On mastery and Tiers. Everyone knows the rare high tier classes and relevant skill tiers are jealously guarded secrets however common knowledge on basic classes and skills should be spread and discussed more than it is. We at the adventurers guild believe all who put in the effort can become strong and hiding information is contrary to that tenet. Rare and strong skills are given a higher tier in the system and when practiced well proficiency increases from apprentice to journeyman and finally master. Mastery of a skill is the highest possible rank attainable but there is an added benefit from reaching that state. When changing to a class that does not typically support that skill, mastered skills are not lost.

As simple as that sounds, the higher the tier of the skill, the harder it is to master. For tier 0 the three stages are simple. level 0-4 for apprentice 5-9 for journeyman and 10-20 for master. Every Tier after that point multiplies the previous levels and experience required to advance. A Tier 2 skill is considered apprentice rank until level 15-the cap for beginner skills and takes till level 45 to reach mastery levels. How other races deal with Tiers varies widely and what significance the system places on each tier is unknown. As strange as it sounds, they don't appear to have classes or skills, so while we know the system loves to classify stuff how it relates to their lives when they don't even have a class is strange.

An excerpt from the human adventurer guild's handbook.

Jim: Hello?

SPEED: Oh look a newbie

Indecisive Earth: Welcome welcome. Take your time adjusting if you have any questions feel free to ask me.

AL: Speed you’re a newbie don’t try and fake your way into me and Indecisive Earth’s grand wisdom and elder status.

Nearly a week had passed, and 2 more Cores had joined their “Tier 1 ranks”. Early on Xero had finished his floors and advanced and at some point, the silent “later” had flickered out, having never spoken once while Indecisive Earth was around.

He couldn’t tell if they had died or finally advanced but due to having never met them, he found he just didn't quite care other than a faint curiosity. Apparently (according to Abe who hadn’t met them…so taken with a grain of salt), they had chosen the "non-elemental" option and had always seemed tired – replying less and less often before going completely mute.

Indecisive Earth had created 3 copies of his worm monster and left them to explore the original experiment cave before working on expanding. Pushing out and up he had grown over a dozen caves each connected by a large tunnel and had placed a new worm in each one. Each cave was slightly higher than the last and they were spread out in a corkscrew manner heading upwards.

The caves seemed huge to the Core – each roughly a meter in width, height, and double that in length – but the size was only big in comparison to his monsters and limited worldview.

His tunnels were equally as massive in his opinion, at a luxurious 30cm in diameter extending a meter between each cavern. Indecisive Earth thought each tunnel was luxurious as they allowed plenty of his influence passage, and 10 worms could pass each other at the same time if needed! His vocabulary used precise measurements – and his Dungeon Core consciousness allowed him nearly perfect measurement of distance, but he did not have proper knowledge of scale.

For example: Even with his “vast caverns” nearly all the intelligent races save the dwarves would need to crouch had they entered, and most would find it hard to impossible to crawl through the tunnels let alone fight monsters in them.

Even though he had designed the crystal/metal worm on a whim the schematic for them wasn’t fixed. Every time he made one, he worked on improving them little by little. He found the more rings he made the sturdier they became and the faster they could move, so each link grew thinner and thinner. His first worm had roughly 10 segments each a cm long but by the 5th worm, he was down to 50 segments each 2 millimetres in width and 1 millimetre thick, wrapped in a circle 3cm in diameter.

Any less than that and the rings would break just by moving around even with Crystal mana filling them. He could swap to plain Earth mana which made the rings slightly stronger in comparison but for some reason, they impeded the liquid metal more and made it much heavier.

Originally, he had made “perfect” rings with completely hollow centers. But, he found by leaving braces across each ring in star patterns, the liquid metal could still flow with little impeding their motion, while the ring was vastly strengthened.

He went over several iterations of rings, liquid metal, and support. All the metals gave slightly different results some slightly faster some stronger. His supports ended up staying at “Low Mana Iron” using actual iron as the strongest option despite the name letting all the Earth mana metals fall under the same category. The “Liquid Metal” was all made from aluminum and, somewhere along the lines, he had added a sharp cone on the end of the worm allowing them to stab potential enemies...of which there never seemed to be any.

