to the animals being more powerful. With this, he had enough to finally start raising an army.
He had slightly less than three days, which was more than he expected. Spawning was slow only to his perspective as a gamer, to organic life it was incomprehensibly fast. For most creatures, the development of young took weeks or a month at its fastest, for humans it was around nine months. Here, spawning took hours, and that was why hosts struggled to survive long enough. He marked for his dungeon fairy where he wanted to create ponds of fresh water and then he focused on creating his new ant species. Just like the bear, this ant queen was going to be enthralled, but this time it will be designed to reproduce asexually. He gave it the attributes of starting out the size of a child¡¯s hand before slowly growing to the size of a small dog. He didn¡¯t give it any other attributes than that as it would increase the chances of the spawning failing. Just these simple attributes made it cost over 40 soul points. Once he had at least one of these ant queens safely born, then he would mutate it and give it the rest of its powers. He spawned this new species in three different broken animals that weren¡¯t quite near death¡¯s door. He could only hope they didn¡¯t all fail. Chapter 11 Jacob watched with strange fascination as a large ant ripped from the body of an animal like a xenomorph. Back on Earth he would have begun gagging from the gore, but here he didn¡¯t feel any repulsion. Maybe this was because he lacked a physical body, maybe becoming a dungeon lord had changed in ways he hadn¡¯t noticed. Only one of the ants had survived, the other¡¯s hosts died before they fully developed. He commanded the ant to start eating the corpse that spawned it and the other corpses too. He had hoped to have multiple ant queens as there was a chance they would die from the future waves. In the end, he could only make due with what he had.
He had only forty soul points left after creating ant queens, though a few magic beasts died since then and gave him more. The ant needed the characteristics [Sharp Pincers] and [Strong Exoskeleton] just to defend itself, it would need other more expensive attributes to be able to control its young and create value for the dungeon. Two characteristics together cost over thirty soul points, which was more than a little expensive for an ant that was so small compared to the bear. Size or usability didn¡¯t matter when it came to mutation. Mutating the bear or a small worm cost the same amount per characteristic. Was it worth him spending this money here instead of elsewhere? No, Jacob decided. The small starting size for the ant was used by him to reduce the cost and strain of spawning. It would take much longer than the time before the third wave and maybe even the fourth wave before the ant queen was ready to fight. It would be better for him to enthrall the magic deer. Plant magic was connected to health and growth, which was one of the reasons it had some healing spells. This magic could also be used to speed up the ant queen¡¯s growth. This had been his plan, but it was thrown into question when only one ant was successfully born. There was the problem of the deer being a magic beast though. The bear that he had gotten wasn¡¯t a magic beast, instead it was a mundane if strong animal. This allowed him to enthrall it for relatively cheap, especially after weakening it first. This wouldn¡¯t be the case for a magic beast. It was hard for him to weaken the monster through attacks when it can heal itself, and it would take far too long to starve it. Even if he brought it safely to death¡¯s door to get the best discount, its naturally stronger stats¡ªspecifically the resistance stats¡ªmade it as costly as the bear at half energy. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. He sighed as he realized he would need to use¡­more extreme techniques. This game wasn¡¯t new and there were a number of strategies to minimize cost for expensive acquisitions. Starving was his preferred method because of its slowness, as it allowed him to not need to pay as much attention. If he were to, say, seal off the cell the deer was in so that there was no fresh air? A difference of ten seconds could mean the difference between a new minion and a corpse too expensive to resurrect. However, the damage caused by suffocation was difficult to overcome except for creatures with exceptional regeneration or immunities. The deer didn¡¯t have any of that. Its magic would help it endure longer than most, but eventually it would run out of mana to strengthen itself. If he planned it right and used [Enthrall] while the deer was unconscious, he might be able to pay 12 soul points to enthrall it with a good chance of success. This was going to be difficult though. The dungeon fairy was slow, meaning that if something went wrong and he didn¡¯t have the right foresight, there was nothing he could do. This was going to be a delicate operation. He marked the front of the deer¡¯s cell to be closed up. Slowly, the dungeon fairy appeared and started to bend and warp the stone and cover the cell¡¯s air holes with stone. He watched through the rock walls the state of the deer and kept the dungeon fairy close. The oxygen in the air didn¡¯t disappear immediately, and for what felt like a minute the deer didn¡¯t seem to mind. Then it started to struggle to breathe. It started wheezing and floundering as there wasn¡¯t any air near it. Then its horns glowed with magical power and leaves grew out of them. Jacob realized that with plant magic, the deer probably had a way to create its own oxygen. There were two ways this could go, either the deer was able to both enough oxygen and mana to sustain itself, or it would run out. From what he remembered from the memories of biology class that were covered in dust in his mind, the leaves on the deer wouldn¡¯t be enough. This was, however, magic. There was also the possibility that due to the beast¡¯s magical nature, it might not need as much oxygen as he would think. More likely, the deer would run out of mana. Mana was a hard thing to keep track of. In the game there was a mana bar above an entity¡¯s head, just below their health bar, but here that information is in their aura. The volume of the aura of a creature seemed to be connected to how much mana they had. Mana was also something that was hard to recover. This was why so many of the spells used by the magic beasts were weak, anything stronger would drain them too fast. As he watched the deer¡¯s aura dissipate as it tried in vain to break out of its prison, he saw that mana was its weakness. The deer ran out of mana and the green glow around its leaf antlers disappeared. It only took a few more moments for it to start panicking. The deer started to use its own life-force as mana, harming itself in the process to create some more breathable air. It didn¡¯t have enough life-force though. The deer fell on the ground and started to black-out from suffocation. Jacob waited just a little bit to ensure that the deer had gone unconscious before he commanded the dungeon fairy to unseal and he used the [Enthrall] spell.
