Chapter 19 - Reinforcements

Day 19

Neo's POV:

While Mike went back to his village, Neo was occupied with the creation of a blueprint for his mana gathering formation. He only paused when he noticed his goblins coming back. With them they brought two dead comrades and the body of a large brown bear. Some of the other goblins were wounded, one was even missing an arm. Looking at the wound he saw that the only reason this goblin survived was probably the cauterization of his wound.

He decided to look for Luna so she could heal them, but he didn't find her. Mr Floppy however, was sitting in the boss room of the third level, watching the black bear. The bear was making weird movements and they were looking like sit-ups?

"What the hell?"

"Oh, hello Neo."

The fairy just appeared out of thin air and the bear stopped his training.

"Ahhmmm, okaaay. Luna did you just possess the bear?"

"Yes, I had to! He didn't do his training in the right way."

Neo did not know why the fairies actions could still surprise him, wasn't she always doing weird and impossible stuff?

"Good to know. But that was not what I came for. The goblins are back and some of them are wounded. Can you heal them please?"

"Do I really have to go to the smelly goblins?"

"It would be nice."

Luna complied with his wish. She flew over to Mr Floppy, sat on his back and then rode to meet the goblins. After they were patched up, Neo decided to give them a day off. Thinking about the goblins, another thought came to his mind.

"Luna, how long are creatures able to operate outside of the dungeon. I forgot to ask before I've sent out the goblins."

"They can stay outside forever, but when they leave the dungeon, they no longer get mana from you. This means they have to eat food to stay alive. As you probably know, normally a dungeon creature only needs food if you want it to grow and to become stronger. Otherwise the mana they get from you is enough for them."

This was new to him, but it explained why his creatures stayed healthy even when he stacked all the wolves in the guard room without food. He decided to reward his hunting party with two deer anyway. He then made some rations they could take with them on the next trip. After getting this out of the way, he absorbed the dead bear and had a look at its status information.

Large brown bear

Brown bears are the largest bears, living in a temperate climate, that are still animals. They are often found near rivers where they like to hunt for fish.

Rank: E1

Traits: loner (rank 2); strong (rank3); lazy(rank1);sturdy(rank2); thick fur(rank 1)

Costs: 2000 mana ; 500 animal material

With this, Neo had his boss for his fifth floor. After thinking about it a little, he decided the bear needed some more development, so it could challenge a group of high F rank adventurers by itself. He tinkered a little bit with the blueprint and was able to bring it to rank E3.

Extremely large brown bear

Brown bears are the largest bears, living in a temperate climate, that are still animals. They are often found near rivers where they like to hunt for fish. This bear is magically altered by a dungeon. It is a lot bigger than a normal brown bear can get in the wild.

Rank: E3

Traits: loner (rank 2); strong (rank4); lazy(rank1);sturdy(rank3); thick fur(rank 2); mana altered(rank1);

Costs: 4000 mana ; 1000 animal material

Neo stopped there. He was satisfied with the blueprint. Any low ranked adventurer group would have a hard time if they went to fight the bear unprepared. The thick fur and the bear's fat would make most swords and maces almost useless. In his opinion, every group of starting adventurers, who went into a dungeon level without collecting information and preparing for it, deserved what happened to them. If they survived, they would've probably learned a lesson for life.

When Neo looked at his animal material reserves, he decided to create the bear later. He then looked at his deer and badgers. They increased in number and the young wolves in the neighboring room had grown bigger. For the moment, Neo decided to max out his animal material production. That was why he ordered all of his predators to only kill their prey and not to eat them. He would go through his dungeon once a day and absorb the corpses.

After this he killed off the grown wolves and replaced them again with their weaker and smaller versions. It would unbalance his floors if they were getting stronger. Later on, when he had more levels, he could just move the improved creatures further down his dungeon and fill up the empty floors. For this was the best he could do.

Then Neo's thoughts went back to his goblin strike team. More than half of them were dead or wounded. He decided to improve their force and brought their number to 25. In addition he created another shaman to support Biff. This one should focus on becoming a healer, so he created some skillbooks for him to develop in that direction.

When he wanted to create equipment for them, he remembered that he ran out of steel. Neo thought a moment about creating iron gear, but then discarded the thought. His dungeon had grown a lot, and it should be able to handle some mana expenditure, even without the formation being finished. So he started to create steel out of magic.

After about an hour he gathered 150 kg and decided this was enough for the gear. He then equipped five of the new goblins with shields and spears and the other five with swords and bows. Before going back to work on the formation, he had a look at his status.

Name: Neo

Species: Dungeon core

Affinities: Mental magic 1

Rank: E-5

Level: 8

Structural Integrity: 16/16

Mana: 13708 /13708 (11492)

Floor area: 25200/25200 m²

Max dungeon extension from core: 393 m

Mana Regeneration: 3600 /h *2*2*50000% = 2000 /s

Life energy: 968.5

Life Energy generation: 90.56/d

His life energy was a bit lower than he expected. He thought about it for a moment and came to the conclusion that he didn't get life energy if his creatures where outside of his dungeon. With this thought he went back to work.