Chapter 450

James waited patiently in the hot springs, sipping a refreshing drink while Painguins served the others. As he’d figured, while being an adventurer was fun, this treatment, was sublime. Still, he was eager to get back into the dungeon town, and past that, back into diving the dungeon. However, after their chat with Vinnie, they’d decided to return to their normal hangout, until the players arrived. Partly because there wasn’t anything else to do in the adventurer’s town, when the players were away, and partly because they needed to wait until players joined in, and the announcement went live, before they got to rejoin the players.

“Any minute now.” Steve said as he sipped his drink. The developer was once again his normal self, though to James, it seemed there were a few less wrinkles under the old man’s eyes. For what it was worth, the dungeon adventurers seemed to have helped relieve some of the stress and exhaustion Steve had been feeling.

“Is there anything I’m forgetting about dungeon wise, before this kicks off?” James asked Rue as he pulled up his Dungeon Core interface.

Glyax Tier 6 Rank 1 Dungeon

Mob Type: Random

1,503,842

96,158xp to next Rank

996158xp to next Tier

Resources: 7241 of 15000

Currency: 94 copper 13 silver 25 gold 20 Platinum

Dungeon Tokens: 40

Passive 7xp per hour

16 Resources Per Hour *6 purifiers

During his time in the real world, he’d asked Rue to handle his resources, which had resulted in her brining the total to a nice 15,000, as well as purchasing two more purifiers, for a total of six, his allotted allowance given their 1 per floor rule. These six Resource Purifiers now had a 12 percent chance to give him an additional 12 resources per hour. At 10,000 a pop, they were a hefty investment for sure, but he’d already seen the trigger happening more and more frequently. A one in ten chance to trigger, was odds he’d happily bet on, and he was already salivating for when he hit ten floors. Then, with a total of 10 purifiers, he’d have a 1 in 5 chance to gain an additional 20 resources each hour.

Past that, he was waiting for his resources to get closer to full, once more, before he went to town on his sixth-floor labyrinth. Already he’d been eying some of the traps available for that floor, as well as cosmetics such as various lightning sources, augments to the rock types of the walls, and so on. With everything he had going on, James had started to leave spending resources on floor upgrades, to moments when he just wanted to relax and lose himself to a task. Because he knew full well from skull island, that he could lose himself for HOURS to floor upgrading.

Next he toggled to his research, at which point he couldn’t help but curse himself. So lost had he gotten in the dungeon diving with Steve and Rue, that he’d forgotten the major task he’d intended to look into, before players arrived. His Safe Zone Research had hit level 5 a while ago, and more importantly, that had triggered the unlocking of siege events for his fifth floor. Something that he’d been extremely eager to set in place, to test his players.

“You’ve been slacking.” Rue said over his shoulder as she skimmed through his list. Currently, his six ongoing researches were Enhanced Research to level 9, mob research to level 8, event research to level 8, avatar research to level 8, and core offense and defense both to level 7. Most of his research options had hit a point now where it took multiple real world days to finish, and he was glad he’d opted to only push Difficulty research to level 2. As it stood, he’d much rather his players rush his sixth floor, than try for an enhanced third floor of level 100 mobs.

“Apparently.” James grumbled, knowing full well he had a lot to do now before he could interact with the players. His difficulty research meant he had to set up his first two floors once more, with the increased difficulty options, and the new and improved loot tables. That task alone, considering it would involve assigning 20 stat points to each mob, and boss mob, as well as unlocking the special unique bosses, would be extremely time consuming. Add onto that siege modes for his fifth floor, as well as a world boss for his fifth floor, and he was looking at probably a full day of work.

“You really should have paid more attention to your time.” Rue said with a knowing smirk. James took one look at that expression, before the realization hit him.

“You.” He growled. “You were supposed to remind me of these things.”

“I’m not your personal assistant.” Rue said with fake pout. “Besides, I’m only human.”

She laughed as he splashed water at her, ducking back towards Steve, who watched the two with a bemused look on his face.

“You can’t blame Rue for your own forgetfulness James.” Steve added. “Besides, it’s not like you HAVE to get all of it done right now. Procrastination is a thing, you know.”

“Yeah…but if I don’t do it now, I know I’ll get sucked into playing DCO with everyone else.” James replied gloomily. It was better if he got all of these tasks taken care of, as soon as possible, so he could fully enjoy his time amongst the players. And, on the bright side, the reward of being able to don his developer character persona once his tasks were completed, would keep him motivated. The carrot method was much preferred to the stick method, after all.

“Good boy.” Rue said, wading slowly back towards him. “I’ll make sure to not have too much fun with the players, while you’re working.”

This time, it was James’s turn to offer the pixie a smirk.

“Wasn’t it you who wanted to treat this like a joint effort? Something about us being a team and all that?” He pulled her close, before she could run away. “I’m not about to let you get off the hook. You’re going to help me finish these tasks.”

“But,” Rue glanced back at Steve, but the developer simply sipped his drink, a small smile on his face as he avoided eye contact. “But the players.

“You should have thought of that, before you tried to pull one over on me.” James responded, looking down into Rue’s eyes. “Besides, don’t you want to help out with all of the fun, exciting, dungeon improvements?”

“I guess.” Rue said dejectedly. She was definitely pouting, and James could feel it working. He was a sucker for her, after all.

“Tell you what,” James said, brining his lips closer to hers as he spoke. “How about we tackle the increased difficulty versions of our first floor, and the siege events. Then, we can go spend some time with the adventurers?”

“Promise?” Rue asked, lifting herself up until her lips lightly brushed against James’s.

“Promise.”

“I, uh, I’ll leave you two to it then.” Steve said, clearing his throat as he did. “The announcement has gone live, after all.” And with that, as the time ticked to 0000, and the players joined into DCO, another week of immersion, one filled with the promise of new mob variations, bosses, events, and adventurers, began in full.