Chapter 43 - Dungeon business

Day 57

Neo’S POV:

Finally, the research was finished.

Research facility Tier 4 *completed*

Bonus to research point generation: 100%

Maximum amount of researchers: 100

Cost reduction 80% from scientific education

Research points 5000/5000

Neo selected the Normal Beast Core development as the next focus and created more of his goblins shamans to help with the research. For now, he would concentrate on expanding his lower dungeon floors. He needed a D rank section before the adventurers came, otherwise his dungeon wouldn’t be very popular.

Current Research Topic: Normal Beast Core development

Current research point generation: 200.0 / day

Research points 0/2500

First, he started to use mana to grow the trees on his road of perdition on the 11th floor. Next, he created a fortified structure at the entrance of the 12th floor. This would be the end of his road, beyond would be a wild forest, populated by the first beasts of his dungeon. He went for a guarding force of 25 hobgoblins. Later, after he increased the ceiling height, he would make paths for climbers to circumvent the hobgoblin guard station and enter the forest directly. When this was finished, he used his mana to increase to grow of the trees on the floor. Then he started to create lesser fire panthers and lesser wind squirrellings to populate the forest. They were individually a lot stronger than the hobgoblins, but they were loners and a diver would only have to fight them one at a time if he was careful.

While he was adjusting his floors, he had gathered enough life energy to increase his dungeon level to 16.

Upgrade dungeon level -> 16 Costs: 94478 life energy Upgrade dungeon level -> 17 Costs: 170061 life energy

He bought the level immediately and moved his core all the way down to a new 16th floor, then he went back to the level 13. This would be the valley of doom. He created a three kilometer long, and 50 meter high narrow canyon. It didn’t take that much floor space, because he only made it between two and ten meters wide. Then he created tiny caves for his lesser doom rabbits and medium sized ones for his lesser life weregoblins. The rabbits would stay in their holes, while weakening the intruders with their doom aura. They would prevent groups from carrying weak members through this floor. The caves for the weregoblins were located a little higher up, this way they were able to start surprise attacks on the passing groups from above. With their life magic regeneration, they were not affected by the rabbits doom aura.

The floor ended in a large cave system, which would be his 14th floor. He created three entrances on the last kilometer of the 13th floor. There would only be one open at a time, and each time a group passes, another it would close and another one would open. For now, he decided to build eighty rooms in the cave and he populated them by lesser earth dire bears and lesser earth giants. In addition he put on small groups of lesser earth squirrellings that could use surprise attacks against the intruders. Half of the rooms had traps and he created three different exits to the 15th floor. Later, when he had more visitors, he would expand the floor even further and create more entrances and exits.

His 15th floor was a copy of the 10th one. He wasn’t ready to create a boss, yet. So, he left the boss room empty, but he marked the exit to the 16th floor with a red X. He thought about the floor for a moment and decided to create a trading station here. For this, he built a small market place with ten booths. One of them would be later operated by Biff. He wanted to use it to buy rare metals and other materials he couldn’t create with magic, yet. He called it Rare Metal Exchange. Later, after he could create these materials himself, he could use it to help adventurers trade the materials they found against the ones they needed.

After finishing his market place, he distributed gold, silver, iron, nickel, chrome and cobalt over the mining area of the floor. He increased the mining output per m³ by twofold compared to the 10th floor. Then he built two of the blast furnaces and connected them with a silver mana conduit to his core formation. Neo thought a moment about what he should do with the rest of his available floor area and decided to use it to increase the ceiling height of floor eleven and twelve.

At last, he took a look at his newly created floors. Content with their current design, he decided to get back to his research facility. He wanted get the normal beast cores done and to be able to create stronger beasts.

Current research point generation: 2198.0 / day

With his help, the point generation went through the roof and it only took him less than a day to finish the rest.

Normal Beast Core development *completed*

Before he started to create beasts, he checked his new research options.

Research facility Tier 5

Bonus to research point generation: 150%

Maximum amount of researchers: 250

Cost reduction 70% from scientific education

Research points 0/37,500

Higher Beast Core development

Research points 0/12,500

They were both a little bit expensive, so he started to look for cheaper research topics that were interesting. In the end, he decided that a second hidden entrance to his dungeon would come in handy and went for the Improved Mana Distribution.