Attempt to [Enthrall] for 15 Soul Points?
The cost was higher than he liked, but he didn¡¯t have time to be picky. While the deer was at its weakest, its mind was assaulted and it lacked the strength beyond its natural resistance to fight it.
[Enthrall] Spell Succeeded
Chapter 12 The dungeon fairy was able to unseal the dungeon in time before the deer fully suffocated. However, the deer¡¯s lungs were too stunned to take a breath. Before it died, he casted [Minor Heal] on the poor thing and rejuvenated it enough to begin breathing again. He used the dungeon fairy to quickly transport it outside the cell for better air. Like before with the bear, he could now read a more accurate version of the deer¡¯s status, though there wasn¡¯t much to see.
The deer was a steal-of-a-deal, with the only flaw of it being that it was a herbivore. He was tempted to mutate it into being an omnivore, but he didn¡¯t have enough left in his savings to justify that. Besides, being a herbivore didn¡¯t mean that it couldn¡¯t eat meat or fungus, just that it was unhealthy to eat them as a staple. Of course it wasn¡¯t perfect. While [Minor Mana Regeneration] was a boon, there were several other characteristics that separate the strong monsters from the weak. It didn¡¯t matter how fast mana could regenerate if you consume faster than you can replace it. To become a true magic beast, the creature needed to have both a mana storage and a mana recovery ability as well as the capability to cast at least one spell. The deer had only two parts of this and that was the reason why it was a part of the second wave. His bear had only one, which was the reason why he didn¡¯t use it to fight at the start. From the third wave onwards he would be dealing with these sorts of monsters. That is why he had been so focused on creating an army instead of relying on his dungeon¡¯s static defenses. In the end, in a fight between the hard stone of his dungeon and those beasts, the invaders will win. Now that he had the deer under his control, he also had access to its many spells. As it only had [Minor Plant Magic], it would only have a few weak spells. The characteristics, even after assimilation or enthrallment, were only the very general parts of an animal. Two different creatures could have [Minor Plant Magic] in their status and not share a single spell. He wasn¡¯t sure the mechanics by which magic worked normally, for the people or animals in the world above. He assumed that they had universities or colleges that teach it, or that maybe the ability to use or channel magic was a skill that could be taught or learned. Perhaps everything is innate or some other system. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. In Dungeon Realm, a dungeon¡¯s monsters and creatures had defined powers. The only way for an organism to gain magic or a new ability they didn¡¯t have previously was through mutation. The good news was that gaining a new spell was much cheaper than gaining a new type of magic. The spells that the deer had were called [Verdant Field], [Bloom], and [Vine Whip]. [Verdant Field] was a spell that created the zone of healing back during the second wave. The [Vine Whip] was self explanatory, but the spell called [Bloom] was the most odd. [Bloom] was a spell that fostered and improved the growth of plants around it. This was the spell the deer used to create oxygen when it was suffocating, though that didn¡¯t seem to be the purpose of the spell. The spell was the most basic manifestation of plant magic, to the point where almost everything that had plant magic had some variation of this spell. While Jacob needed something with healing power, plant magic had much more versatility and utility. In later layers of the dungeon, having something that improved plants and, by extension, fungus was valuable. [Verdant Field] wasn¡¯t going to be useful to him for the time being, the same applied to [Bloom]. To save money, he was going to need to sacrifice these two spells to gain the two spells that he really needed. He opened up the spell creation screen to create spells that he needed. Replacing [Verdant Field] was a spell he was going to call [Healing Aura] and [Bloom] was going to be replaced with [Forest Blessing]. [Healing Aura] was a spell that was similar to what it replaced, except instead of promoting plant growth and health it focused solely on healing. [Forest Blessing] was his solution to his ant problem. This spell gave a temporary blessing to a target that improved them in many aspects, from health and mana regeneration to growth. With this spell targeting the ant during down-time, the ant should be able to grow before the fourth wave. The modification of these two spells cost 32 soul points, which reduced his soul points to 15. He waited for the deer to recover enough mana to use its [Healing Aura] spell to help it recover from his extreme conscription technique. It ran out of mana quickly, forcing him to micromanage its recovery. With the deer finally taken care of, he returned to the matter of water. The dungeon fairy had created a couple of watering holes for the animals, a few even had thin puddles. When it came to water, there was a double-edged sword. In order for water to be summoned from the rock, it required power. That power could come from either the dungeon fairy or his bank account, neither of which were good solutions. The dungeon fairy didn¡¯t need to be chained to the watering hole, but it did need to take valuable time to act as a pump. There wasn¡¯t a solution for this right now, not until he finished creating his ant species. He sighed to himself. At the start, there was always nothing more than busy work.
