Dungeon POV change

The necromancer has arrived, I greet him with a mana laden voice,

"A golem of this quality for a three-year-old dungeon, it's strange"

“You should know that I am not just a dungeon”

“Indeed, I think so”

“Come, follow me, I'll show you your lodgings”

I guide him through a secret passage to the chamber of my heart, I decided to show it to him and trust him on certain things, I will not show him the ants on the other hand.

“.... this heart is monstrous, how big is it”

“200 meters in diameter” it further increased after the construction of the alchemical garden

“.....”

I lead him to a new door to the room, the door leads to an enchanted steel hallway and a bedroom with all possible comforts.

"Here is your bedroom"

“Awesome, thank you”

“Do you want to see my research on souls”

"Of course"

I guide him to the hall of rituals, the amount of enchanted steel used in my top floor is shocking, but he seems to have understood my abilities as a dungeon. I open the door to the room and we enter the ritual hall, it is currently occupied by Soul Crystals and Soul Defense and Attack Tables.

This is of course a fake coin in an attempt to make the most of the necromancer's expertise, however I must demonstrate my abilities so I left the defensive and offensive tables for the soul. The necromancer is very excited and my avatar starts researching with him.

I'm not sure yet if I will be able to kill him without losing his soul, so I'm keeping him alive for now. There is an observation board in his room, to understand his faults little by little.

I'm also trying to bribe his soul as quietly as possible to gain control of it, but that might take a long time, I'm increasing the mana concentration in the rooms he works in to make it easier.

Day 1067

Soul mark research is progressing faster, the necromancer has brought back some of his research material, and I've learned some important information that gives me a better understanding of how Soul Mark works.

The first affinity plants have arrived and I plant them in the corresponding rooms, the mana concentration increases very slightly. I am also developing an insulating network as some parts start to radiate affinity mana outwards. Thanks to this network all the mana will remain in the room and will gradually change the environment to match the affinity. I have to create an isolating one-way network.

The Church will receive a VIP in a few days, he is the child of a bishop, he has the affinity for life and is very promising, there are about ten bishops in the country and these are the highest leaders of the church outside the Holy Empire. The Young Man was sent to this city to train in the dungeon, it is also an opportunity for the church to increase its influence in the city with the son of an important figure in the kingdom.

I cannot allow myself to kill him in the dungeon or his father will send a delegation to subjugate the “evil” and kill me. He will probably have to pay restitution to the crown, but that's it.

I also can't kidnap him in town because the count would be charged. The only solution is to have him killed, claim the crypt, kill him, recover his soul, then remove the crypt from my domain. We need a culprit who assassinates him and who is arrested but he must not say anything and not be able to be connected to me. Also, no one should realize that I claimed the crypt.

It can be complicated, a dungeon releases a lot of mana and the church has many ways to detect it. I also have to lure the bishop's son into the crypt when there are very few relics because the church is still new in the city.

All this stacked up greatly complicates the plan. I begin by having the count buy holy relics to offer them to the church.

I now have to develop the insulating board even faster, and finally I have to create or use a human capable of obeying me without being able to be linked to me.

Day 1082

The Earl holds a ceremony in which he presents the town church with three relics worth a total of one million gold coins. The count is already known to be extremely wealthy in the kingdom, but nobody expected this, the relics offered are too precious, the high priest does not know what to say and ends up thanking the count.

Among the relics there is a bone that would have belonged to one of the heroes, a gold globe covered with precious stone, and the cloth that the current saint gave as gifts after blessing it to a homeless man in the capital. . He was immediately killed and then the fabric was sold several times for astronomical sums.

The most valuable is the bone of one of the heroes, it is one of his phalanges and it would have belonged to the wind mage, the heroes were five, one space attribute mage, another from attribute wind, a swordsman, an archer and a man with a big ax. Not all of the heroes' bodies have been found and their relic is extremely rare.

The insulating board is in good shape, it is not that complicated, I build all the runes facing inward, I have discovered a few new runes, and I just have to perfect the system.

On the other hand, I didn't make any progress for the assassin, I tried to transform the monster heart into a mana heart, but I immediately lost control of my monsters, I tried with the soul mark but I still can't do it correctly, and my control is similar to that of the necromancer, I give a series of commands but the assassin cannot improvise and is unable to fake any actions or words.

To attract someone is not ideal. The last option would be to use the vampires, biting one of the church members, they could control him in theory. The problem is that the clergymen are mainly of light attribute which is opposed to the dark attribute, it is possible that they resist the control, moreover, the church can detect if any of its limbs are under someone's control. Finally when the assassin is caught, the church will inevitably discover the anomaly and could go back to the vampires in the slums.

Maybe by improving vampires, they might be able to. The VIP is coming in two days, the good news is that there will be a while to improve in the dungeon so I have some time.

