Finish the boss room or start the entrance hall? ….It didn’t really matter. Entrance Hall it was then. A blank stone square room greeted him as he opened the room menu.

Entrance Hall (Deep Cave Floor 1)

Level:

1

Available Upgrades

None

Chosen Upgrades

Entrance Created

Exit Created

Dungeon Teleportation

It looked like he wouldn’t get any upgrades until he increased the level. With three upgrades Ian used sixty thousand mana to increase the level to four. At level four the sign upgrade, treasure chest upgrade, and translation upgrade became available for 200, 500, and 1000 DP respectively. Ian wondered about the lack of reshape room upgrades. ….He closed the window and reopened it.

Entrance Hall (Deep Cave Floor 1)

Level:

4

Available Upgrades

Reshape Room (Dimensions)

100 DP

Signs

200 DP

Treasure Chests

500 DP

Translation (Written)

1,000 DP

Chosen Upgrades

Entrance Created

Exit Created

Dungeon Teleportation

….He’d rather just get all available options at the start. If he didn’t get options that he wouldn’t normally think of, then these rooms were just DP sinks. As much as Ian grumbled, the idea of purchasing upgrades was slightly enjoyable. That fact truly scared Ian to the core of his being.

Being able to use mana to shape the room wasn’t a part of the deal he made with the system, but hey he might as well try. As soon as he did the window popped up into his vision, and Ian experienced immediate regret. He knew he shouldn't feel regret since testing something out was always a good choice, but whenever that blasted window popped up without his intention he really felt stupid. Beyond reshaping the room, creating physical objects with magic not his dungeon abilities, wasn’t possible, so that left translation. Ian had neutral translation magic, but it required time to learn the ins and outs of a language. Based on the description of the upgrade, it instantly translated any written word in his dungeon so any intruder could read it. Even if the intruder was illiterate or blind, they would implicitly understand what was written there. Sadly mimicking that ability wasn’t within his current magic repertoire. It looked like he would have to purchase all the upgrades.

With four more upgrades purchased, Ian was able to raise the Entrance Hall level to six. The requirements for level six increased to two upgrades per level. Ian would need another upgrade to get to level seven. Sub Dimension Creation, Instances, and Reshape Room (Shape) became available at level six for 2000, 3000, and 200 DP respectively. Well, sub dimension creation and reshape room (shape) technically became available at level five. Anyway, he was certainly going to try recreating the sub dimension and instance.

Sub dimension would be easy. He had enchanted plenty of space bags in his time. A treasure chest appeared on the floor of the Entrance Hall. ….A desk would be nice. Ian checked the upgrades, but none appeared. Desks were probably a part of the decoration shop. He opened the Dungeon Shop and purchased solid oak desks for a thousand DP. The desk that appeared was a lot nicer than Ian was expecting. It had a glossy finish and looked incredibly sturdy. He supposed he got what he paid for. After shifting the Treasure Chest onto the desk, Ian started creating the sub dimension.

There were three ways to create space bags. First was making the inside much larger than it should be. Second was making the inside a connection to a separate enclosed space. Third was creating or connecting to a separate dimension inside the bag. The easiest of the three was creating a connection to a separate space. Connecting to a separate space only required the bag to act as a transfer formation to empty space that has been sealed off somewhere in the universe. While Ian used a transfer formation, most used random teleportation formations. Random teleportations were much easier than directed transfers as most Space Mages learned the hard way. Of course, the risk with random teleportations is the space chosen may not be empty. Now, sealing off a space somewhere that had never been seen before also comes with risks. It is completely possible to accidentally seal something in the enclosed space or harm something by creating the enclosed space. However, if the astronomers at the Soris College of Science were right then there was a lot of unused empty space out there. Ian didn’t like using the easy method because of the unneeded risks.

Expanding space was the most sought after with its ease of creation and access compared to a separate dimension. Expanding space required space mana to be forced into a material and create gaps in the material all while making additional connections with space mana. Space mana must also be used to make sure the outside of the bag doesn’t expand at the same rate as the inside of the bag. Previously Ian knew that it worked but not why it worked. After viewing the mana stone, he surmised that he could create much larger expanded spaces if used zoom in to expand in meticulous detail. While expanded space was most sought after, Ian loved creating dimensions.

