Now equipped with a better understanding of the dragon slime's weaknesses, Ergo made steady progress through the second floor. He was now level fifty-two, with his leveling speed slowing precipitously. As he walked down the stairs to the third floor, Ergo could hear Crys muttering telepathically, as if unable to fully restrain his thoughts.

“What?” Ergo asked, turning his head to look toward where he knew Crys should be.

“Oh, just doing some theoretical math. You’re leveling up at an extremely high speed.” Crys replied distractedly.

Ergo cocked his head. “Why do you say that? As far as I know, I’m the first thing to enter your dungeon. It’s not as if you’ve had a lot of test subjects.”

“I know, but I’ve been reading the forums. In general for someone of your class, it’s easy to get to level twenty, but it takes several days to reach thirty. A week to reach forty, two to reach fifty. After that it gets worse, depending how hard people push. For the average person it takes four months to a year to earn their first perk point. At this rate, you might manage it in one to two weeks.”

Ergo shrugged, still in human form. “I guess I’m a quick learner.”

Crys shook his telepathic head. “No, it’s actually my fault. You see, the slimes are absurdly weak in terms of combat, so I had to make way more of them than you’d normally find for other creatures in an average dungeon. Despite being weak, they give the same amount of experience as any other monster at their level. More from the dragon slimes because they’re an evolved monster. Also, to be fair, you have innate strengths from being a dragon, and for some reason you seem to have an innate capacity for spell-crafting that’s giving you an edge in clearing them out. That’s speeding things up as well.”

Ergo grinned. It was good to rekindle a small fraction of his pride as a dragon. “If they’re so weak, what’s the purpose of making nothing but slimes? Why not make something else?”

Crys sighed. “I need templates from other creatures in order to make more, but something about your claim on me is driving everything away. Normally, dungeons send out an aura that draws in nearby wildlife. It’s half the reason why I’m so driven to build strong defenses in the first place. Sometimes the wildlife we draw in can be extremely powerful.”

“Then I will make you a deal. Once I reach your core room, I’ll go acquire some animals to populate your dungeon with.” Ergo felt the itch of magic settle over him as he activated pact magic. Pact magic was a staple of draconic culture in his homeworld; allowing the epically powerful creatures to avoid the need to enforce trades with violence. The moment someone reneged on a deal, all natural mana regeneration would cease until the terms were fulfilled. On the rare occasion the terms became unfulfillable, it could even lead to death as the body became increasingly mana-deprived.

As Ergo cast the spell, a new notification popped up in front of him which he quickly closed.

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New spell added:

Dragon Pact

Spell above base level

Recalculating

Spell Level: Master Level 3

Note: a slightly modified version of a normal pact spell with stricter penalties. Use with caution.

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“Why did you just make a magical pact over that?” Crys asked in surprise.

“Habit mostly.” Ergo grumbled as he realized it had been unnecessary. “Where I’m from, we make pacts for essentially every agreement so that there’s no room for error. The last thing you want is a disagreement that leads to a fight to the death with a dragon of unknown power.”

“I get that. Still, it seems a bit harsh.” Crys commented as Ergo stuck an electrified talon through a dragon slime’s core.

Ergo snorted. “As a species, dragons are territorial, impulsive creatures. I’m one of the few to live past two hundred years old despite the fact that we are essentially immortal. In fact, about half of those that die before two hundred do so because they think they’ve found some way to cheat a pact. My own father died because he thought he had found a way to circumvent the wording of his mating pact with my mother. If you ask me, we need the pacts to weed out the stupid, and weak-willed.” Ergo went silent as he remembered watching his father slowly wither into a shallow husk of a dragon.

“What did your father do wrong?” Crys asked hesitantly.

Fire overrode the lightning on Ergo’s hand, causing his talon to rebound off his current enemy. Ergo frowned as he shook out his hand from the unexpected pain. “I don’t know the exact wording of their pact, but he thought he had found a loophole where as long as mating with other females didn’t produce hatchlings, it wouldn’t break the terms. So, he would take them, and then break the eggs they laid under his paw. If I had to guess, I would say the pact magic considered the egg being laid at all to already be in violation. Eventually, he died of mana deprivation.”

“I’m sorry, that sounds terrible.” Crys said sympathetically.

