I sat in the dungeon room circulating my mana. All the preparations to greet our guests were ready so I was waiting for them. It would take two or so more hours before they managed to break through to the boss room.

I breathed in, feeling the swirl of thick mana that permeated the entire dungeon enter into my lungs. I absorbed it as much as I could drawing it into my mana centre within my chest. I held my breath for 2 heart beats as I felt the swirl of mana flow through my body, slowing down at certain sites bidden by my willpower. Then, I breathed out, the breath feeling like fire as it left my body.

I was drenched in sweat, the skill [Mana Empowerment] didn’t seem to make using it any easier. But perseverance is key. I felt mana trying to form tiny crystals of energy in my muscles, this is what I believed is the path I need to take. Not a path of killing creatures, not one of empowering demonic influences… a path all of my own.

My body trembled, my muscles twitching, the mana that was trying to crystallize starting to look volatile, almost looking like it was going to start burning…

Then…

A single small crystal form and without any resistance entered one of my muscle cells. And then it was like a dam had burst, all the hundreds of tiny crystals that had been trying to form entered into my muscle cells.

I felt sharp stabbing pains as the muscles then twisted and contracted before settling down again.

[Mana Empowerment] has been activated

Strength has permanently increased by 1

I felt like laughing. All of that effort, for hours, just for a single stat point? But this was the key to forging myself into a Stat Ranker. I knew this. On Earth, how long did I search for a way to make myself more powerful? Sure there were other ways to gaining stats but they were all restrictive. [Contract] was good but I only got points if I found contractees with stronger stat points than me. Equipment had their own limitation, especially on earth with no one having the talent to make good equipment until years after the advent of mana. And I hadn’t explored this world so finding permanent stat increase potions and materials was not feasible yet.

Rox came into the room.

‘They’ve made it to the Boss room.’

Finally, we’re going to start our plan.

When the dark mages first entered the room, they were greeted with the sight of Masher waiting for them in the middle of the room. One of the foolhardy mages ran straight towards the orc fighter.

‘Stop you fool!’

The leader barked out, but it was too late. The shadowmancer caught Masher’s shadow and the glow of mana surrounded him. He looked up with a smirk at Masher but then his expression changed to one of shock. It was the last look he would have. Masher’s Hammer descended down cracking open the mage’s skull.

Weakness number 4: Their abilities don’t work on those without souls.

As a dungeon boss, his soul is tied to the room, not to his body. So who cares if his shadow is stolen? Without a stolen soul as well, the shadowmancer couldn’t control him.

‘Idiot! Useless morons the lot of you! Who told you to move forward?! Do you think your puny abilities can control the soul of a dungeon?! This is a special room and that is a special creature!’

The leader seemed to have expected this, he drew out another of his orbs. This one was purple in colour. When he crushed it, an overwhelming power of lightning surged around him.

Masher on seeing this started charging towards the mage group.

The leader mage sneered, fighters at a distance against a mage with a prepared spell? The outcome was obvious.

That was when an orb of blinding light exploded near the group of mages. The orc shaman Sightless had been preparing his spell as Masher was occupying their attention. With his vision gone, the leader couldn’t find a target so he started firing were he remembered Masher last.

Of course Masher hadn’t stayed still. Shade had burst out from the side where the panther had been hiding, bowling over the mages while the orc fighter hopped on. Then they attacked the remaining goblin Shadowspawn, killing them off easily.

When the shadowmancers regained their sight, they were faced with the sight of an orc armed with a 2-handed hammer sitting astride a pitch black panther, with muscles that rippled alarmingly. Behind was the vision of an orc shaman that was even then preparing another spell whose effects were unknown.

‘Fuck, what’s with this first floor boss? This is far too powerful! 3 fucking bosses?!’

As the mages backed away from the three first floor bosses, the leader of the group cursed.

He brought out a 7 different orbs, all of them disintegrating into dust. 7 different sparks of mana exploded out. From within the light a shape emerged, two long arms reaching to the ground.

The thing that emerged from the light was gargantuan… towering over double the height of Masher astride Shade. One hand would be as large as the body of a goblin!