Even with their usefulness, dimensional bags were few and far between. Not only were they difficult to make, but simply creating a connection to another dimension within a bag made it nearly impossible to retrieve anything back from the bag. The owner would have to reach in and grope around for their items. This also happened with space bags, but space bags had much smaller insides. Most dimension bags were simply too large and a person’s items lost forever. Ian’s dimension bags were different. Instead of simply connecting to an already created dimension, he created his own. This allowed him complete control over how large the insides were. To counter the inability to retrieve items from the bag, Ian also used force and illusion magic to retrieve and list all items placed into the bag.

Normally Ian required great focus to create his pocket dimensions between his dimension and other dimensions, but as his dungeon seemed to be in a very similar kind of space he simply created his pocket dimension next to his dungeon. It was the easiest pocket dimension he had ever made. He made sure to place a space expansion formation on the pocket dimension, so as items were added the space increased. However, even though he knew he created it in the space near his dungeon he couldn’t see it. It seemed that even when he had the overhead view, his vision was centered on his dungeon. It might be that the white space didn’t actually exist and was in essence filler that allowed his mind to process what it was seeing.

Ian finished the transfer formation on the inside of the treasure chest. The force and illusion formations were also complete that allowed tendrils of mana to retrieve the items and a false window to display contained items. Now, he could just let the items appear in the chest as is or he could do what he normally did. What he normally did of course. Ian inscribed another illusion formation combined with a levitation formation. This made the treasure chest look like it contained a black void and when a item was taken out it would levitate out of the black void to be retrieved. Ian did like flair every once in a while.

After completion, the sub dimension upgrade was acquired. Ian leveled the room to seven and the mana signature upgrade became available for 5,000 DP. Before he purchased the mana signature upgrade, Ian needed to complete the instance upgrade. The instance upgrade would make or break his mana supply. If for every instance he had to create new pocket dimensions and other formations, even he might start to run into mana problems.

Dungeon Instances were something even Ian had difficulty with. Creating duplicate dimensions that overlayed one another was not an easy feat. The most success he had was vibrating everything at slightly different rates and then infusing them with space mana at the same vibration. The problem occured when the vibration had too large of a difference. Those disappeared into what Ian could only assume was a dimension that was so different from his own contacting it was impossible for him. So, unless he could create more instances without them disappearing forever he couldn’t make the upgrade on his own. Did he even have the time? It had been nearly a month, so only nine more remained. If he couldn’t figure it out in a couple decades while human, he doubted he’d find the breakthrough in less than a year. He knew with enough time he could get the instances right eventually, but for now he would have to purchase the upgrade.

Ian purchased the Instance upgrade, the Reshape Room (Shape) upgrade, the Mana Signature upgrade, and leveled up the room to eight. The new possible upgrades were Translation (Spoken) and Reshape Room (General). Translation (Spoken) translated any words spoken by the dungeon, so intruders would understand it, for 2,000 DP. It seemed to even work for deaf individuals. Reshape Room (General) combined the effects of the two previous reshape room upgrades and added a little more control for 300 DP. Before he tested out how his purchases worked, he wanted to get Loot Collection.

Translation (Spoken) and Reshape Room (General) were both purchased and the room leveled up to nine. Translation (Intruder) and Reshape Room (Specific) appeared but no Loot Collection. Ian purchased the two upgrades and leveled the room up to ten. Loot Collection finally appeared and along with it Reshape Room (All). Happily he purchased both and leveled the room up to eleven. Ian tried to level it up to twelve but he needed three more upgrades purchased. Now, Ian was able to translate what the intruders said and wrote, but sadly he couldn’t hear the thoughts of mute individuals. He could shape the Entrance Hall in any way he wanted like his main floor and collect the loot for the intruders so they didn’t have to do squats throughout his dungeon.

