Zoli wanted a Zone Leader for each of the Zones and one Biome Leader – for the last, he already decided on the huge Falcon, and placed it on top of a horst in Zone 45, in the extreme Northwest corner of the Biome. Not counting the vipers, those he didn’t see as as leadership material, he had 45 possible Zone Leaders for 45 Zones, perfect! (Of course, the previous dungeon manager had to do it this way to have a Boss for each Zone, but Zoli didn’t understood, again)

His managers told him, that it was inherent in dungeon construction to put the weakest monsters first, and than gradually build up the threat. It made sense: in the corporate world, the lowest level interns were pushed forward to take the blame or were relocated, repurposed or restructured first. The CEO was only reached when every other person fell before him.

So, which of those animals was the weakest? Probably the cat or the foxes. They were the smallest of the whole bunch, except for the Dire Bolognese Dog. But dogs were used to hunt foxes and cats, no? Cat or fox it is.

Fortunately, before he could make (another) mistake, his managers explained to him, that despite being only a cat, the Dread Wildcat could probably eat a Lynx a lot of other animals in the MOB for breakfast. While all being the same Normal Level 1. The meeting then degenerated into guesswork about the needed Levels and classifications, so Zoli simply told them to prepare a business plan of MOB density, Level, classification and allocation.

Before he retired to his mansion, Raymond and Harold intercepted him. They figured out another part of the Dungeon Operating System, and found another resource: Currency.

The dungeon was allocated a certain amount of currency daily, he could buy materials, items, MOB and Perks from that pool, or allocate currency as loot. His current income was 141 System Silver Coins a day, that is a base of ten SSC plus one for each Zones, with a balance in his account of 2.923 SSC, 12 System Copper Coins and 1 System Iron Bit. Zoli didn’t even thought about giving out currency as loot, he planned to have only harvestable loot or a few items to begin with.

Why should he provide the mercenaries with cash? THEY should pay HIM! The other stuff, he could buy was more interesting for him. His managers had prepared bullet points, what the dungeon needed, including more mpd, materials, production and R&D capabilities. Harold explained to him, how he could access the market place and how it was structured and made some recommendation on what to look out for.

Zoli started browsing. I was like one of the internet shopping sites he was familiar with, and after only a few hours he had the hang of how to find and mark stuff.

First, he checked metals and ores, and found something interesting: the metals he was familiar with – iron, copper, tin, zinc, titanium, mercury, gold and silver, and other he only heard of – were expensive. REALLY expensive. On the other hand, there were almost twenty metals and ores he haven’t even hear about, and was almost certain were not on the periodic table.

These were cheap. Cheaper. Even the most expensive one was still cheaper, than the cheapest known material. Zoli was dumbfounded. What was Mithrill? Orichalcum? Adamantium? Star Iron? Lunir? Abbitium? And all the others? Why were they so cheap? But with even being “cheap” even the cheapest (Black Iron) was 600 SSC for one vein, containing twelve pieces of ore, or 65 SSC for one piece of ore.

Sure, he could buy four such veins, but not knowing, what they were and what to do with them, he left metals and ores alone for now.

Next were items. And Blueprints. Items were cheaper – and there was an unending list of size, quality, material for every last piece – but were one-off, meaning, if they were lost or looted, they were gone.

Blueprints on the other hand were more expensive but enabled the dungeon to make as many of the items, as it wanted.

Khmm… enabled him to let the workforce produce them in quantity. Again, Zoli was confused. He did create his whole mansion and the Corporate HQ, without having any of these Blueprints, or even the necessary materials. Why should he spend good money on stuff he could build just with some time and Mana? Oh wait, that way he could delegate the manufacturing to his underlings!

There was a small detail he didn’t get: he had the Perk for a Home that he could modify as he liked, while the Blueprints were for loot. Zoli did mark a few items for later purchase, but the whole browsing through limitless stuff with only marginal differences was boring. He sent Cynthia a memo to let her Team Leaders look through the lists and select some needed stuff. That was Procurement and Supply for! Delegation at its finest!

New MOB wasn’t on the priority list, the previous manager did make a splendid shopping spree there, they had a lot of different monsters, animals and critters that weren’t even deployed, there was room for growth there without spending a cent. He skipped that part of the Dungeon-Bay.

