Chapter 19
Dorn was busy rubbing his non-existent hands together in glee. It had been two days since he had received his massive 26.5 million DP's, but he was still basking in the gloriousness that was being so rich. It was time to build a Colosseum.
First, he checked his status to see how many points he had to work with:
Status
Name: Dorn'axial
Dungeon Name: A Dragon's Dungeon
Dungeon Level: 20
+1 for 21,000 DP's
Floors: 11/15
Dungeon Points: 26,560,497
Dungeon Rating: C1 – Your dungeon
has progressed to the level of a
nationally recognized dungeon
Dorn was about to start laughing again, before Emelia told him to “cut that shit out.”
Emelia further reminded him, “Remember to leave enough points for your avatar. You'll need a lot just to rank it up to a B rank chi practitioner as well.”
He started by moving his core floor down to the lowest possible position, making it the fifteenth floor. This would give him space for a housing floor, a mining floor, and two dungeon floors. Time to start the housing floor.
He began by creating the four arches rooms. He created all the same steles that were located on the D-ranked housing floor, including the ones that would show what each floor was and its difficulty rating. From there, he cleared out the entire cavern and split it into four sections using his Space magic. For this housing floor, he decided against a forest; that would be too much of the same. Instead, he was going to take the idea he had in his dungeon maze in floor six, the meadow, and expand it to encompass the entire floor. It was quite pretty, the fields of green hills that stretched out across the expansive floor. Then, he cut a number of rivers to meander across the space. Right where the four Space magic shields intersected, Dorn plotted a large circle, about 1,000 feet in diameter. This marked the location for where his Colosseum would reside.
He began by peeling back the four shields until they were at the edge of his circle, then wrapped the entire circle in shield, raised from floor to ceiling. He turned the land inside the circle to stone, then he began to build. The first level was to be the fighting floor surrounded by arches of stone. He continued building upwards, with with each level offsetting arches of the previous level. Finally, when the height reached 200 feet, he stopped. In some ways, it was a very simple structure. A center stage surrounded by rows and rows of tiered seating.
He then split the seating areas into five sections. Each section of seating could only be entered by the corresponding teleportation glyph. This would segregate the spectators by which floors they entered the Colosseum from. He then began to make the seating areas progressively nicer, as you moved to the higher-ranked ones. The D-level section was just long stone benches, and the S-level section had individual, private booths with areas to keep chilled food and beverages. Specialized Spacial magic barriers would allow light and sound to enter, but not exit. This would give anonymity to the box users; further, each box had its own teleportation glyph that would one day connect to the private homes on the S-ranked housing floor.
Looking at his great Colosseum, he was happy. Checking his DP's, he saw that he had spent two million points building this floor and structure. Oh well, easy come, easy go.
***
His next task was to create a village in each of his four sections of the housing floor. He first pondered which buildings to build. He wanted this floor to eventually become the place to be for elite crafters, smiths, alchemists, and enchanters. This floor would focus on these four crafts. So, in each village, after creating a massive inn complete with tavern and stables, he turned towards building shops.
The smithies got enormous smelters and furnaces built from black gold, with enchantments that could provide stable and variable levels of heat. The alchemists got all new and modern glassware, with self-cleaning enchantments. Of course, to prevent theft, he had to make a space shield surround alchemist shops that would let people come through, but not glassware. The alchemists were also given vented hoods made of Space magic that could ventilate dangerous concoctions. Enchanters were given labs filled with dense levels of mana and shields that could prevent explosions due to failure from propagating.
One thing he knew that Kiera would enjoy was the baths. He decided to create large structures that were filled by the rivers, and could flow in and out of the buildings. He of course placed these downriver from where drinking water would be collected and upriver from where laundry would be done. This was a current sanitation problem that D-Housing was facing. Last, he built what would be his second, dungeon-controlled building on the floor (besides the inn). It was a bank. This bank would become one of the most secure places in the world to store gold, and the money would conveniently travel from one housing floor to the next. That is, as long as you could make it to the C-Housing floor or better.
Looking around, he decided that the floor was done. Moving down a floor, he decided to be boring. He built an identical mine to the one ten floors above, but populated it with slightly more valuable metals and gems. Moonstone and high steel were now available to be mined. Before connecting the new housing floor, mining floor, and the tenth floor boss level to the dungeon proper, he decided he would show it to Kiera and see if she had any ideas on things to change. But first, he wanted a Dungeon Avatar.
***
Checking his DP's, Dorn saw that he was down a total of five million points from building his two new floors. Dorn took some deep breaths at how much things were costing him, and decided to just move on. Dorn was sick of being immobile and unable to interact with the world. To gain his avatar, he needed to be level 25. So he purchased the next five levels for his dungeon, costing a total of 115,000 DP's. Then, he finally purchased his Dungeon Avatar through the store:
Dungeon Properties
Dungeon Avatar (locked to level 25)
1,000,000 DP's
After selecting it, he felt his consciousness drawn into a new location. It was a blank white space. In front of him rotated a nude, male, human body, with skin so pale it was almost albino. This was not an unfamiliar place or setting for Dorn. This was where he had gone prior to the Dungeon Auction, when he had designed his body. Here, every little detail and feature of the body could be modified to fit Dorn's taste.