Ian observed his Entrance Hall that contained an oak desk, treasure chest, and a clear stone next to the treasure chest. The clear stone was the mana signature reader. Even though he couldn’t see that everything was working in proper order without intruders present, Ian knew that it worked in the exact way he wanted it to work. It was an uncomfortable feeling since he wasn’t in control of it. He wondered how many more of these uncomfortable feelings he would experience as a dungeon. The new knowledge was fantastic, but the fact that something could so easily mess with his mind did not sit well with him. Skills didn’t have this kind of information injection, they simply allowed talents to be trained and used easier. Some would make an argument that they did this by injecting knowledge into minds, but Ian had never had the feeling he was currently having. There were certainly things Ian hadn’t understood while human, but that list seemed to be constantly increasing as a dungeon.

Even if he knew everything was working properly, the Entrance Hall still needed some redecorating. Upgrade settings also needed to be messed with. Ian opened the Instance menu in the same way he did everything else, thought controls. It looked like it was set to create an instance every one hundred individuals that entered the dungeon. Thankfully the knowledge of how instances worked had flowed into Ian’s head, so he wouldn’t be constantly draining mana for every creature in every instance.

The concession made was Ian would have a default floor setting that every instance copied off of. Once every creature was killed once through every instance, he would have to pony up the mana to recreate the creatures. If all intruders left before a floor was completely cleared, he would have to replenish what was killed instead of waiting for the whole floor to be killed. To make sure all creatures died, the ones that hadn’t died once would migrate to kill zones and become slightly more aggressive. He wondered if this would also apply to sapient individuals, since that information wasn’t present. Each treasure had to be opened and each trap triggered before he had to spend mana. It seemed even though they didn’t count towards his trap count, the magic traps counted as traps in his mana replenishing. The kill, open, and trigger counts would reset after he replenished them. Why he received all this information that applied to his main floor when he only had the Entrance Hall upgrade, he didn’t know. Ian wanted to make it so there was an instance for every adventurer or dungeon diver party. To do that he needed them to register themselves as a party at the entrance.

Ian had the mana signature upgrade, but the clear stone would have to be placed on the outside of his dungeon before they came in. ….Didn’t dungeons have something like that without the mana signature stone? If he remembered correctly, parties had to be registered at the Adventurer’s Guild. Also, when he partied with Estella she did something that created a connection between them. He hadn’t really paid attention since parties didn’t interest him. The Dungeon Shop would answer his question. He should search for ‘Party Instance’.

Dungeon Shop

Party Detection

1,000 DP

It seemed Party Detection detected if a connective magic that shared experience and relative locations was present between individuals. If this magic was present, the party was treated as an individual intruder for some dungeon functions. Ian was enraged at himself. While this connective magic seemed to be similar in nature to his Experience Share that he used with his tamed and summoned monsters, his loner attitude had caused him to completely neglect a type of magic! His book core started to hit itself against the pedestal. The creatures gave askance looks at the dungeon core. After he took his rage out on himself, Ian purchased Party Detection. With his new function in place, Ian changed the Instance settings to create an instance for each party. Of course, this currently only applied to the Entrance Hall.

Damn, could he have detected the parties on his own? ….Probably not since he didn’t have a proper recollection of the structure of the spell. Next was allowing parties and individuals to keep track of their progress through the floors. He had the mana signature stone and dungeon teleportation, but the knowledge forced into his head said that wasn’t enough. With his lacking understanding of mana signatures, he would have to buy another function. “Floor Progress.”

Dungeon Shop

Fast Travel

5,000 DP

Save Point

1,000 DP

Fast Travel was what he wanted, and it seemed mana signature stones wouldn’t be needed. Save Point just allowed intruders to start at the deepest point they previously reached. ….Wait. The system was certainly fast at updating their store options. As he read through Fast Travel in more detail, he realized that he was receiving fifty percent off for allowing its function to be updated. He supposed his transfer formations were only a part of it, but that didn’t stop him from being peaved about it not being free. With a harsh pointed thought he selected Fast Travel.

Ian mimicked exhaling as he realized without the one million DP, he would have run out of DP a while ago. How was he expected to meet Magical Beauty if he needed so much DP? ….Son of a bitch. He didn’t did he? Magical Beauty was about fulfilling himself as a mage, but all his DP purchases were fulfilling himself as a Dungeon Researcher. To test his theory he’d have to not make any DP purchases in the Boss Room.

