Day 760

Finally the tunnels are finished, the slums have reached a population of 15,000 people. More than 13,000 after that night, the ants have done a remarkable job in selecting quiet houses and poisoning the victims, the advantage of a slum is that even if you scream or beat no one will come to save you.

Day 761

Despite the news, the miners continue to work, the count transmits the rumors being more careful this time, it should scare and slow the arrival of new inhabitants.

The church was distraught and cried demonic cults and the necromancy, despite the sending of investigation teams and inquisitors nothing has been discovered. The ants filled in the galleries and the church did not specifically look for traces of tunnels. Suspicion fell on me but without proof they could not do anything and we ended up giving up

The news scared the city more than the slums, after a few days without any information people moved on.

Day 767

The queen benefits from this purification but still remains far from evolution. The problem is, I need to get more information on the Dark Affinity. But the Earl still can't find a dark soul affinity for my library.

On the other hand, the offensive web of the soul link is finished, it should be able to prevent all transmissions of power through the soul link and help me sever it. I want to study the Demonic Soul Mark to deepen my control over my monsters.

With the cleansing of the slums I got a little more than 2,500 souls, adding what I have amassed since my creation and if we remove those that I use for my servants, I have reached 3,000 souls. I slowly approach the 5,000 souls.

I summon a lesser demon, and seal its soul before attempting to hold it back, using all of my power, I can hold the soul between the soul crystal and its demise. As expected, the Soul Mark on its core lights up and an intangible force draws the soul of the Lesser Demon.

I activate my defensive and offensive networks but without destroying the link, I want to observe the reaction of the higher demon and how the Soul Mark works. By suppressing the transfer of power through the link, the reaction capacity of the demon master has greatly diminished. The rune is activated and I manage to decipher part of it, I cannot maintain this situation for too long because I consume a lot of mana.

The situation lasts for 45 seconds when the rune suddenly shines and begins to suck the outer layers of the soul to strengthen the bond. I react immediately and absorb the soul into the crystal before corroding the bond, but the rune has strengthened by consuming the outer layers, the bond in turn widens and I'm afraid that a mana explosion will be sent then I release the soul, and it disappears almost immediately.

After this experience, I recover my mana and then summon a medium demon to make a deal with him. The price for all this knowledge is always the same but when I offer him a demonic soul, he goes mad and tries to kill me, I have to send him back. I know that the demons never kill the souls of theirs, they do not hesitate to kill each other in the material worlds but never touch the souls of their fellows.

I still need to harvest 2,000 souls before I can contract for Knowledge of a Medium Demon. I could trade some of his knowledge for 3000 souls but I'm afraid that he will cheat on me and give me nothing useful, I prefer to wait, I am patient.

I need to upgrade the offensive Soul Binding System to a ritual that targets the rune at the Soul Core, it is the Rune that controls the Binding and without it no one will be able to save their Soul.

Day 776

The guild leader who has a contract with the count has been replaced, their contract ends in a little over 100 days, it doesn't change anything for me.

I start modifying the orcs to get ahead of my eleventh floor, I take a mountain orc whose size I very slightly decrease to six feet, I condense his muscles so that they are less thick, but he keeps the same strength while being slightly more agile. I am not increasing their intelligence but improving their sight, hearing and smell, I also design reinforced leather armor, helmet, two-handed sword, two-handed ax and war hammer. I would distribute one of these weapons to each orcs when I built the floor.

Day 782

My research on the Soul Rune and the Elixir of Youth continues, the situation in the slums is back under control. Half of the gangs are led by my servants and the population has reached 15,000, the number has almost stopped growing.

A few new groups of D-rank adventurers have arrived in town, attracted by the rewards of the dungeon.

The ants have found something promising, nothing escapes them, they have discovered an increase in the concentration of mana in the nearby mountain, following the source they have dug underground and they are getting closer to the source.

I don't know yet what it can be, but it's either a dungeon, unlikely given its depth, or a mighty creature or its corpse, I already imagine myself stumbling upon a corpse of a dragon, after all, the legend says a dragon was killed in his mountains. It can also be a precious treasure or a mana crystal mine.

Mana crystal mines do not form on their own but around an important source of mana, a dungeon or a mana node, these are places where the mana of the world inexplicably gathers. These mines are rare but our kingdom has three, our neighbors have a similar number.