Emelia said, “Be careful, as you will no longer be able to change your body once the process is finished. Some dungeons have ended up stuck in truly horrific bodies, because they were too young mentally to choose wisely.”
Dorn snorted, “I spent nearly two thousand years living amongst the humans; I think I'll be fine.”
He first darkened the color of the virtual body until it matched his former body's healthy tan. He made the body his usual 6' 2” and gave it long, silver hair and blue eyes. He fiddled a little with the facial muscles, giving him a completely different look from either his adventurer days as 'Dorn' or at the Dungeon Auction. Anyone truly familiar with him, however, would recognize him from his eyes and hair. But these features were something Dorn was unwilling to give up. He could always dye his hair in the future, if he truly needed to hide.
Of course, he also gave his body a ripped appearance. Dorn, as a proud dragon, wasn't above a little vanity. A few perks for the male body's ideal form was not lost on him. He would be spending eternity in this body, after all. Especially considering what he would be using this body for, leading his monsters into combat against other dungeons, he needed to always be in peek physical form. When he was happy with everything, his vision switched back to his core room. He had a brief bout of vertigo from suddenly seeing things from two different locations.
His core body looked at his new, human body, and it looked back. This is weird, both bodies thought. Unhappy with the current situation, Dorn took steps to separate his body from his core. His consciousness was drawn more fully into his human body, leaving the core to run on autopilot most of the time. Dorn would still be aware of what was going on in his dungeon, but only when he focused on it. Major changes would still go through him; however, the little minutiae of day-to-day operations would be taken care of by an almost autonomous core.
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Dorn spent a few DP's to whip himself up a set of common cotton trousers. Getting dressed for the first time in about four months was a strange experience. He looked around, feeling almost normal. He sent his senses delving into the rest of his dungeon, just making sure that things were running as normal. His monsters were still fighting and adventurers were still dying. Perfect, thought Dorn.
“Now, you said something about being the final defender for you core. Does that mean you're going to stay in this core room all day every day?” asked Emelia.
“No, my shields and offensive capabilities as a dungeon core are more protection than my new human body could possibly offer,” said Dorn a little forlornly. Looking at his new C5 cultivation, Dorn said, “I spent nearly 3,000 years becoming an SS-ranked chi practitioner, and now I'm going to have to do it all over again.”
“It'll be a little different, however; you should take a look at the screen open in your core's field of vision,” said Emelia.
Dorn focused in on his core body's vision, seeing the following:
Congratulations!
You are now in possession of a
Dungeon Avatar, the final protection
for your dungeon. You are now a C5-
ranked chi practitioner. Like all
normal creatures, you will need to
practice the art of chi in order to grow
stronger. As a dungeon, however,
your jumps from rank to rank will be much
easier! Instead of self-
enlightenment through the study of
chi itself, you will simply pay a cost in
Dungeon Points!
Please note that in the event of the
death of your avatar, you will need to
re-make your body at the C5 rank for
the same cost of initially buying an
avatar. All cultivation in chi will be
lost as a consequence, so be careful
with your new body!
“Well, that doesn't sound too bad,” said Dorn.
“It's lying. It is most definitely harder to rank up as a dungeon. The cost just to go from C to B ranked adventurer is five million DP's. And the higher ranks are even more astronomical. It's an exponential growth,” said Emelia.
Dorn, while depressed at hearing the news on how much this avatar was going to cost, was just impressed that his idiot pixie knew the phrase, exponential growth.
“So, what are you going to do now?” asked Emelia.
“First, can you always notify me when my core gets a message? I don't want to miss anything important.”
“Sure, that's easy enough,” said Emelia.
“Well then, next, I need to carve something onto my back,” replied Dorn cryptically.
“Whaaa?” asked Emelia.
Instead of answering, a silver light shot out of his core and started burning the flesh on his back. A complicated teleportation glyph was carved out onto his skin. Then, a pure red light flew out of the core, healing his back, but leaving the black lines of the glyph behind.
“Cool tattoo. What does it do?” asked Emelia curiously.
“It allows me to teleport back to this floor at any time and in any place, as long as I'm not locked down by anti-teleportation magic,” said Dorn. “I know I'm currently too weak to really give any protection to my core, but I do want to be able to show up in case something happens. And eventually, I will be an SS-ranked chi practitioner once again.”
“Alright, that makes sense,” said Emelia.
