Louie was still half asleep when he woke up at 04:00, taking a leisurely stretch till his neck and shoulders cracked.

His brain was screaming for coffee, but his body was used to running on auto so he managed to stumble across to his bathroom for his morning routine without any serious hiccups.

He was glad about the cistern that he had installed the previous night since there was nothing better than a shower in the morning, except for maybe strong black coffee.

Halfway through the shower, his mind finallywoke up and caught up with his body, and he paused, contemplating his day ahead. Shampoo dripped from his hair and ran into his eyes.

‘Shit, that burns! ‘, he thought irritably.

‘Fuck, where are the notification settings?’

He found the settings and changed it to only notify him during battle and then only with a 50% transparency in the bottom right corner.

After his shower Louie laid out his clothes and armour on his bed. He went through the armour with a fine toothbrush, studying every stitch and buckle.

‘Hmm, I will have to make myself another set of armour, this one is still ok, but it has seen better days. I wonder if there is a Mend or Repair spell at the vendor?’

As he came down the stairs, he noticed that everybody was already awake and drinking some coffee. "Morning, The others left already?"

Celia nodded, "Yes, the Captain and his team left at 2 o'clock, then Swanie and his team left about half an hour ago."

"Good."

The schedule was worked out during the meeting yesterday.

"Everybody ready? We leave at 6, so make sure you’ve got all that you need. As I said, only take the clothes you will wear for now. Take all the underwear you will need because the vendor has no notion of what constitutes underwear. Only take your personal weapon like your slingshots, everything else like food, armour even weapons, we will get at the vendor

He watch as they sheepishly started removing unesesary items from their inventory. Louie took a seat and opened the tower interface.

Greetings

Your wizard's tower is ready for formatting.

Would you like to initiate formatting now

Y/N

He pressed Y.

A BB appeared with many options. He quickly browsed through the tower designs and saw that there were thousands of different ones. From fantasy Disneyland to Darklord style that looked like something that was created in Hell and adorned with the bodies of your enemies.

‘Shit, really? That is nightmare fuel right there.’

The one design that caught his eye was No:69. It was nearly the same as he had right now. It looked like the Brixton Tower with 6 floors of apartments wrapped around the bottom core of the tower.

Louie clicked on the image and saw a lot of options from the interior of the apartment to the layout of the floors, not to mention the primary tower and the rooms at the top.

He noticed that the tower was linked to him, so as he raised his level, the tower would increase one level every five levels of his.

At Level 1, the tower would retain its current shape with some improvements, like hot and cold water to every kitchen and bathroom, mana powered lights throughout the building and appliances in the central kitchen.

What excited him most was that the wizard tower had a portal that could connect to other smaller towers that he has to build and would allow the wizard, and only the wizard, to travel between towers. He also had the option to contribute material that could be incorporated into the construction of the tower. He selected 30 rolls of Gnome Wrap and 20 spools of Spider Silk.

He smiled as a thought struck him.

‘Why not?’ Still smiling, he contributed the bodies of the drider Darkmage and the Queen’s consort, one of each affinity type golem core as well as 4 spider eggs. ‘Haha, let's see what that will do.’

At level 2, he had the option to incorporate charms into the tower or limit it to certain parts. He immediately thought of the Sculpture of Prestidigitation and envisioned a self-cleaning tower.

At level 3, he could generate spatial rooms with different environments.

‘Shit, are there no limits to what the tower can be?’

The limit to the wizard's tower is only limited to the Owner's levels and imagination

‘Huh? Damn, I need a couple of days to go through this.’

He had just thought that when a translucid tablet appeared next to him. He picked it up.

Tower interface:

This is an incorporeal Device to everybody but the owner of this tower.

This interface displays a schematic and all relevant information about the tower.

With this interface, any changes to the tower can be viewed or edited.

Any changes to the tower will only start if the interface is within 100m of the tower.

‘Nice! For now, let's go with the Brixton tower, No:69, keep the layout as it is now. I'll just add the extra floors and height with water and power and a semi minimalist style.’

"Heads up, people, some changes are happening to the Tower."

Everybody sat up straight and started looking around.

Louie pressed the accept button on the screen, and a ripple ran through the tower as the changes started. A 12h timer started ticking off on the Tablet.

‘Huh? I thought it was an instant change.’

He shrugged, placed the tablet in his inventory and stood up.

"Let's go, people."

Louie and his team were the last to hit the Dungeon today. The first team was the Sergeant, who was now the Guard Captain of Starter Town.

He was going through the Dungeon for the second and last time, together with Leon Koen, whom Louie had loaned his boltgun, Jackson, Debbie and Mainey as their healer.