The king of the Aseth forest was forced to awaken after a millennia of slumber. It could feel that the heavens above were angry and he shared their wrath. Through its power it had started to coerce and manipulate the creatures of this forest to attack the enemy-from-the-ground. The enemy was weak, yet the attacks the king sent failed. It didn¡¯t have the power to peer into the depths. The dungeon¡¯s presence scared the creatures as much as the gods, and he struggled to restrain them and led them back. It gathered a much stronger force this time to attack that forbidden place. If this one failed, then he might need to act himself. It groaned as it struggled to unbury itself. It wanted nothing more than to fall back to sleep and dream of ages long past. Chapter 13 Jacob checked the time he had left before the third wave, feeling like he didn¡¯t have much time at all. He didn¡¯t need to sleep like when he had a body, but his mind did need time to recover. Especially after all the preparations for the first and second wave, he needed some time to clear his mind. However, his dungeon needed more work. He had the dungeon fairy pump out enough water for the dungeon to survive for the next day before he returned his attention to the dungeon and its defenses. While the strongest of the invaders in the third wave had him worried, he didn¡¯t forget the power of numbers. Compared to the first and second wave, the third wave would have many more creatures in it. From his time back in the game, there were many times when ignoring the weaker creatures caused him to lose. At the same time though, the true magic beasts that would come this time were much smarter than previously. The higher level an animal became, the more intelligent they usually were. Having proper magic power allowed these creatures to level up more and faster than their less fortunate cousins. These magic beasts were going to be the generals, commanding not only the ordinary creatures but also the lesser magic beasts. They weren¡¯t going to allow the dungeon¡¯s hazards to kill off the animals and creatures like before. Any spikes he made would begin to be flattened, tunnels would be remade or created; the only thing that they would have trouble overcoming were cliffs. Even then wind magic had feather fall spells. The generals wouldn¡¯t be sentient, but that didn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t intelligent. Even back on Earth, animals like honey badgers, dolphins, and pigs were able to perform brilliant acts of intelligence. What bothered him the most was that he wasn¡¯t able to figure out what to expect. He knew the AI of these creatures from back in the game, but that hadn¡¯t helped him much so far. Ironically, it would have been much easier to plan against adventurers than animals. While he didn¡¯t have much hope with defenses actually killing, they would slow the invaders down. Spikes took time to disarm and tunnels took time to be made¡ªa mistake would cause a cave-in and no one wanted that¡­ A cave-in? The idea burned in his mind like a newborn star. In the game cave-ins weren¡¯t that useful and mostly just created a mess. Here, that might be a different story. There was no doubt in his mind that there were many magic beasts that could survive the cavernous ceiling falling on top of them. He doubted that any of the monsters of the third wave or even the fourth wave could survive it intact though. Besides, it would create a lot of stone and, in the right place, could force the invaders to waste time digging through the rubble. The invaders that survived, at least. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. However, he wasn¡¯t sure how to do that. It was possible with complicated traps and mechanisms, but those cost money to create. He didn¡¯t have the funds to create them, and he didn¡¯t feel like he needed to either. He remembered creating cave-ins back in the game, but he struggled to remember the exact method. Logically, if he had a suspended stone above a room and cut off the connection to the ceiling, the stone would fall down like a cave-in and bury everything. There was a problem with cave-ins beyond the mess they make: these events weaken the stone of the dungeon in that area. Meaning that the dungeon fairy had to go to these places and fix the hidden faults and weaknesses before more messes were created. However, if he created a controlled trap like having a massive boulder crush everything, the clean up would be negligible. But how could he do it? He recalled some of the movies he watched and gained an idea. It was probably a stupid idea, but if physics worked in this world close enough to what he was familiar with, then it should be alright. He did hesitate though as his stupid plan would require him to completely change the layout of his dungeon, which took a lot of time. On the other hand, if his giant boulder trap did work, then he had a viable solution for the fourth wave. He had enough animals right now for the next few floors and layers of his dungeon, so he had no need to try and save any of the new invaders. He opened up his map and started destroying his dungeon. His plan was simple: create a large tunnel that spiraled and twisted until it reached near the core chamber. At the end of the tunnel would be a large, smooth round boulder that took up almost all of the space, leaving no room for anything to squeeze past it. Normal dungeon stone wouldn¡¯t do this though, it would break too fast. His spikes got damaged just from mundane weight, he needed to make this boulder out of reinforced stone. That way it could survive the spells and destruction it would cause. But that only meant it would take longer than it needed. He didn¡¯t have enough time to remove the dungeon. All he could do was create the tunnel and seal off the rest. There wouldn¡¯t be anything in these abandoned tunnels and rooms even if the creatures burrowed in as any path towards the dungeon core would be removed. After he mapped out the tunnel and the walls to seal off the dungeon, the fairy got to work. He looked back at the time had left and winced. He should have plenty of time, but time didn¡¯t seem to move right for him. He seemed to have plenty and not enough at the same time. If only the fairy could move while the world was paused. After he finished the tunnel, he started working on the outline for the boulder, which was the hardest thing for him to design. He had to create something that would detach when he wanted but finding the right point where something is strong enough to not fall apart by itself was difficult. He wasn¡¯t anywhere close to an engineer or a seer to be able to understand it. Jacob decided to hedge his bets and ensure stability instead of speed, meaning that the rock wouldn¡¯t be fully carved from the stone. It was sloppy, but that¡¯s what he gets for being broke. He watched the dungeon fairy work as the timer for the third wave ticked slowly down to zero. Chapter 14 There were five seconds left till the third wave came. It had only been a few minutes since the dungeon fairy had finished the final renovation, compacting the stone of his boulder. The weight of it had become too much more than the stone underneath to handle, causing it to crack. That didn¡¯t matter though, it only needed to hold out for a little longer. Jacob watched the enemies from the entrance and realized that his unorthodox plan was, in reality, one of the few solutions