Chapter 34 - Developments

Day 47

Neo's POV:

While Mike was joining the adventurous guild in Geldern, Neo was doing the last preparations to get his dungeon ready for the exploration team that would arrive. He'd placed some traps. Sure, the designs weren't great, but it was better than nothing. There were onkely two real issues left and those were his 11th and 12th floor. He had some ideas, but the only creatures he had that could pose a little challenge for D rank groups were his hobgoblins. They increased a rank and were at D2 now, but they were still goblins. Then there was his maximum mana, the 80 hobgoblins in his arena were blocking almost a quarter million mana all by themselves. Sure, he could decrease their numbers a little, but then it would take him even more time to evolve them.

These problems made Neo feel a little grumpy. He wanted to have a larger variety of creatures. When he used his sensor array, he was able to locate some promising prospects, but they were too far away and it would be pure stupidity to send a large group of hobgoblins over land to reach them. That was why Neo decided he needed a new teleportation formation. It would be good, if he could teleport his creatures out, attack and kill the victims and then use a device to teleport back home.

His drive to build a teleportation formation was the reason why he spent the last days digging mining shafts on his upper levels in the search for materials. At least, he needed some high grade quartz which could be turned into crystal, if he wanted to build any kind of formation. Normally that shouldn't be so hard to find, but he had been out of luck in the last days.

Frustrated he decided to take a break and he had a look at the both stats that impended his growth the most at the moment.

Research points 207/250 Life energy: 17398.8

When he saw that he had enough life energy for the next level he was surprised. He thought about it a moment and he came to the conclusion that he didn't factor in the increased rank of his hobgoblins. They alone increased his life energy generation a lot. With an inner smile, he upgraded his dungeon level.

Upgrade dungeon level -> 13 Costs: 16200 life energy Upgrade dungeon level -> 14 Costs: 29160 life energy

Name: Neo

Species: Dungeon core

Affinities: Mental magic 1

Rank: D-4

Level: 13

Structural Integrity: 64/64

Mana: 7253 /7253 (344947)

Floor area: 352200 /643800 m²

Max dungeon extension from core: 3809 m

Mana Regeneration: 9100 /h *8*50000% = 10111.11 /s

Life energy: 1198.8

Life Energy generation: 1919.1/d

He got a lot more area and his reach for mining almost doubled, but after five days of dinging tunnels, he wanted to do something different right now. The first thing he did, was to move his dungeon core the 13th level. This included his research facility and Luna's training area.

The he thought about creating something on the 11th level and he had an idea. He created a two kilometer long and one hundred meter wide room. On one side of the room would be the entrance and on the other the exit for the floor. In between, a long winding road. The room was not a rectangle but it followed the road. On each side of it, there would always be 48m of forest. The road itself would be four meters wide. For now, he didn't have enough plant material to create a forest of this size. So he settled to lay the foundation and planted thousands of dark fir saplings along the road. Later, after they would've grown a bit, he would start to increase the ceiling height of the floor. When this forest was finished, it would be an ideal ambush site. His were- and hobgoblins could use ranged weapons and surprise attacks from the woods to give the adventurers a challenge. He used inclines and turns to prevent the divers to see more than 50 meters of the gravel road in front of them. For a moment he thought about placing a sign and calling the floor road of perdition, but he didn't do it, it was too risky.

For now, he placed no creatures on the level, it would be pointless with the saplings less than one meter in height. Instead he went to the 12th floor. He thought about the theme for a moment, he still had almost 200 thousand m² floor space left. He had some ideas, for example a battlefield between different species or a town under attack by goblins. He even thought about creating a large goblin army camp with the way to the next floor on the other side, but he left the floor theme alone for a moment. He just created a large 150 thousand m² sized room. Before he went on to his core level, he got a notification that his research was finished. Without much thinking he selected the third tier of the research facility.

Research facility Tier 3

Bonus to research point generation: 50%

Maximum amount of researchers: 50

Cost reduction 90%(MAX) from scientific education

Research points 0/500

Then he started to use his new research knowledge and experimented with adding skills from different creatures to his weregoblin design. He noticed pretty fast that he was only able to add a few positive traits. With every positive trait, it was getting harder to keep the blueprint visualized. At the same time, every negative trait made it easier. This roused his interest and he started to do experiments with other creatures.

Mike's POV:

While Neo was busy expanding his dungeon, Mike and his family arrived back at home. He went back to a training routine, he wanted to use the last days before Sonja's people arrived. In the morning he read in the sword fighting manuals and in the afternoon he sparred against the chief and tried to put his new theoretical knowledge into practice. After training for three days, Gunthar surprised him with a steady steel shield he created. Mike thanked him and immediately challenged the chief again. This went on for the next days, until the party of the guild arrived.

Mike was surprised for a moment that they came on foot. He'd always thought, rich people would have horses or carriages. Well, which horse could keep up with the speed of a high ranked adventurer. So it made some sense for them to be on foot.

The guild team consisted of five people. One of them wore a robe and a staff, he looked like a typical socerer. Another was clad in black leather armor and had two swords on his back. The third person wore heavy armor, a shield and a large axe. He was almost as wide as he was tall. A dwarf Mike thought. The fourth party member was a real giant. He was at least over 2.1 m tall and carried an enormous, two handed war hammer. It seemed like he forwent carrying armor, instead he just wore a heavy leather mantel with a fur collar. He looked like Mike always imagined a barbarian.

The last person had by far the most impressive equipment. She was small, but she was clad in a very heavy looking red plate armor. It was over and over covered in magical inscriptions which emitted a soft glow in the afternoon sun. It took Mike a moment to recognize this person, it was Sonja.

"Guild master, ahhmmm, Sonja, welcome to Darkwood village."

"Don't waste our time with some useless chitchat boy, bring us to the dungeon." the dwarf grumbled.

"Of course, let me get my stuff and the chief, he wanted to join us."

Mike gathered the chief, his tome and the metals Gunthar acquired in the city. Then they went to visit the dungeon.

When they arrived on site five hour later, Mike noticed the change of the entrance. It was no longer a small dirt hole, instead it changed to a three meters high portal created of black granite.

"We arrived. That is the dungeon I reported."

"Ok let's get ready." Sonja said and put on a helmet, a heavy shield and a sword.

Then they entered the dungeon.

Neo's POV:

Neo noticed his visitors immediately. He used some mana to analyzed them and was surprised with the result. Four of them were normal and at the B rank but the red armored leader was at the S rank. He stopped for a moment and then checked something.

Life Energy generation: 75320.1/d

"Holy shit!" he thought. He had to keep the S rank as long in the dungeon as he could.