***** Bud’s POV *****

{God help us. We're in some deep doggy doo-doo.} I sent it back to Zona.

Switching mental gears slightly, I added Broohn to the call. {Team meeting, my core room, now. Bring the kobolds. We have some things to discuss.}

{“Coming!”} said Zona.

{“We’ll keep working until Zona gets here.”} Said Broohn before everyone disconnected.

“What’s going on?” asked Tracey.

That’s what this meeting is going to be about, and I’d prefer to only say it once. Be patient, it won’t be that long until Zona gets here.

“Fine. In the meantime, should we continue working on your creation algorithms?”

Certainly! Now that we have it working, I think I’m going to try re-orienting the ball bearing before I create it. I said as I re-absorbed the successful attempt. In doing so I only got back twenty-four out of the twenty-five mana I had spent creating it, which I noted for the future. Let’s see, can I simply rotate the pattern before I feed it to the algorithm?

“The theory I was taught says that should work, but you’re using a different algorithm, so I don’t know for sure.”

Ok, I’m trying that now… Yup, that worked. Now for the fun part: modifying the pattern so I can get the shape that I want. Any suggestions?

“Nope. Every dungeon sees their patterns in a slightly different way, so their methods of modifying the patterns change accordingly. I will say that the patterns that you are getting now are so much cleaner and far more detailed than any of the patterns that they showed us in school.”

Wait, there’s a Dungeon Fairy School out there somewhere?

“Yup. Every significant Dungeon Fairy Enclave has its own branch of the school. There may be far too many of us for all of us to have our own dungeon, but we have no way of knowing ahead of time which of us will end up with a dungeon. So we put all of our children through the training process just in case.”

Nice! So what do they teach you about the composition of materials?

“Come again?”

Do your schools talk at all about the basic building blocks of a pure substance?

“Not really. They do teach us some things about that, but they don’t go into much detail because nobody has a theory that comes anywhere close to being right.”

Huh. I see that I’ll have to teach you a bunch of science and engineering at some point. For now, I think we should focus on how to truly multitask then.

“What do you mean by that? I’m a girl. Multitasking comes naturally!”

It depends on how you define multitasking. If a normal Dungeon Fairy’s brain works anything like a human’s, then strictly speaking you don’t actually multitask. Instead, you are rapidly switching from one task to the next, which is equivalent to stopping and starting each task repeatedly. In other words, each time you switch tasks you have to pause and remember where you were and what you were doing with the task you are switching to. Those who are good at it might not have all that much of a pause, but it’s still there, and it can add up over time. By that definition of multitasking, yes, women are generally better at multitasking than men.

“Okay... This is relevant why?”

With the AI method of thinking, when applied properly, there is no pause. You are literally doing multiple things at once. Also, once I get my dungeon up and running, there will be times where both of us will have to split our attention to handle multiple things at once. It will be much easier for you to learn this now while things are still relatively simple. Do you think you’re up to the challenge?

Tracey paused and thought for a moment, trying to figure out how much progress she had made on learning my method of thinking. “As much as it surprises me to say this, I think I am ready. How do we begin?”

Just try and follow my lead. The first step is…

*****Five minutes later, mental thread #1*****

Right, so over here on this mental thread let’s go back to talking about algorithms and generally getting the dungeon built. We'll use the other one to talk about science before and after the team meeting.

“Implying that we will also use the other one for the team meeting? Sounds good to me.”

So, the first thing is to modify the pattern so I can bolt it to something rather than using a force fit.

“I’m guessing that will just be a matter of adding a couple more loops of metal to the exterior of the ball bearing?”

In theory, yes, it is that simple. In practice, I have to account for the internal changes in molecular chemistry and atomic structure caused by the case hardening part of the manufacturing process. Not to mention the other molecular-scale pattern changes that occur naturally.

“Huh? What sort of pattern changes?”

When substances go from liquid to solid, they will tend to solidify from the outside inwards, and along the way form lots of tiny little crystals, which are called grains, that are oriented every which way. The size, orientation, deformation and many other factors related to these grains determine the final properties of a given object at the molecular scale. When I absorb something and get the pattern for it on the first try, I get a specific layout of these grains. Due to the complexities in the patterns of these grains, it is probably going to take me a couple of tries to get something that has the qualities that I’m looking for. The problem is that the pattern also includes all of the microscopic imperfections. If I accidentally stick too many of those imperfections in one place it could significantly weaken the part.

Sorry if this is getting a bit technical, I tend to go overboard when you hit my science button. However, I will be covering this eventually in the other thread.

“Good, because I only barely understood some of that. Just let me know when you’re ready to test the modified pattern.”

One moment… Alright, there we go. Since everyone is in my core room at the moment, let’s try this in the entryway.

“Sounds good.”

Testing in 3… 2… 1… Go! I said as I inserted the modified pattern into my new creation algorithm.

Congratulations! Hidden Unlock Requirement for Legendary Creation Method Satisfied: Successfully Modify a Pattern! You must find ??? more Hidden Unlock Requirements to Unlock all Benefits of Legendary Creation Method! You must Improve the other three creation methods to Unlock all Benefits of the Legendary Creation Method!

Great. I should have seen that one coming…

“How will we know how many hidden unlock requirements there are?”

The number of remaining Hidden Unlock Requirements will be displayed upon 75% completion of Hidden Unlock Requirements!

Oh. Well, that’s not too bad. Thanks for the information!