Next was Swanie, the archer from Gsquad, who as the team leader was taking with him Christean Else, Micheal Nasser, the second eldest child of Craig Nasser, the leatherworker and councilman of starter town, and Kotche, a former soldier who had arrived and asked to join, and strangely Counselor, the ex councilman of Worcester. Christian would stock up on potions and act as a medic/mage.

Louie's team consisted of Celia Malan, who was the mother of the girl Ansi bit and healed and the two Viljoen sisters. The last member of his team was a surprise.

The previous night as he said goodnight to the Sewing Circle, he was approached by Fredrick Brown, the chandler, who handed him four bars of soap and asked if his niece could join his caravan.

When Louie expressed his doubt, the niece appeared out of thin air in front of him. She wore a full face mask and had an extremely high level in sneak and camouflage. Fredrick left them to talk.

After a long discussion, it turned out that she was the one that has been helping people that needed problems solved when the gangs tried to take over after the pulse. She was also the person that took all the medicine before lighting the doctor's tent on fire.

She didn't want to give her real name but went by the name Shadow. Louie told her to be at the tower at 05:30

As they left, Louie turned around and looked up at the tower. It looked as if the tower were covered in a shimmering cloud. Just as they were going to leave, he got a message

(Louie, Wait before you enter the Dungeon, I need to talk to you. Sher)

Louie created a couple of benches next to one of the light poles and told everybody to take a seat for a moment.

A slightly out of breath, Sher joined them a moment later. "Morning Louie, I'm glad I caught you before you left."

Louie hugged her. "Morning, you forgot something last night?"

She shook her head. "No, but I did forget to tell you something. . . Let me ask you. Have you been using your armour?"

Louie looked down at his armour in confusion. "Yes, you know we have, since the day that I made it."

Sher shook her head. "Louie, I realised something with my last Dive. Our armour that you made, its attributes isn't passive. We never checked if it is. They only work when you channel mana through it."

"What?" Louie shouted in shock.

He calmed down and started thinking back to the fights they had in the Dungeon, to the time he was skewered by the Lightning mage spike.

"Shit, I was wondering why that lightning spike penetrated my armour so easily. At that time, I thought that it was because it was so much stronger than me."

He stood up and channelled his mana through his armour, circulating it back to his mana pool. Immediately he could feel the difference as the night sound dimed around him. He looked at his boots.

He shook his head and opened his stat page.

Shit. And there it is.

Active Armour attributes Full set mitigates 70% damage up to the level of the wearer, minus 10% for every level above.

Full set +50%

Mask: grant a 50% chance to find hidden objects/traps

Gloves: grant Fingers won’t lose grip

Cuirrass: grant 10% chance to spell damage

Leggings: mitigate 50% of fear effects

Belt: 4 weapon spatial slots 1Sq each. Can Stack 10.

Boots: + 50% 1meter diameter sound suppressant

"Damn, I can't believe we never tested this out."

He leaned over and gave her a pec on her cheek. "Thanks, Sis."

He froze as he realised what he just said. Did I just call her Sis? He looked at the shock reflected in her face. Why not?

He gave her a shrug, "You and Joe are the closest to a family that I have."

Sher stood up and gave him a tight hug which he returned. "Thanks, Louie"

She turned around and jogged into the night.

Louie stood there for a time, thinking about what this acknowledgement means to him.

'Family. To have a family again.' He ruthlessly suppressed the vision of blood coated walls of his family house.

'Never again, I must make sure they stay safe.'

He gathered his new team around him and set off towards the Dungeon.

It was still dark and quiet as they walked through the growing Town.

'I got to get some and make some streetlights.'

They crossed over the bridge and stopped next to the guard post.

"Good morning, Guardsman." Louie smiled at the guard. He knew there were some mixed feelings among the former soldiers that are now known as Guardsmen.

"Morning, Sir, are you the third team that's going to enter today?" Louie said yes, and the guard took down all their details and only raised a brow when Shadow insisted that she has only one name.

"Ok, Sir, I will dot down the entry time soon as I see you all go in. Break a leg."

"Thank you, Guardsman. Have a nice day."

They walked up to the Dungeon and touched the shield. Louie received a shock.

Welkom Dungeon Owner. Would you like to enter the Dungeon as the Owner? Y

Would you like to enter the Dungeon as an Adventurer? Y

'What the fuck? Really?' Then he remembered that he had claimed the Dungeon that night they had placed the cornerstone for the town hall.

Louie pressed adventurer Y 'Haven't got time to do this now, got to get my people levelled up.'

There was a blue flash, and they found themselves in the Dungeon safe zone.

