The days passed quickly in that fashion, me studying up on various species of monsters and beasts, reviewing some of my old textbooks on dungeon ecology as I concocted harebrained ideas for dungeons and then promptly disproved those concepts through research; meanwhile, Damien continued to look for new clients to work with. It was easier said than done. We only had one successful dungeon under our belts, and for obvious reasons we couldn’t use Q&A Jelly as a reference.

I sighed as I thumbed my way through a passage in an old dungeon ecology book. I was hoping to find some inspiration for different dungeons. Sadly, nothing was standing out to me. There were just too many Monsters and Beasts out there. The combinations were infinite.

Moreover, my brain didn’t really work that way. If you gave me a problem, I could come up with solutions through research and analysis. But if you just asked me to sit down and start from a blank slate, well, my mind would be just as blank. Whoever heard of goal-oriented creativity? I couldn’t help letting out a chuckle at the thought. Still, I suppose it made sense. Dungeon making was more of a science than an art.

I couldn’t help but wonder if Janus knew the type of mind I had when He gave me this class. Did Janus consider things like that when He made his decisions. Or was it just random, based on what He felt like that day? It was still so strange to think of a god as something so capricious. In the old days, God was always treated as an omniscient, omnipotent creator that had a grand plan. But in the new world, well, god existed as a being that interacted with us on a regular basis. It was strange. There was still quite a bit of mystery surrounding Janus, but compared to the God of the old religions Janus seemed more...approachable?

I stopped my mind from wandering and focused on what was in front of me. It was a passage on Red Dragons.

“Red Dragons are highly territorial and intelligent creatures. It is currently unknown if they are Monsters or Beasts as it is possible they developed from existing creatures. However, given their humanlike intelligence it seems more likely they are Monsters brought over by Janus. In the early days of the Apocalypse, Red Dragons were some of humanity’s most feared enemies. With bodies that could not even be scratched by normal weapons and skills, only high leveled individuals or 2nd Evolution Classes could match them. Perhaps due to this ferocity they have largely been hunted down. They are very rarely seen these days, perhaps preferring to live in the deep wilds farther from humanity.”

I shook my head. Thank Janus for small mercies. For all the world sucked for Dungeon Makers right now, at least we only faced discrimination. We didn’t have to fear for our lives due to our lack of combat strength anymore. I continued on.

“Little is known about Red Dragons, but it is thought that they emerge from their eggs with combat power on par with those of level 20. They have a rapid initial growth thought to be fueled by their rapid consumption of energy sources. For that reason, they have been regarded as a scourge, as if a Red Dragon is born near a human settlement it will immediately seek out the settlement as a source of high energy food.”

I shut the book with a loud snap and set it down in front of me before leaning back and closing my eyes. Reading about Red Dragons wasn’t going to be helpful. They were exceedingly rare, and would never be used in a dungeon. I felt like my mind was spinning purposelessly. My hands came up and pressed at my temples. The last few days had been interesting but stressful. I wanted to explore my skill, and I wanted to start making dungeons, but for better or worse I now had higher expectations for myself. I was no longer content simply making a normal dungeon, even a well designed one like the public dungeon. If I couldn’t create a sustainable dungeon concept I wasn’t happy with it.

“You just had to make things harder for yourself,” I cursed aloud bitterly. Part of the reason I went this route in the first place was to make things easier on myself. Yet somehow it still made more work for me in the end. It seemed like no matter what I did my future would always involve hard work. I was starting to suspect that that was just a fact of life.

Still, at least by striking out on my own I only answered to myself. I didn’t have to play office politics, or actual politics, thank Janus; my future was in my own hands, not some random corporate drone’s. With that thought buoying my spirits, I opened the book again ready to keep working, but before I could I received a system notification that I had a call on my holophone.

The holophone was Damien’s idea, and one of the first corporate expenses we had. Damien insisted that it would pay for itself in the time it saved having to come to my dorm every time he needed to talk. I still wasn’t convinced, but I wasn’t going to argue. Holophones were luxury items, and I had never owned one before. The orphanage could barely afford to keep all of us orphans fed, let alone buying us expensive gifts like that. After the system was integrated the number of orphans only went up not down during that chaotic period.

I still marveled at how the holophone paired so naturally with the system, even as I accepted the call. A projection of Damien appeared in front of me, and my lips curled into a small smile at the technology.

“Basil, good, I’m glad you picked up. I have a potential business opportunity for us. How soon can you get to the public dungeon?”

