Chapter 28 - BOSSES!

Right now there were strings of messages celebrating the revival of the main thread. If I remember correctly, the first time I had used forums Void and Undead King mentioned something about two people taking up the entire main thread. Scrolling back, it seems like they've been having this argument for several weeks. Well, I suppose there is no point just standing around doing nothing.

Plant Dungeon: Hello everyone!

Demon Town Dungeon: Oh plant your back?

Plant Dungeon: Yup!

Plant Dungeon: I need some advice, I heard from my pixie that a party of silver ranks will arrive at my place in 3 weeks.

(3rd person I suppose)

Void God Dungeon was not actually angry, he just felt mildly inconvenienced by the strings of complaints people have spammed him with to free the main thread. As a dungeon who embodied nothingness, he rarely felt anything

Forum Admin is a role that allows you to ban people for a certain period of time and create new threads. Multiple Dungeons could have this role at the same time but there are only two ways of getting it. You have to be promoted by an existing admin, or in the case that there is only one admin remaining and he or she dies without promoting another person, then the strongest dungeon currently alive will get it. Void got it after the late Oracle's Tower Dungeon was conquered.

Plant, who's the newest dungeon to be born, had an interesting lineup. No insectoid or mushroom dungeons are currently active so no one could really help him on that.

Thankfully, World Tree Dungeon and Fae Forest have Dryads.

Unfortunately, Fae's more focused on his research and his dungeon is mostly filled with whatever survives his experiments.

World Tree Dungeon is completely based around Dryads, however, due to that, he is stuck around Legend Rank.

Well, right now the best the other dungeons could do was to give him some knowledge on how to create effective bosses and some basic Dryad evolutionary paths.

Well, that was the best other dungeons could do.

He created an avatar, simple by his standards, but satisfactory for the role at hand. Tracking another dungeon was easy for him and the avatar was soon on its merry way.

While sending support to another dungeon isn't exactly unheard off, dungeons will slowly lose their control over their creatures the farther away they are, and few are generous enough to risk a named creature so far out of their influence.

Only two types of dungeons are an exception to that rule. Wandering Dungeons that can just go anywhere they want, and God Rank Dungeons.

Once a dungeon has ascended to God rank, it can become a worshippable deity like any other God. So its influence basically becomes worldwide to any worshippers or in this particular case, dungeon mobs. The only real threat prohibiting Void's take over of the earth were the other Gods. They can repel a dungeon's expansion and Void didn't want to get stuck in another Holy War over living space, those wars weren't worth the effort he put in to win.

As long as Void didn't try to convert people to the Religion of Our Lord and Saviour Void or actively interfered with mortal affairs then most Gods will leave him be. Both sides knew that fighting each other wasn't worth the cost. The scars of the previous Sacred War ran deep for the Gods and Void couldn't be bothered fighting another war.

However, Void is potentially overstepping said boundaries by helping another dungeon.

He wasn't doing this out of camaraderie for his fellow dungeon. But because he knew how precarious his current situation is. He is the only God Rank Dungeon currently alive, and to prevent anyone from getting any funny ideas, he needed to increase the amount of God Ranked Dungeons.

While he can fight off multiple Gods at once, many others have achieved such a feat and that doesn't make them any less dead. He needed comrades and it is perhaps easier when said comrades owed you their life.

It was a simple calculated investment to increase his own chances of survival.

(Back to dungeon and time for the thing you have been dreading... TIME SKIPS!)

World Tree Dungeon: For a Lesser Dryad to evolve, they must find a suitable home tree, usually any tree that has lived over a century or so would do but Ents automatically fit the bill. When this happens they'll enter a state where they're sealed inside a large seed near the chosen home tree. When they emerge they'll become a full Dryad and be bonded to that home tree.

World Tree Dungeon: But first they must learn nature magic to a certain extent. Of course, you could just bulldoze through those specifications by promoting a Lesser Dryad into a boss but it'll definitely cause the creatures abilities to permanently stagnate.

World Tree Dungeon: There's still a small chance of a boss becoming stronger, however, if you create Dryad prematurely then it'll never become stronger and be stuck around Silver Rank at BEST.

Was what World Tree Dungeon had said after being called out after getting @ a 'few' times. I was not the one who did it, therefore, I will not be held responsible.

Plant Dungeon: Thanks for your concern, but at this point, I'd be happy to have a few Silver Ranked creatures at least.

Cave of Desire: You could just bribe them, 100 DP is usually enough to buy off a Silver Ranked Party, that's how I spent my first few months of life.

Cave of Desire: Oh yeah, make sure to brace yourself for a shock.

Plant Dungeon: What shock?

Cave of Desire: Having a Silver Rank in your dungeon will feel really unpleasant. The strength gap and aura from them will make it so that you won't be able to use mana around them.

Plant Dungeon: How is that shocking though?

Cave of Desire: It was a shock for me since NOBODY BOTHERED TO WARN ME! But it's not life-threatening.