Huguenot Tunnel Dungeon Requirement for entry; Party not exceeding five members, Level 5 -10.

Dungeon level 5 instanced. Blue. Mechanised. Challenge.

The dungeon must be cleared before parties can exit.

299 Days till Dungeon break if not cleared.

Party must exit the Dungeon for the break timer to reset.

Dungeon limited to three instances. (3/3) Dungeon Quest Clear the Huguenot Tunnel of Dungeon to reset the Break timer

000B

Reward:

1000Gold Rounds, 3000 Exp, Personal item per member of the party, Access to the Vendor

Failure:

Death = Trapped in the Dungeon

He had told them what to expect, but they were still surprised at the restroom.

While they were all marvelling about everything, Louie went to the vendor and bought himself twenty vendor catalogues. They only cost 1bit each. He also got a set of panniers, four 40sq backpacks and twenty Cook's pantry bracelets.

His gold coins were starting to run low since he had loaned each of the three teams members 60G each, to be returned on completion of their Dive.

"Come everybody. Get what you need from the vendor. I want to be out there killing Golems in one hour."

He stepped out of their way and placed all the kitchen appliances in his inventory. He did not forget the mana fridge this time.

Louie waited till Shadow was done with the vendor before he pulled her aside for a talk.

"You got a high stealth skill, but do you have any range skills? I know it's too late now. I should have asked you last night if you know about and ?"

"I have both skills. I have been watching the training that the Guards are getting and have been practising on my own. I have also been practising with some old throwing knives, and I made my own shurikens."

"Did you look through the vendor if there are throwing knives?" She shook her head. "I looked. There is nothing here. But from what I heard, I think that there might be at the second vendor."

Louie asked her to place her shuriken on the table.

There were a total of 24 different styles of blades. "Let me see your armour." She placed her armour on the table next to the knives.

"I see that you went with a ninja shozoku. Pitty I would have gone with more protection since you have already got a high stealth skill, but it's up to you."

"Hmm, ok, this might work. Go put on your armour."

While she was in the bathroom, Louie searched through his inventory until he found the items he was looking for. One was a wide pink coloured snap bracelet depicting a little girl playing with a yoyo that they got from the first Dungeon Dive BOT's.

Trick Snap Bracelet A bracelet that allows the wearer to throw their weapon held in the hand that wears the bracelet up to 10meter and it will return to the hand.

When she returned, he took some tape and asked her where she would place the weapons. He fashioned sheaths for all the weapons from the Gnomewrap and stuck them to her armour with the tape.

He then had her do a bit of acrobatics while drawing the weapons.

Louie saw everybody watching them with a confused expression on their faces. When the knives were where she wanted them, he used the Everbonding glue to stick them in place.

Everbonding Glue This viscous, milky-white substance can form a permanent adhesive bond between any two objects. A container contains 5 ounces.

The glue takes 1 minute to set. Once it has done so, the bond it creates can be broken only by the application of a wish spell.

She went to the bathroom and brought the Uwagi back, and placed it on the table. Everybody recoiled from the table as he took one of the arms of the assassin golem from his inventory and its aura flowed around the pieces. Louie started carving long thin strips from it.

"What the hell is this?"

Louie looked up and saw Shadow studying the arm up close and the other looking at the arm with dread.

"That is a piece of an assassin Golem that we will face later in the Dungeon. That is if the same golems respawned. I forgot to ask Joe and Sher."

He used the engraving pen to cut grooves in her weapons and glued the strips in the grooves. He glued the armband to the back on the inside of the jacket. He placed the weapons in their sheathes and rolled the whole jacket up as tight as he could.

Taking a deep breath, he ran his mana through the bundle and used

kunoichi Uwagi This kunoichi Uwagi was modified by the armourer Louie to house the shuriken set for a dark and mysterious stealth warrior.

Return: any weapons placed in the sheaths will be infused with return after 6h.

Stealth: + 50% while equipped

Agility: + 40% while equipped

kunoichi Shuriken set

This set of 24 throwing knives are dipped in darkness but lightweight and extremely sharp.

They are great for beginner kunoichi. They will return to the sheaths 15sec after being thrown.

Level 10

Throwing weapons Speed 11

Damage 50

Entropy Damage: 30

They all stood and stared slackjawed at the jacket.

Louie thought it was the perfect time to grind one of his spells. He cast on the different knives and the jacket, receiving three blueprints: a throwing star, a throwing knife, and one for an armoured jacket.

'Nice, this one I can give Craig, I'm sure it will improve his armour jackets a bit.'

"I will modify each and everyone's armour during this Dungeon dive, but here is something that I just found out this morning."