The next thing on Dorn's list was to test his new affinities. As every body had different affinities, his would have changed from when he was a dragon. Creating a chi affinity testing orb took only a few DP's. He grabbed the orb and watched as it started glowing in multiple colors. The left hemisphere of the orb glowed bright silver, which caused him to take a deep sigh of relief. He still had a major Space affinity. He was intrigued by the other three colors, however. Before, he had had minor affinities in Nature, Healing, and Soul magics. He still had Soul magic, but now he had Gravity and Lightning magics.
“Wow, I have three of the higher magics. Is that normal for a dungeon?” asked Dorn.
“I have no idea,” said Emelia helpfully.
Finally, Dorn made preparations for entering the human adventurer culture once again. He spun up some C-grade armor and items, outfitting himself in nice, but not flashy equipment. Finally, he made a bag of holding large enough to hold everything he would need, and then filled it with gold, clothes, alchemy products, and sundry items.
He thought for a while; luckily, as a dragon planning on becoming a dungeon, he had collected application books for every type of magic. His fighting style would still involve a lot of teleporting around, but he would no longer be forced to fight with a melee weapon. Lightning was the most offensive oriented magic, and Gravity made for a nice complement. He could bog an enemy down with Gravity and kill with Lightning. He would also have Soul magic and Space magic for defense.
“Alright, guess I'll become a mage-type damage dealer,” said Dorn.
With that pronouncement, Dorn created himself a mage's staff out of moonstone and enchanted it with lightning and gravity runes. There, he thought, all ready. Time to go meet Kiera and bring her on a tour of the new floors. He felt oddly nervous. He teleported himself to outside his dungeon and headed into the human settlement for the first time.
***
Waking up to pounding on her door with a massive hangover was not the idea of Kiera's ideal morning. She had celebrated her level up a little too hard with her party. Kiera eventually managed to work up the energy to moan, “Go away!”
This, unfortunately, did not stop the pounding. Standing up, her head started spinning, and she rushed over to the chamber pot to vomit. “Uggh.”
“Rough night?” asked Dorn in her head.
Oh fuck off, I deserved a day of kicking back and enjoying life after the shit I had to put up with yesterday. Now I have to go kill whoever the fuck is knocking on my door.
Flinging the door open, Kiera was ready to tell off whatever dimwit kept knocking on her door. She and Dorn just stared at each other.
Holy fuck, who the hell is he? What's with the silver hair?
“Um, should you maybe put some more clothes on?” asked Dorn.
Kiera looked down at her half-dressed state and flung the door closed. Getting dressed, she said to herself, smooth, Kiera, smooth. Then she wondered why she was so flustered by being awkward in front of a complete stranger.
Dorn interjected, “Don't worry, it didn't bother me too much.”
Not helping, Dorn. Now go away while I deal with this really hot guy who seems to be looking for me for some reason.
“I guess I'll take that as a compliment,” Dorn replied with a projected smirk.
This just confused Kiera, but in her hungover state, she decided not to think about it any further. Opening the door again, Kiera said, “Hi. I'm Kiera. Why were you banging on my door this morning?”
Then, in Dorn's unmistakable deep voice, the man said, “Well first of all, it's around 2:00 in the afternoon. As for why, it's so I could show you my new floors.”
Kiera just stared at him with her mouth hanging wide open. “Dorn?” she managed to ask in an incredulous voice.
Dorn smirked and said, “The great and mighty, here in the flesh.”
Kiera's face just paled, before she stammered, “Oh my gods, I can't believe I called you hot. You're never going to let me live that down, are you?”
Dorn's smile just grew wider. Instead of answering, he said, “Come on, let me show you my new floors.”
Kiera just trailed behind him as he headed down towards the tavern. As he started heading for the door, Kiera managed to say, “Hold up; let me get some breakfast first, while I try to wrap my head around what the fuck is going on. I'm still not certain I'm both awake and not hallucinating.”
Dorn looked annoyed. After tilting his head back and forth for a while, as if he was having an internal argument, he sighed and said, “Okay,” before sitting down at a table and calling for Jerry to bring two meals.
Kiera sat down and just stared at him. The guy was insanely attractive. That would be incredibly annoying. Every time she looked at him, she had to remind herself that on the inside, this person was Dorn. A murderous silver dragon turned dungeon who now partially controlled her.
Dorn looked at her before saying, “Okay, ask your questions.”
Kiera began immediately. “Are you real?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I was able to gain a large amount of energy through an auction with other beings like myself, and I used the energy to build myself a new body to walk around in,” Dorn said.
Kiera looked more hungover than ever. “How the fuck does a -”
“Please don't blow my identity in public. As you told your team, I'm just Dorn, your benefactor. As for when they ask why my cultivation is so weak, answer that I received a nearly-fatal injury to my dantian and lost years of cultivation.”
Kiera was still stuck on a previous issue, saying, “How does a you-know-what have an auction with other you-know-whats?”
“Through a system set up by the gods.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now, hurry up and eat so I can show you my new floors.”
Kiera finally smirked, saying, “You seem really proud about these new floors. I bet they suck.”
Dorn just scowled the rest of the time, while Kiera finished her breakfast.