In the end, Doyle can only sigh and head off to continue his work on the seventh floor. He had other plans but with the increase to his debt he decided to scale back a little for the near future to start paying it off more actively. The upside is that once he stops spending his world energy on everything the amount of quintessence generated ends up being greater than predicted.

Though after thinking about it, Doyle realizes it would make sense. The four days to a point was predicated on his natural regen. With the support of the extra energy from delvers, after restocking costs of course, it actually ends up being more like one a day. Still slow, just not over a year slow.

Of course, life isn’t going to be so kind as to allow Doyle to just peacefully exist. It takes over a week before one of the founders gets back to the sixth floor, mostly because the creation of the local Guild branch created a bunch of work for everyone. After that time, though, Jim makes his way into the dungeon once again. By himself this time, as he isn’t looking to delve so much as get away from the paperwork.

A frustrating task that only he and Ace really have to deal with at the moment. Sure, others in the town are using paper to record things, but only they are attached to a position that requires it. In fact, Jim has way more paperwork than him. A magnitude of it more. While the system mostly runs itself so Ace doesn’t have to do much outside of system screens, the Adventurers Guild seems to have taken after the classic “paper free” office design where you still have to fill a form out in triplicate, you just also then have to fill out the form digitally as well.

So there Jim is, at the entrance to the dungeon. His group had done a couple speed delves just to stay in shape so he knows how it is going to work. He steps into the portal and just like when backtracking is given an option.

{Go To: 1, 6}

Really minimal, even more so than the exit prompt. Though Jim suspects this is just future proofing for when a dungeon has a lot more choices on where you can go. Unknown to him or the others that isn’t quite true. Rather, the dialogue is personalized to some extent based on what is expected. For instance, a blind person would have the options spoken to them if they expect that or they might have the option displayed in their head.

In this specific case, the simplicity is entirely Jim’s fault. He went first and so ended up describing what he saw, a simple list based on how he would have done it. So, of course, after hearing him say that, that was how the rest of them saw it as well.

Ignorant of this, Jim stands there with the options as he considers what his plan is. In the end, though, he sighs and selects the sixth floor. If he went to the first floor, then someone could come and get him. Only on the sixth floor would he be free from non-emergency interruptions as only he and the others who defeated the boss with him could currently get there. Far as he is concerned, if they need him enough, then they can come get him.

Though once through, he seriously reconsiders his choice as all around him, an entirely new view welcomes him. While he doesn’t know the extent, he can tell this floor changes itself up just like the third floor. Jim shakes his head and decides to continue. The third floor didn’t change with someone on it, so this floor should be the same.

It is, of course, but that is entirely because Doyle chose to make it that way. After all, unlike on the third floor, the actual floor doesn’t change at all. Rather, the portals just activate and deactivate as needed to give the illusion of a never ending space. The entire layout of the floor could in theory be completely randomized even as delvers move through it.

Not that Jim is on the floor long enough to find anything more about it. While he does sneak around to get a feel for the area, he isn’t in the same realm of sneaking as the Barrais. So when he comes across the first group of 14 cattle all just hanging out, Jim decides to explore in the other direction. That, of course, leads him to a smaller group of just 10 cattle. In fact, no matter the direction he goes he keeps running into large groups of cattle

Suffice it to say, Jim rethinks his plan of going it alone. Though his report of a floor inhabited seemingly entirely by cattle, even if there are a few strange ones, is more than enough to rile up the town. When he reported it to Ace neither of them had thought much of it. After all, they now have a herd of cattle all their own.

What they hadn’t taken into account though is that most people hadn’t gotten used to their current diet. While goat is a common enough meat in other areas of the world, their particular culture was very much focused on beef. Sure, there was some seafood that was considered fancier, but a good steak was something everyone could get. This wasn’t an option anymore when there weren’t factory farms able to ship the meat cross country.

So knowing that only six floors down is an endless supply of high quality steak the town was mighty energetic. Sure, the third floor had an earthen cow which ended up tasting amazing if a bit hard to chew for those lacking in strength, but the sixth floor was special.

To get to the third floor required you traveling through the first and second then dealing with the daily changes to the maze. The sixth floor had no such problem as once you beat the boss you can just skip right to it. Doyle hadn’t meant for this, but he definitely started to benefit from it.