He sighed. "I was an idiot. So learn by not making my mistakes. You got to channel your mana through your armour."

Celia raised her hand. "Uuh, not mine, when I put on my armour, it showed under a heading ."

The rest all agreed with her.

"What. . . Damn then it must be something that I did wrong with my spell when I made the armour. I will check it out when we rest tonight. Let's get ready."

They finished up and met in the zone in front of the restrooms.

"Be on the lookout for anything strange. The first section should have no golems but always assume that there are enemies around. Let's move out slow and steady."

Shadow disappeared. Louie concentrated at the spot where she vanished and noticed a slight distortion moving away from them.

There were some changes to the tunnel.

The first was a wall of rock closing of the road where the Rolls-Royce was, and the second was the first golem they encounter in front of that wall.

It wasn't a rhino beetle like the last time, but a giant shongololo covered in armour plates. It had a diameter of about 90cm and was nearly 10m long. Louie first thought it was some kind of snake till he saw the legs.

"Ok, I think I have a way to kill this centipede, I'm going to make a long tube of stone, BOB will go tag it, and when it chases him, he is going to lead it down the tube, and then I will seal it in, and we will kill it."

They looked nervous but agreed to the plan.

Louie sunk a stone culvert 1meter in diameter and 20 meters long in the middle of the road. He sends BOB to tag the monster and kite it down the pipe.

The moment BOB exit the pipe, Louie closed it off at each end and shrunk it down, practically gift wrapping the shongololo. He cleared the stone from the golem's first meter and started spitting and secreting some foul fluid that made them gag.

"Everybody get back. Kill it from a distance."

They were nervous, but they took it as the perfect opportunity to try out on a living creature. Three glowing balls hit the millipede tearing big chunks of metal from its head. It screamed in rage.

Shadow had trouble keeping her mana in the blades to activate . Still, after the third try, she got it right, and her throwing knife disappeared between two armour plates.

Louie let them practise a bit before taking his naginata and, powering it for ten seconds, release a that cut through the millipede right behind the first set of legs.

The head toppled to the ground as Louie rushed over and inventoried the back section before stabbing his spear into the core that was now clearly visible from the back of the severed body segment.

1250 exp gained

Defeated: Shongololo Golem

This golem came into existence in the Huguenot Tunnel Dungeon and are carnivorous and venomous. They sting and eat their prey, which typically consists of anything fleshy and will attack you if you approach them.

The girls exclaimed in wonder as they levelled up twice except Francine, who got three levels.

Shadow volunteered to carry the panniers and looted the head of the golem.

Louie instructed her to loot everything that is not attached to the floor, and if it looks like it's not part of the structure to come to call him, and he will loosen it to be looted.

Loot Received 10S halves, 3G Rounds each.

1 feedbag: bag with odds and ends.

2 Iron ingots: two plain iron bars.

1 sealed container of hydrochloric acid.

1 sealed container of hydrogen cyanide.

"Hmm, nice crafting components".

They moved through the opening into the workspace, and Louie saw that the golems were in teams of four again. The nearest team was only three, so he assumed that the millipede was its fourth member but told them to keep an eye out in case he was wrong.

The golems had all changed, they looked more insectile than transformers, but they were still made from metal.

"Shit, they all got four arms and are armoured up. Ok. We got no tanks, so always take out the casters first, then the range attackers them the melee fighters."

Louie pointed to what was basically a supersized praying mantis at least two meters long, its forearms were razor-sharp scythes made of metal. Its body was a bright green, a triangular head with razor-sharp mandibles.

"That is zippy. It is fast, a rouge type, so it's like Shadow. The one next to it is a fire mage, and then the tank is the big one with the big scythe-like swords".

He used and shared the reports with them.

Mantis golem HP: 50

MP:80

The mantis golems are hunters, assassins, and survivors. They do not have a stable family unit, but individuals remain loyal to the Dungeon. Mantises have displayed primitive levels of intelligence. They use stealth to strike at unsuspecting prey. These magnificent insects help the Dungeon by hunting and eating adventurers and other pests. Fire Beetle golem HP: 50

MP:660

These beetles use infrared receptors to seek out nearby fires to lay their eggs in them. Beetles of the genus Melanophila, commonly known as fire chaser beetles, have evolved to cast fire to create their nests. Stag Beetle golem HP: 680

SP:350

Male stag beetles have evolved extremely large mandibles that function as weaponry in fights for females. These detachable scimitar-like mandibles of these golems can get as long as their own body. Owing to this disproportional weaponry, trade-offs exist. Running is unstable and approximately 40% more costly.

"We will take the fire beetle first, then zippy the mantis. I will deal with the tank."