He knew most adventures would appear to delve him once he was able to break through to the surface and he knew that the chance of a cave of creatures being right beside his birth spot was low so he wasn’t too disappointed but he still hoped for something exciting to happen.

While not having invented any new monsters, his skill in manipulating and creating them – as well as his nearly constant expansion – had steadily increased his level all the way to level 5. At this point, his status appeared as follows.

Indecisive Earth Level 5 7/90 exp to next level. System Access Level 1 0/2 requirements met to advance. -3+ Floors -Level 9+ Stats Mana Regeneration 3.5 unit/min Mana Storage 90.0/90.0 units Physical Storage 40% units Titles. Earth Mana Specialization

To spice up the lives of the worms he occasionally spawned a slime for them to kill. They always seemed to kill the liquid ones by accident. Either just running over them or crushing them against the wall as they passed... but when he made fire slimes, they flew into a rage actively trying to stab them or smash them with their cones.

He presumed it was the Water mana coursing through their liquid metal and – considering how much easier it was for him to make fire slimes than try and make an Air mana mob for them to hunt – he continued to happily provide them with flaming nemeses.

This realization that monsters made with opposing elements hated each other led to the second creature the core designed from scratch. Curious as to how they reacted he set out to put them (the mana elements) into a single monster.

Technically he had already made a monster with opposing elements – his mad spinning ball of Earth and Air – but he was selectively forgetting that monster existed, a faint trauma over it still fresh in his mind. Even though he could now spawn them far away from his core he didn't want to touch them for a while.

First, he made a shell of Crystalline material in an upside-down bowl shape. Then he made a sphere of Fire mana bound to oxygen (his most readily available gas and the one that bound to Fire mana the best) surrounding it in a metal core to prevent the two elements from touching and immediately annihilating each other.

Placing the core in the center of his bowl he filled it with his favourite water material – liquid metal. Then he laid a thin membrane of ectoplasm along the bottom. Holding his metaphorical breath, he gave it a spark of life.

The change was immediate and apparent. A massive shudder went through the shelled creature before instead of slugging along like the core expected the whole thing Leapt, Into, The, Air. Crashing into the ceiling then falling to the ground and crushing its weak membrane killed it, spilling the metallic blood all over his nice clean floor.

The spark that returned didn’t have much of a memory, only a brief feeling of insanity and confusion so he scrapped “Version 1” of his attempts to get Fire and Water to play nice.

Noting down how it had leapt he worked to create a tall cylinder this time. Creating a plug on the bottom instead of a thin membrane he sewed it to the inside of the cylinder with hundreds of threads working their way up to the top preventing it from breaking and pulling the plug off.

Copying the cylinder twice more, he made a tripod of sorts with a central ball that once again was filled with a core of Fire standing a foot above the rest.

This time when a spark was introduced it leapt into the air and survived the landing. Jumping around it continued to act erratically but it stayed stable.

How useful of a monster is this? It's able to accelerate or leap incredibly quickly but...it just won't stop. Is it just the mixture of fire and water in a single monster? Also, how is it jumping...what's leading to the force randomly propelling it up and is there a way to control it better.

Indecisive Earth tried again with a new plan. 3 shafts made a tripod once more. Then instead of a small connecting ball, he worked on drastically increasing the size of the solid section.

Maybe if I use Earth mana for more than just a shell it will simmer a bit?

Taking the time to increase the Earth content he first made a metal ball and pumped as much mana as he could into it. Mana liked to rush into the material and then slow down at a discrete level. However, if I continue to push more mana into it...

The shell looked more and more matte as he pushed. After a certain point, he felt it was enough. Not because he couldn’t push more Earth mana into it – far from it – but because it was continuously leaking wisps of brown-grey mana.

Trying to keep the mana from leaking he covered the ball with a second crystalline layer. As the second layer grew it covered the ball with spikes and descended with layers of crystals that almost looked like armour.

He felt good about this version. Pulling out a spark he slowly pushed it towards Jumper 3.

As the spark travelled into the monster, he felt a qualitative change. Instead of immediately leaping, the monster seemed to look around itself. Can it see? What's it doing? Slowly it bent to face its predecessor – who was still jumping repeatedly in the corner.

After a long pause that felt like V3 was waiting for the perfect moment, it leapt. As fast as V2 but with actual precision, the erratically jumping inferior version was impaled against the wall, legs pulsing a few times as it attempted to escape before expiring with a twitch. The older version continued to try and jump while impaled against the wall.

