Breathing heavily back pressed against the wall of his little hideaway Ash listen to hearing if the nasty bugs were still out there. It seemed safe but Ash definitely didn't plan on checking. Turning to a crudely made stone shelf covered in all manner of treasures from the green feather he'd found yesterday to the handful of tiny bones he'd collected. With a grin Ash once more added to his loot shelf placing his new shiny pebbles in the center of his growing collection.

"There you are " a voice came from behind Ash. Turning in shock he got an incredible sight of a ghostly giant almost three feet taller than any goblin Ash had ever seen. "I'll be taking those" it muttered and with a pop his shiny pebbles disappeared. Looking at the empty spot on his loot shelf Ash was stunned. Turning once again to shout at the giant spirit it had vanished.

Finally locating the little troublemaker Steve quickly put the eggs in his dungeon storage to inspect and deal with later, currently had bigger problems like being down almost thirty goblins and the minor fact the now ants were starting to slow flow out of the tunnel Ash had found. Three was enough to take on almost a hundred goblins and managed to kill a third of them but now a second group of three was heading towards the earlier battle with two more solo scourge ants chasing small groups of goblins down the side of the mountain.

Diving into the dungeon information Steve found he had a few things going for him. Firstly the ants that died supplied the dungeon with a lot of energy and secondly all the goblins in the fight had gained at least one level. Looking their information over the lowest level in that group has a level 4 and the highest was the summoner with the surviving bird spirit as well as the Spearman the took down the first ant tide at level 8. Sadly his hammer using companion didn't make it but we'll just have to work with what we have Steve thought. Leveling didn't completely heal his minions but stopped the bleeding for all but the worst wounds and restored whatever helped them summon so he had the goblins send them out to buy time.

Setting the dungeon to spawn only spirit animal summoners he selected to immediately spawn fifty goblins behind the group of fresh monsters having their spirits join in from behind. Seeing the higher level summons doing slightly more damage to the ants and finally having the numbers to overwhelm the group Steve had the four remaining melee goblins to hunt down the two solo scourge ants rampaging after his other dungeon monsters. While carrying out his order Steve looked at the Spearmans pop-up.

Zig goblin spirit Spearman level 8, quick and lucky the spirit Spearman is abnormally precise with his weapon.

Forcing harder Steve got the scene the the spear the goblin was holding gave the ability to naturally pull its user towards weakness in the ants armor. Curious Steve looked into each of the weapons the melee squad had noticed that each weapon had a different ability. An axe that could increase in weight mid swing,a two handed sword that improved the user's balance and a massive club that for some reason increased the hearing of its user. Some useful some less so since the increase was minor yet the effects seem to grow with level. "If they manage to keep leveling I wonderful how strong those effects will get" grinning Steve watched the melee squad hunt down the remaining stragglers.

Assigning twenty or so melee goblins who weren't close enough to take part in the battle to guard the tunnel along with the fifth new summoners Steve made sure to have Ash the trouble maker to join them. Steve was kinda hoping more ants would come and level his goblins for him. Like magic this thought seemed to summon a a wave of them, Thankfully the tunnel entrance was only two ants wide. While ferocious and tough the goblins were able to hold the mouth of the tunnel only losing the occasional goblin to the scourge ant swarm.

Surprisingly besides an initial cowardice Ash was one of the strongest fighters at his level being one of the few goblins who has spawned with more than one tattoo. He was only able to fight using one tattoo at a time but he could quickly switch between the two and even stabbed an ant the turned his dagger into his snake to creativity poison his foe.

No matter how good his goblins where doing and how fast the first few levels came the waves just keep coming and coming forcing Steve to both use most of the energy gained in spawning new troops of mostly melee goblins to replace the losses he had to endlessly cycle the summoner goblins since not only did taking damage destroy the spirit temporarily by even fighting cost the summoner power.

After what could have been weeks but was probably only a day or two the scourge ants slowed yet not fully stopped the attack. Every few minutes or so a single ant would charge out only to get torn apart by a group of spirits and tired yet powerful level 8 plus goblins. After inspection all of the ants they fought had been between level 8 to 12. Steve originally thought that they'd be higher level since the first three were so powerful but it seems that the power increases sharply every ten levels with the first group being all above level ten.

His goblins tattoos seemed to improve from the half dozen summoners who have reached that level as well as Zig and Ash being the two melee goblins to get to level 10. The goblin summoners seemed to get to choose some aspect of the spirit animal to improve like increased damage from the claws, increased speed to more dramatic options like having him tiger leaving spirit flames the weakness the target over time. Zig's upgrade decreased his weight for a short time when activated allow I'm to float around like the old kung fu movies Steve used to love as a kid.

Ash was so far the most interesting if not necessarily an upgrade. He'd actually be given the option to fuse his two tattoos into a single one or be able to use both after hit level ten. Deciding to keep his existing tattoo he was able to fight as melee with support for his spirit. Steve was absolutely fascinated with all the different possibilities and powers his goblins have developed.

"Speaking powers I should probably check out those eggs Ash stole". Looking at them and strongly forcing on the scourge eggs pop-up he got a scene of deeper information like he did when inspecting the spirit weapons. They would be able to grant experience like when killing this or you could channel an ability, power or energy or some type for it to slightly enhance. It was a permanent increase as well so whomever or whatever it was used on would always be slightly stronger than someone with the same power at the same level. Steve was excited to test them but with only six eggs he decided to hold them until he really needed them.

With that thought in mind he set the dungeon back to autonomous spawning and went to check out his other dungeons.