Library Dungeon: To be fair it was a long time since I was that weak, I tend to forget things you know?

Cave of Desire: FORGET THINGS!? YOUR A DUNGEON FOR GOODNESS SAKE HOW DO YOU FORGET THINGS!

And with that, the Main Thread once again falls into meaningless arguments. You'd think the main thread was cursed or something. I spent another hour bantering around with those guys. It was fun, five people ended up getting banned for a week but it was fun.

It was an alright chat, honestly, it felt so 'normal', if you ignore the fact that the people behind those names were potential mass murderers discussing magical bioengineering than you'd almost mistake it for a normal group chat on earth. It's kinda strange though, should I miss earth? I don't remember enough of it to really care about my life back on earth, it feels more like a random story I recalled than anything else. Should those memories influence my current life?

Well, I suppose I'll ponder over philosophical conundrums later. Right now, I have a dungeon to finish. Or at least a floor.

For now, I work on expanding into some unclaimed territory and digging more pathways in my owned territory.

The ants in trenches idea was a bust. Their bodies weren't really made for trench warfare. They couldn't really bend their heads at the right angle so that only their heads were poking out. If I made the trenches less deep then I could just have them lie there but that kind of defeats the purpose of a trench.

A better idea I had was to have the ants dig tunnels in the walls and ceilings of the dungeon and having small holes poking into the dungeon. Allowing them to move unseen around the dungeon and so they could spit their poison from the safety of their tunnels. As a side effect, it created a creepy ambient noise of tiny legs rustling around the dungeon. Giving the feeling that there were enemies everywhere, which is actually true if you thought about it.

Over the course of the week, I constructed the basic layout of my dungeon. It was mostly just empty dirt corridors since I didn't use DP for the construction but aesthetics is an aspect I can deal with later. I created a sorta hourglass shape using two large squares connected by a single room. Inside the large squares are basic mazes. Nothing too complex, you could find the way out in an hour unless you have a terrible sense of direction.

The first square I've decided to keep user-friendly. Leaving only the Mushroom People, slimes and a few troops of worker ants to roam in. There are a few commons herbs occasionally dotting the place but it's mostly just to seem appealing. I didn't spend much DP on this, the mushrooms and slimes were replicated from the old ones and each of the herbs was manually planted after having its seed harvested by Goblin.

In the room connecting the two squares, I decided to place a centipede boss. The main purpose was to test out the scope of my Boss creation ability. I learned a few tricks from the other dungeons but I need to test it out myself. I made a small patch of herbs at the back of the room and placed some of Goblins elemental resistance potions in there as well.

Focusing my mana on the Lesser Stone Skinned Centipede, I began the process. And created my first boss.

--~=~--

You have promoted Lesser Stone Skinned Centipede to a Boss Creature

It has evolved to Stone Skinned Centipede Bronze Party Rank

It has gained the abilities

Minor Magic Resistance

Minor All Elemental Resistance

Greater Physical Resistance

It has gained the environmental abilities

Garden Protector

Upon Death, it will drop these items

Stone Skinned Carapace (Guaranteed)

A random High-Quality Herb of Bronze Rank (Randomly)

A random Low-Quality Single Element Resistance Potion (Randomly)

--~=~--

The room expanded, almost doubling in size. The former small patch of herbs had grown to occupy half the room. This confirmed a lot of things I heard about boss promotion. For one, the boss wasn't the only one who got changed. The room changed with it along with the herbs. The herbs themselves only seemed to change slightly, growing more potent. The resistance abilities were self-explanatory. Garden Protector simply meant that the boss would get enraged if the garden of herbs were touched or damaged in any way, getting a +2 in all physical stats.

—~=~—

Status Screen

General

Race: Stone Skinned Centipede

Gender: Male

Rank: Bronze Party Rank Boss

Jobs: Dungeon Boss

Stats

Strength: 13

Agility: 10

Stamina: 15

Intelligence: 2

Wisdom: 1

Will: 1

Charm: 2

Total Combat Evaluation:

LVL 29 Bronze Pinnacle

—~=~—

This guy has the highest physical stats in my entire dungeon. Heck, it has the highest physical stats I have ever seen. A few days after it was born, a small pack of 5 canine creatures came into my dungeon, I emptied out the first section, waiting for them to have a confrontation with the boss. This time I was not disappointed. A few bloodstains were all that was left. The boss wrapped around the first to enter, in a flurry of moving legs and constriction, what was left can be described as closer to a puree or a smoothie than a formerly living body. This repeated a few times, at first, the rest of the pack tried to bite the boss, but could only leave a few scratches on the carapace, after which they just gave up and fled as soon as possible.

I used a thousand mana to make him and it'll take 300 mana to reset his room.

This guy is undoubtedly brutal, however, he isn't enough for what I need. Since this guy is considered as Bronze Pinnacle I'm gonna guess that a single Silver Ranked is only going to find some minor difficulty to deal with him.