to this problem. While there were many different and novel strategies that a dungeon lord could use, the same applied to his enemies in this game-turned-reality. While stronger magic beasts in the game were destructive, they were ultimately just AI. Here, these creatures showed themselves to be much more creative and unpredictable with their powers. The only way forward for him was to become more creative and resourceful. The timer reached zero, and whatever barrier had been preventing the animals and Overworld monsters from attacking had disappeared. There were ordinary animals, the weaker magic beasts, and then there were the generals. Despite having similarly exotic appearances to the rest of the invaders, these more elite monsters had much stronger auras of mana. They also behaved differently. There wasn¡¯t any spark of sentience in their eyes, but these superior magic beasts observed the foreign environment they were in and began to create primitive strategies. All of them cried in the sounds of their representative species, and all other animals were suppressed and organized. They marched in a simple army down the only path they had. Sitting in front of the entrance was a large bowl that they struggled to go down for a little bit, but none of the creatures were injured from this. The flying creatures didn¡¯t venture out like they normally did, instead staying close. This wasn¡¯t anything like the past waves or the game. Still, it didn¡¯t matter. They had only one path to go, and the walls of this tunnel were thickened to be more hardy. While they could dig through his walls, especially if they had decent earth magic, dungeon stone was resistant to magic. It would take them too long, and with there being no barriers or defenses blocking them, there was no reason. Unfortunately for him, one of the generals did have earth magic. It occasionally sensed the abandoned, sealed off parts of the dungeon, but it only bothered to dig shallow holes before giving up. What bothered him was that the other generals were holding that specific strong magic beast in check. Whenever it tried to dig, the army would stop its march and the other generals would growl. If the earth magic general didn¡¯t stop, then they would nip or claw it and force it to continue to push into the dungeon. This level of thinking and strategy both showed the increase in intelligence and the obvious flaws in thinking. If he was an adventurer going through this dungeon¡­well, first it would be obvious that a smooth tunnel with no branching tunnels was a trap. Beyond that though, if someone sensed a cavity behind stone, he would want to know what is there. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Creating alternative paths in a place where there is only one way forward was also an obvious strategy. These animals didn¡¯t think like him though. All that they were there for was to find the dungeon core and destroy it. Then return to the surface and live out their lives like animals in princess stories, no doubt. Jacob waited until he was sure that no other animals were coming before he gave the command to the dungeon fairy. The dungeon fairy then started to carve away the boulder of reinforced stone at the end of this long tunnel. It didn¡¯t need to remove much before the large, dark rock ripped itself out. Immediately there was a problem. The large chunks that still cling to it caused it to begin jumping as it tumbled down the tunnel. This caused craters and caused the dungeon to shake and rumble. The invaders reacted to the sound and knew that this was connected to some sort of danger. However, none of them knew how to deal with it. The grip the generals had on the minds of the rest of this army weakened and panic consumed them all. All magic beasts used their powers to create primitive walls and defenses in anticipation for what the earth-shaking threat was. They didn¡¯t need to wait long. While the boulder lost energy by smashing into the sides of the large tunnel, it was still a big-ass boulder. It kept tumbling and eventually it stopped jumping and started to gain momentum. When the animals saw the massive dark stone sphere rushing towards them, none of them had any means to prevent it. Wind magic was used to try to slow it down, earth magic was used to try and control it, and the other types of magic were even more useless. Not even the generals with their stronger magic spells and excess mana could do anything against sheer brute force. It took only a moment for the boulder to crash through the hastily made defenses and pulverize the invaders. All that was left of most of them were crushed flesh and blood stains mixed with bone fragments. Crashing into the animals caused the boulder to begin jumping again before crashing into the bowl he made at the end of the tunnel to catch it. It buried itself into the stone and almost blocked off the entrance to the dungeon. Thankfully he had the foresight to keep the dungeon entrance tunnel as wide as possible to avoid blockage. Despite what he expected, not all the animals were killed. Some managed to survive by being in a lucky spot, others relied on their unique anatomies to survive. None of them survived whole though. Most of the survivors were barely clinging on to life or were crippled from the attack. None of them could protect themselves or flee when the dungeon fairy appeared and started to execute them. Jacob hadn¡¯t completely changed since becoming a dungeon lord, the misery of the survivors was hard for him to stomach. Though he admitted it was hypocritical when he had used spike traps in the past. Once all of them were dead, he waited to see how many soul points he would get from this. Since the path to the dungeon core hadn¡¯t been totally obstructed by the boulder, he should be getting the maximum amount. He had gained almost 200 soul points from this wave. Chapter 15 The king¡¯s power could vaguely feel the demise of the recent attack on the dungeon. It could vaguely feel the future and knew that the next wave would also fail. He didn¡¯t have any stronger soldiers to send. There were stronger creatures within these ancient forests, but his time dormant had weakened him and made these independent powers rebellious. They refused to answer his call and venture into those fiendish kingdoms. The king roared and tried to pull itself from the ground. So much of its memories were foggy. It was too tiring to think about them though. It just wanted to go back to sleep. But the ancient oath refused to let him. Those old memories were pulled from the mire of its mind. The tragedies, the battles, the fallen; it was starting to remember all of them. The forgotten, personal hatred started to boil within him. It was starting to truly wake up. ¡­ Jacob looked at the amount of soul points he gained and felt a rush of dopamine. He had gained over 175 soul points and almost had 200 soul points in his bank account. This was nothing to the amount of soul points that were gained in the middle to late game, but at the moment this was the most soul points he had at one time since he came here. Jacob started resetting the boulder trap and repairing the damage done to the dungeon. The many craters needed to be filled and there was a lot of organic mess that needed to be fed to the fungus. The dungeon fairy was working hard, trying its hardest to wrap around the boulder to transport it back to the end of the tunnel. With this much, he could now invest in the monsters he needed. The five waves would bring the first true boss monster, the monster king. Since he had opened up within or close to a forest¡ªall of the animals he had fought so far belong in a forest¡ªthen the king would probably reflect that. He couldn¡¯t help but wonder what this behemoth would look like. The three parts of his army that he needed to worry about were the bear, deer, and ants. The bear would serve the role of tank, the deer would be the healer and support, while the ants would be the cannon fodder and numbers. Out of all of them, the ants were the ones that he needed to prioritize. The ant queen he had created still wasn¡¯t fully grown yet and didn¡¯t have any noteworthy abilities to be helpful. At this stage it was just a very large ant, enough to terrorize his mother or sister back home but nowhere near deadly enough to fight monsters or adventurers. It needed a stronger exoskeleton, pincers, and it needed its reproductive system to be programmed. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The bear and the deer only needed to improve their mana systems to become better. The bear needed a mana core and mana recovery characteristic, while the deer only needed a mana core. With these attributes, he could then start leveling them up during the fourth wave¡­ Leveling up was interesting in this game. Rather than gaining new, better abilities as they level up, monster characteristics scale as they level. So, in theory, a monster at a high enough level would regenerate mana faster with [Minor Mana Recovery] than a much lower monster with normal [Mana Recovery]. However, there is a reason why that rarely is the case. The law of diminishing returns was in effect, meaning that inferior characteristics made it harder for creatures and organisms to level up. Without magic, an animal would struggle to reach level 10, with only one mana characteristic the deer would struggle to reach level 20. This wasn¡¯t a mistake. After all, how awful would it be to be fighting level 50 monsters on only the first layer of the dungeon while you are only level 7. These cheaper and inferior attributes allow for him to control the level of his creatures per level, at least to a certain extent. Leveling up wasn¡¯t as important as it was in RPG¡¯s, meaning that he could use much weaker monsters if he had a smart-enough strategy. However, the monster king was a very powerful boss, and levels were very important if he wanted his bear and deer to survive. Jacob found the ant and gave it the characteristics [Strong Exoskeleton], [Razor Pincers], and [Fast Growth] for over 80 soul points. He then gave the bear [Minor Mana Recovery] and [Lesser Mana Core] and gave the deer [Lesser Mana Core] for slightly under 120 soul points, leaving him with only 4 left. He left the animals to transform while he started planning ahead. The ant¡¯s reproduction was critical, but also expensive. While he did have the ovaries developed, they were left inert to save on money. Having a creature that could reproduce made all modifications to it much more expensive. Just giving the ant, with no magic, the power to reproduce would cost him around 90 soul points alone. If that ant didn¡¯t have strong characteristics, the price would drop to around 40, though adding characteristics would be much more expensive. Now that he was broke again, he could only wait until the next wave. The good news though was that he now had a few chambers full of Scarlet Teeth, and with the characteristic [Fast Growth] and the blessing from the deer, it wouldn¡¯t take him long to raise a decently large force of ants. They alone wouldn¡¯t be able to do much against the king-level monster, but with the bear and the deer he hoped that it would be enough. He would also need to prepare traps and obstacles to distract and occupy it as he doubted that he had any traps that could actually harm it. There were plenty of things to do and plenty of time to do it as he checked his quest. He began planning and creating the outlines for the dungeon to prepare for the fifth wave. While there was a giant tunnel in the way, the space around it can be prepared for in advance. He kept himself occupied as the fourth wave drew closer. Chapter 16 He had constructed a good chunk of the dungeon in preparation for the fifth wave. If the boulder trap still worked well for the fourth wave then he would keep it. If it didn¡¯t, then he was going to scrap it to create a complex maze like what he used in the first two waves to, hopefully, slow the monster king down. He struggled to think about defenses for his dungeon. He had abandoned the idea of using spike pits for these more powerful creatures. His intuition told him that even if the boulder trap still worked well, it wouldn¡¯t work on the upcoming king. He didn¡¯t want to bet completely on his own monsters defeating it; it was safer to use multiple fronts of attack than to rely on one. However, the list of structures and tactics to use the environment to repel and kill his enemies was rapidly shrinking. He was sure that with enough creativity, knowledge, or precision he could create something but he didn¡¯t have a lot of any of those attributes. His biggest weapon was his knowledge of the game which, while important, wasn¡¯t everything. If he could, in some way, create a cave-in like he saw in movies and fiction, he was sure that the king-level monster would be weakened. After all, a cave-in was essentially the mountain falling down on top of whatever poor thing was underneath it. He didn¡¯t think that the main boss of the first few waves could shrug off the weight of a mountain falling on top of it. That was only true if both his assumptions were correct and he could actually use them. He was neither a geologist or mathematician to verify the crushing force of a cave-in and he had very little clue how to set one up in a controlled way that could be used as a weapon. He hadn¡¯t figured it out yet though. He could only shrug and push his thoughts to the side as he focused on the timer ticking down towards the fourth wave. He watched the animals collected outside the dungeon and saw that the leading monsters were stronger than the last. He could only guess that these monsters were in the late stages of level 30, maybe even more. He couldn¡¯t view their status until they came into the dungeon. There were few individual creatures in this army, but there were more magic beasts and stronger magic beasts than in the previous waves. If he had decided to stick to a more traditional dungeon layout, he struggled to imagine the kind of destruction these creatures could do. Even in the game with their much more tamed AI, the lack of powerful defenders would leave his dungeon a complete mess. The time continued to tick downwards to the final seconds of preparation. The bear and deer had started to adapt to the change in the mana that they experienced. The mana not only increased the power or casting frequency, it slightly improved their characteristics. For example, the bear¡¯s [Strong Skin] and [Strong Bones] were now slightly stronger and magic resistant than before. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. The bear and the deer both needed to level up for the slight buff of higher mana to become apparent. He had entertained the idea of not using the boulder so that the bear and the deer could level up, but he had decided against it. The lesson from the dungeon core getting damaged was etched into his soul. It was better for him to choose the path with the most safety. The timer reached zero and the fourth attack began. The army of magic beasts rushed in and mimicked the previous wave. The difference was that there were many powerful earth magic users that loved to stop and start digging holes in the tunnel. One even managed to dig through to a sealed off portion of the dungeon. This didn¡¯t ruin his boulder trap though. The parts of the dungeons they wandered into were empty for the most part and none of these monsters had any interest in exploring. With their sensitivity to mana, they could vaguely sense the dungeon core and so they returned to the trapped tunnel. At the right moment, Jacob gave the command and the boulder was released at the top of the tunnel. This time the boulder didn¡¯t jump and rushed straight to the invaders. Sensing the danger approaching, the smarter general monsters sent the weaker creatures out in front while using their magic to create defenses. When the boulder appeared, they seemed to realize their mistake but it was too late. The weaker animals that were sent forward were flattened. The strongest of this wave combined their might and magic, using vines, stone, ice, and wind. The combined power of these spells managed to not only slow the boulder, but bring it to a fragile standstill. The weight of the compacted stone that the boulder was made from was too much for any of their spells, independent or combined, could hold stably. They were forced to keep pumping their mana into the spells to keep the deadly massive rock from crushing them. They realized the precarious situation they were in and those with earth magic broke off and started to create a tunnel into the sealed off part of the dungeon a little away from the boulder. They combined their might and dug through fast then cried to announce the newly created safety. Slowly, the animals moved back and retreated down the new path, but each movement weakened their hold on the boulder. It started to roll again and quickly recovered the momentum that it had lost. Many magic beasts and a few of the strongest had managed to get out of the way, but many key ones failed to reach safety in time and were crushed. The once mighty invasion force had been reduced severely as the stronger were forced to hold to boulder at bay while the weaker had the luxury to retreat. There were still a few of the stronger ones but the boulder had drained a lot of the mana, especially from the strongest remaining. Jacob didn¡¯t give them the time to recover. He marked the bear, deer, and ant to bring them to the invaders to finish them off. The bear was the first and started to attack them. He commanded it to use its power sparingly, using the [Reinforcement] spell for defense instead of attack for now. The ant was then used to attack while the deer healed and provided support. The magic beasts were distressed and failed to fight strategically. They fell one after another until they were all killed and the fourth wave was defeated. Chapter 17 The ancient king of the Aseth forest meditated for a long time, drawing in mana and power from the world and woods. After it had collected enough power, it unleashed it. The small grove it had been hibernating was destroyed in an explosion that rocked and shook the entire forest. The blast freed it from the ground and allowed for it to walk again. There wasn¡¯t as much mana as there once was, though perhaps it had simply lost most of his ability to draw it in. It wasn¡¯t anywhere near the peak of its power; it would have taken years to recover even half of its old strength. That didn¡¯t matter though. The old king started to walk a slow and steady march towards the dungeon. The trees shivered near it despite there being no wind. The ancient beast king caused the entire forest to stand still, and commanded the few strong animals that remained under its influence to join it. It was going to destroy the dungeon, even if the dungeon killed it.
Jacob looked at the over two hundred soul points that he had gained and felt that this wasn¡¯t enough. While the boulder trap had worked, it only worked barely. There was a lot of luck on his side that allowed him to defeat this wave. The generals from the wave were intelligent but not cognizant, the king monster though would be. The only way that his boulder trap could have worked was if its power was strong enough to overpower a king-level monster that was expecting it. While it did take multiple of the stronger magical beasts to stop it, that didn¡¯t change the fact that it was stopped. It might still have some value in delaying and distracting, but was that worth the massive tunnel leading close to the dungeon core? Jacob didn¡¯t think so. He had checked the boulder and noticed that it had started to fracture from the magic of the previous wave. The king-level monster, as a sentient creature, had many more spells, both in variety and power, than a normal magic beast. It was a coin toss whether it had a spell that could destroy the boulder, much less stop it. He recalled from the game as many details as he could. The good news was that this next wave wouldn¡¯t have several dozen magic beasts and monsters that he had to track, at most there would be eight or nine. The horrible news was that each and every one of those creatures would be strong. Combined with the king¡¯s leadership, it wasn¡¯t going to be anywhere near an easy fight. The best solution he had were the ants. Even at the highest level of mana regeneration, it still took some time for mana to be recovered. If he used cannon fodder to soak up spells from the king, eventually its mana reserves would dwindle. It wasn¡¯t the small spells he was worried about, rather it was the big spells that had him scared. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. The bear and the deer had both leveled up, being above level ten and fifteen respectively. There wasn¡¯t really much he could do to them with the still measly soul points he had gained and the little time he had left. He focused on the ant that needed to become a queen. He had been trying to come up with a good strategy to maximize the value of his soul points and ensure, to the best of his abilities, the safety of himself and the dungeon. The issue lied with the immense expense of creating a decent reproductive system. If he wanted the ant to give birth to ants with the same characteristics as itself, the cost would be around 350 to 400 soul points. If he wanted to have an army of ants without the characteristics for the defensive exoskeletons, dangerous pincers, or fast growth, then it would cost around 80 soul points. He did want the ants to have these crucial attributes though. More than that, he wanted the queen ant to have the characteristic [Offspring Control] so that he could manipulate the ants into an army. That by itself was expensive too though. He thought about it for a little bit and played with the interface, trying to find a solution before he found one. The most important characteristic was [Fast Growth] as that was the only way that he could get an army in time. He could save money by making it so that the characteristics [Razor Pincers] and [Sturdy Exoskeleton] will appear rarely in the ant¡¯s descendents instead of its being guaranteed. That would save him enough money for [Offspring Control]. He didn¡¯t