“High Magus Silas, why are we wandering around in the forest all day?” The teenager did his best not to whine but failed miserably.

Silas took a deep breath deciding not to punt the annoyance over the tallest tree for the third time that morning, this was going to be a long day. “We’ve been over this before apprentice, we're looking for the dungeon core or whatever else could cause a mana disturbance.”

Traipsing around the wilderness at the edge of the kingdoms was not how Silas had imagined spending his sort of retirement. He liked Corinth, it was a nice city away from almost any politics and it was even big enough to avoid the Bancrofts, but being in such a remote city came with some unfortunate realities, chief among them responsibility. He was probably the most powerful person in the city, a fact he worked tirelessly to hide from everyone else, however it seemed like one of his old acquaintances had ratted him out to the Corinth guild leader.

“But master I’m not an apprentice, I’m an acolyte.”

A vein throbbed in Silas’ forehead, the impudent little whelp could survive getting thrown over a few trees right? Thunk. “Ouch Kira that hurt.” His erstwhile ‘assistant’ stood behind him tapping her staff threateningly against the ground.

“High Magus why don’t you start actually working instead of just talking with the apprentices. If you like teaching that much I’m sure Gabriel could give you a teaching position when we return.” Kira smiled sweetly as she delivered her blackmail.

“But Kira, I'm an old man, surely someone else can do it.” Silas protested weakly.

“Don’t give me that Silas, you’re the only tier five here and you know it.” Kira was on to him and wasn’t buying his act at all.

“Fine.” Stupid Gabriel having to stay and the city, at least he was dealing with the nobles and not me. If it was up to Silas the Bancrofts would have been drowned in the ocean years ago. Some nobles might be honorable and useful, Silas could acknowledge that but the Bancrofts were still unrepentant scum riding on their bloodline for centuries.

Taking a deep breath and putting all idiotic nobles and politics out of his mind, Silas spread out his senses. Mana users developed what was referred to as mana sense as they grew stronger, that was just them getting better and better at feeling the mana around themselves. His mana sense had eventually grown large enough to spread across quite a large area.

Dungeons would slowly change the ambient mana in an area, it wouldn’t be by much at least not at first but it should be enough for him to sense the change if he was close enough. The stronger the dungeon the larger the ambient mana change was, but even if this was a dungeon it was most definitely a new one. Checking the direction just to make sure one more time Silas set off to the northeast. “Come one, this way.” If he had to do all this work they were at least going to follow along too.

There seemed to be a bit of a problem with the forest, it appeared Valens had broken it. After the wolf pack progressively fewer and fewer invaders had been coming to the dungeon, and this upset the core more than a little he still hadn't gotten the wild cat template yet. Fortunately, he had gotten ahold of the deer template, which was good as that was the main food source in the dungeon right now. Valens had also lucked out and gotten the wolf template as well, he had managed to get more than half of the template’s information from the tier two alpha.

Magnus.

What, Valens.

I think the forest is running out of animals.

For the area immediately around your dungeon yes that might be true. The little drake nonchalantly flipped a page in his book.

Why aren’t you more concerned about this? My growth speed is going to take a big hit from this. The core was a little annoyed with the drake’s flippancy towards the issue, this was serious.

Valens, you're overreacting, even if you had no invaders period you would still be fine that's the whole point of the ecosystem remember. Now it was Magnus’ turn to be a little exasperated. You should be getting close to floor ten, dungeons usually start building the later floors in a set faster and faster. So how close are you to the next boss?

Valens grumbled a little but conceded the point. You know you could check yourself instead of having me give you updates all the time. I’ve finished floors seven and eight and am almost done with floor nine. Those tree seeds you gave me have been working out rather well. The goblins and wolves loved the more overgrown environment which allowed them to sneak up on their prey and each other. The deer on the other hand weren’t fans of it but oh well.

How are the goblins and wolves balancing out by the way?

Pretty well actually. Valens had been trying to use his wolves to keep the goblins in check instead of using Sora all the time. There are still a lot of goblins running around but the wolves are doing a good job of keeping their numbers down to manageable levels. There is an increasing number of max-level monsters though, they get killed off every once in a while too but that seems like a waste.

Magnus scratched his chin appreciatively. You just need to get to tier two as fast as possible to let stuff start evolving instead of being stuck in tier one. Once you have a stable tier two population you can start sending Sora out to hunt stuff again, poor girl’s getting a little stir crazy.

That's practically two more floors.

Come on Valens you built almost three floors in four days, it’ll take you no time at all to finish the tenth floor. Magnus was right of course but it still seemed like a lot of work to Valens. That reminds me, why haven’t you added lizards into the main dungeon? They wouldn’t have dragon blood but they’d still make fine normal monsters to have around, eventually.

Was Valens really that much of a scatterbrain? He hadn’t even considered adding in the lizards, it was a good thing Magnus had thought of it. You know that’s a good idea, I’ll get on that now.

