Day 695

The adventurers resumed exploration because the guild did not discover any anomalies. Iron mines are growing and attracting more desperate people, gangs have formed in the slums and there is a high risk of disease spreading.

The count therefore diverts the drainage, I diverted an underground water source so that it passes into the sewer system of the upper town, the water then cascades down the entire town underground before being released into a river a few kilometers away.

Now the sewers also pass under the slums before being collected in a huge fake where I create harmless slimes that digest and purify the water, the purified water then flows into the river. This system should at least limit the spread of disease.

I should be able to dig my tenth floor soon, in the meantime I'm interested in the rune I discovered some time ago, a weight reduction rune. This can be very useful for me, the ceilings of the dungeon are getting higher and higher and the dungeon stone will not always support the weight of the rock. So I studied this rune, it reduces the weight passively by two, if you want to reduce the advantage simply inject mana to increase the reduction factor, mana consumption is exponential for the reduction of weight.

I transform this rune into a more general network so that it can be applied over large areas. After working on the demonic summoning rituals it is relatively easy.

Day 696

I determined a network to remove 80% of the weight of a cap without consuming additional mana, it regenerates with ambient mana. I will use it from the tenth floor.

The church made an expedition to the keep but did nothing wrong, there were no deaths. The good news is that the main priest has the life attribute, the bad news is that he is too powerful for me to kill him even though his affinity is not offensive.

The count receives disturbing news from the western border, the keep is in the far north of the kingdom. The neighboring kingdom has weakened recently and our king wants to take advantage of it, it is likely that a war will start, he does not want to annex the neighboring territory, or the surrounding countries would attack us in turn, but he surely wants to recover precious resources.

Only the marquises or the dukes can have a personal army, for all the nobles, a war is the occasion to rise in rank. But without a personal army, the only choice is to enlist in someone else's army. The Earl is not made for this, if the war ever begins, he will have two choices: buy an army, that is to say mercenaries, or participate in the war effort of the kingdom by providing supplies. , weapons or gold. At the moment it's just rumors.

I heard from the organization, they infiltrated the slums and formed a street gang to gather information. I know this because I always have servants mixed with the population who live in the same way as them.

There is no news from a dungeon core or anyone with the dark attribute. I am patient so I wait.

A few rare plants have mutated into demonic plants after the explosion in the alchemical garden. I then enlarge the room and add ten more servants.

Day 698

I made a new big breakthrough in alchemy, I discovered an elixir of youth. According to my tests, it heals all physical ailments and afflictions, including a lost limb. To return to their optimal state, whatever the problem, the patient must always be alive, and it is possible that some wounds cannot heal, especially those inflicted on higher beings already very powerful. It is almost instantaneous and does not consume any power on the part of the patient. The potion can also heal magical wounds. I find it to be effective on all damage inflicted by beings of rank B or below.

Only the highest life attribute mages achieve this kind of achievement and it takes them several hours. I still want to improve some things, for example, the potion is not storable for four days should be kept in an environment rich in mana and at -70 ° C. Apart from a dungeon, few people can afford a room that has been enchanted to cool down to these temperatures.

The potion also requires precious herbs and several days of preparation. I still have work to do but it is promising.

Day 703

Nothing new, my offensive ritual for responding to demonic souls is still in development. The elixir of youth is still being perfected, and the city continues its momentum, it reaches 25,000 inhabitants inside the walls. A line of destitute and homeless began to appear in the forest yesterday, they are refugees who come to expand the slums. The count sent servants to spread rumors in the duchy about the wealth obtained from the mine.

This is not quite a lie, as those who get ore from the mine live a decent life, for a slum gang is widespread and the slum is gradually divided into zones, each ruled by a local underworld lord. Some are my servants.

The ants spotted a drake in a cave on the nearby mountain. It does n't surprise me , dragons have left many bloodlines all over the world. Although dragons are extremely rare, wyverns are more common, are dragons four or five times smaller for the bigger ones, they are less resistant, less fast, less magical and do not have dragon breath. They remain rank B monsters for the most powerful but live as a couple with their children, until they grow up, they have a low birth rate which explains their rarity.

Drakes are another dragon branch, unlike wyverns they have no wings, are coarser, less agile, but more resistant, they generally have an earth affinity or more rarely heat or darkness. They are rank C or B monsters for the most powerful, they live solitary but have a higher birth rate and are more common, they often live in caves in the mountains.

I'm not yet powerful enough to attack it but it's a juicy target.

Day 706

I can finally dig my tenth floor. I start by clearing a massive cave 2 km wide by 6 km long and 80 meters high. I then add the usual jungle decor, the mosquitoes were a hit so I add an evolved version. This time the crocodiles are 6-meter-long monsters with a big jaw and sturdy scales, they have an affinity with water and can create pressurized water blades to slice up their opponents.