It opened its eyes, but there was no intelligence in there. It rumbled as its body moved according to whose will, I didn’t know. Watching it though, I concluded that it was likely to be a mana construct of some kind. Maybe a puppet… or a golem.

When the golem came out, the game changed. It was a monstrous entity, with a resounding whistling roar its fist descended down upon the trio. Shade being the fastest of the 3 jumped to the side but Sightless wasn’t so lucky. He shot off one more spell towards the mage group, another blinding light spell before his body was crushed by the golem. His body dispersed into mana particles, he would only be summoned again once the room absorbed enough mana to summon him again.

The golem straightened up then focused on the panther and orc.

Behind the golem, the shadowmancers had been hit by light spell yet again causing most of them to grab their eyes in pain. A few of them were not caught in surprise again and had shielded their eyes, these of course included the experienced leader.

The leader withdrew a yellow orb from his robes. When he crushed it, yellow mana flew around him. He cast this mana towards the punching golem and dodging floor bosses. The effect of the mana became apparent, it made the air thicker, causing the movement speed of the two remaining bosses to plummet. With a roar, Shade threw Masher to the side as the golem’s fist descended and destroyed his body.

Now only Masher was left facing the vastly superior mage and his golem. This shadowmancer leader seemed to have prepared an incredible amount for this.

With nowhere left to run, Masher dashed ducking between the legs of the golem, fighting against that yellow aura. The golem was a bit slow to turn, thus by the time it had, Masher had broken through the area of the yellow mana and was almost upon the mage group.

The golem’s fist descended once again but so too did Masher’s hammer. Both ended up crushing the life that was underneath.

The group of 13 mages that had entered the dungeon had two more of their number crushed, they were now 9.

As the mage group descended the stairs to the decoy half of the second floor, I switched the two boss rooms again. The adventurers were rapidly entering the dungeon by now, I didn’t want them to run into the floor boss trio. I wondered how they would be summoned again though. Would it draw on my own mana? If so then that is truly bad for business.

The boss room, now with the Demon Wolf waiting in the centre would greet the adventurers. If I truly had to pay a mana cost for the floor bosses each time then the Demon Wolf was much cheaper.

I followed the shadowmancers to the second floor with my dungeon senses. They had paused at the landing at the bottom of the stairs. And no wonder. They had lit up some torches and were holding them aloft.

What greeted them was a dark floor, and the only things that were immediately visible was the dense foliage and tree trunks of the forest of the second floor.

I had gotten the Max and his squirrels to remove all the mana stones I had embedded in the roof to maintain bright light in this floor and then focused on saturating the floor with water elemental mana while draining out the fire elemental. The denser water elemental mana caused the dim glow of the dungeon to become even weaker and not enough for the dark mages to see.

I had also move the bees to the latter half of the floor, they would wait along with the rest of the troops for a final confrontation.

As the mages entered into the forest, they looked around fearfully, the light of the torches wasn't able to penetrate far. The denseness of the forest blocked the light quite effectively. Apart from the leader, the rest of this group was pitiful.

I gave a signal to Max and his troop. As squirrels, their natural inclination is in the upper treeline, which is where they were waiting at this moment.

With a synchronized movement, a dozen squirrels moved swiftly. Their target were the torches.

Weakness number 5, Shadowmancers need shadows in order for their ability to work.

Instantly the entire group was covered in darkness. The leader of the group was cursing. He probably had a countermeasure for this but he wasn’t expecting it.

Weakness number 3, no preparation for surprise attacks.

I gave a signal to Levine’s group. They dashed in from two sides, swords at the ready, plunging into the chests of 3 of the dark mages. Only 6 left now. Levine led his group to retreat.

The next phase was led by Tolk who had a bit of a grudge with this group. His team wielded spears, not for stabbing but for throwing. Although they were amateurs at this, they still managed to show some competence. Besides, their foe didn’t have armour or surprisingly for a mage group, defensive magic skills. I spoke a bit too soon, the light of mana started shining from an orb in the leader’s hands. The spears had already been cast though. They plunged into the remaining half dozen mages wounding 3 of them.

Weakness number 2, poor defensive ability, no healing ability.