But hopefully, I can trump it soon.

Past this guy is the second section. I have abandoned all need for rewarding a person for coming this far. All that's here are Lesser Dryads willing to sap every drop of nutrients from your body, centipedes larger than your leg, swarms of ants that could flood entire corridors and more mushroom people... Don't get me wrong, those mushrooms are very useless, its just that my lesser dryads were lacking good cannon fodder. I could've summoned more centipedes but I wanted to save DP for the next project and just in case the worse happens and I need to follow Cave of Desires' '100 DP rule'.

Well after the second maze is another room which will lead directly to my core, with two extra rooms in between being the dark mushroom room and a herb room which seemed to have just turned into a living room for Goblin and Penny.

Well in this room at the end of the second maze, is the Lesser Dryad that learned nature magic. Most of you have probably guessed what I'm about to do.

When I was rifling through my ant colonies trash. I swear I was just curious about the effects of my title 'The Guy who takes One Man's Trash another Man's Treasure Far too Seriously', it's not because I have embraced those shitty titles as who I am it's just that if I was going to be stuck with these things for life I should at least figure out how to use them! (He's at the stage of denial folks) (Or is this bargaining? I don't really know)

*Ahem* As I was saying, when I was rifling through my ant colonies trash, I was able to find a few tree seeds. After absorbing them I was able to find a suitable tree for the Dryad. Of course, I'm bypassing a ton of conditions but I didn't have enough time for my lesser dryads to grow naturally.

And having one Dryad be hard stuck at Silver Ranked shouldn't be that much of a problem.

Another thing was that Penny somehow managed to make the dark druid book work! She only managed to create a few seeds though but that was enough for a dungeon.

Along with the tree, I filled the entire place with blood roses. I'm two weeks into the three-week time limit, and I am sparing no expenses for this guy. This time I invest a full ten thousand mana, unlike the mere one thousand mana I used on the centipede.

The Lesser Dryad broke apart in a mass of vines, before shrinking into a small soccer ball sized pulp on the ground. The rosebush started creeping onto the tree I've planted in the middle, their vines devoid of thorns facing towards the tree, but plenty facing out. Rosebuds began appearing on those vines. Leaving the tree to look like some demented Christmas Tree, but with spikes and rosebuds instead of holiday lights and festive ornaments.

The rosebush starting moving towards the seed on the ground too, before the seed opened up. Instead of a human-shaped person just sprouting out, it was a mass of writhing plant matter.

I saw some wood set itself in place of the bones, vines covering said wood to imitate muscles and finally a layer of moss covering up the whole thing, a head of hair made of leaves and a simple dress made of leaves just grew off her body.

And finally, to top it all off, the rosebush which was waiting around her finally moved. Its own thorny vines began snaking up her body, before creating a crown of thorns on her head with ten rosebuds scattered on the crown. A stray rose flower pinned itself onto her dress, resting on the top left of her dress just above the chest. A green energy seemed to fill the air and cover all the plant life in this room, including the Dryad.

--~=~--

You have promoted Lesser Dryad to a Boss Creature

It has evolved to Dryad Silver Party Rank

It has gained the abilities

Nature Magic up to the 3rd Tier

It has gained the environmental abilities

Blood Rose Manipulation

It has gained the boss equipment

Crown of Rose Thorns

Upon Death, it will drop these items

Crown of Rose Thorns (Guaranteed)

--~=~--

--~=~--

Crown of Rose Thorns (Headwear)

0/100 Life Essence

Effect 1: Absorbs and stores Life Essence from the wearer which can be used to activate effects.

Effect 2: Consume 10 stored Life Essence to gain 5 Nature Element Mana

Effect 3: Consume 50 stored Life Essence to cast Nature Rejuvenation on a target

Effect 4 (Boss Ability): Consume 100 Life Essence to Restore all wounds. (Effect is lost upon Bosses Death)

Effect 5 (Boss Ability): Consume 100 Life Essence to cast Blood Rose Garden. (Effect is lost upon Bosses Death)

Effect 6 (Boss Ability): Life Essence can be siphoned from nearby Blood Roses (Effect is lost upon Bosses Death)

Effect 7 (Boss Ability): Life Essence storage has tripled capacity and accepts mana (Effect is lost upon Bosses Death)

Effect 8 (Boss Ability): This equipment is bound to the boss and cannot be unequipped or removed. (Effect is lost upon Bosses Death)

--~=~--

—~=~—

Status Screen

General

Race: Dryad

Gender: -

Rank: Silver Party Rank Boss

Jobs: LVL 30 Druid, Dungeon Boss

Stats

Strength: 10

Agility: 12

Stamina: 14

Intelligence: 16

Wisdom: 15

Will: 13

Charm: 14

Total Combat Evaluation:

LVL 39 Silver Pinnacle

—~=~—

Well then, I think I did trump the centipede.