Ambassador Luciel Wells was one of the most respected men in the Kertian Empire. With his diplomatic finesse and gold level skills in flattery, he had risen from the ranks of a Common Knight to become a Member of The Kings Court as an aide to Foreign Minister, in mere twenty years. His ambition was to become a minister and do nothing but enjoy his life. This would have been all true, if not for the Emperor’s Decree which saw him now sitting at a Dwarven Bar trying to negotiate a deal with drunk dwarves, while dressed in his finest.

In his personal opinion, the Empire should have sent their army and simply conquered the Dwarven Strongholds and turned them into slaves - for they were rude, boisterous and incredibly bad mouthed. To him, who believed in cleanliness, and immaculate etiquettes, talking with a bunch of rude Dwarves was nothing but short of torture. He couldn’t fathom when had he slighted the Emperor, to get him punished so badly.

He once again looked at the Dwarven Chieftain Kharik, or something similar sounding, sitting in front of him. Barely a meter tall, he was stout and hairy. Except for a large leather armor, which obviously was extremely worn and old, rest of him was covered with torn, dirty rags. A large pickaxe, covered with dirt and rusted blood was sitting beside him.

His ugly face was grimy and covered with dust, soot and small pieces of meat from his dinner. Framing it was his similarly dirty unkempt hair, which had long lost their original color under all sorts of alien substances. He couldn’t help but wonder how many insects were currently using those hair as their home.

A large bulbous nose protruded from his face, hanging over his beard. While his beard, for lack of better terms, looked like a…well, nothing could be that hairy and dirty. In fact, he had personally seen him take out a tobacco pipe, tobacco pouch, wallet and few rolls of paper from his beard. This made him wonder if this wasn’t the reason behind, why stealing treasures form Dwarves is so difficult. Precious Gems such as pink and red diamonds, emeralds, ruby, and opal hung from his beard. Which instead of making him look rich, simply made him more obnoxious.

A large five colored metal band tied his dirty beard together. The metal band represented his level in Mining and Refining. A black Iron Band represented proficiency in mining and refining of Iron and Iron Ores. It was followed by a Copper Band, a band made of Gold, Silver, Steel, and Bronze. The bands represented that the person was allowed to work on these metals by the Dwarven Council.

In a true Dwarven Stronghold, the rank of such a person would be lower than a slave. Being so old and only mastering five metals was considered an insult to Dwarves and their Arts. But in human lands, they would be treated like grandmasters, because of their unparallel skills in working with those metals.

He was here to hire this tribe on the order of The Emperor, so they could mine The Burning Mountains for the Empire. But the person in front of him was turning out to be too stubborn to deal with. This was already his fifteenth meeting in past three months, and they were still stuck on the final pay.

“ Nawww…Ye very well knaw, how much we’all want! Nothin less than a sixty!” the dwarf said in his heavily accented Kertian, as he gulped down another jar of Ale.

“ Sir, you know a sixty will be impossible. We will pay you according to Dwarven Standards. And since we two are friends, I will put another Five percent to respect you.” The Ambassador calmly replied, while flinching away from the flying ale drops. The idiot in front of him had been stuck on seventy-five percent of the total minerals mined for a very long time. With much difficulty, he had reduced it to sixty, and now he was trying to lower it to acceptable rates.

“ Who da hell is yer friend?” he growled back.

As if he had never heard it, the ambassador continued, “ Also you know how dangerous are those mountains. We will need to send a full contingent of soldiers and mages to protect you all...”

“ Who needs your protection! Da Monsters will bey long dead before our axes!” he boasted, once again interrupting the Ambassador.

“ Sir, please! We all know, that your tribe doesn’t have such capabilities, or they would not be in such sorry state. And I would like to remind you that there are other tribes out there who would work for less. Only because you are my friend, that I have come to you first..”

“ Snort…At least ye know who’s better!” he snorted while munching on another boar leg while gulping on ale. “ But ye need to pay for de service. We are expensive. The battle with trolls have weakened us..we need medicines..ales…boar. How badly we are hurt. We won't be able to work..”

Sigh. The same thing once again. It was going to be a looonnggg, looonngg night.

The soul moved his conscious to the large breeding cavern. He was expecting a cavern teeming with spiders but instead found nothing. It was barren for all he could see. He once again focused his soul Sense and was finally able to sense a few spiders.

“ What the fuck happened here? Weren’t they suppose to breed?” he wondered aloud in shock. In fact, the total number of spiders were less than what he had left in the cavern.

NOTIFICATIONS DEMAND EXCEEDED SUPPLY, LEADING TO DROP IN POPULATION.

‘What does that mean? ” he asked the Blue box, who had replied in his usual cryptic and nonsense way.

NOTIFICATIONS SPIDERS WERE SUPPOSED TO FEED ON INSECTS. BUT INCREASING POPULATION RESULTED IN INCREASE IN DEMAND OF FOOD. THE SUPPLY OF INSECTS WEREN’T ENOUGH. THIS LED TO STARVATION.

“So? They died due to starvation?!?” the Soul further asked.

