Author’s Corner: This chapter does not mean the end of the break, it just means I had an itch to write again for a bit. Hopefully the break won’t last too much longer. I’ve already gotten quite a bit planned for after the story gets back on track, but for now I’d like to thank Xacual for the ideas he’s given me over the last several chapters! It’s really amazing to me when I see someone who understands my characters better than I do myself. Also, Xacual, enable your private messaging!

“So, what do you want to do now?” Sharon asked, the morning after we left the robot world. “We can keep going on to the psychic world, or you can work on your quest for Malthan.” Right now, we were on our way to the bridge, with Yin still being asleep in the bed. I guess that she wasn’t feeling like an early bird today.

I nodded my head slightly. It would be really impractical to want to do both, since I need to study the creation of a variety of monsters. Hmmm… “Let’s find a dungeon, first. Unless we go all the way back to Earth, the easiest way to watch and measure monster spawns would be inside a dungeon, and there is another benefit for us as well.”

Sharon looked at me questioningly, before the answer came to her, and her eyes widened. “You want to take the chance to strengthen the crew?”

“Right. Unless it’s a high level dungeon, you and I could just run through it with ease. But the crew will take quite a bit more effort.” Celeste, we need you to start mass-producing the clone controllers and bodies.

“I got it, boss!” The AI’s voice sounded out in my head.

“Hmm… It could work. But one of us should go with each group. That way, we can provide backup if needed. It would defeat the purpose if they lost levels faster than they gained them.” Sharon added in after my brief mental exchange with Celeste.

“Good point… How about four teams? There can be one each for you, me, Celeste, and Yin.”

“What about Yo?”

I shook my head a bit at that. “We still haven’t mastered the tech to clone Yo yet, so she can’t go down.” I had been keeping an eye on Celeste’s progress with that project, and so far there was still one major problem. Even though we could create the slime that makes up Yo’s body artificially, it would not hold a soul. “We need to find a way to create a blank monster core.”

Sharon tilted her head slightly at that. “Why not just take a core from an existing monster and refine it into what you need?”

This time, it was again Celeste that answered in my mind. “Well that’s because… even still… but then… This could work… She’d only get as many chances for clones as the number of cores we could refine, but if we run short we can get more.”

Unfortunately Sharon hadn’t been part of that research from the beginning, or that simple answer could have been taken care of months ago! So far, Celeste has been simply looking for a way to artificially create a monster core, rather than just stealing one. It’s less efficient this way, but until we find an alternative it’s the best we have. Leaning over, I grabbed Sharon’s head and gave her a quick kiss. “You’re a genius.”

She smiled wide at the show of affection, nodding her head. “Thanks. So, that means five teams. Does Celeste know what the limit is on team sizes?”

After consulting with her mentally I came back with an answer. “Ten people per team, but if we set it up right, we can form a raid party. There can be up to ten teams in a raid. A step up from that, which we don’t really need to worry about yet, would be a platoon, which can have up to ten raiding teams, and then an army, which can have an unlimited number of platoons.”

Sharon blinked, confused by the explanation. “Does the experience still get divided among the whole raid?”

“No, only among the party that earns it. Otherwise, it seems like the groupings are just for communication purposes. Still, that means we can take thirty-six elves down with us for the first run, then forty-five for each run after that once we get Yo to join us.”

“What about Yang? It wouldn’t be nice just to leave her behind on the ship when the rest of us are going down to a planet.” Sharon had a point… but…

“But would she even want to go down? She’s the pacifist of the group. I think that she’d rather spend her time in the garden on the ship than to go down and fight monsters. And she definitely can’t handle her own group.”

Sharon smirked slightly. “And Yo can?”

“....Touche. I’ll have to give them both a lesson on tactics.” Sharon looked at me and raised an eyebrow, so I amended my statement. “Celeste will have to give us a lesson on tactics.” Okay, fine, so I wasn’t really the best planner for group fights either.

“I think we’ll all be part of that class. After the first couple of runs, we can get more teams set up, and bring more of the crew down at a time. It’d be better after we get more people, but right now we can’t be too picky.”

I was somewhat relieved to hear that I wouldn’t be in the ‘team combat for dummies’ class alone with Yo and Yang. But I had to agree with her, getting more people down would be good. “Okay, but no more than one full raid party. We still need people on board the ship in case something happens.”

Sharon seemed to agree with my statement, and we soon arrived at the bridge. “But where are we going to find a dungeon fit for a hundred people? I mean, if it’s a small dungeon, then it’d be good for no more than just one or two teams at a time.”

At this point, Celeste, who was standing by my chair of captain’s comfort, spoke up. “We’ll just have to make them.”

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one surprised by this, as Sharon appeared to be as well. I was the first to answer this time. “You can just make dungeons?”

“Well, sure. They’re just like a special brand of monsters. It’ll take a bit of work, but once we find an uninhabited world with a breathable atmosphere, then it’s just a matter of time.”

“Just like a special brand of monsters… does that mean that the moon, wherever it ended up, would be spawning monsters inside of it?” Sharon asked something that I had been about to, but it didn’t really matter as long as it was asked.

“Well, maybe? Not all monsters can be counted as dungeons, but all dungeons can be counted as monsters of one kind or another. For instance, Yin. She’s technically a monster now, but she’s not a dungeon. Or Yo, she is most definitely a monster, but nothing’s spawned inside of her.”

I couldn’t help but nod at that. If monsters had begun spawning inside of Yo, we would have noticed. I mean, we can see right through her, it would be hard not to notice if something was swimming around inside. “Okay… so how do we make dungeons? Do they have a special formula, or what?”

Celeste shrugged her shoulders at that. “Not really? A runic spell circle could do the trick, you’d just have to define the area ahead of time, or else it could turn into a giant monster instead of a dungeon. In the future, establishing a dungeon was banned on inhabited worlds for that very reason. Doing it wrong could make a boss-class monster.”