“Don’t be. I despised my father. I even refused to join the ritual consumption, because I didn’t want to absorb any of his essence. He was… let’s just say that most dragon females don’t willingly mate without a pact, and would definitely not be willing to have their eggs crushed. My father left a trail of misery in his wake.”

Crys didn’t reply, and Ergo fell into a rhythm of battle with the slimes. Core after core found its way into his mouth as he fought on, and it was only another hour before he reached Crys’s chamber. Ergo nodded wordlessly at Crys, his level sitting at a respectable seventy-three; before leaving through the side tunnel that allowed him to leave the dungeon without having to navigate the entire dungeon again.

Standing at the dungeon entrance, Ergo was forced to push down anxiety at knowing he was no longer among the strongest creatures in the world. In fact he doubted he was even among the top fifty percent in this forest. Most of all, Ergo worried about being discovered by Keller; the human who had tortured him when he arrived in this world. Without the arrogance of youth that had fueled his true childhood, and adolescence, Ergo almost turned back to reenter the cave. It was only draconic pride, and the threat of his pact with Crys that pushed him forward. Ergo’s serpentine irises drew inward at the unexpected difficulty as he pushed himself forward, walking through the clearing to stand near a tree at the clearing’s edge.

Growling at his own cowardice as the line of trees once again gave him pause, Ergo slashed a talon through the nearby tree. When that didn’t help, he did it again and again; until he was roaring his fury with his high-pitched squeaky voice. Fire wreathed his talons until the tree was left scored and burnt. Finally the fit of rage subsided, leaving him shaking; leaning his forehead against the tree. Ergo glanced back at the cave entrance to ensure Crys wasn’t watching, before growling again, and composing himself.

To distract himself, Ergo began composing new spells as he walked, hunting for a sign of potential prey. Eventually, he had wreathed his own body in a very mana-efficient low grade flame like a kind of magical security blanket before he finally found his first victim. With a sigh, Ergo deactivated the flames as he knelt over the tracks; left by a rabbit. Instincts kicking in, Ergo quickly hunted, and killed the rabbit with a quick snap of the neck.

Having never needed to before, Ergo found it incredibly difficult to not consume the corpse. His irises fluctuated between their contracted, and more oval shapes quickly back and forth as he stared at it. Finally, his mind won out over his instincts, and he grabbed the rabbit by the neck; carefully not looking at it as he marched back to the dungeon entrance. Closing his eyes, he tossed it inside. Though he hadn’t specified a quantity, Ergo had said he would acquire “animals” in the plural sense, and he knew the pact magic would likely interpret this as meaning a single animal was insufficient. Therefore, Ergo marched back into the forest. This time he had only a momentary spike of anxiety, which he quelled by leaving a burnt talon mark in a tree as he walked past. This time he happened upon a pond with several ducks calmly waddling; occasionally ducking down to nip at a fish.

Deciding channel lightning was the ranged spell best equipped to leave the bodies intact, Ergo launched it at the nearest duck. Having not thought about the consequences of combining lightning, and water, Ergo watched in surprise as several ducks, and an assortment of fish were all devastated by the surprise attack; bodies now floating on top of the pond.

“Hmmm, I can only carry so many of these with two hands.” Ergo muttered to himself, cocking his head, and tapping his chin in thought.

“Well, I suppose there’s only one thing to do.” He said a moment later, grinning, and licking his lips. Soon, he received a notification.

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22 standard units of fish consumed. At 1,000 units, water breathing perk becomes available.

Current Progress; 22/1,000

******************************

“Interesting.” Ergo acknowledged begrudgingly.

--------------------------------

When he finally returned to the cave, Ergo carried a single duck corpse, and two fish corpses of different species. One of these was tiny, too small to be worth eating, while the other was large, and had an oily aftertaste Ergo didn’t like. Stepping into the cave mouth, Ergo deposited the corpses on the ground; watching in fascination as they vanished into motes of light that flew through the floor toward Crys.

“Is that sufficient?” Ergo asked, returning to his native dragon form as he entered the secret passage to Crys’s core room.

“It’s a decent start I think. If nothing else, the rabbit variants I’ve been experimenting with are adorable.”

Ergo cocked his head, not fully understanding the response. “Are they stronger than the slimes?”