Mmmm. I think I got it. He thought while the memories from his failed version entered him.

These memories were filled with boundless energy – excitement marred with hatred for everything including himself and constant flashes of confusion...Madness…Similar in a way to his ball of Earth and Air had been but coming from a different direction and thus manifesting in a different manner.

I guess my experiment helped me understand a few more things. Emotions are influenced by a monster's highest element...by anything's highest element he thought to himself. And somehow the last monster I was able to make could sense where prey was.

The only thing that had changed was including a really high concentration of mana in the shell.

So, working from that point he tried immediately to experiment on a third monster type. He opened his list of materials and contemplated all his options a bit before selecting Iron again.

I have a lot of it and so far, and it seems to take to Earth mana better than anything else. Pulling it out into a ball he simultaneously infused it with Earth mana. The ball grew as "Low Mana Iron". Taking a deep breath, he started adding more and more Earth mana.

Putting more and more into it his storage ticked down. He reached the infusion level his last monster had gotten to then kept going. Finally, with 10 of 90 mana left he focused. Constant strands of mana were leaking from his ball, but he had already solved this before in the previous version. Creating a shell of Silicon and Earth mana that was twisted into a crystal form he muted the heavy core, this time slowly adding the shell and waiting just until mana stopped leaking out.

He had 5 mana left but this had done something. He felt like he had done something big. This was getting somewhere. This...ball was important.

His regeneration had increased leaps and bounds since he had first started out...but in comparison to his storage, it lagged further and further behind.

That experiment had taken 85 of his mana...almost 40 minutes of regeneration just to make that one core. However, the process had borne quite a few fruit. His experience flipped up quite a bit going from 14/90 to 31/90 in one go. That was more than any other action he had observed by almost double. Additionally, his material sheet was updated twice.

High Mana Iron slipped in right below Low Mana Iron in his Tier 1 materials and his ball was listed as a Tier 2 material called “Earthen Mana Core”

Name

Base

Mana

Description

High Mana Iron

Metal (Iron)

Earth

Immensely more magical than Low Mana Iron, High Mana Iron is formed in danger areas with high concentrations of mana. While stable in their natural habitat High Mana Iron becomes unstable and leaks when brought back to normal mana levels.

Name

Base

Mana

Description

Earthen Mana Core

Core Composite

Earth Composite

Plucked from Select Earth attuned monsters these cores are often found in dungeons and have endless uses in crafting artifacts of both little and great renown.

Reading the description dampened some of his enthusiasm. Apparently, what he had made was common enough that Sapient creatures had classified it as something that other dungeons had already done. He was already planning on creating a monster around the core, but it was nice to know that's where they were found...as disappointing as knowing he wasn’t creating anything unique was it was good to know he was on the right track.

As an experiment, he created a small rod each of Fire Earth and Water metal and placed them against the core. Both Fire and Water materials dimmed the closer they were brought to the core – the liquid becoming solid and the light becoming mute – while the Earth mana rod seemed to get greedily pulled towards it.

As soon as they touched, mana seemed to circle through the rod and core resonating the connection as the rod stuck to the side of it.

Pulling the rod off, the connection was maintained a few cm out before, as if with a snap the link broke. As the rod cracked all the Earth energy was pulled out and sucked into the core. The metal rod fell to the ground. I was going to throw liquid metal at it so it can move freely but it looks like that's not going to work.

Infusing Attributeless mana with some oxygen and wrapping the core worked in terms of the wrapping “playing nice and not being snuffed out” however...it didn’t resonate and get stronger like the Earth mana had.

Okay. Here's my problem. Adding Earth mana to anything solidifies it. Even Gasses... and I have yet to find a liquid element to test it on. Crystal mana is the same; it's just an altered form of Earth mana and even trying it on gaseous elements makes a solid. If a monster's body is solid It can’t move once it is animated with a spark of life. Actually...do I really know that? It can’t move if the monster is one solid object, but I just had a link between the core and a rod without it being fully attached…

Working off that concept he made several small balls of low mana iron and let them attach to the core. Each ball got sucked into place as soon as it got close and he could chain them 2-3 times before they wouldn’t connect. Next, he animated his first 100% Earth mana monster excitedly.

