(Day 167) Aprilis 12th, 12th year of the Dragon, Age of Enlightenment

As I entered the Dungeon I accessed my interface and looked through it. Looking over all the options I searched for how to expel all adventures and then I looked for a way to lock the dungeon down so no one could enter. I found both. First, I chose to expel everyone from the Dungeon except for himself. Then I took away dungeon access for everyone except myself. While I was doing that a prompt arrived in my vision as two people floated past me from deeper in the dungeon and out the exit.

Welcome Dungeon Master. The Dungeon of Divine Elements does not have an Item of Power. Would you like to replace the Item of Power, Yes or No?

I chose “Yes”

Place the Item of Power on the floor in front of you and will the Dungeon to Accept it

I removed the Staff of the Magus, Cloak of the Magus, and Slippers of Magus from my Ring of Holding and placed them on the floor. I made sure to be touching all three items with both hands then willed them to be accepted by the Dungeon.

Do you wish to donate the Set Pieces (3 of 3) Staff of the Magus, Cloak of the Magus, and Slippers of the Magus as your Dungeons Item of Power, Yes or No?

I chose “Yes”

You have added the Tier I Artifact Set of the Magus to your Dungeon as its Item of Power. These Items of Power are Acceptable. Three Tier I Artifacts have been added to the Dungeon. Item of Power Category adjusted. Daily Dungeon Point (DP) Regeneration was 264 DP per day. 144 for Tier I Artifact and + 120 for a Legendary Harbinger. The adjusted Daily DP is 2,280. Three Artifacts 2,160 DP plus Legendary Harbinger 120 DP. Current Dungeon Points set to 2,520. All previous or reclaimed DP lost due to Item of Power Removal.

Thou art worthy to be called The Dungeon Master of Magical Elements

At that moment my Dungeon Master Mark underwent some significant changes. As it morphed to show a Triangle with an Eye in the middle.

Your Dungeon Mark has evolved.

30% more damage from physical attacks in the Dungeon and Labyrinth

30% less damage from physical attacks in the Dungeon and Labyrinth

30% chance to Find Magical Items in Dungeons or the Labyrinth.

30% less damage from Magical attacks of any kind

You now regenerate mana twice as fast.

NOTE the percentage of DP that could regenerate the Harbinger was set at 13% This would have allowed the DP cost of 1001 to be paid in 29 days. The new DP regeneration rate has reduced the time until Harbinger Respawn to 4 days.

Monsters are respawned at a cost of 1 DP per Monster Level and will start respawning from the lowest levels to the highest based on percentage. To fully renew the Dungeon will take 93 days.

Mythical Ability noted, Guided Understanding possessed by Dungeon Master. At a conversion rate of 10 to 1. 10 XP for every 1 DP gained the Dungeon Master can help his Dungeon grow, respawn, and generate treasure at a faster rate.

Warning: A dungeon connects to the Labyrinth at Dungeon Level 100. Current Dungeon Level 1000. A Dungeon draws the interest of more powerful creatures from the Labyrinth each time it Levels. As a Legendary Creatures guard’s access to the Dungeon currently creatures of Mythical rank or lower have not shown any interest in visiting the Dungeon. Once the Dungeon enters the Legendary Ranks Legendary creatures will show interest. Be warned that converting experience to DP artificially grows a Dungeon faster than normal progression allows. This could lead to the dungeon being unable to protect itself from any invading monsters from the Labyrinth.

The Dungeon of Magical Elements gains the following.

All Spawned Creatures gain 15% resistance to All Magic

All Spawned Creatures that can use Magic gain 15% to damage or effect

+10% chance for Magical Items to drop as part of treasure.

Well, that last bonus for the Dungeon was going to make any Adventures that showed up really happy. The warning was very informative. The first thing I had to do was get this Dungeon up and running again. There were 10 levels with monsters ranging from 1-100 on the first level, 201-300 on the 2nd, and so on. I did some quick math; Assume max monster level for each level, minimum 50 creatures per level, some had more, most had less, multiply by 10 for XP to do the conversion so 2,750,000 experience. I could handle that. I diverted the experience into the Dungeon.

Hail and Glad tiding Dungeon Master your Harbinger has respawned. All other levels have respawned.