Louie created a pillbox for them to shoot from because there was a good chance that these golems can fly.

They all aimed from inside the pillbox and decapitated the fire beetle. It toppled onto its back and burst into flames. The mantis jumped into the air and disappeared as the tank started stomping towards them.

They all backed away from the loophole just as there was a whoosh sound. The scythes slashed through the opening and space where they just stood.

Louie traped its blade-like arms in stone, and Shadow appeared behind the mantis removing its head. The core was situated between its big compound eyes.

The tank stomped up to the door opening and lifted its swords to slash down on the pillbox when it suddenly dropped in liquid stone till only its swords were visible.

Louie uses the technics they had perfected in the previous Dungeon dive. He cut through the wrist and inventoried the blades before bringing the golem to the surface while systematically cutting it apart before removing the core and looting it.

They had to shoot the fire mage a couple of times from outside his range before the fire went out, and he was able to get near it. Louie decides to drop it in stone and rip it apart and not take the chance of it releasing a burst of fire while they were busy cutting it apart.

Loot received 30S halves, 9G Rounds each.

3 feedbags: bags with odds and ends.

6 Iron bars: six plain iron bars.

4 Golem piece: four pieces of the killed Golems.

2 Fire crystals: Runed crystals imbued with fire element.

The next set of 4 golems was two stag beetles and two mantises.

Everybody Louie included fired at the mantises, he used one of the crossbows they borrowed from the golems last time they were here.

After they looted the bodies, the ladies had gone up to level 6, and Louie levelled up to 11.

'Nice, they should make level 10 when they are done with the Dungeon.'

He had thought that it might go to Tier 1 like his skills, but his level had just clicked over to 11.

He did get two new tabs in his Status, one marked sets and another rep. When he opened the one marked sets, there were 5sq where he could place clothing sets, and he could swap between them by just selecting one. He did not know how to feel about this because he had already started doing that without the tabs.

The other one was marked rep, and when he opened the tab, it gave him a list of people and the reputation he had with them. There was one name under the outpost heading, and it read Drostdy THS with a score of 95/100.

'Well, I don't think the Town or the Fort will be on here because technically, I have the majority share in both.'

Louie told them to deny their class if it is something they don't want. He wasn't sure what class the system would give the Viljoen sisters since Tawaret removed their slave Class. Shadow got the choice of Darkstrider, Ninja and Soul Reaver.

She liked the way that Darkstrider sounded and thought it had to do with her stealth, so she went for that. Ninja and Soul Reaver sounded more about killing from the shadows and she didn't want to be known as a killer.

Darkstrider Darksiders can step through shadow from your current plane of existence and appear in a shadow reality. You can return to an unoccupied shadow of your choice by stepping into that shadow. It must be within 10meters of the space travelled from. While on the shadow reality, you can see and hear the plane you originated from, which is cast in monochrome. Anything past 10 meters is covered in fog. Level 1 Darksiders can only stay in the shadow plane for up to 2min at a time.

Status

Name:

Lewis (Louie) Poren

Race:

Human (Male) Lvl 11 (207 585/ 409 600 -> lvl 12)

Class:

Seeker (2) (55%)

Sub-classes:

(exterminator) (2%)

Titles:

Jack Black Brodifacoum, Trailblazer, Liberator. (Dungeon pioneer)

Affinity:

Darkness

Statistics

Health points (HP):

473

Mana Points (MP):

363

Stamina (SP):

583

Critical Hit Chance

4%

Attributes

Strength:

22

Agility:

17

Constitution:

21

Perception:

20

Intelligence:

18

Willpower:

15

Charisma:

7

Luck:

5

Free attribute points:

0

Skills

Skill

Level

Progression

Wu shu

3

60/100

Improvised weaponry:

T1: 0

51/100

Glacial Rage:

6

30/100

Meditation

4

30/100

Regeneration:

7

88/100

Mana Manipulation:

7

60/100

Survival:

7

40/100

Cooking:

0

10/100

Harvesting:

0

00/100

Whittling:

0

0/100

Pain resistance:

7

75/100

Poison resistance:

3

37/100

Cat`s eye:

2

14/100

Senses:

4

20/100

Armourer

5

10/100

System Minimap:

1

40/100

Cartography:

1

50/100

Class Skill Proficiencies

Investigation

Level 5 (35/100)

Tracking

Level 4 (24/100)

Intuition

Level 9 (85/100)

Analyze

T1 Level 0 (80/100)

Spells

Spell

Level

Progression

Activation

Improvise

6

25/100

Touch

Earth Manipulation

T1: 9

90/100

Cast

Earth Sense

2

20/100

Touch

Weapon Schematics

8

50/100

Touch