This time when he pushed a spark at it something different happened. The spark touched one of the balls then shot straight to the core and a pulse of energy was released.

All 6 small metal balls he had “attached” started moving around awkwardly then bunched on the bottom of the core and lifted it up. Slowly it started to roll around exploring its new environment.

There was definitely something different about this monster. Checking his monster tab for the first time in a while he saw it held only the original slime template. Adding first the other slime variations, second his worm then his jumping tripod and finally the multi-ball, a shift similar to what had happened to his materials appeared. The information that was added shifted slightly and tabulated as the system finalized creating its bestiary.

Both the worm and Tripod were listed as “Indecisive Earth’s Monster” but the balls and slimes were set up differently

Bestiary.

Strengths

Weakness

Basic Stats

Lore Description

Tutorial Slime

Not very Tasty

A slight Poke

HP 1/1 DMG 1-1

Often the first monster a young adventurer faces, the most dangerous thing about them is how they might get one's garments dirty

Flaming Slime

Burning

Water

HP 2/2

DMG 1-2F

A more dangerous cousin of the Tutorial slime. This monster can cause painful burns when caught unaware…however, as far as monsters go it is still laughably weak.

Water Slime

Defense against slashing

Cutting in two. Magic, Fire

HP 3/3

DMG 1-1W

A slightly stronger version of the Tutorial slime. This version can withstand small stabs and slashes without immediately popping. A good swing by anything stronger than a child can still take it out in one go however.

Indecisive Earth's Monster

Rings provide modest defense

Joints between rings

HP 3/3

DEF 3/3

DMG 5-6P

Unique Monster native to the Dungeon Core Indecisive Earth

Indecisive Earth's Monster

Explosive Speed

Low Agility

HP 2/2

DEF 10/10

DMG 1-15P

Unique Monster native to the Dungeon Core Indecisive Earth

Failure 3

Earth Core Provides Higher Defense.

Blunt Damage

HP 1/1

DEF 20/20

DMG 5-6B

Waste of an Earth Core. Wish I could scrap.

Based on the feeling the two unique monsters gave off he could instantly tell they were editable. Maybe because he had been constantly updating them, but all the values seemed less set in stone than the other options. Also, the name and descriptions were much less substantial than the other options – kind of like they hadn’t been confirmed yet or were currently just placeholders.

Focusing on the first option he renamed his worm to “Metal worms” then changed the description to something more useful. “Earth + Water metaloid worm monsters.”

Moving down he also renamed his tripods to “Jumpers” and the description to “Has Anger Management Issues”

Not sure how these work yet. Failure 3 was obviously named and described by another Dungeon Core. I thought it turned out pretty good, but it did take nearly all my mana to make the core and if comparing it with my other two monsters it seems similar maybe. I guess it could be disappointing especially if someone had made something better already.

But also, it's my first attempt! I’m bound to get a better version.

Checking the Group chat while he waited for his mana to reload, he asked how everyone's bestiary was coming along.

SPEED: What Bestiary? You haven’t taught us anything about that yet.

Abe: Hey my lil fast bro ur Bestiary is where all the monsters you make go didn’t you take the tutorial?

Jim: Yeah I mean I’ve separated the slime monster we were given from my inventory but I don’t have a bestiary or whatever.

Abe: Oh weird. Maybe you have to add a few stuff to it. Don’t worry it should sort itself out in a few minutes you get it right away as long as you use it.

Indecisive Earth...did not want to add the fact that he had only unlocked it a few minutes ago to the conversation at this point.

Indecisive Earth: Don’t worry you can set it up really easily. Just make sure to record every monster you make manually and it should sort itself out soon. The reason I brought it up in the first place is I was wanting to ask if anyone had unlocked something that was already named or if they had to manually name every monster they made.

Abe: Oh! Yeah, all my monsters seem to be Blast Slug Varients. Have you tried to make one yet? I promise they are great you won’t regret em

Jim: You’ve explained how but…

Indecisive Earth: Nah haven’t yet.

Abe: It's been agesss you gotta try bruh.

Indecisive Earth: yeah yeah okay I’ll try later.

Maybe he should work on them. He would start on it right away... but there was a faint buzzing in his head – a weird uncomfortable feeling infusing his being. What's happening now?