have the time to make any more decisions. He kept the growth cycle simple and didn¡¯t create genders, opting for basic asexual reproduction. With [Fast Growth] being the only powerful characteristic that all of the ant¡¯s offspring will have, he wouldn¡¯t need to wait too long for the eggs to hatch. This was incredibly simple but he didn¡¯t have much of a choice. Much like the sorry and stale state of his dungeon, he could only be practical and boring. The combination of modifications devoured all the money he had gained from the fourth wave. He watched as the ant convulsed, though this time there wasn¡¯t a slow change like its pincers becoming more sharp. It seemed to be in pain to a certain amount, though it was hard for him to tell. When modifying the bear and deer it was like they were in some pain but they were asleep and didn¡¯t seem to be aware of it. Once the ant had finished, it got up and went to a room with several beds of Scarlet Teeth in them. It started to lay eggs within close distance from the food. Each egg was large, slightly larger than a chicken egg. The ant struggled to make more than a dozen. Time passed both fast and slow, and the eggs hatched. Instead of larva, they skipped ahead to being normally shaped ants. This wasn¡¯t good, losing stages of development were bad for them. However, since all of them were going to die to a king of magic beasts soon, it didn¡¯t really matter. They started to eat the fungus that surrounded them, and the deer was there to make sure that they grew faster. Chapter 18 The ant continued to produce more offspring whenever it had the chance. Several batches had already hatched and ravenously began to eat the Scarlet Teeth. Despite growing large amounts of food in advance, these ants¡¯ appetites were insatiable. The majority of ants born didn¡¯t have the characteristics [Sturdy Exoskeleton] or [Sharp Pincer] and only a couple of ants managed to win the genetic lottery to inherit both. While he had anticipated this, the rarity of these characteristics was much smaller than he expected. He was wondering how he would be able to get enough food to feed the ants when he reached an interesting idea. He commanded the ants through their mother to start eating the weak, where the ants with the valuable characteristics ate and killed those without either. He recalled that there was a strategy like this in his past life, though it hadn¡¯t worked for him back then. Through this act of mass cannibalism, he managed to reduce the amount of food needed at the small cost of worthless ants. However, the energy the queen ant required for each round of egg-laying was nothing to scoff at. He didn¡¯t know if ant corpses worked well with Scarlet Teeth as they were designed for animal carcasses. He still had a stockpile though, and time was running out.
He looked at the quest and felt anxiety. What bothered him most was not the king-level monster that was coming, but rather it was the reward. Three hundred soul points. This reality had already deviated from the game when it came to rewards, with the rewards he got for defeating the third and fourth waves being negligible. This, however, was different. There should be no quest or challenge that gives out more than a hundred soul points. Back in the game completing the fifth wave only gave 100 soul points. He couldn¡¯t decipher what this could mean. There were obvious differences from this reality and the game it was based on, the biggest being an added dimensional axis. In the game the rewards increase with each challenge. He couldn¡¯t think of a reason why it would be different here. This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Maybe there was a reason that he couldn¡¯t see. After all, the reason why terraforming, marking, and casting spells was different here was due to the more immersive and realistic environment he was in. Maybe if he continued to grow stronger and reach the end of the game, he would understand what caused this strange discrepancy. He shook his head and returned to the ants. It was hard to tell the quality of the exoskeleton without the power to summon status screens. The pinsers were hard to study too. He had to painstakingly separate the ants, which was harder since he had to do it through the queen ant. He used some of the inferior ants to feed the queen ant and hopefully create another batch of ants. The deer was helping to speed up development and alleviate some of the constant hunger the ants were in. He only had to deal with this for another day. He stopped micromanaging the ants and returned to the dungeon. He didn¡¯t have any information on the sort of powers and abilities that the boss monster will have. It could be good at healing, attacking, or, if he was really unlucky, good at making a mess of his dungeon layout. He had to come up with multiple strategies to deal with it and its band of magic beasts. After thinking about it, he decided that the best defense for this was nothing. A great, expansive nothingness. He created several large chasms between the dungeon entrance and the core. While there would probably be flying magic beasts, but what he was betting on was that the boss monster couldn¡¯t fly. If it couldn¡¯t fly, then it would either keep its flying monsters close to it or send them out into the dungeon; both situations were beneficial to Jacob. Flying enemies were always a pain to deal with, if they flew off without the rest to back them up then he could deal with them much easier. Of course, if the monster kept them then it gave him more time to strategize and prepare. There were no spikes at the bottom. At the level of the boss and its minions, they would be able to tank spikes even without defensive characteristics. They would still probably get injured, but they wouldn¡¯t be killed from it. The biggest reason, though, was that creating so many spikes would take far too much time. There were no bridges or paths, just large gaps with several tunnels on the other side. These monsters had high enough perception just from their levels to be able to sense where the dungeon core was. Normal branching paths and dead ends wouldn¡¯t be enough for them. So Jacob made it so that all paths would reach the dungeon core. Eventually. While he didn¡¯t know exactly how these monsters would behave, it was better to plan for different situations. Each of the tunnels across the many chasms would lead to the dungeon core by constantly twisting back on itself. Even with the powerful magic and large mana reserves, crossing such a large gap would be difficult. It wasn¡¯t like they could create a bridge out of stone across¡ªthe bridge would have to be sturdy enough. Though maybe there was some spell one of the monsters had that could create a bridge out of wind. It was unlikely, but it wouldn¡¯t be the strangest thing. Wizard-class adventurers sometimes had that. He didn¡¯t have any ranged units beyond the dungeon fairy. Ultimately they weren¡¯t worth the cost of gaining and had little benefit for the dungeon after the fifth wave. Though he still felt the sharp pain of regret. The time was counting down, and he could feel the boss monster approaching. Chapter 19 The king entered the dungeon a couple of seconds before the timer reached zero. It looked completely exotic and alien, much more than any other animal Jacob had seen. The head of it looked like a deer with a large rack of antlers that looked to be made of fossilized