I thought about it. “Well, if we’re shelling out for a cab, I can be there in a few minutes. Otherwise I have to walk and that’ll probably take like 20 minutes to half an hour.”

“Just take the cab, if this goes through we can buy a company car for you.” Damien said in an excited hush. The client must have been near him or he would have shouted in exasperation at my frugal nature striking yet again.

I sighed. “Fine, I’ll be there soon.” I hung up without waiting for a reply. Damien was alright, but he was so impatient about everything. There was a natural pace to things. If the potential client was interested in our services then he wouldn’t mind waiting half an hour for an impromptu meeting. If he couldn’t wait, but still wanted to work with us, he’d leave his contact information and we’d arrange a meeting at a later date. There wasn’t a need to stress so much that he would waste money on a cab.

However, Damien’s aggressive personality and “now or never” attitude when it came to business was probably exactly what we needed right now. Thinking up to that point I stopped insulting him in my head and went to change into a nicer set of clothes before hailing a hovercab. I plugged the address in and the cab took off, following its prearranged flight path and gaining permissions from the city’s traffic system to adjust the path to get to the address in question. With self driving, or self piloting I suppose, hovercars, accidents were a thing of the past. As a result I closed my eyes, ignoring the bizarre stream of traffic that moved above and below me as well as on all sides. The traffic patterns were more nerve inducing than a roller coaster, with hovercars suddenly veering aside at the last second. I wasn’t fond of the experience though some enjoyed the thrills. I kept my eyes closed until I felt the hovercab slowing. I opened my eyes and found myself in a district of tall, steel buildings. They felt out of place in this city that based itself and its economy on a massive tree. Most of the buildings in the city were made of wood, so seeing these steel behemoths that stretched toward the sky was disconcerting. This was the Businss District, where most of the large corporations were based. The buildings were remnants of the time before Janus came. They taught us in school that there used to be more, but they were destroyed in the fighting.

I noticed, somewhat amused, that as tall as the buildings were they were still dwarfed by the massive tree that formed the public dungeon.

I disembarked the hovercab and pulled out my phone to call Damien. I didn’t want to go into the wrong building by mistake and get arrested by some jocked up corporated security type.

Damien answered on the first ring and quickly directed me to where I needed to go. I walked inside a tall building that cast a shadow on the entire street. These buildings often held more than one organization, with the wealthier ones owning entire floors at higher floors so that they could enjoy a good view of the city while they worked. I was greeted by an employee at the front desk who politely asked me who I was here to see. After giving the information that Damien had told me I then took a seat and waited. It didn’t take long before I saw Damien taking hurried strides toward me with an older man in two behind him.

The man was difficult to peg. His hair was white with age, but he moved with the grace and strength of a younger man which meant he was probably fairly high level. Given his athleticism it seemed unlikely he’d be a caster class, but with the sort of enhancements available these days it was hard to say for sure.

Putting aside these thoughts I extended a hand in greeting as Damien introduced us.

“Basil this is Jacques Shadow. He’s the CEO of the Grainola corporation. Mr. Shadow this is Basil Thorn, the head of Research and Development at our Living Dungeon Corp. as well as the majority shareholder.”

My mind instantly latched onto the name Grainola. Who wasn’t familiar with this corporation. Unlike Rust Corporation which was famous for being such a driving force across multiple industries, Grainola was a name that the common man in Asance had to be familiar with. Every time you went to the grocery store you would see their products. The only reason there was craving for locally grown dungeon products like the jelly that Q&A Jelly was producing was because of the titans of industry who mass produced such products for multiple city states like Asance.

“A pleasure Mr. Thorn,” Jacques greeted. He had a tinge of a musical accent, though it was nearly indiscernible. I couldn’t place it. It must have been from another city-state.

“Nice to meet you,” I returned as we shook hands. “I wonder what sort of business you might be interested in.” I couldn’t contain my curiosity about what a large corporation wanted with us. We were still a small scale operation and so I was surprised that such a well known name that took up such a large percentage of sales in the food industry wanted with us.

“Well, how about we move to somewhere more comfortable before discussing business,” Jacques suggested, gesturing for us to follow him. Nodding in agreement, we were lead past the front desk to an elevator bank. He pulled out a manacard and scanned it on the elevator which began to move up to the floor associated with the mana signature contained in the card. It was a basic security measure seen in many large buildings, even in high end residential buildings. The university used it as well to restrict access to some of the more important areas such as training rooms designed for upper level students.