Improved Mana Distribution Tier 1

Allows a dungeon to improve his control over his internal mana circulation so that he can create a second entrance without risking to mess up the mana concentrations on its floors.

Research points 0/800

Before continuing his research work, he had a look at his status window.

Name: Neo

Species: Dungeon core

Rank: D-4

Level: 16

Structural Integrity: 256/265

Mana: 2134k /2589k (1225k)

Floor area: 3814k /3814k m²

Max dungeon extension from core: 14898 m

Mana Regeneration: 13600 /h *16*50000% = 30222.2 /s

Life energy: 7722.5

Life Energy generation: 11514.2/d

He needed to wait a little bit to get the ten thousand life energy he needed to create a C rank beast. It would be good, if the S rank guild leader would come back to his dungeon. Maybe, if she was notified about the new levels, she would come herself to inspect them. She alone brought him more than five times the amount of life energy, the B rank group gave him. It would be even better, if they would just decide to build their guild headquarters inside of his dungeon, but for now that was just a dream and out of reach. They wouldn’t trust his dungeon enough to live in it, at least for the moment.

Mike’s POV:

Mike left the dungeon. In the last days, he challenged the first four floors at least ten times. While the experience had been painful, he made large progress in his mana skill levels and his cultivation. He even reached the E5 rank while he cultivated on the fifth floor.

When he looked at the area in front of the dungeon, he was surprised. There were new people who were setting up tents and market stalls under the supervision of the chief.

“Morning chief, I see we have new people.”

“Yes, a group of E rank adventurers and two trader. They came from Geldern and went here immediately after they heard the news about the dungeon. Keldian this is Mike, he’s an E rank adventurer, too and he is the one that discovered the dungeon.”

Mike looked at the young man. He was dressed like a mage and Mike estimated him around 20 years of age. He had a smile on his face when he looked at Mike.

“Nice, a new adventurer like us. We just arrived and this will be our first dungeon dive. I saw you just came out of the dungeon, did you challenge it alone?” Keldian asked.

“Only the first levels, they are made for F rank groups, so I can handle them.”

“Wow, that’s pretty cool, but risky too. Most experienced adventurers warned me to never go into a dungeon alone.”

“Pahh, look at him Keldian, he’s just a country bumpkin. I could probably clear this whole dungeon by myself.” An arrogant looking youngster in flashy clothes interjected.

“Mike, this is Hans of Geldern. He’s a distant relative of the count and is a little bit overconfident, but a good fighter. My name is Isabelle, but you can call me Izzy. I’m a water mage under the same master as Keldian.” A young woman commented. She wore a robe like Keldian, but Mike estimated her age only around 16 years.

“Nice to meet you, if you want to clear the whole dungeon, you should probably talk to Hallvor, the rest of the expedition team is currently in the dungeon or building the road.”

“As if we need to talk to this moron. I’ve seen him, he’s too stupid to teach a wolf how to hunt a rabbit. His wolf is probably mentally challenged, too.” Hans responded disdainfully.

“Yes, I have to admit, Hallvor has some issues with rabbits. Nevertheless, he is a B rank adventurer and was part of the group that cleared the dungeon. So, you are an adventurer team, care to introduce your last members?”

“Mike, this is Karn, he doesn’t talk much. But he is a very strong tank. The other one is Scorpion his a very good at stealth attacks and at finding and placing traps.” Izzy answered.

“So, Mike. Are you interested to challenge the dungeon with us? We could use a guide for our first run and if this arrangement works out we could work as a group in the future.” Keldian asked.

“What? Keldian you really want to take this farmer with us? Look at him, he doesn’t even have a real armor, just this leather cloths.” Hans interjected while surveying Mike disdainfully.

“Oh shut up, Hans. He survived the first levels alone, without suffering an injury from what I can see. He’s more than qualified.” Izzy angrily responded.

“Yeah, sure, why not. When do you want to start?”

“How about now?” Scorpion suggested.

With this, the group left their tents for new and gathered their equipment. With Mike, they were two tanks, a rogue, a two handed swordfighter and two mages. Then they entered the dungeon.