There was the sound of sparks as one of the spears, impacted some mana creation around the lead shadowmancer making him hiss with anger.

He started to withdraw more orbs putting mana into them making more light. I sent the last signal to Max and his crew.

Vines tied up into lassos dropped down around the necks of the 5 mages, I didn’t order one for the lead mage, he was too canny for a trick like this.

The wounded mages didn’t even notice until the vines had already fallen in place. By then it was too late. With the concerted effort of a few dozen squirrel folk, the mages shot up into the air struggling against the vine. They didn’t have the strength to tear the vines or even the daggers or knives that could have cut the vines apart. Hidden in the darkness up in the trees, they were easy prey for squirrel warriors.

Weakness number 1, poor physical ability.

They were now only 3. The remaining two uninjured had noticed the vines dropping down and had tried to dodge. The slight delay was enough for the mage leader to send a wave of mana shooting out from one of his hands.

I narrowed my eyes, this was the first time he wasn’t relying on orbs. This person wasn’t simple… He didn’t belong with this group. No he was using this group as cannon fodder.

The 5 phases of the plan were complete. Our preparations had whittled the group from a strong 13 to a small 3. But that leader, he was probably stronger than the rest combined.

And right now he was roaring in anger.

Then he did something very unexpected. He clamped his hands down on the heads of the two remaining mages. The fierce flow of a sickly dark mana shot out around him. The two mages suddenly showed looks of extreme terror and started screaming.

‘Please no! Please!’

‘Don’t, I beg you!’

The reason became obvious, as their bodies soon slumped into lifelessness. The sole remaining shadowmancer held two faintly glowing orbs in his hands. The orbs gave off a sickly glow similar to the glow of his mana. He them pushed them back towards the lifeless bodies. The orbs entered into the shadow below the bodies… then the bodies as if alive once again stood up.

Not just cannon fodder it seems.

With a growl the remaining dark mage leader walked deeper into the forest flanked by his two newly created shadowspawn.

While Alex was dealing with the shadowmancers, I was keeping watch on the adventurers coming in. There were a lot of them… That swordswoman was in the lead almost 2 rooms ahead of the rest. Another 2 dozen adventurers had come in as well, split into two teams it seemed.

It didn’t take them long to find the corpse of the shadowmancer that died after his legs were crushed from the ceiling fall. The swordswoman had ignored it and move even faster while it made the others pause a bit.

They became even more careful about following precisely in the footsteps the swordswoman had left. The swordswoman had brought out a pouch of some strange powder then used it as a marker for those following her. I think she was following them using that strange mana smelling ability. The powder glowed faintly allowing the rest of the adventurers to follow her safely.

I frowned, this method would invalidate the traps quickly, we’ll have to deal with this in the future.

It didn’t take long for the swordswoman to reach the boss room, just a couple hours behind the shadowmancer group.

Was she going to go in by herself?

Yep, she went in by herself… fuck, what was her Rank? She didn’t even pause, the head of the Demon Wolf flew into the air as its body dispersed into light. Shit, that thing cost 400 mana you know? Fuck you Ogre Lady!

She carried on barreling down the stairs to the second floor. An hour later the rest of the adventurers, looking a bit ragged, joined her.

Some of them looked like they were going to question why she had stopped so suddenly. It surely wasn’t to wait for them...

They hadn’t even opened their mouths when the sound of an explosion sounded out. After that there was the unmistakable hum of magic skills being used echoing in the dungeon.

The floor didn’t seem to have any lighting but in the distance a crackling glow could be seen. Part of the forest was burning.

I heard the swordswoman muttering loudly, ‘What in devil’s name? Is there someone else down here? Who can fight against that shadowmancer prick?’

She turned to the adventurers and said more loudly, ‘We are going to go observe this battle. Those shadowmancers are our enemy however they have come to blows with another entity… it doesn’t sound like they’re having an easy time either so I doubt it’s monsters from the second floor of a dungeon… I suspect there is someone else down here. We will find if they be friend or foe.’

After saying that she took charge of one of the two adventurer groups while cursing.

I sent an urgent message to Alex. The adventurers were coming!