This is the last floor of the goblins, so I build them a village at the bottom of the cave, against the wall, there are 500 goblins and 200 goblin archers with steel weapons and armor, 200 hobgoblins with equipment made of forged steel, 150 goblin-rider, with slightly enchanted weapons, mounted on jaguars and pumas. Then I design 50 royal goblin guards, they don't exist in nature but in my dungeon they are tough and not very agile, capable of great power, I equip them with full plate armor and a slightly enchanted sword, they are almost immobile and unsuitable for anything other than the defense of the cave located in the middle of the village.

In this cave there is a royal hall, seated on a throne of corpses, a large goblin king 3 meters high and wide wears a golden crown on his head. Beside him are five advisers, two goblin fire shamans, and three elite goblin warriors equipped with enchantments. The king has several skills allowing him to strengthen his troops and defend himself, he can also run to crash into adventurers, this skill allows him to make an impressive sprint for his weight.

I made sure that the king and the five advisers did not come out of the cave, while the goblin guards defended the cave from the outside. If the adventurers are unlucky, the king sometimes goes out to control his kingdom.

Overall, if the whole Goblin Tribe fought a D-rank Adventurer game would be wiped out, but I split the final fight into several stages so that shouldn't be a problem.

Goblins still patrol the jungle and set increasingly sophisticated traps. The reward for victory remains a small percentage of weapons but above all, the Crown of the Goblin King, which is equivalent to 10 gold when melted. The reward is considerable for a peasant, but for an adventurer it is simply high for a tenth floor, potions and equipment are expensive and the parts able to beat that floor are D ranks, they risk their lives.

The ranks E should not be able to exceed this level.

Day 748

I take longer to create the floors and I have to wait longer between each one for the next. Thanks to my rapid growth, more mid-level adventurers are coming to town, and they in turn feed me.

The situation in the slums is chaotic, there are already 10,000 people and more are arriving, the mine is far from being able to accommodate that many people and I am afraid that the guards cannot control such a large crowd. The rumor that the Earl has spread is too powerful and the situation is getting out of hand, I made a mistake.

That night, I allowed the ants to kill 2,000 people in total silence. It is a complex operation that they develop over several days, first of all they dig galleries under the sewers and under the barracks of the shantytown. I wouldn't claim the galleries to avoid alerting with the mana concentration.

Once all the targets are selected, they will strike and drag the living humans into the galleries and then into the colony. I provided them with numbing poison to avoid noise and will only collect half of the bodies to reward them for their hard work.

In addition to this, the count creates three other entrances, one more to the left and the other two 50 meters in height staggered from the first two. He no longer controls the entrances, only the exits, he has also fortified the four entrances.

The influx of iron ores attracted blacksmiths to refine it and create weapons for adventurers, in turn enchanters to obtain quality weapons, and finally adventurers to purchase enchanted weapons. Low-quality enchanted weapons cost a few silver coins and the best ones cost hundreds of thousands of gold, but the city currently produces weapons up to 50 or 100 gold.

Day 749

Today, a thousand men entered the mines, to clear up the situation I killed half of them with goblins that I made appear. I have selected the opponents of the gangs led by my minions, I take this opportunity to eliminate the cultists of the organization who are present, I did not think about it the last time but I check who they are. They belong to an organization that straddles this realm and the one north of us, the Immortal Realm, which is why they operate on the border. They are not very powerful but control a dungeon in the Immortal Realm, they have some connection to the nobility but nothing too disturbing.

The Elixir of Youth is progressing well and I have managed to resolve some issues but the shelf life has not improved. However, I made very little progress when it comes to creating the Soul Binding Offensive Ritual.

The drake that the ants have spotted is earthbound and is at the top of rank C. They have started their operation to dig the tunnels.

Day 750

The news of the extermination of the miners the day before did not discourage those today, I do not repeat the experience even though I have gained a lot of mana and souls. The opening of the three new entrances seems to delight them, and the cliff is slowly digging in, the biggest advantage of this mine besides its richness in ore is that the debris is consumed by the rock slimes.

The count decided to open the mine day and night by rotating the guards. It's too risky to patrol inside so they don't take care of it. Finally, the excavation takes place 24/7, the teams of miners rotate when they can no longer take it and when they leave they exchange their ores for remuneration by weight.

Minors who are not part of any gang are extorted and quickly join a protector to survive. Slum life is organized in violence just one kilometer from the peaceful town.

Day 753

News from the capital has arrived, war is very likely, the crown prince wants to consolidate his place and wants to bring merits to the crown. The count is stockpiling weapons to prepare. The city has reached 30,000 inhabitants but growth is slowing down sharply now, the enclosures can hold 70,000 people before they are full so there is no urgent work at the moment.

The galleries dug by the ants advance quickly thanks to the architects who solidify them. I am creating a rare reward for the Goblin King, a weight reducing bag, it can be regulated with mana and otherwise lightens the bag weight by 60%.

The adventurers rushed to fight the goblins before noticing that he had a very low probability of falling.

I doubled the size of the mine at the bottom but not on the other sides, they haven't reached the bottom but I'm getting ahead. The mine was a good plan because it provides me with a stable soul supply although the mana gains are negligible.