I explored the Dungeon Interface and looked at its functionality. The settings looked good. There was a 10% tax rate for the kingdom residents, a 25% tax rate for the nonresidents, and a 10% tax rate for all members bearing the Mark of the Adventurer with the Adventures Guilds sigil on it. 5% was taxed for the Dungeon Master.

I checked over the monster listing and noted a lot of monsters but nothing that was tremendously powerful as far as I could tell. Lastly, I checked treasure and noted that all types of treasure were available for drop and no restrictions were placed other than the adventurer must pay the taxes on the items they found before they would be allowed to leave with them. There was a tab that had a comprehensive list of every single common Magical Item and what their value would be. For instance, a Magical longsword was valued at its modifier times 100 GP. And I found that the modifier could go quite high. In fact, it could go high enough for me to use the weapon and it would not break. What skill level would you have to have to be able to make a weapon that powerful? I read the fine print which stated that even items in magical items of holding would need to have their tax paid off before the dungeon would allow the item bearer to exit.

I brought up a map and noted the junction system. There were only three. One was in the entryway where I was. The second was off by itself that had the word Treasury on it. The Thirds was on the 11th floor which also looked to be sealed off from the rest of the Dungeon. I looked around quickly for the junction, not seeing one, I thought “ Junction point appear.” A small pedestal made out of stone rose up out of the floor. I placed my right hand on it and a prompt appeared

Choose your Destination

Treasury

Entry way

Labyrinth Entry Chamber

Entryway was grayed out, so I chose Treasury and was immediately standing in another room. There was a chest with the Kingdom seal on it and another chest with the Adventurers Guild Seal. Neither had any coin in it. Pulling out two copper I dropped one into each chest and watched them disappear. It seemed that the money the Dungeon generated would automatically be distributed where it needed to go.

I checked the other chests and noted that they were all empty. It looked like Belarious had cleaned out the dungeon recently. Using Identify I made sure there were no other chests that sent treasure somewhere else.

I used the Node Pedestal in the Treasury to travel to the Labyrinth entry chamber. There was an exit across the room from me that led into a swirly grey sea. The sea started to ripple and I placed my hand on the Node Pedestal in this room and teleported back to the Entryway. The Labyrinth or anything in it was not something I wanted to tackle at the moment, though I promised myself, I’d be back.

Once I was back in the Entryway I pulled out my spellbooks and studied for the next 3 minutes. I permanently added the spells; Powerless, God’s Sight, and Teleport to the spells I could cast at will. Teleport allowed me to teleport one mile per 10 mana spent.

Ready to get back out to it. I went back to the Dungeon Interface and reset everything back to the settings they’d been at for entry prior to me coming in this morning. This allowed the Adventurers guild to add and remove permissions to enter or Exit the Dungeon. And allowed anyone that had access to come in again. It also gave the King the ability to add and remove entry permission, though that would have to be changed.

As I was walking out of the Dungeon I set my nanites to a 500-foot radius, deactivated my Cloak of Invisibility, and turned off Displace. I had the nanites clean my clothes and morph them into something more appropriate. I chose an outfit that resembled Dr. Strange when he was undergoing his Monk Training in the movie Marvel made. Next, I changed where my XP was going and directed it back to my class so it would continue to build that pool. Satisfied, I exited the Dungeon to find the Gnome that sat at the desk, I’d never learned the name of, running towards me and as I angrily asked, “Who are you?”

“Adamantadine, new Dungeon Master of the Dungeon of Magical Elements,” I said

“You’re what?” Then he looked thoughtful. “Oh, you're him.” Then he smiled “Not when Belarious finds you,” he said.

My eyes hardened and I looked at the Gnome as I asked very softly; “Did you have anything to do with the death of Daranus, Chesarie, Thrum, Xander, Desari, or their families?” I asked coldly

“No, of course not, Belarious does what Belarious does.” The gnome said as he took a step back.

“So do I,” I said as I grabbed the gnome by his vest and belt and threw him straight up. Very soon he became a screaming speck flying up into the distance. Others had been watching me, some drew weapons. Every non-magical weapon within 500 feet was disintegrated by me as were the normal darts and bolts that were shot. The Magical ones missed due to my braces and my natural defense. While I was being attacked a man in Full plate was moving towards me, with a Broadsword. All of his armor and the Broadsword were magical.

“Do you like your armor and that sword” I called to him as I kept an eye on the gnome who was finally slowing, wow, he’d gotten up there.