wood. Its neck was long like a giraffe but had the flexibility of a snake. Much of it was covered in dirt, stones, and moss that made it look like an ancient idol or statue that had come to life. Underneath it all was silver and azure fur and scales that stuck out sometimes on its six legs. The aura from it was massive, almost divine, yet it felt rusted. Like the king monster was a god slowly dying to old age. The aura was profound enough to cause ripples in the world that he could feel. After the third wave he had felt a rhythmic beat in his soul. He understood what this was, as it was one of the few things from the game that had lore about it. At least, one of the few lore tidbits that he remembered. It was a visual and auditory cue to signal the approaching boss, though it was much more intense than he expected. As the beast king entered the dungeon, everything began to shake. Jacob looked around in confusion before turning back to the boss. Underneath its feet, silver grass started to grow out of the hard stone and spread like a plague. Jacob¡¯s eyes narrowed as he realized the type of monster that he was dealing with. Domain-type monsters were rare and difficult monsters to deal with as they could literally rip up parts of the dungeon and turn it into their own territory. They weren¡¯t the worst, but they were close. The domains frequently had buffs and debuffs for allies and enemies respectively, but the worst part of it was that it interfered with collecting soul points. Soul points could only be collected if the animals or entities died on dungeon territory. Normally, that wouldn¡¯t be an issue. Except in cases like this. With the boss there were seven other magic beasts, all strong and powerful with different types of magic. Unlike in the past where the animals with their different abilities and attributes were relatively random, these monsters seemed to be intentionally picked. Though perhaps Jacob was seeing something that wasn¡¯t there. He looked through them and most of them weren¡¯t ones that he was worried about. Whether the magic beasts were intentionally selected or not, most of them weren¡¯t particularly good for the dungeon. There were two earth magic users, but since he had replaced most of his dungeon with air and empty chasms, there wasn¡¯t much earth magic could do. There was a single bird that had stereotypical wind magic. He was curious how the boss would use the only flying monster when they reached the first massive abyss. Would it use the bird to scout ahead and put it at risk? He wasn¡¯t sure. He wasn¡¯t sure how he was going to whittle down the boss or its other minions either. He waited and watched, keeping his dungeon fairy and small army at the ready. The invaders were slow, staying within the conquered territory where they had the advantage. It took them much longer than he wanted for them to finally reach the first chasm. It was right when the boss found out that there was a massive hole between them and their goal and paused. The king-level monster was clearly intelligent and seemed to be trying to come up with a plan to get across. While it was intelligent, it seemed to struggle with coming up with a plan to get across. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. It tried using earth magic to get across, but every bridge they made broke before it reached close to the middle of the chasm. The king used its magic, which looked to be a variant of plant magic, to create a bridge, but it was only slightly stronger than dungeon stone. It became far too fragile before it reached any of the tunnels across the pit. The invaders tried to combine their other magics, like ice magic, with the earth magic and strange plant magic to make the bridge but any improvements were minor. Their attack on the dungeon had already been thwarted, but Jacob didn¡¯t gain much of an advantage. He couldn¡¯t really attack them anymore than they could attack him. If he sent his dungeon fairy there, it would be completely destroyed. Even at full health, it wouldn¡¯t stand a chance. He didn¡¯t have long range minions either. This was a stalemate, and Jacob had no idea who gained the most from a battle of attrition. He had to be patient. They were the ones attacking, not him. He just needed for the beasts to make a mistake, and take advantage of it. The bird was sent down into the chasm to reveal the depth and what was at the bottom. The king looked down at the revealed depth and the flat floor at the bottom, seeming to think to itself. It then issued a silent command to the earth magic beasts to begin trying to carve a path to the bottom. The sheer cliff was perilous though, and stronger magic beasts tended to become much larger than their weaker kin. None of these animals were engineers and could only slowly find the right shape to make the footholds. Just for the two animals with earth it was dangerous, and it didn¡¯t require much luck for one of them to fall down. The earth magic beast was a lot like a crab, covered in a thick shell made of earth that glittered with slowly growing gemstones. It fell the distance of a four or five floor building and hit the ground so hard it formed a small crater. The magic beast had obviously high defenses and managed to endure the impact better than expected. However, it was still injured from it, but how injured it was didn¡¯t matter to Jacob. He had thought hard about how to handle this fifth and somewhat final wave. While he did have ants, the bear, and the deer; in a straight fight he would lose. He couldn¡¯t use traps and natural defenses weren¡¯t nearly as viable as they were before. The chasm would slow down the invaders, but how could he use it to his biggest advantage? Seeing the opportunity, he pounced and commanded his dungeon fairy who waited patiently at the bottom of the hole. It attacked the earth magic beast with its slow, weak magic blasts that dealt damage ignoring the hardy shell, while gaining aggro. The king monster roared but it couldn¡¯t do anything, because the dungeon fairy was underneath them. The invaders were on an outcropping that created a blindspot as it reached over the edge. None of them could attack directly unless they wanted to destroy their one foothold over the hole and fall down. The boss sent out the bird, but that didn¡¯t matter to him. He micromanaged the dungeon fairy and started to attack the bird instead of the earth crustacean. With the distance increasing, the king started to lose control over the bird. And the magic attack from the dungeon fairy made the magic bird aggressively focused on it. He led the bird through the dungeon fairy out of the pit and into the tunnels while trying to make it seem like the fairy was trying to continue attacking the crab. This was enough to deceive the king and led the bird into the tunnels on the other side of the hole, where the bear and deer were waiting for it. Realizing that it had made a mistake, the king cried out as if to bring the bird back, but it was too late. The bird was cornered and quickly killed. The crab had become sluggish from its injuries and the dungeon fairy started to attack it again, leading it to the blindspot. Once it was there and weakened enough, the dungeon fairy then wrapped around it and transported it to the room where he kept the ants. The dungeon fairy had gained a lot of injuries and had lost over a quarter of its health, but it didn¡¯t matter. Two down, only six more to go.