Ian’s vision flowed over the Entrance Hall. He didn’t need any more functions besides the dungeon encompassing instance function. He knew his treasure chest, transfer formation, and pocket dimensions would be accurately duplicated without his input inside multiple instances. A sign was placed above the treasure chest explaining how to use the loot collection system. Dungeon teleportation was updated so if individuals within parties had different fast travel points, then only the fast travel points that all party members had would show up. All that was left was beautifying the Room.

This was a safe room, so should he have amenities? Light was obviously needed. A toilet? An oven? Benches? Beds? Obviously the question would be why help intruders out so much? Ian had only accepted the Dungeon’s mission of killing because he understood that the small scale killings inside his dungeon would help prevent the large scale destruction of his world. If Ian didn’t love people and everything they could be, he wouldn’t have spent so much time learning about methods to save people. Would he become someone who could laugh at the idiots and assholes dying in his dungeon? Ian didn’t know. Would being able to laugh at them be better or a sign that something had broken within him? This he also didn’t know. However, he did know that he wanted his entrance rooms to give the intruders a moment of peace before they tried their luck and ability not dying in his dungeon.

However, as much as Ian wanted to fill the Entrance Hall with decorations and amenities, they required DP. Ian hadn't even taken a glance at the trees, so spending DP on decorations wasn’t a good idea at the moment. His vision purposefully avoided the oak desk upon which the treasure chest sat. Since, Ian wasn’t going to make it a comfy place at the moment, he was going to make it a grand entrance.

Using the Reshape (All) upgrade to morph the Entrance Hall like he could the main floors, he transformed it into a long straight corridor with grand pillars. The oak desk with treasure chest and mana signature stone on top was placed next to the alcove with the transfer formation inside. To maintain consistency with the first floor he created ribbons of light surrounding each pillar. Each pillar had ribbons of light infused with different attributes of mana resulting in a wide variety of patterns and colors. He inscribed images of each creature on their respective attribute pillars. Of course some were currently blank, but they would be populated as he made more. Instead of the string lights, Ian made crawling ivy lights across the ceiling. Rather than have lines of light throughout the walls, he made each wall and the floor give a low glow that slowly shifted between the different lights and patterns surrounding the columns. Happy with his work, he made sure to fix blemishes as he went this time, Ian moved onto the Boss Room.

There was a lot Ian wanted to do to improve the Boss Room, but first he needed to prove that even if he didn’t fulfill all his urges Magical Beauty would be met. Please let it be met. First he needed to improve the opening to the Boss Room, the arch. Now, was the arch considered a part of the Boss Room or his main floor? He tried to move it using mana, but it was unluckily a part of the Boss Room. Instead Ian coated the edges in a blood red light that gave quite the ominous feeling. The light gave the impression that the arch was made of blood red bricks. A metal door would have been nice but he would need….DP for….that. Ian’s book face planted onto the floor. God dammit. He was still of the mindset that magic couldn’t create physical objects, but that was only true because no one had infinite mana. Since his magic was supported by outside mana, then he should be able to make a door! Ian constructed a steel door using metal mana and placed it into the glowing arch. His happiness soon left his as no outside mana was flowing into the door.

What the Depths? Even if creating a door didn’t count as a dungeon function for his agreement with the system, his magic should be supported by outside mana because of EX Rank Mage right? ….No, wait. That just gave him the ability to use his magic from his previous life, outside mana wasn’t included. Still, why was his magic supported in the Entrance Hall and not here? The difference this time was he attempted to create a permanent physical object. However, that wasn't solid proof.

“Hey, System. Why the hell can’t I make a door out of magic?” However, there was no response even after a couple of minutes. “You said you aren’t supposed to let sapient races know you’re a god, but I already know. Why can’t you talk to me?” Ian was once again met with silence. “I’m going to complain to the other gods that you aren’t meeting our deal.”

Just because something doesn’t go how you want it doesn’t mean I’m not meeting our deal.