The really useful part were the Perks. The list was, again, endless. From one-time power-ups for monsters, Mana-for-Currency exchanges, to bonuses for this and that, extra damage, cheaper this and that and whatnot, exceptions and lot more.

He looked at the memo his managers provided for desired, needed and wanted Perks and stuff, and started to search. First was Higher Passive Absorption. He found a few, from one that gave him +10% to one that gave him three times his normal rate. Of course, he wanted the best, but that was priced at 1.000 System Gold Coins, and he only had 29 with some pocket money.

With his current income, he needed to wait for… a very long time. Double Absorption was still 500 SGC, +50% was sold for 250, +25% for 125, and +10% for 50. He couldn’t even buy the cheapest ones right now! He needed to wait for another two weeks without buying anything to be able to afford it.

He looked at higher base income after that. Those were cheaper, another 150 mpd base income was sold for 100 SGC, and +50 for 30. Almost there! Zoli started to do mathematics: 140 mpd for 50 SGC was 2,8 mpd/Gold, while 50 for 30 was only 1,6, and the formed got better and better the more new Zones he finished. No, he wouldn’t buy the bargain-bin crap, but wait for at least the +10% or even better the +25% Perk. He still had… almost a year till the first audit.

But he still needed to get more income or decrease the expenditure. The two most usual methods for that – laying off workforce or outsourcing to some piss poor country – was not possible for him now. His only idea was to cut the salaries, but couldn’t do that either, because the cost was not fixed by him but the government. Ehmm… the Administrator.

Was there a Perk for lower wages? Let’s see…

Of course there were. Multiple ones. There was Upkeep Reduction for Normal, Elite and Boss classifications, everything from making them free to just a 10% reduction. For different Level brackets, like “below Level 5”, “between 6 and 10”, “below Level so and so” and so forth or for all of them. The bracketed versions were cheaper, the ultimate Perk, no upkeep for all of the MOB, not so much. There were a lot of zeroes after the initial number.

With his current budget (or with waiting a few days) he could buy a few of them. The entries for Critters he dismissed immediately – the upkeep cost was so miniscule, that he didn’t even bother to get rid of them in the other two Biomes, buying a reduction was simply not worth the money. The few monsters he had (those three, he kept all of them too, only one was allocated to the Forest Biome to begin with) also didn’t warrant buying anything, so he marked the rest that he could buy in a reasonable time frame for animals, Normal, Elite or Boss, and sent the list over the Finance, HR, O&A and IT departments for perusing.

They were preparing the Business Plan anyhow.

With a day of hard work done, he retreated to his pool for some recreation. Floating in the water, he thought about some important future challenges. He had his smoking room with a pool table, and his swimming pool but those alone weren’t enough for the long run. He needed something else to occupy himself with, either a boat for some sailing on his Lake Biome, a golf course or a nice skiing resort. Why not all three? The Grasslands were ideal for a golf course, and he was sure, the Mountains had a good slope somewhere.

Two days later his managers finished the Business Plan, and set up a meeting.

Boring and long as it was, at least the distribution and Leveling Plan for the MOB was adapted, the necessary steps to take were outlined, leadership was envisioned, values were conceptualized, schemas redefined, processes integrated and services scaled.

That is, IT came up with a scheme, how to distribute the MOB, how high the aggregate Level for each Zone should be, O&A selected the MOB most suitable for the scheme, while HR filled and created the positions according to it. All the while Finance whined about the occurring cost, and told Zoli what to buy (Upkeep Reduction: Normal Animals below Level 50, -100% for 30 SGC, followed by Upkeep Reduction: Animal Bosses below Level 35, -50% for another 40 SGC, and finally to save up for Higher Passive Absorption, +50%). The first one he bought immediately, for the second he needed to save up for about a Month, and the last one… Another half a year.

As for the scheme, Zoli rearranged the MOB accordingly and started to promote them from entry-level Level 1 interns to their respective roster. Since none of them went over Level 50, their respective upkeep stayed at zero, so including the MOB of the other two Biomes, the Critters everywhere and the three monsters and a few rules and fields that were still up, the daily upkeep fell down to less than twenty. Of course, his corporate team cost him 646 mpd, but that was a not negotiable expense.

It turned out, Goblins were not Animals, so he still had to pay for their upkeep…

“Let’s hire new employees and promote the Zone Leaders!” Zoli was finally on the way to make something he was hired to do.