Whereas before, most people were satisfied advancing slowly if at all, the idea of an endless supply of beef urged many a fool further into the dungeon. Groups that had stabilized on just farming the first or third floor started to once again push their limits. Seeing as a lot of those groups had outgrown their hunting grounds this didn’t instantly cause too many deaths.

That particular spike had to wait for when they reached the boss floor. Even without that, though, Doyle benefited. After all, while death was a big boost, he got more just for them exerting themselves. Overall, an accidental result that in the end helps both sides. Doyle gets more power while the lower end of the town is no longer stagnating, which could spell disaster in the long run.

Doyle is, of course troubled by this turn of events. He can see how it will help in the long run, but his fifth floor isn’t really meant to prevent raids, in fact the more time passes the more he feels like it is fine. Except, of course, now instead of the founders being the only ones threatening to make it to the end of the dungeon, everyone in town seems to have gotten a fire lit under their butts to advance. Their reasoning is simple enough. If the sixth floor has cattle, what might later floors have?

In the end, though, no matter how much Doyle grumbles about the whole town turning into crazed foodies, it still pushes him to do more. Good thing he has enough sapient energy stored up to create the next floor. So after informing Ally and going through all the steps to once more create a new floor, the usual message pops up as he sits there in empty space.

{Eighth floor dimensionally anchored

World Energy cap +5700 [Constitution(57) * 100]

eighth floor spending limit set to 22600 [Previous floor’s limit(18200) + Intelligence(44) * 100]

Monster level cap updated

Quintessence debt paid back by 5}

Of course, Doyle goes and checks his debt first. While he averaged about 1 a day, it varied by quite a bit so he hadn’t really kept track of it. The result was decent enough at 69.8 and meant he had ended up getting more than one a day, though that might just be from the new flow of people.

With that squared away, it brought a more annoying thing to the front, or rather lack thereof. This floor wasn’t offering some kind of package or deal. Every other floor until now had something he could be with some world energy. Whether that was to get a new monster or some item, it had been there.

Sure, it was nice to have his world energy cap increased, monster level cap upped, and to know what his spending limit was. However, he only had so many monsters to pick from right now. While most of them were interesting and there was a lot of variation on certain themes, he wanted more. So of course he goes and asks Ally.

When Ally hears about it, though, she can only shrug. ‘Were you expecting to get cheap options every time? The system must have figured you had a decent enough selection for the moment. Either that or maybe the more floors you have the fewer times you get to pick. It would be kind of strange if a dungeon got something like that for every floor. Just think about it, there are dungeons with thousands of floors out there.

‘Not many mind you. Generally only a couple in a galaxy if that. But they are out there. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if after a certain point you stop getting options entirely. Don’t worry about it for the moment, though. You’re definitely a good way off from that happening. Just don’t expect it every floor from now on.’

Doyle nods, ‘I guess that is fair enough. Not like dungeons that exist in places without a system are getting anything like this, anyway.’

Ally laughs and shakes her head. ‘It isn’t quite that simple. A lot of things that the system does which aren’t connected to a path and even some that are tend to be stuff that would happen, anyway. What the system tends to do is regulate it. These options are a decent example.

‘Without a system like this one, a dungeon will gather wisps of thoughts and such from the people that die. Once they have gathered enough of them, it can create a mystery template that the dungeon will instinctively know is there and they will be able to put world energy into. Once filled, the template will turn into an actual pattern.

‘Problem is, this is created from random wisps dropped by the dead. So while the pattern might be quite similar to a wolf it will likely be malformed and based more on the cultural perception of wolves instead of real wolves. Though also very likely is that the dungeon ends up with a strange combination of ideas that the amalgamation is unable to live, even when supported by the dungeon.

‘With the system, you don’t have to worry about it. In fact, you end up with a more perfected monster because the system pools the data. Remember that the monsters labeled with the word dungeon like your dungeon wolf are optimized examples of the species. Not perfect, nothing is after all, but as good at their role as the system feels you should have.’

Doyle sighs, ‘I remember. I also remember that if I managed to get better wolves in my dungeon my instance of the dungeon wolf pattern would improve. I guess this explains why I would have such an ability, especially when an unawakened dungeon wouldn’t be able to consciously mess around with their monsters so as to let them live.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘If anything an unawakened dungeon is better at messing with monsters. Sometimes, actually thinking about something makes it worse. Awakened dungeons just have the ability to plan and recognize what a monster specializes in. Now, what are your plans for the new floor?’

Doyle laughs, ‘No clue!’