The core was only half paying attention to the drake now as a tiny lizard popped into existence on the fifth floor and was promptly stepped on by a goblin. In the meantime, Magnus continued talking. By the way, Valens, do you want to figure out the tenth-floor boss now or when you get a little closer to making it.

Another lizard was created this time on the third floor, there weren’t any goblins up that high in the dungeon. What’s there to talk about aren’t we just going to make it another lizard? Magnus had spent all that time selling the core on the idea that the dragon bloodline was the ultimate fighter he wasn’t going to change his mind now right?

Magnus shifted uncomfortably putting down his book and fixing Valens with a serious look. The dragon bloodline indeed makes for an ideal boss, but I think that changing up your boss selection is important.

More lizards appeared on the upper floors of the dungeon, they could make their way lower if they managed to survive long enough. Why? If something is working well why would we mess with it for no reason?

Valens pay attention. The drake was tapping his claws on the ground staring at the core. Valens turned his full attention back to the core room, that should be enough lizards for the species to get off the ground anyways.

What is it Magnus, I am paying attention.

This is important and you need to listen to what I’m trying to say. Pausing for a moment the drake gave the core a look before continuing. So now that we’ve stopped making lizards the reason having different bosses is important is mainly for security. You don’t want people to get used to and very good at fighting a specific bloodline. It's impossible to truly hide what your bosses are as people will eventually figure it out based on your monsters, but what is important is to not make it easier on people to fight your later bosses.

How would having all the same boss make it easier for people invading my dungeon?

The drake smiled a fang-filled smile and explained. It's a matter of training and how creatures evolve. Fighting a tier-one lizard and a tier-two monster lizard might be entirely different experiences but if you fought the tier-one creature enough you would start getting used to the tendencies of that bloodline. This would compound if you have all the same bosses as you’re giving invaders a training guide on how to defeat the final boss. Valens nodded slowly starting to get where Magnus was coming from. Furthermore, changing up the bosses will force dungeon divers to change strategies for every boss, keeping them uncertain of what the next boss will be.

Just to be clear, most of these concerns only apply to sentient invaders. Valens hadn’t even had any of those yet but he supposed it would be a problem eventually.

The stronger you get the more sentient invaders you will have, eventually, it’ll be almost all sentient invaders so it's best to start preparing now. Magnus made a fair point and so far all of his plans had worked out well, the ecosystem was continuing to produce experience and Sora had worked out well as a boss in the end.

Alright, so what were you thinking should be the second boss? A goblin or a wolf might be a good pick. Personally, Valens was leaning towards a wolf, goblins were entertaining but it seemed like wolves were just more effective fighters.

The drake shuffled his claws looking a little sheepish. Well, I was thinking we could use a pixie. Oh boy, here we go again.

And where would we be getting a pixie template and why should I use a monster I never even heard of as my second most important boss. Valens was a little annoyed with Magnus; it would be nice if the drake would be a little more forthcoming with his plans. The annoying drake probably just liked being dramatic.

Well first off still no to goblins because they’re still stupid, they might be a good third boss though. Anyway, wolves are also out because a lot of their fighting style revolves around packs and group combat which wouldn’t work out very well for a boss who will mostly be fighting solo. Pixies are the starting monster in the Fae bloodline and the reason for using that particular bloodline is that their fighting style is very different from the dragon bloodline and should provide a strong contrast.

It's great that they are different from the dragon bloodline but are they any good period? Also, you still haven’t explained how we're going to get ahold of the template.

Right, the Fae bloodline is a very strong race throughout all of the tiers, unlike the dragon bloodline that grows exponentially more powerful. Pixies are natural spellcasters even at tier one, and as they grow stronger they adopt a ranged and illusive style. Also, you’ll be getting the pattern from right here. With a dramatic gesture, two dozen balls of light appeared lying on the ground like extremely shiny marbles. I’ll have you know it was a lot of work keeping all of these things in storage space and don’t even get me started on how often I had to redo the stasis enchantment. Magnus looked extremely proud of his display and Valens was suitably impressed, he hadn’t known the drake was keeping so many monsters in what amounted to his back pocket.

So everything you’ve told me sounds very good and promising but what weakness do the Fae have? He needed an accurate assessment of the bloodline’s capabilities not to be sold on how great they were.

Right issues, first off they are very physically weak, no monster from the Fae bloodline is ever going to be a close-range combatant. That’s the price for them being so specialized as spell casters, they won’t even be able to use any energy besides mana as a result of being natural casters. However they’re also beings of pure mana, similar to slimes or elementals, so they do have fairly good resistance to physical damage. They won’t be completely immune but it's rather helpful at the lower tier where most combat is carried out with physical weapons.

That still sounds pretty promising, tentatively I agree Magnus but let's revisit this conversation when I finish making the tenth floor. It would give the core some time to think things over.

Fair enough. Magnus nodded his head agreeable and poked one of the glimmering marbles with a claw causing it to pop like a soap bubble. Before he could even think of making a Fae-type boss he was going to need the pixie pattern.