“Tell me why I can’t make the door then. I promise not to contact you too much.”

I’ll acquiesce this once. However, the fact that I had to talk with you in the first place shows how damn important your teleportation formations were. One of my directives is to NEVER talk to sapients. Besides, aren’t you the one who forgoed the Helper because you ‘liked to figure things out yourself’?

“*cough* I mean, I do. Just, this was tangentially related to our deal, so I might as well ask.”

*sigh*. The door not being supported with outside magic has to do with the difference between how dungeons and gods create things and how magic creates things. Dungeons and gods create permanent things while items created from magic must be constantly supplied with mana. Of course, permanent here means they only wear down do to the natural forces of the world rather than the release of mana that magic wears down from.

“How are dungeon creations permanent? Sure, some things that come out of the dungeon remain permanent when removed but others disappear.”

That is simply a function of the dungeon to prevent items not intended by the dungeon to be removed. Since, some traps and parts of the dungeon are much higher quality than the loot and treasures, removing them may cause unintended technological advancements.

“Isn’t that the secondary objective of the gods?

….Of course. But uncontrolled advancements lead to population booms. No proper dungeon wants that.

“Right. However, what’s the difference between me creating a door or treasure chest and creating the transfer formations and sub dimension?”

It’s dependant on what the function is supposed to be. Even though the teleportation formations and sub dimensions are undispellable in dungeons, they are based off of magic. Whereas, treasure chests and doors are based of physical objects created by the gods.

“Alright. Thanks. Talk to you again soon.”

No you won’t.

The window seemed to pop out of existence with a more fierce air than normal. With his questions answered, Ian erased the door and continued making the Boss Room without using DP.

Since he couldn’t purchase the ability to coat the room in moss, Ian made due with nature infused lights and a green glowing floor. Rather than the lines, strings, or vines of previous lights, Ian attempted to mimicked moss without using illusion magic. The result was glowing magical moss that constantly shifted in the corner of the intruder’s eye and gave the entire room a ethereal look. It was much harder than using illusion magic, as Ian wasn’t nearly as proficient at detailed light magic work. Ian finished all the fine details and stopped to admire his work. As he did a window popped into his vision.

Finish First Floor?

YES/NO

He did it. He finished his first floor. DEPTHS YES.

Dungeon Level [1] → [2].

1 Cubic Kilometer Floor Space Gained.

Mana Generation Increased by 10,000.

DP Generation Increased by 1.

With vigor, Ian folded his upper pages and with much more flexibility than a hardcover book should have, he started thrusting the lower part of his book. After ten minutes of constant thrusting, Ian finally folded back onto his pedestal. His current Magical Beauty nightmare was over, he only hoped the future ones wouldn’t last nearly as long. Now, to actually check what he got on level up.

Tidon had told him what he would get every level up, but Ian had completely forgotten. He would have focused more on leveling if he remembered he got more mana and DP every level. He also doubted he’d ever run out of floor space if he got a cubic kilometer every level up.

With his first floor of his series of floors down, he needed to think about actual protection from high level adventurers before making the G rank floor. It took him over a month, a total of forty three days, to do the tutorial, finish his first floor, evolve some creatures, and fix up his Entrance Hall and Boss Room. Most dungeons required at least ten clears with core touches and item creations before the possibility of core destruction occurred. However, Ian wanted to be more than a normal dungeon. The most popular dungeons were ones that either gave good rewards for the amount of work put in or the ones where the core room had never been reached. To Ian the popularity of uncleared dungeons stemmed from the roots of the Adventurer Guild. While most current adventurers were in it for the quick cash, the originators and high level adventurers liked to explore the unknown. If he wanted to be popular with high level adventurers, then constant unexplored floors was a requirement. As he was a fair distance away from civilization, chances of him being found right away were low. However, Ian didn't like to take chances.

His high mana should allow him some high level monsters if he built up his mana reserves a bit. However, simply placing high level monsters wasn’t enough. He needed something to delay them like an incredibly long and intricate maze. They needed to be created now rather than later because he had no idea how long their creation would take him. Next objective in mind, Ian went to see if he could make some adult Oni.