Day 1083

I carefully examine the vampires and they are not yet ready to evolve, so rather than immediately evolving them into a large group like I do for the Ant Queen. I decide to create an evolution path, the lowest level will be the current Vampire, weak in sunlight, weak physically and not very resistant, no magic other than blood manipulation, and strong weakness after infecting a victim.

The hierarchy of the nobility seems to have gained a foothold among the vampires so I'm going on this model. Vampire barons have a similar level of strength and resistance as humans, and twice the intelligence, he keeps their weakness in the sun but can now learn a few beginner spells of the Dark or Water attribute, instead of l water is blood. They are weak for a shorter time when infecting other victims and they suffer less.

Viscounts are twice as intelligent and stronger and as resilient as humans, they no longer disintegrate in the sun but are weakened, they can learn all the apprentice spells and some of the beginner spells of the Dark and Blood attribute. They exude an aura of control and nobility which facilitates the mental hold on their victims, they keep a weakness but it is reduced after having infected a victim, they can also promote the vampires in baron vampires by weakening for a longer time.

Vampire counts are four times stronger and intelligent and twice as resilient as humans, they resist the sun much better, they access certain intermediate level spells. They can convert a victim into a vampire without weakness and can promote a vampire baron by losing their strength for two weeks. Their aura of nobility is deepened and they can control humans for an hour just by looking at them.

Vampire Marquis are ten times stronger and four times more resilient than normal humans, they are all proficient in Dark and Blood Magic at Apprentice, Beginner, and Intermediate rank. They have total resistance to the sun but remain weak in the light attribute. They can also promote viscounts with the same principle. Their aura of nobility can control even E-rank adventurers through prolonged eye contact.

Finally, the vampire dukes are 20 times more powerful and 10 times more resistant than humans, they master the magic of darkness and blood up to the advanced rank and have no particular weakness in light affinity. They can also control C or B rank adventurers with their aura of nobility. Likewise, they can promote vampires to the rank of marquess.

Barons are of rank E + , viscounts of rank D + , counts of rank C + , marquises of rank B + and dukes of rank A + . The strength of vampires comes from their minions who can fight for them, they can control adventurers one rank above their own. They are also given additional power in darkness.

The only other weakness of vampires, apart from light, is silver, they have a poor resistance to this metal but this weakness disappears from the rank of earl. At the moment there are only single rank F + vampires . But with the new motivation, some should evolve soon into baron, it is still insufficient but it is promising.

Day 1086

I've unlocked the vampire evolutions, and I have a plan to force-promote some of them.

The VIP arrived quite discreetly, the count welcomed him to church before entering his mansion. The VIP is a handsome young man of fifteen, he seems intelligent and kind, he is also respectful with his elders. Once in the church I can no longer watch him, he arrived in the afternoon court and did not come out all day.

I plan to create high level vampire blood to promote vampires. With my current rank of rank C dungeon but especially my level in alchemy I think I can recreate count blood without problems.

I call one of the low level vampires that is not productive and I suck all his blood. I start to experiment, concentrating the blood and mixing it with other blood. I notice that the blood of vampires is extremely domineering. I then mix it with troll blood, the regeneration of trolls is somewhat similar to that of vampires although different. I gradually increase the amounts of troll blood I mix and end up getting a vial of concentrated vampire blood.

After having purified it several times through blood stones and adding demonic essence, a process that I found at the end of my 456th test, the blood completely absorbs the demonic essence and qualitatively turns into blood of vampire counts. I don't think I can go any further. I gradually simplify the process by eliminating unnecessary steps and start producing doses of blood.

Day 1088

I prepared enough doses and out of the 150 vampires in the city I promoted 1 earl, 3 viscounts and 7 barons. Promoting the count was complicated, but with large amounts of count blood and a blood ritual I succeeded. The vampire count is the vampire named at the head of the secret service, I then allow the vampires to spread in the kingdom without being discovered. The vampires are very comfortable in the dark but weak in the light, they prefer to control the pègres, it is more discreet and the power quickly changes hands.

The panther assassins follow the VIP permanently by team, in recent days he visited the city with a rank B guard, there were also two people following him from afar.

He has visited several guilds and some blacksmiths in the artisan quarter, he plans to enter the dungeon tomorrow with his guard. With a rank B support, he has no risk but he will intervene only in case of danger of death for the formation to be effective.

The isolating table is almost finished, and the research with the necromancer is progressing well, I understand the soul marks better, I am not doing a summon because he might realize it. But decoding the data of the intermediate demon allows me to improve my simulations, I also master several demonic spells that I do not know what to do with.

When I managed to destroy the Lesser Demon Soul Mark, I would create a new artificial core for Demonic Spell Research.