The mines are often deep which explains the difficulty in finding them, in reality there are more but they are inaccessible by humans ... but not by ants.

The area is too far and too deep for me to claim it at this time. The ants dug from the surface. I ask them to dig a direct path from their colony to the source.

Day 798

The gallery has already reached 60 kilometers long and more than 4 km deep, the heat does not yet bother the ants because they are resistant but the excavation has slowed down. The mana concentration has already exceeded that of my core chamber and the ants have not yet reached the source, I think we will arrive soon. It's too powerful for a treasure and too deep for an undiscovered dungeon, I think more and more of a powerful monster, I warn the ants to be ready to destroy the galleries so as not to attract a monster to the dungeon.

I have completed an improved version of the Elixir of Life, it has a three month shelf life, and can withstand up to 22 ° C, it remains effective for the same wounds and can even extend life slightly if the consumer is dying of old age.

I provide ten of these elixirs to the count, the war is preparing and he will be able to attract the favors of the generals with these essences. He chose to participate in the war by supplying weapons which he bought from the blacksmiths in the city. According to him, the first intervention will take place in less than a year.

Day 805

The mana source becomes more and more powerful, the mana is pure so only dragons or mana sources can produce it. Mana is so condensed that it is visible as vapors even to humans. Minor ants can only survive for a few seconds before they dissolve.

They detected a large cave, saturated with mana 30 meters ahead, they managed to finish the gallery which is 70 kilometers and 5 kilometers deep, but they will not be able to enter the cave, conversely this additional mana is enough. beneficial for them when they are far enough away.

I have to create a monster able to survive in that extreme environment, any living beings I have now can not survive, I therefore incorporate the principle of a golem, I try first magical metals, but they absorb mana in the air until it explodes. I therefore design an internal body in silver with a system of runes and classic magic core, I do not put a soul in order not to corrupt it. I then add a two-inch layer of lead, kind of like waterproof armor all over the body, lead isolates the magic, so I can't write a rune to control it. Constructing waterproof armor that is five centimeters thick is complicated but doable.

I plan to research a soft deformable shape memory metal for my future golems because this one looks like nothing. He is awfully slow and unable to run, he is heavy and not smart.

Day 807

The gallery has finally led to the cave, a huge puff of mana has gone up the gallery to my dungeon, I still do not claim neither the gallery nor the cave but I send my lead golems to check. They enter and find an irregular cave 10 meters high and 100 meters in diameter, the floor is bowl-shaped with a shallow pool in the middle. Most impressive, mana crystals several meters high cover the floor and walls. A source of mana ! This one is at least 3000 years old considering the size and the number of crystals, the golems resist well for the moment but the lead starts to crumble.

I ended up claiming the gallery 3 meters in diameter and 70 kilometers long, then the cave.

Day 809

I finally claimed the whole area, the simple fact of having extended my domain in an area so rich in mana increased my regeneration. I start harvesting the crystals and almost faint from the influx of mana with a single three-meter crystal.

I will have to organize my storage, I multiply the size of my heart by ten up to 170 meters, and I start building the orc floors, when I need mana I take it from the crystals.

I take the model of a castle, it will be built upside down, with the eleventh floor as a prison. I am building a labyrinth of straight corridors that are 3 meters wide by 4 meters high. The area is 4 square km, less than the floors above, but the labyrinth makes the floor longer. The corridors are dark and without vegetation, there are however prisons on the sides, located every 50 meters with bars.

The prisons are full of moss and vegetation, food for rats. Faults and galleries connect each cell for the passage of rats. I reintroduce the rats by improving them, they are now bands of 100 or 200 individuals of 50 kilos with hair and strong leather, sharp steel claws and teeth, a steel tail also to pierce enemies. They are very agile and I strengthen their muscles to increase their power. Finally each horde has a queen of rats leading them, she is the size of a man, is ugly, intelligent and stronger.

The orcs remain the leaders of the ground, I take back the orcs in groups of two, three, or four with the weapons I have prepared, the guardian's room is occupied by a small tribe of 30 orcs without a leader. I have set up mechanical traps in the hallways because the orcs are unable to do so. The walls, ceiling and floor are cobbled, so I can camouflage them more easily and develop more ingenious traps. With poison, blades, arrows, trap doors, pivoting walls, landslides, separate the teams.

