Erin retreated to the home base he had made for himself in the entry cave. By the time he made it halfway through, the residents began respawning. This time though, the spawns were different. Instead of spawning in variable increments that were stronger the closer one was to the boss room, every cavern held fifty goblins, two goblin chieftains, and a pidgit matriarch. Where before Erin had been clearing caverns cautiously but efficiently, he was now relegated to kiting from the cave entrance until he was out of mana, then running back into the tunnels. He found that as long as he stopped attacking, the mobs would eventually give up chasing; returning to their assigned posts.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Erin as dumping his mana into one or a few large attacks proved to be far more effective at power-leveling his relevant skills, and max mana than the conservative approach to mana usage. His effective power rose quickly as he wound his way slowly through the caverns. The increased numbers of enemies also meant that he earned skill points at a prodigious rate. By the time he reached his base, Erin had earned over eight hundred skill points. This time, because he was already able to tank the monster’s attacks with relative ease, he invested half of his points into mana. Naturally, conscious of the overwhelming enemy numbers, Erin still invested some points into toughness.

Laying down in the corner of the entrance cavern, Erin tried to sleep, but found that he couldn’t. With the constant struggle, he found it harder and harder to release the mindset of emptiness he had adopted to keep his feelings under control during combat. Now, it was keeping his mind aware, his body ready for a fight he logically knew wasn’t coming. Groaning, he flopped onto his side, and opened his stat page to look through his numbers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Skill Points: 4

+HP: 275

+MP: 366

+DP: 40

+Strength: 13

+Endurance: 12

+Agility: 7

+Intelligence: 15

+Toughness: 30

+Recovery: 11

Skills:

General Magic: 25

Fire Magic(Control): 5

Fire Magic(Creation: 2

Wind Magic(Control): 6

Earth Magic(Control): 22

Water Magic(Creation): 13

Water Magic(Control): 22

Farming: 18

Hand to Hand: 13

Evasion: 10

Language(Almenian): 25

Language(English): 56

Magic Portals: 1

Time Compression: 1

Dimensional Storage: 2

Divinity: 9

Holy Water: 1

Divine Healing: 3

Divine Coding: 4

Cleansing Flame: 2

Divine Appraisal(Organic): 1

Walking: 2

Dehydration Resistance: 5

Pain Resistance: 6

Haggling: 3

Other:

Divine Body

+Notes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Staring blankly at the glowing white panel, Erin sighed, and dismissed it. He was getting close to the point where he could wipe out an entire cavern with a single magical attack, but it wouldn’t do him any good if he eventually passed out from exhaustion. Groaning, Erin turned over to his other side.

------------------------------------------

The dungeon core railed against his programming like a gamer smashing his hands into a keyboard.

“How the hell is he still alive!? I spawned so many!” He cried into the void of stone around him. The underlying intelligence stifled his adopted persona to begin the arduous task of resolving his problem.

“Hmmm. The limiting factors are engagement range, and creature effectiveness. If I had solved engagement range earlier, he would have died then, but now I also need to find a way to increase my monster’s stats to match my foe’s increasing strength.” The core mused to itself, before diving into the programming rules of the monsters. “What to do, what to do. There are hard limitations on the minimum and maximum numbers I can set here. Even maximized engagement range doesn’t reach the next room. Useless. Nothing here satisfies my needs.”

The core noticed a hazy box that was almost invisible to him just at the edge of his consciousness. Trying to summon it produced no results, and in the end it took several minutes of mental struggle before he managed to resolve the hidden file into something he could use.

“Event traits? Ah, the dungeon event system was turned off, that explains why the file was hidden. It seems that I’ve managed to activate the event system though, so these should be usable.”

The core worked his way through the list, analyzing and experimenting as Erin slept fitfully. It determined that only one event trait could be added to a creature at a time, which severely restricted his options. After several hours he had finally tested the entire list. “So, I need a single trait that simultaneously delimits engagement range, and allows my monsters to exceed their stat maximums.” The core sat silently for several seconds, computing. Only one answer presented itself.

“This will be problematic, but the threat must be eliminated.” he resolved, adding the sentience trait to every single monster throughout his dungeon. Task accomplished, the core allowed its chosen persona to regain control.

“This is gonna be so epic!” He screamed cheerfully.

---------------------------------------------------

Erin awoke with a start as a loud chime sounded throughout the dungeon. In front of him, a popup manifested.

Goal: Escape the first floor

Reward: I mean you get to live, I’d say that’s pretty good!>

“That’s not how event rewards work!” Erin yelled at the ceiling, gamer instincts flaring in outrage.

Said a new popup that replaced the previous one. Erin grumbled about “sadistic game designers” but pulled himself to his feet. Seemingly in keeping with the personality of his new antagonist, the crystalline substance glowing in the wall suddenly changed its color from green to red.

“Well that’s not ominous at all.” Erin muttered.

Stepping into the tunnel, Erin moved to the next cavern. Lurking in the tunnel, he stared in shock at what he saw. In front of him two armies of goblins engaged in a pitched battle. As he watched, the local pidgit matriarch seemed to awake from a deep sleep. Squawking in irritation, it launched into the air, and began attacking both sides. Once it engaged, the other pidgits followed; dive-bombing the assembled goblins. The battle lines fell into chaos as the goblins were forced to turn their attention to the air attack while still taking occasional shots at each other.

Erin shook his head, and pulled a cactus fruit from storage, deciding that it was better to watch the show rather than getting involved. By the time he finished his fruit, the numbers of all three sides had been cut in half. Deciding this was a good time to intervene so that he still received his share of the skill points, Erin channeled over half his mana pool into a single massive dust storm that tore into the assembled monsters as if he was attacking them with a storm of razors.

“I’ll have to remember that idea if I ever learn metal control magic.” Erin muttered to himself. When his storm cleared, only the pidgits were left. He ignored the regular pidgits, who injured themselves against his skin more often than they caused actual damage. Thrusting his hand forward, Erin cast dozens of small stones forward like a shotgun. The incoming air blade knocked several of them back to the ground, but didn’t even penetrate his skin. Chunks of bloody bird fell to the ground a moment later. Glancing at the horde of pidgits, who were still engaging in their futile bombing runs, Erin quickly tore through them with individual shots of stone until there were none left.

Erin glanced around at the cave, confirming that nothing was left. “Well, this just happened.”