Chapter 38 - Aftermath

Day 54

Mike's POV:

When they left the dungeon Sonja gathered them to have a talk.

"Ok, we finished our run, so what are your plans now, Sardian?"

"Not sure yet, Khorgan went pretty mental. Over all, I think the dungeon is still way too young for us to dive regularly."

"It would be nice for your team to stay until I come back from headquarters. If you could do that and see that there are no surprises, I would give a tier one access for the dungeon." Sonja answered.

"Tier one, isn't that the priority at entering first in line? For how long?"

"Permanent."

"Ok, I'll talk to the others, but I think we'll take the offer. While the dungeon is still young, it looks promising. It's probably a good long term investment. What about you, you're going to the regional headquarter? That's all the way in the Empire of Carthas, more than one thousand kilometers just to get there. You'll probably be away for more than a month."

"Not, exactly." with that said, Sonja took out a black crystal from her storage ring.

"Wow, is that a spatial crystal? Never seen one before."

"Yes, I got it, when I reported the new dungeon. It is linked to the headquarters and I can get there instantly. For coming back, I can just use the mage associations teleportation array. But, I think it will still take some time to organize the people we'll need here to build a real dungeon city."

"So what do you want us to do while you're off?"

"I think it would be the best if you dive the dungeon as much as you can. This way you'll notice it's development speed or if it makes changes to existing floors. Also, from what I've heard, Khadgar is a pretty decent earth mage. It would be nice to organize with the village, so that we can build a road. There'll be a lot of goods coming this way and it would be nice if we don't need to carry them by hand through the forest."

"Well, we'll see what we can do."

Sardian left and Sonja shifted her focus to Mike.

"So, Mike, I told you that I had an interest in your book, I still have, but business comes first. I need to report the dungeon to the higher ups, otherwise it'll be pretty lonely here for quite some time. When it's officially registered, the guild will spread the basic information about it through multiple empires. As far as I can tell, there are no larger dungeons nearby, so it could become pretty popular. Please talk with your chief, about how your village can prepare the arrival of the new people. It's in your best interest to have as much paying visitors here as possible."

"Yes, I'll look into that. So when can we expect you to come back?"

"Should be at least two weeks, we'll see."

After they said their goodbyes, Sonja activated her crystal and disappeared. Mike went to the chief to have a talk.

"Chief"

"Mike, how was your dive?"

"Ok, the first five levels are only populated by animals, mainly wolves, panther and bears. But the cultivation on the mining floor was good."

"Just tell me if you need my help to get back there."

After this they talked about the preparations for the dungeon city. Chief told Mike he would take care of it and Mike accompanied Sardian to the fifth floor.

Neo's POV:

When the visitors left, Neo had another look at his status and saw that he was able to level up again.

Upgrade dungeon level -> 15 Costs: 52488 life energy Upgrade dungeon level -> 16 Costs: 94478 life energy

Name: Neo

Species: Dungeon core

Affinities: Mental magic 1

Rank: D-4

Level: 15

Structural Integrity: 64/64

Mana: 532k /532k (520k)

Floor area: 1053k /2113k m²

Max dungeon extension from core: 9393 m

Mana Regeneration: 12000 /h *8*50000% = 13333.33 /s

Life energy: 75142.7

Life Energy generation: 5790.1/d

Khorgan was still mining on the fifth floor and was delivering more than half of Neo's life energy generation. He thought about what to do next for a moment, then he decided to use the downtime to compress his core again.

Ten hours later he finished and his mana regeneration improved again.

Structural Integrity: 256/256

Mana Regeneration: 12000 /h *16*50000% = 26666.66 /s

The next issue he thought about, was which techniques he should give Mike. Iron Body and Giant Strength were no brainers. As soon as the boy would be able to activate more than one technique at the same time, it would be best to forgo Tough Body and instead use the techniques it was developed from. The next technique he would give the boy was Windseeker so he could improve the damage he did with his sword. He knew, Mike was focusing on Earth and Wind, but that was no reason to completely ignore other elements. Sometimes, even a very low skilled technique of a not specialized element could save one's bacon. That was why he put in Flame Sword and Water Regeneration. When he was finished with mentally collecting the techniques, he created a skill book and put them in it.

"Ok, Mike I've got your skills. It's probably best if you go to an area of the mining floor where the dwarf can't see or hear you."

Neo saw the boy moving behind the central pillar of the floor.

"Ok, Neo I'm ready."

"Here boy."

Neo let the book appear in front of him and Mike immeditely used it.

"Wow, thanks. That was a lot of information."

"You're welcome. One more advice, warrior and mages are different. While mages often use their time to develop new spells, warrior should always focus on improving their basics. It's a lot better to focus on one body strengthening technique and improve it while your rank improves instead of learning new ones every few rank ups. The techniques all follow the same concepts and you can just make changes to them to adjust to your increasing mana capacity and regeneration."

"Wow, that is nice to know. It will save me a lot of money I think. Is there something I can do for you as compensation?"

"Haha, no not really. Wait, maybe you could ask the dwarf why he's mining on the fifths floor and not on the tenths. I'm kind of curious about this."

"I will do that, thanks."

Neo didn't listen to their conversation, but he was able to see the dwarf slapping his forehead, packing up his stuff and marching to the boss room.

While he was on his way, Neo constructed another blast furnace on the tenth floor and he put some more dense metal veins in there. He mainly focused on silver, chrome, iron, nickel and vanadium. Mining this floor should be about twice as lucrative as the fifths one.

Pleased with his progress, Neo started to think about his next steps. He checked his metal reserves for a moment and got a surprise.

Gold 50000 mana/g

It didn't really improve his efficiency at creating money, but it was a lot easier for adventurers to carry their loot in gold instead of silver. In a good mood, he decided to add some little gold deposits near the silver he placed in the tenth floor.

"Neo, do you have time? I'd like to talk to you?" he heard Luna ask.