Chapter 6

“So, what do you think?”

Erin had told him her plan for setting up the mobs in his four rooms, and it wasn’t a bad one. He’d been stuck trying to figure out how to use his advanced mobs. Obviously, because he was only Gold 7, he didn’t have as many mob points as he wanted to make the third-floor shine.

The fairy had a simple solution for him that alleviated his reluctance to only put three mobs in the room, which would seem a tad underwhelming. Adventuring parties normally had five members, and they could make short work of two or three mobs. A somewhat effective trick Ryan had learned was to overwhelm them with numbers. Their tanks, after all, could usually only aggro one or two mobs at a time.

Erin convinced him to use two armored skeletal mobs, along with two hardened ones. He had already been using the latter on his second floor, and they had shown themselves to be formidable. Because their bones were reinforced with dark mana, they were more resilient than regular old skeletons, which meant they took parties a little longer to bring down. This gave his mobs more opportunities to land attacks, and also caused adventurers to burn through more of their own mana in order to win.

The armored skeletal mobs were a step above that. Ryan had, of course, seen an armored zombie once, courtesy of Viktor and his use of Squeaker’s body. The creature by itself had nearly overwhelmed Blake. Granted, Blake had been Silver at the time, and the zombie was a Gold-level enemy. But with his dual affinities, Blake would have been roughly equal in strength to a low Gold-level adventurer. Based on this example, Ryan felt a room with armored skeletal mobs would definitely be a challenge for parties on Ryan’s third floor.

He summoned four sets of skeletons in each of his four rooms, and then mentally assigned the appropriate amount of mana to each. He watched as two hardened skeletons, costing 15 points each, and two armored skeletons, costing 25 points each, came to unlife for a total of 80 mob points. The hardened skeletons had dark mana swirling around them, empowering them, strengthening them. The armored skeletons were so much more.

As they first animated, the skeletal mobs seemed extremely similar to the hardened mobs. Black tendrils snaked around the softly glowing bones, imbuing them with darkness mana, hardening them. Ryan knew the mana also increased the physical stats of the skeletal mobs, making them faster and stronger.

Once the skeletons’ bones had been infused with darkness, the mana that poured into them from Ryan began to intensify. Tendrils spread and grew, flowing over the bodies of the skeletons, seeming to consume them, until they were clad in what appeared to be shadow armor. The mana even condensed enough that if you didn’t know better, you might question if you were fighting skeletons or living beings. From skull to toe bones, the skeletons were covered in swirling dark armor.

“All right, those look awesome.” Seriously, it was almost as if his skeletons had been upgraded to knight status. Ryan noticed a lot of adventurers took to wearing heavier armor that fully covered their bodies as they got stronger, and that was exactly what the shadows on his skeletons seemed to mimic.

“Are you just going with fighters for all of them?” Erin’s comment pulled him from his admiration of the mobs and made him realize he had overlooked one thing. In his haste to populate the rooms, he had chosen a simple skeletal fighter armed with a bone sword and shield to summon, harden, and armor.

Ryan absorbed one of the skeletal fighters, and this time summoned a skeletal archer. The mob rose, bone bow in hand, even as the dark mana swirled about it, repeating the hardening and armoring process.

“All right, that’s awesome.” This time, when the mana spread over the skeletal archer, it took on a slightly different form. The armor, mimicking that of a marksman Ryan had seen enter the dungeon, appeared to be lighter, and did not cover the skeleton’s skull. The armor was less bulky, and he could tell it partially traded protection for increased mobility – perfect for skeletal archers.

“It seems the mana takes on armor appropriate for the type of skeleton you summon.” Erin’s gaze was fixated on his core, clearly inspecting his new mob.

“Well, whatever is causing it to do that, I’m a fan,” Ryan said, unable to stop admiring his awesome new mobs. He’d definitely noticed his mana took on a mind of its own whenever he was summoning or upgrading mobs. Following this new armored breakthrough, he realized there was a lot about mana – and overall dungeon core powers – that he didn’t quite understand. What was the driving factor behind how his mana worked, and the forms it created?

Ever since he had ascended to Gold, he felt as if a part of his mind was hidden from him. Or rather, he felt as if he was missing out on something. Granted, he wasn’t sure if he was lacking knowledge, or if Erin had forgotten to explain some things to him. Either way, Ryan figured it probably had to do with how new of a dungeon he was. All in good time.

He pulled himself from his thoughts and glanced at his mobs and then at his level triangle, noting he had exactly 100 mob points remaining. Just as planned. With those points, he would be able to not only continue his first and second-level skeletal fight clubs, but also start on skeletal fight club level 3.

First, though, he had one last task at hand.

“So, Rin, shall we get to naming our new mobs before we open up for business?”

The fairy beamed with excitement, and her wings fluttered happily. “Let’s do this.” Her burst of positive emotions nearly overwhelmed Ryan as they flowed into him through the bond. Wow, she was really looking forward to this.

“All right, all right.” Maybe she does have some good names planned. “Just give me a second to send a message, and then we can start.” If they were nearly ready for adventurers to return, Ryan figured he would let a certain somebody know. Because if there was ever a group Ryan wanted to test-run his dungeon, it was Blake’s. Plus, Ryan really wanted to know what the Specter of Balance could do.