“That.. could be bad.” I nodded my head a bit. “So, set up a few different dungeons on a suitable planet, and then send down teams to run through them?”

Celeste nodded. “As long as we don’t destroy the dungeon heart, the monsters will just keep respawning. However, if we completely clear it out, then depending on the size of the dungeon it could take up to a week for the monsters to spawn again. If you are sure about doing this, then it will be a long-term project.”

I furrowed my brows at the thought. “How long term?”

“In order to get everyone up to a reasonable level, I’d say around three months. But on the bright side, we can leave the dungeons established, and just come back when we get more crew members to use it as a training ground. You could also put your monster lab on the same planet.”

I thought about that, and nodded my head. “Alright. Follow our present course, but continue scanning for a suitable world. In the meantime, I need you to select five crew members that will lead the other teams. Those five, along with myself, Sharon, Yin, Yang, Yo, and you will all be going over how to properly lead a dungeon team.”

Celeste nodded, smiling slightly at that. “Alright, captain. Anything special that you’re looking for in the planet?”

“It’d be best if it was somewhere easily survivable. Since we’re going to be there for a while, we’ll need a steady supply of food and water, though we could get that from the ship if it is absolutely necessary. Since I’ll be having the monster lab there, we need somewhere with a calm climate. Raging storms and blizzards would probably make things go poorly for that. Finally, it’d be best if there were not a lot of monsters already present on the planet, that way the lab could be left alone.”

Every now and then, Celeste would give another nod, as if taking notes. “Alright, I’ve inputted the scanning parameters into the database. If we pass near a system that shows a planet that matches a few of the conditions, we can drop in to take a look.”

“Thanks. Now, next order of business…” I gave a tired sigh as I sat down in my chair, and pulled up my friend’s list, choosing to call Talia.

“Good afternoon, Captain.” Talia quickly answered the call from her end, and I couldn’t help but groan at the time differences.

“Good morning, Queen Talia.”

“We assume this call is for a regular report?” Judging from how formally she was talking, she wasn’t alone. She had a tendency to drop the formalities every now and then when she was.

“Right.” I began filling her in on the plan, to have the people she sent trained in dungeons. This of course, led to detailed explanations on what exactly dungeons were.

“Oh, we had one of those appear on the homeworld a few months ago. We thought it might be a threat, so a group was assembled to clear it out and destroy the source of its energy. Had we known what it was, maybe the local queens would have chosen to preserve it as a similar training ground.”

I nodded my head slightly, not surprised that a dungeon would appear there eventually. The elves were still relatively close to Earth, so for now I expect big things to spawn there more frequently than other areas. Obviously, this wasn’t the case in the future… Though, the land wyrms on Hascion could almost qualify as boss monsters on their own, so maybe it didn’t change that much? I wasn’t really that sure.

“There’s also the chance that other people will begin arriving in the Gerin system soon.” Since there was already someone that had beaten us to the robots, there were sure to be people that would stop by the elven worlds.

“Yes… a few weeks ago, a strange craft appeared. However, they made no attempts to communicate, and simply left after a couple of hours. This was deemed as an unimportant matter since no actions were taken by either side, so you were not informed of it earlier.”

Well, is there any chance that I can warn people about stuff BEFORE it happens for a change? We talked like that for a few more minutes, but there was really nothing else to report, and she was busy entertaining the elven nobility or something like that. After the call ended, I took a moment to glance looking through my status and skills list before going about my daily psionic training.

NameJohn HulettRaceWood ElfTitlesVengeful Heart, Amateur Brain Surgeon, Spider Slaughterer, Starship CaptainFame20,000Level 5045%ClassDruidAdvanced ClassXeno-ShifterDeityMalthanHealth310/310Health Regen0.52Mana1300/1300Mana Regen6.93Strength15Wisdom200Agility26Intelligence130Dexterity33Charisma35Vitality31Luck20Points Remaining0Earth 20%Fire 20%Wind 20%Water 20%Lightning 20%Light 20%Dark 20%Plant 20%Void 20%Metal 20%Magnetism 20%Plasma 20%

SkillsMana Manipulation - Advanced Level 5: 1%Nature Magic - Intermediate Level 9: 49%Wild Luck - Basic Level 8: 33%Sketching - Basic Level 6: 60%Herbology - Novice Level 2: 1%Gathering - Beginner Level 9: 6%Alchemy - Novice Level 6: 13%Mana Signatures - Advanced Level 5: 12%Cooking - Basic Level 4: 10%Flight - Basic Level 1: 0%Aura Sight - Intermediate Level 3: 1%Technomancy - Intermediate Level 5: 89%Programming - Intermediate Level 4: 5%Enchanting - Basic Level 6: 30%Engineering - Novice Level 2: 18%Maintenance - Basic Level 9: 24%Dodge - Beginner Level 5: 24%Swordsmanship - Beginner Level 5: 29%Marksmanship - Basic Level 3: 59%Energy Weapons - Beginner Level 9: 42%Soul Arts - Basic Level 8: 34%Psychic Power: Toybox - Basic Level 8: 31%Piloting - Beginner Level 5: 3%Navigation - Beginner Level 2: 12%Weapons Systems - Basic Level 1: 13%Shield Systems - Basic Level 1: 0%Spatial Comprehension - Beginner Level 9: 12%Barrier Magic - Beginner Level 1: 10%Divination - Beginner Level 1: 15%

Looks like it’s about time to start training a new affinity. I wonder if I can set up an elemental seed factory in the monster lab? If I could do that with runic circles, then I wouldn’t have to worry so much about the increased difficulty in training. I decided that I’d look into that once we got settled onto this new planet.