After another five minutes of fiddling, Tracey and I managed to get all of the components of the waterwheel modified to the specifications that I wanted, only losing 3.5 mana in the process. The final water wheel cost me 37 mana per square meter of stream, for a total cost of 360 mana for the stream that I had currently claimed.

Yes! Waterwheel design complete! Now to install this in the stream!

While we were talking, I briefly borrowed a drill bit covered in industrial diamonds from Broohn since the team meeting was over. I was able to use that pattern to create an 8 cm3 diamond, with a storage capacity of 350,000 mana. The reason for the ridiculous storage capacity is I was able to manipulate its pattern so that it was a single crystal, thus avoiding the power loss issues caused by the gaps between the microscopic grains. This is on top of the already impressive storage capacity of even low-quality industrial diamonds.

As I was doing this, I realized that I could use the patterns I had to isolate individual elements, then use those elements to create things for which I already knew the chemical composition. Doing so at any reasonable speed would take more processing power than I currently had, but it is something to keep in mind for the future. The only reason I was able to do what I had so far with pattern manipulation was I could mostly copy and paste large sections of the patterns that I was creating, provided I was careful with it. Once I got my first floor completely up and running, I would have to look into improving my core.

Once I had the water wheels installed in the section of the stream I already had, I was able to get an additional 360 mana per day, raising my hourly mana gain to 16.15. Since I was continuing to expand my dungeon, my mana levels were going all over the place. Mostly they stayed just over 50 mana since I didn't want to accidentally run out, but it went up to a shade over 90 mana whenever I had to install a new section of waterwheel. When I finally finished building my first floor, which would use as much volume as I could claim for a single floor, my total daily mana regen would be 3229.10 mana per day.

When I realized this, I was extremely glad that I had made that diamond for mana storage, and that I was going to be using most of that as fast as it came in for the immediate future. However, it was also clear to me that I would need to figure out how to improve my core once I had at least some rudimentary defenses in place. I didn't want to waste mana by losing it to a lack of storage space.

Hmm… Hey Tracey, it just occurred to me: if there is loose unclaimed mana floating around my dungeon, does it automatically become mine, or do I need to do something with it to claim it? I’m not talking about this case specifically since I’m just going to store it in a diamond, but it would be nice to know for the future.

“Any loose mana in the dungeon automatically becomes yours, you don’t have to worry about that.”

What about if I don't have any room for more mana?

"Then it gets absorbed by your creatures, making them stronger, faster, tougher and/or smarter, depending on the monster. All of your monsters combined get about 2.5% of your actual passive mana regen to improve themselves. Don't worry, this mana doesn't come out of your mana regen, it is just based off of how much mana regen you have."

Interesting... I'll have to think about the implications of that at some point.

“Alright, that’s mana supply sorted. So what’s next?”

Next, I move my core even further back into the cliff. When I made the current rooms, I forgot to account for the Boss room. How would I go about moving my core room rather than simply moving my core?

“Inside of your territory, you can move your rooms around as you see fit. It doesn’t cost you much, probably about 2% of your natural regen rate for the duration of the move no matter the size of the room. The cost will increase as your mana regen does, just not as much as changing your core room.”

Wait, how does moving not interfere with the dungeon connections the way that changing core rooms does?

“I don’t know. Nobody has ever managed to answer that question.”

Right. Here goes nothing! I said as I moved my core room, only keeping the extent of my claimed territory about a meter in front of the room as it moved.

“Are you sure that you have the manna for this?”

Absolutely! I’ll be digging the Boss room and a couple of side rooms as I go, which will give me the manna that I need to keep going. As a side note, it looks like moving my core room reroutes the dungeon connections as my core moves without interfering with them. As opposed to changing my core room, which temporarily disconnects most of those connections then attempts to reroute them afterward.

“Huh. Alright then. Let’s talk about your plans for the first floor. I hope you haven’t gotten too complicated on me here.”

I doubt it. The first rule of building a new kind of thing: until you know that you know what you’re doing, use the KISS principle.

“Wait, what are you kissing?”

No, I’m not kissing anything! This isn’t about kissing, it’s about not being stupid! Besides, I don’t have lips. Trying to kiss something would just be stupid because I can’t! It’s an acronym that stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.

“Ah. That makes more sense. So, do you have a theme in mind?”

Yes, I do. It will be an electricity theme. It will probably be mistaken for a lightning theme since nobody knows what electricity is yet, but it is an important distinction.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

Electricity is a tool that can be used in a million different ways. When used properly, it is safe, powerful, adaptable and predictable. Lightning, on the other hand, is merely powerful and unpredictable.

“I don’t quite follow. I'm not even sure what electricity is.”

Oh, oops. Electricity is to lightning as water is to a raging river at flood tide. That said, which is more useful: the stream that powers the flour mill, or the flood that washes it away? That is not to say that lightning cannot be useful, but is not something that would be used as a household tool. Which, by the way, you can do with electricity.

“Ah. I see. Do you have a floor plan and things to put in every room?”

I think I have most everything except the Boss and the details of the fighting rooms. I know where I’m going to put them, but until I actually see the mechanical golems and get a feel for what they can and cannot do, I don’t want to start making serious plans for the fighting section. I hope they turn out to be what I think they are, but concrete plans can wait until I know for sure.

“Wait, is that a map you’re trying to hide from me?”

Yes and no. Yes, it is a map, but no I wasn’t trying to hide it. I was getting ready to show it to you when the conversation got there. That said, here is an outline of what I’m thinking.