With dawn Steve gathered up his strike team lining them up and granting the six highest level members a scourge ant egg glowing with a soft light. Consume them caused a wash of energy rush to the tattoo on the goblins. Looking at the tattoos it seemed to be more solid and for lack of a better word real to Steve.

Manifesting there weapons the difference of a single egg was minor but at this point every little bit helps. Ordering them forward Zigs group hopped from the wall doing their best to quickly make it to the nearest tunnel opening doing their best to only kill the ants when absolutely necessary. In no time at all the strike team filed into the tunnel vanishing first out of sight and soon out of the dungeon influence entirely. "Goodluck" turning to look at the view of the mountain range with the mind bending portal he felt both worried about the mission and sad knowing that he'd likely just sacrificed goblins that he'd grown extremely attached to over the last few weeks of depending upon them. With a sigh Steve handed authority to Ash setting the dungeon to autonomous to check on his other dungeons but if he was being honest with himself he really just ended a break from the madness of ant attacks.

Popping over to the first dungeon Steve immediately checked out how his alchemist was doing. Inspecting him out he discovered that the little goblin had been extremely busy and not necessarily in a positive way. At first Steve noticed that his little alchemist tang had hit level 9 and was just on the threshold of reaching level 10 and being able to choose his first perk. Steve was excited thinking that he had been able to raise his level by simply crafting and improving themselves without having to battle. The pleasant day dream was quickly shattered after watching a few of Tangs experiments. He'd been gaining levels by poisoning his fellow goblins. Going through the dungeon logs that his little "alchemist" was actually responsible for each and every death of a goblin since the dungeon was founded.

Ordering a complete hult to all this experiments something happened that had never happened before. Simply ignoring the order tang continued to mix ingredients and tested his concoction on the next freshly spawned goblin in the line. Shaking and glowing with power the level 1 goblin rolled around on the ground flailing. Thankfully his insides didn't burst like the others but he was left unconscious next to tang who grumbled something and began a new. "He completely ignored my orders " panic tinted his voice as he proceeded what had just happened.

Diving into the dungeon information and the knowledge that was shot into his head Steve desperately looked for something that could explain exactly what just happened. Eventually he stumbled upon a piece of information that might explain what was happening. Apparently an exceedingly stubborn, powerful or intelligent creature could disobey an order that goes to far away from its nature. In rare occasions even a low level creature with a strong enough goal can disregard all dungeon influence in pursuit of achieving the set goal. Short of killing tang Steve had no more power over his alchemist not even able to take back the authority he had bestowed apon tang when he was first made. "Seems like I'm stuck with the little narcissistic psychopath " with a huff Steve went to expand the dungeon trying ignore the dying goblins on the ground.

Working on covering the massive area of the valley Steve thought about just how vast his new realm truly was. Three planets intertwined each larger than earth a few times over leaving him struggling to grasp how titanic the distances are from each other. The complex terrain of warped space made it difficult to tell how to get from one place to the next but he truly wanted to travel the vast realm. Steve promised himself that once he was confident in leaving his dungeons unattended for a prolonged period he'd make a trip to explore his new realm. In the meantime Steve watched the massive herds of Buffalo like creatures roaming in ever increasing numbers. It seemed like being exposed to the dungeon energy had vastly increased the reproduction rate causing the population to explode despite the hunting from the goblins.

With the access energy from the hunting and increasing levels the dungeon had spawned hundreds of goblins over the past weeks. "It's be over a thousand if tang hadn't killed so many " sighing Steve looked at the small group who had reached level ten in his absence. Grug had built off his original skeleton tattoo adding muscle like in one of those old biology textbooks he'd studied in school. Unlike the textbook however everything was layed out to that of a goblin. I guess that should have been obvious but for a while examined it for an embarrassingly long time before I figured it out. "If he keeps following this path he could enhance his skin or circulatory next? " Steve mused to himself.

Examining a goblin that had a tattoo of a spine with spider webs branching out from it Steve dived into his information. It seemed that those spider webs were the goblin nervous system with the tattoo giving enhanced reflexes. Apon hitting level 10 instead of enhancing a second part of the body the goblin doubled down allowing him to move and react like everything around him was moving in slow motion. Curious Steve sent him on a hunt in order to observe him and wasn't disappointed. Lazily walking up to a group of six Buffalo holding a bone knife at his side he easily sidestepped their charge stabbing two of them in the neck as they passed. Running for a few hundred feet before falling behind the herd and collapsing the low level Buffalo were basically defenseless against the little goblin.

Each of the goblin's enhancement tattoos seemed to give them super goblin abilities in a special area while each level gave a minor boost in every category from eyesight and sense of smell to bone density and strength. It wasn't like in a video game when you add strength points but making a goblin a slightly better goblin in every way. A level 10 goblin might only be twice as strong as a level 1 if the tattoos didn't give physical strength in some way. Steve wondered if those elves who stumbled across his energy dungeon were similar or any other races for that matter. Thinking that seemed to unlock another small package of information locked inside his head.

Each race gets roughly the same increase in ability per level as any other but is distributed to different aspects. Elves reflexes and speed of thought increases fast that it's strength meaning a level 10 with no perk is roughly fifty percent stronger and one hundred and twenty percent faster than he was a level 1. It seemed to slightly vary on the person as well as maintaining good physical condition but it was extremely fascinating. It seemed like for an elf the increase in reflexes would be a larger increase than it would be for a goblin yet on the other hand a physical strength and defense ability would be slightly underwhelming. "Speaking of elves I should probably go check on my other dungeon"

It took a lot of work and almost all of the coin his young master had sent him with but Cole was able to arrange a meeting with the commander of the battle wolves mercenary company. They were the second largest company operating in the southern region. They had possession of a perk inheritance that allowed them to train their members to obtain a rare perk at level 10. This perk allowed them to create a creature out of earth and stone to fight alongside them in battle. Their leader Klaus founder of the battle wolves and reason for the company's name sat in front of Cole flanked with two earthen wolves. "I understand you might have something worth my time so be quick about it" Klaus said in a clip tone.

Tossing him a glowing brown power crystal Cole instructed Klaus to inspect it. Facial expression changing from annoyed to blank then surprised he Klaus locked eyes with Cole "is this real" with a ting of confusion and hope in his voice. "Yes sir Klaus I myself have obtained a perk from one of these crystals " rolling up his sleeve to expose his swirling tattoo on his bicep. "The Cane merchant house has discovered a method in which to obtain additional perks yet we find ourselves in need of additional manpower". "With such a miraculous discovery every merchant house, warlord and clan would rip the Cane house apart from this" Klaus pointed out. "That's why my house as sent me to negotiate with you and a handful of other companies for retainer oaths " pulling out a handful of crystals Klaus's eyes locked onto them. Cole smiled knowing that he'd already won the battle wolves over and only need to bicker over the price.

An upfront payment of six crystals and ten more every six months had twenty official members and another fifty trainees under the full control of house Cane. This was a sizable force since each full member had reached level 10 and had the perk to create their own earth wolf. With a handful of crystals left Cole hired a minor company who only had six level 10 members with varying perks to give an oath to his house in exchange for his remaining crystals. With a sizable force Cole quickly returned to the newly minted outpost.