We eventually arrived on the twenty fifth floor, which was about half way up the building. As we exited the elevator I saw massive floor to ceiling windows spanning the entire length of the company lobby. Jacques nodded at a receptionist as he led us past this area into the halls of the company. He took us to a large conference room with similar windows and I couldn’t help let out a sigh of admiration of the view of the city in front of me. This conference room faced away from the Business District and looked out toward the residential districts. The edge of the Public Dungeon could be seen as well as it towered over the rest of the city. It was a truly fantastical sight.

As we sat I turned my attention from the incredible view and reiterated my question. “So how can the Living Dungeon Corp. be of service?” I questioned.

“Straight to business,” Jacques noted. “Very well, I like being direct as well. As you no doubt know Grainola is a driving force in the food industry. We have pioneered a number of products that use dungeon grown produce.”

I nodded and Damien chimed in. “Personally I’m a big fan of your Hellfire chips. Who would have thought that the ash produced by Hell Hounds, when processed into a spice, would give such a nice heat to potato chips.”

Jacques let out a small smile. “Thank you. I’ll let you in on the worst kept secret of the industry: the ash isn’t the most important ingredient. The really important ingredient is the oil produced by Quagmire Safflower seeds that we use to fry the Dryland Tubers that we use in place of traditional potatoes. Well, it’s practically public knowledge at this point so it’s no issue to reveal this much.”

Damien nodded ecstatically at the bit of information. Even if it was well known it was a good start to a relationship to share such information. I waited patiently for the conversation to turn back to the topic at hand.

“Well, in any case, you know we have done well with mass market products like the Hellfire chips. However, as the market has continued to develop, and more companies have released competing products, we’ve noticed a disturbing trend towards more exclusive products. Your work with Q&A Jelly which brought you to our attention in the first place, is a good example. There’s a movement in the market for “locally grown” products. It has a certain elite aspect to it, and middle class consumers who can’t afford truly high end products can feel a certain satisfaction by having these “craft” products.”

I was slightly disturbed to realize our movements were being observed by them, but it made sense that a food company would pay attention to its competitors. I felt like I had an idea of where this was going. “So you want to start producing locally grown products too?” I asked with some doubt. Even if it was locally grown I doubted it would produce the same reaction in consumers so long as it had the Grainola name attached to it. This was an issue of perception, the sense of satisfaction one had when having a more unique product.

Jacques shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that sort of marketing scheme would work for our company. Since we can’t compete with small, local companies for the position of “craft” products, instead we want to produce a limited series of products. We’ll produce a smaller amount of these products, so that there is an element of luck in getting it.”

I nodded. It wasn’t a new marketing phenomenon. Limited edition products were seen across many industries. If you managed to get the product you could show it off, like a rare character skin in a video game, but if you didn’t, well then you could only watch others show off.

“That’s why we decided to look for you. Even though you’re a low leveled Dungeon Maker, that actually suits our purposes. We don’t want a dungeon that is large enough to support mass production across multiple cities or even for the entire city. Instead we want a dungeon that can produce a limited product that will only be available periodically. And since we intend to periodically release the product, the renewable nature of your dungeons would lend themselves to our business plan.”

I understood why he would look for us specifically. After discovering us in their investigation into Q&A Jelly, we fit very well into their planned foray into the exclusive product market. The fact that whatever product they wanted came from a renewable dungeon, which was a unique existence, would only lend it that much more prestige as such dungeons were a novel existence.

“I understand. However, I’m not sure if we’ll be able to help you.” I said straightforwardly, ignoring the sharp look Damien sent my way. “I have to know more about what type of product you’re trying to produce. Truthfully, while I have a large amount of knowledge that makes me uniquely qualified to produce renewable dungeons, I don’t have the practical experience with a number of high end materials that only are produced in higher level dungeons. Taking your Hellfire chips as an example, I don’t know the first thing about Quagmire Safflowers.”

Jacques smiled. “I appreciate you being so candid. Naturally we took your limitations into consideration before deciding to reach out. The first product we intend to produce isn’t something that requires familiarity with or experience in high level dungeon areas or designs. Frankly, it’s so basic that almost any beginner level dungeon maker could come up with it. Instead, it’s the renewable aspect that is more difficult to achieve.”

I felt a spark of curiosity as he explained their thoughts. “How about you let me know what the product is then before going any further? That way I can let you know if it’ll be a problem or not.”

“Very good. This is how it should be. The limited edition product that we intend to start with is something that appeals to everyone. No matter how rich or poor you are, it’s something you consume on a daily basis. I won’t drag the suspense on anymore. Put simply, we want you to come up with a dungeon to produce one thing: water.”