I added the rewards usually but there are very few herbs advantage of silver and gold coins.

After I finish building the eleventh floor, I still have a lot of mana left so I move on to the twelfth. After the prisons, I use the gardens and the exterior of the castle. I dig a large cave 40 meters high but 3 km wide by 8 km long, the largest to date.

I have several different spaces in the cave, a labyrinth of monster man-eating plants, a series of fountains and bodies of water with aquatic species that I took a long time to create, bands of flesh-eating piranha one meter long, crocodiles and 10 meter water snakes.

I also set up a circular bandstand one kilometer in diameter with illusions and enchanted instruments that sow confusion in the minds of adventurers.

Finally, a large paved square takes up all the space at the back of the cave, inlaid on the back wall, I sculpted a castle facade. The results are strange because it is very low but strangely wide, in the square, orcs parade in ceremonial dress, There are 500 and they attack in groups of 50 each time.

The difficulty of the floor is increased by the strange atmosphere and the monsters scattered all over the place. Finally, the keeper is an orc general mounted on a war elephant, he is an elephant with armor and trained in war technique, he has little skill, a charge, a trunk blow reinforced with steel and superior defense. General orc is equipped with enchanted weapons and can control the war elephant with the skills.

I am consuming less mana than I thought because building floors takes time. I still have two-thirds of the mana crystals left.

I start on the thirteenth floor, this is the floor with the reception hall, relaxation areas and kitchens. I create a dilapidated, ruined castle atmosphere with the same traps as on the eleventh floor. This time there are only orcs and rats, the rooms intended to feed the rats are not visible to the adventurers. The floor is twice the size of the eleventh and is built as a maze of hallways and rooms of all sizes.

I left orc patrols of ten individuals at irregular intervals, I modified an orc to further improve its vision, slightly decrease its resistance to increase its agility, I give it a longbow and daggers to attack from a distance. I integrate three per patrol.

To finish the floor, I add the guardian room located in the ballroom, here 20 orc knights in armor with enchanted weapons await the adventurers. Orc Knights are the goblin equivalent of Hobgoblins.

For the fourteenth floor, I still create a maze of corridors but with smaller rooms of 5 meters by 5 meters and 3 meters high with more cramped corridors of 1.5 meters wide by 2 meters high. Orcs occupy some rooms and no room is visible from another, orcs groups are orc knights in groups of 6 or 9.

The rat hordes are still there, but I have strengthened them and the rats now have skills to regenerate.

As a guardian, I took as my themes the servants. I made the orcs lighter to make them more agile but less strong, you can see their skeleton in some places, they are lighter and I gave them an affinity to the wind for speed. I give them both daggers with bleeding enchantment.

There are 40 orcs servants, they are intended to be a quick fight and effective because they are very tough and not very patient. The hall is a square 100 meters square with stone columns rising from the ground, all the columns are spaced two meters apart. There is a torch for 5 pillars, which creates shadows everywhere.

I'm starting to run out of mana but my heart is still full and I still have a few crystals left, so I go straight to the fifteenth floor.

I decide to start with a long twisted corridor that sometimes goes backwards, it is 5 km, in reality between the entrance and the exit there are only 800 meters. The hallway is empty and there is no light, adventurers often take torches with them so that shouldn't be too much of a problem for them, this hallway is meant to demoralize them.

The corridor leads to a throne room 2 kilometers long, 100 meters wide and 50 meters high. There are tapestries depicting torn orc battles , paintings of disembowell monarchs, broken chandeliers, and ash rugs. Down the hall there are 5 Orc Generals on War Elephants, 20 Orc Knights, and an Orc Champion. The orc champion is a stronger fighter than other orcs, I give him enchanted armor and enchanted war hammer with the weight rune changed, it can weigh down or lighten the hammer at any time. The champion is formidable thanks to this weapon.

I gradually come out of my creative trance and observe my work, I just spent 6 months creating five new floors. In my estimation, D-rank groups will not be able to defeat the 15th floor. This is done on purpose to try to attract C-rank adventurers.

I let go of all the other plans during those six months and it's about time I took a look at what happened outside. Before that I add these floors to my dungeon and I create a new teleportation circle at the start of the eleventh floor.