NOTIFICATIONS NOT EXACTLY. TO SAVE THEMSELVES AND CONTINUE YOUR ORDER TO BREED, THE SPIDERS TURNED CANNIBALISTIC. THEY STARTED ATTACKING EACH OTHER TO CONTINUE LIVING. THIS RESULTED IN A MASSIVE DECLINE OF SPIDER POPULATION, UNTIL THEY, COULD BE SUPPORTED BY INSECT DIET ONCE AGAIN.

“ So why are their still so few of them?”

NOTIFICATIONS DESPITE THIS THEIR CANNIBALISTIC NATURE CONTINUED. NOW SPIDERS PRIMARILY DEPEND ON EACH OTHER FOR FOOD, WHILE INSECTS MAKE A SMALL PERCENT OF THEIR DIET. THEY HAVE ALSO STARTED FEEDING ON LIZARDS, SNAKES, AND RATS WHICH HAPPEN TO ENTER THE CAVE.

‘Holy Shit! No wonder he felt he was forgetting something’ thought the soul while he looked at his masterpiece.

The massacre had reduced his spider population down to tens. But the alive spiders could be considered the best of the best. They were pure killing machines, who had been tempered in blood and battle. They had slowly transformed and adapted themselves to kill in the most efficient and safe way. On checking each one further, he was surprised by their transformation and innovative way to use runes.

In case of Rock Spiders, three variants had emerged. The first one looked like a normal Rock Spider except for its extremely tough carapace and sharp mandibles. It had learned how to use its body color and ambush unsuspecting victims. He could imagine it biting on an adventurer’s leg and chewing its legs apart, while they tried to kill it. By the time they would be able to break its carapace, the leg would have been long eaten or munched to nothingness.

Similarly, another variant turned out to be Rock Spiders with the ability to control earth. Here also they had progressed in the ‘Way’ of ambush and melee. Using earth they could create small bullets to shoot. Although not lethal, it would hurt like hell. Furthermore, it could envelope itself with earth, making its defense ridiculously strong. The only fault being the spider was too heavy and its leg couldn’t support it much. Except walking on the ground, other activities were almost impossible, unless it wanted to break its legs.

The third variant was the most interesting and also the most adaptable. The spider had learned to control metal. Just controlling wouldn’t have attracted so much attention. Its second ability was to ‘eat’ metals. It could rapidly eat metals, and use it to enhance its body. He could see iron, copper, gold, and aluminum enhanced spiders. They had used the metal to cover there body and also turn their legs into nasty spears.

On the other hand, not many changes could be seen in the Black Dart Spiders. Their poison had grown stronger, but except ice, dark and wood, no elemental affinity had been gained. Their bodies had turned smaller and each and everyone was extremely adept in using the Dark Element. Their usual way of hunting would be to hide in the shadows and spit venom. But instead of continuing the fight, they would run away and follow the prey, while doing surprise attacks on them. In short, they had turned into guerillas. Ice Poison would slowly freeze the affected parts until the prey’s body froze. But this was in case of small insects and animals. He wasn’t even sure how it would affect humans or large animals. Dark Poison would simply start corroding the flesh. Wood Poison turned out to be the most versatile. Few Wood Elemental Poison spiders could heal through venom, while others slowly turned the flesh into the wood. He was sure there were more things to be unearthed there, but for now, he was happy with it.

Silk Spiders looked the same, except their silk gained runic affinity. Their silk looked the same but now few of them could burn, other’s turned venomous, some gained extreme tensile strength while the rest turned sharp.

The Army Spiders grew more intelligent, and they even learned how to hypnotize others to become their slave. Some of them gained illusion abilities which allowed them to hide in plain sight, while others could hide other objects through illusion. A fascinating thing was how they would send spies into other camps to learn more about them. They were extremely versatile and in his opinion the most dangerous. A small group of them were even using Silk Spider’s to create basic runes, although their success rate was pathetic.

But apart from all this, his most valuable gain was the runes. The runes had adapted to their body and were slowly turning into Inheritance Runes. These runes maybe sometime in the future would turn into true Inheritance Runes, and finally turn into dao bones. It would hold all its understanding on that runes, and anyone could later gain enlightenment through them. Although the resulting dao bone would be the most inferior one. But do spider have bones? This was going to be weirdly intresting…

Using his Soul Energy and Mana he pulled all of them out of that cavern and let them roam free in the newly created tunnels. The tunnels now had several small chambers connecting to the major path, all due to the earthworms. He ordered the spiders to make their home in these small tunnels and chambers. This would also be a chance for them to get some variety in their hunting.

And now to make ‘The Traps!’

Traps...he really had no idea about how to make basic phyical traps. immortals preferred Arrays over the primitive methods. He really wanted to hook up some crazy restriction to create some amazing traps. He could see endless possibilities for ways to create traps and obstacles. But once again, lack of materials was stopping him. He needed mana stones to move his plan any further, which according to Mr. Blue Box, fortunately, did exist. Mana stones condensed in spots with high mana concentration. Once mana level reaches a limit it turns into gas, liquid and finally crystallized rocks. Usually, mana stones would start emerging soon once a dungeon was born. But, it would be after few months or years, that mana stones would emerge unless due to some lucky chances the mana concentration increases drastically.