Crys sent a mental shrug. “Marginally. If nothing else, they at least give some variety. I’m sure you’ll be thrilled that there’s at least actual meat on the table instead of slime cores.”

Ergo snorted. “That’s certainly true. The taste of crystalized slime isn’t particularly enticing to me.”

“I’ll show you some of my experimental monsters once you get to the core room. Oh, and don’t worry, I’ve turned off hostility to you again so they won’t attack you.”

Ergo nodded, and exited into the core room a few minutes later. In front of him were an assortment of different colored rabbits. Additionally, there was another rabbit with scales, vestigial wings, and reptilian slitted green eyes whose irises slowly contracted and expanded as it looked around. One of the other rabbits hopped too close, and the reptilian rabbit hissed at it; displaying a row of serrated shark-like teeth. As if receiving a summons, the rabbits all perked up, hopping awkwardly into a line.

“So, from right to left, we’ve got a fire rabbit, a lightning rabbit, and an ice rabbit. thanks for those by the way, I got the elemental access from your spells. Next is an earth rabbit, that I got from eating dirt to make the dungeons. After that is a horned rabbit. Apparently if you keep pumping mana into a normal rabbit, it grows a horn, and becomes a vicious predator, who knew? Finally, there’s a… er… drabbit. Obviously, I made that by mixing it with the essence from your dragon scales.”

Ergo turned his serpentine head to glare at Crys. “No, we are not calling it that.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t have a choice. It was already named that when I summoned it. Whoever invents a new monster type first gets to name it, so apparently there’s a core out there with access to dragon scales, and a really bad inclination toward puns.”

Ergo sighed, and shook his head, prompting Crys to continue. “Also, while you were walking down, I experimented a bit with the other things you brought me. When mixed with dragon scale, the duck became a drake. That’s actually a decent pun if you ask me, so I’m giving that one a pass.” As Crys spoke, a duck-like entity waddled into view. The flat webbed feet were mostly the same, with the exception that they were now made from snake-like pebbled scale. Likewise, the body of the duck was also covered in this same scale, including the wings. The eyes had been replaced by reptilian ones similar to the rabbit, and the ducks bill now had small, hook-shaped teeth that uniformly hooked backward, as if to tear the flesh from prey. With a prompt from Crys, the drake opened its mouth, and breathed a surprisingly strong torrent of fire against the wall of the cave.

Ergo nodded in appreciation. “Good; hopefully, they will make strong prey.”

“You’re so weird sometimes.” Crys muttered.

“Were you able to make anything from the fish?” Ergo asked curiously.

“Well, I don’t really have the right environment for fish. I haven’t actually absorbed a water template yet to make pools with. I do have one thing though.”

Ergo watched as motes of light appeared in the air, quickly manifesting into a fish the size of a cow. It had scales thicker than steel plate armor, and tiny, almost vestigial taloned limbs. Its teeth were piranha-like, and down its throat, Ergo could see what looked like the core of his own fire-breath; though it wasn’t actively breathing fire. The fish flopped awkwardly on the ground, eyes filled with panic as every thud of its tail brought a substantial tremor to the cavern. A few seconds later, Crys dematerialized it.

“According to the description, it’s actually supposed to live in lava rather than water. I can make lava by combining fire and earth elements, so it should make for an interesting monster. I’ve been meaning to move on to a fourth floor, and I have an interesting idea for what to do with this monster.”

“You haven’t told me what it’s named.” Ergo said accusingly.

Crys coughed mentally. “It’s called a bass draggin. With an I instead of an o for dragon. Don’t ask me why, my best guess is some kind of inside joke.”

Ergo buried his head under his paws, and groaned. “If we ever encounter the core who made these names up, remind me to kill them on behalf of the honor of all dragon-kind. Stop me if it looks like I’m about to eat them though, I don’t want to accidentally absorb some kind of special pun trait.”

Ergo watched as the drabbit sniffed the fire rabbit curiously. The unsuspecting fire rabbit turned its head quizzically before the drabbit unhinged its jaw far wider than should have been physically possible, and chomped down on the fire rabbit; engulfing its entire head in a single bite. The drabbit looked at the fire rabbit in a mixture of frustration, and disgust when it evaporated into motes of light that did nothing to fill the drabbits stomach.

“Will do.” Crys replied, eyeing the drabbit with a measure of horror.