The man in armor hesitated and slowed warily as I asked “What?”

“I said, do you like your armor because if you take three more steps I am going to destroy your plate armor and your sword, final warning,” I said.

“You can’t do that and you’re going to pay for attacking Percy,” he said as he purposely took four steps toward me.

No one that watched what happened next could believe what they saw, nor would they ever forget. Before anyone could register what happened. One second I was 10 feet in front of Carlos the next every piece of Carlos's armor and his broadsword shattered into dust leaving Carlos weaponless in the leather armor he had under his plate armor to prevent chaffing. I reappeared a second later with Percy who I gently placed on the ground where he’d been standing before I was thrown into the sky.

Carlos and Percy were both frozen in shock and everyone that had been shooting darts and bolts stopped firing.

I raised my voice and bellowed, “My name is Adamantadine. Unlike Belarious and Seraphine, and the 98 other Assassins I killed today by plucking their hearts out of their chests, I am not an evil man. Yes, that means both Belarious and Seraphine are dead and were killed by my hand.” This shocked everyone that had been about to speak into silence. “I have not responded to your idiotic attacks against me but make no mistake if one of you raises a weapon against me again, I am going to get cross and do more than destroy some armor and a few weapons.” I paused and looked over the crowd before continuing. “I am now this Dungeons Master. Also, The Dungeon is back under the supervision of the Adventurers Guild, and I have already helped the dungeon respawn the harbinger I killed yesterday and all the creatures it needed to respawn on each level. So, after your all done being stupid here, you can get back to doing what you were doing before I went in there yesterday. Get the word out. If another fool attacks me or thinks to attack me and it’s not part of some formal duel. I may or may not respond in a way that lets that idiot look at their heart while the spark fades from their eyes. I’d tell you to ask Belarious, Seraphine, or any of the Assassins that attacked this city this morning about it but they’re all dead. Instead, think about the screams that came from the Castle and know those came from the witnesses of those deaths. Now, I’m off and Percy, the next time you see me, I expect to be treated with a tad more respect.” I said as I took off at Mach 4 towards the temple.”

I arrived at the temple 3 seconds later and stopped beside Freya.

“There you are,” she said, “What have you been up to?” she asked

“This and that. I was about to head up to the Castle and see what was going on. Any word on who’s in charge?”

“No, and that’s a problem. It seems that all of the major supporters of the King died with him and his family. The assassins were thorough, they took out the royal family and the families of all of his brothers or sisters. The lineage of Liam died this morning and was removed from the face of Primore” she said.

“Well shit,” I said then asked, “Who would be your choice to replace him?”

“As I follow the teaching of Serena I would like someone that is Neutral or Good, but not so good that they fail to listen to others and recklessly waste lives trying to go to war with anything of Evil. There are a few scholars that fit that bill. In fact, One, of them you met yesterday. Supervisor Tavor.” She said

I thought about it for a moment then said. “Okay, the first thing I need is the names of the nobles whose houses weren’t touched by the assassins earlier. Then I will need you to get Supervisor Tavor and take him to a safe location and keep him protected.”

“Why?” she asked as she handed him the rolled-up map I’d given her earlier.

“Because I’m about to declare myself King, get rid of the noble traitors. Then I’m going to prepare the way for someone to replace the crazy guy that is sitting on the throne. “ I said while pointing a finger at himself. “Hopefully the Lords and Ladies will come to their senses and choose someone worthy to replace me. If I need to give you permission to bring Supervisor Tavor up to speed on exactly who I am and what I’m capable of, you have it. The new King will need to know. Once we get him into the position I will need to go deal with the rest of the Assassins guild and The Council to the South, perhaps even increase the size of the New Kings Kingdom. Regardless, a nation run by such evil bastards this close to us works against my interests and they must go. Also, while it would be cool to be a King, that’s not the path I’m on. I am already a “King” where I’m from, of multiple planets in fact. He will need help and to have people that are absolutely loyal to him, at least at the start so let’s try to set that up as well,” I said as I held up the map and asked, “Also, what is this?”

“That is the map you showed me earlier. I’ve written the name of the Nobles who own the properties you circled for you. Also, you don’t ask a lot do you?”

“Nope!”, I said grinning

“She laughed, remember that when our Goddess asks something of you?” she said smiling

“I will,” I said earnestly as I walked out and then ran to the Castle.