Seeing this, a crazy plan was forming in his head…Wait! Do dungeon crystals have a head? Or will a soul’s head be counted? The soul is intangible, and his head is not exactly his head…

Ughhh..back to the crazy plan.

A mana stone forms in places where mana concentration is high. What if he artificially creates one? Like in his Core Chamber? The mana was already in a gaseous state in his so-called Dungeon. He just needed to give it a little push. He could either create another array, but this time use it for the sole purpose of creating mana stones, maybe by powering it using his monsters? Or he could simply reduce the volume, forcing the gaseous mana to collect and finally solidify?

As far he could see, the plan was entirely feasible. Except for the new Concentration Chamber, that was what he was going to call it, wouldn’t exactly work as the best seal. Rocks, weren't exactly the best sealing material, neither were metals. But they should be enough for this purpose.

Hurriedly he willed metal and rocks to form a cylindrical chamber around him. It was going to lock him and his array in. He waited and waited, but no mana was gathering inside. The concentration wasn’t exactly high. Confused, he willed the chamber to go back to its previous state.

What was the problem here?

After some investigation he finally noticed, there was no mana for the array to gather. The chamber was sealing mana in, but also sealing the mana from coming in. the mana already available was absorbed by him. So the plan was ditched for MANA STONE PLAN 2.

This time he created a container but away from him and let the foggy mana gather in it. Once done, he sealed it off, and slowly reduced the size. The smaller it got, the more difficult it became. He would keep checking it using his soul sense, to get an idea of when to stop. The extra material was discarded. This kept on going until he was exhausted. Once recovered he once again started the reduction. After few hours the whole container was now thumb size. According to his soul sense. mana was finally crystallized. But the result was disappointing…extremely disappointing.

The mana stone was small. No tiny would better define it. It was pinhead size. And the energy in it wasn’t exactly great enough to be used. In fact, it was useless…utterly useless.

PLAN 2 SOMEWHAT SUCCESSFUL.

Plan 3. A large container instead of a small one. The container was ten times bigger than the previous one. The result was a bit larger mana stone. Not exactly what he wanted

Plan 4. The plan was somewhat different. Make it extremely crazy different. He hypothesized that since the array was gathering mana on him, he was absorbing most of it. What if he stopped absorbing, and let mana collect inside the array? He stopped absorbing and let the array collect the mana. With his mana reserves, he could power the array for a day easily. Increasing the power would increase the absorbing speed proportionately. He slowly started increasing the power supply to the array but kept it around acceptable limits. He didn’t want a bursting array. Believe him, they hurt a lot. Like a fricking lot.

After six hours, mana was in liquid form inside the array, but he was out of juice. So he couldn’t help but absorb the mana juice. Pun intended.

PLAN 4 FAIL

The idea and direction were right, but the technique was wrong. He needed to gather more mana. This time he started the array but tried to control the man inside with his soul power. He tried to condense it. And it turned out to be extremely difficult. The energy was too large to control.

PLAN 5 FAIL

This time he decided to use an idea he had gained from few cultivation techniques. Many techniques would ask the cultivator to create a whirlpool inside their dantian to attract more Qi. This time, he would create a whirlpool inside the array to attract more mana once the array started, he controlled a little bit of mana making it go round and round inside the array. The resulting tiny whirlpool started attracting more mana and getting larger and larger. By the time two hours had passed, a human size mana whirlpool was spinning inside the array. The mana concentration was several times higher than any of his previous experiments, and the array wasn’t even done with.

Drops of mana were falling inside the container, which he had created in hurry, once he realized that all the main would spill on the ground. The inside was lined with the slowest mana absorbing metal he could find.

After six hours the meter tall container was full with liquid mana. Now to turn it into the crystal. He closed the container and started reducing its size to increase the pressure inside.

Kabooooommmmmm…..it burst.

Th room was a mess, and as was PLAN 6.

He needed something stronger.

PLAN 7. This time he was using a container made of diamond. It worked, except it was extremely difficult to work with. Finally, after several hours of work and tens of recovery later, a fist size mana stone was formed. A fist size mana stone. His first mana stone!

Grinning, the soul kept on examining the piece of art. It was like a trapezoid in shape and foggy white in color. This small crystal wasn’t a perfect mana stone but would be enough to speed up his plans. It had almost ten times more mana than his current form. In short, it was like ten power supply cores.

Hurriedly, he created another spirit gathering array. But this time it covered his whole chamber. He activated it and started the whirlpool spirit collection technique. This technique was officially the first mana collection technique…which was created by a dungeon…unless there were others like him…which he really doubted.

The new mana stone worked as a core for the new array. The new array was far more powerful than his first array. A large whirlpool was spinning inside his chamber. Within minutes, liquid mana was flowing inside his room. He was so into his experiment, that he didn’t notice all his monsters were gathered around him.

Nor that his mana storm had sucked all available mana in surrounding few kilometers.

And that his dungeon door was broken…or the notification which had notified him.