Chapter 4 - Getting ready

Day 1

After they gathered every useful item, he abandoned the dungeon again and they moved to the next floor, the greenhouse. Most of the plants he cultivated there were way to valuable for the near future. He would have high ranked adventurers running all over the place if he spawned them in such an easy dungeon. That said, many of the plants were hard to find and having them would spare him a lot of time and effort late. Thinking about the plants, he came to the conclusion that it would not be reasonable to bring them with him. First of all, most of them needed a specific environment which couldn't be provided by a new dungeon. The second reason was that he didn't want to leave the tower right away. The plants would wither and die if they were just lying in the teleportation formation for a few days. But maybe he just needed their blueprints. He decided to ask Luna for advice, only to notice that she was asleep again. Before waking her up, he expanded his dungeon over the whole floor again.

"Luna!"

  "..."

"Luna wake up!"

  "What?" she yawned.

"I have a problem and need your help. Why are you sleeping so much?"

  "Young dungeon fairies need a lot of sleep. That's because young dungeons are very slow and stupid. They need days for the easiest task and it would be boring for the fairies to just keep watching them bumbling around. That's why a fairy usually explains what needs to be done and how to do it to a new dungeon. Then she goes to sleep until the dungeon finished the task."

"That's pretty smart. Now to the problem. You said I need raw materials to created plants. Are there different raw materials for different plants? Or could I just absorb some grass and create a world tree with it?"

  "You just need the raw material. The difference in creating plants is just the amount of mana you need in addition to the material."

"Great. Then I'll just absorb all plants in the greenhouse. Give me a few minutes. When I'm finished, we can move on the treasury."

A little later the golems brought them to the treasury on the floor above. Luna's eyes went wide when she saw the reinforced vault door.

  "Wow. We will be rich. I can literally smell the treasures behind the door!"

"Not so fast. The door can only be opened by my mana signature which has changed when I became the dungeon."

  "You and your stupid paranoia. Luna could have gotten a golden crown with jewels like a princess and now you can't open the stupid door."

"Maybe I can extend my influence through the door and absorb some of the treasures. Jewels are of similar material to normal rocks. I think I should try to get their blueprints. We could leave the valuable metals and artifacts for later."

  "That will not work. I can see that the vault is reinforced with powerful magic. A dungeon can only growth through something like this if it can overpower the magic."

"Let me try, please."

He tried but it was to no avail. Luna was right, the magic that protected the vault was too powerful. He would come back for the vault later

"Ok, I give up for now. Time to go to the last floor."

  "Hurray, we will finally leave this stupid tower."

"Not so fast. We have to search for a good location for our new dungeon first."

They arrived at a large room dominated by a large formation full of stuff the golems brought from the storage level and a big table with a small tower in the middle. Neo signaled Luna to move him to the table first.

  "What is this? Looks like a map!"

"It is kind of a map. After I build my tower here, I planted sensors with emitters in the area fifty kilometers around the tower so I would not be surprised by a conventional attack and could have an eye on the surrounding area. All these sensors are connected to this device and they are delivering real time surveillance data on the area."

  "Your paranoia again. But this is cool."

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"Let me show you how to use it."

Neo concentrated on the map and showed Luna how to zoom in and out.

  "We should make our dungeon in the city. With all the people to absorb, we can grow very fast!"

"Wow, you are really bloodthirsty. But that is a bad idea. First of all, a dungeon, that is killing random people outside, will be declared as an evil dungeon and the Guild will take care of it."

  "The Guild?"

"Yes, the Adventures Guild is the part of most powerful entity in the known world. Together with the Mage Association and the Eternal Bank they rule supreme. Each of them has members who are above the immortal rank, in addition there is the Ancient One who is in charge of all of them. He is publicly recognized as the strongest being on the continent. A few centuries ago, one of the larger empires was overrun by a demon invasion coming from a wild rift. When the Ancient One showed up, he obliterated everything. Even now, there is no life in the area. Additionally, they are controlling the largest empire directly and forcing every other kingdom, empire or free city to accept branches of the bank, the guild and the mage association."

  "I get it. So, we should not annoy them. For now at least. Still, I think we should go to the city. Even if we just concentrate on people who are willing to risk their life by entering our dungeon, it would be the fastest way to grow!"

"You're right. But it is the most dangerous one too. At first, we would be completely helpless against any intruder. While it is forbidden to destroy a dungeon without approval from the guild, you can get a large amount of money for a dungeon core on the black market. In addition, the higher ups of the guild are mostly interested in larger dungeons. Small dungeons are mostly visited by entry level adventurers and the military from local government. If you immediately leave the area, you can get away with killing a small dungeon. Trust me, I know! By the way, the city Geldern is ruled by a young count. I don't know anything about him or his character, but his father was a pain in the ass. Part of the reason why I build my tower here was that the old count was the most hated noble in the kingdom. I decided that if was going to seize some land for my tower, I would do it from the most annoying noble. At first, he was sending me a few tax collectors who I just stunned for a few days. Then, he mobilized his army and came to my tower. He wanted me to kneel and beg for forgiveness and give him an enormous amount of gold."

  "He tried to shake down an immortal? Was he that powerful?"

*chuckling*"No, he was not. But he didn't know who I was. Others didn't tell him. When I stepped in front of his army, he wet his pants and fell unconscious. It was pretty funny. For years he was the laughingstock at the kings court."

  "You're so evil, but what has that to do with our dungeon?"

"If the dungeon is in his city and he is greedy like his old man, he could set a high tax on all the loot and additional taxes for goods and services the dungeon divers need. This could make our new dungeon quite unattractive. "

  "Ok, I get it. You want to minimize the risk. But if you create the dungeon in the wilderness, it can take years to be found. The amount of life energy we can get from wild animals entering the dungeon is very limited."

"I think it would be best to be discovered by a weak sentient monster race at first. We can make them ours and we would get a basic defense force against real intruders. When we look at the surrounding area, we have this small goblin tribe and this medium sized kobold village."

  "Kobolds have a lot more potential than goblins and they smell a lot less. Goblins are stupid!"

"Yes, I know. But if I look at the kobold tribe, they are more than 300 and they have a C ranked chieftain and a B ranked shaman. I think they are too strong for now and we should focus on the goblins."

  "You have a point, but we need some wild animals first, otherwise even the stupid goblins could just take the core. The mighty Luna cannot fight a whole goblin tribe by herself!"

"So, we need an area where goblins come regularly, with wild animals and where humans come only every few month. Let me check the logged recording of the area near the goblin village for the last months." 

After working through the recordings for a day, Neo came up with a good location. Two miles from the goblin village there was a large rabbit burrow where the goblins hunted every other week. It was in the forest and there were wolves, bears and some other animals. The nearest human village was only four kilometers away, but it was separated by difficult terrain. In the last year, the area was only visited by human hunters three times. This should give them enough time to get a basic dungeon with wild animals and goblins going.

"I found a good spot. I think we should start our dungeon in this rabbit burrow. Its big enough for the material in the teleportation formation and we would directly be getting some basic animals. Let me show you."

  "Yeah rabbits! Luna is getting her own rabbit. Luna will train it and then Luna can ride to battle on her mighty rabbit mount!"

"Ok, you really like rabbits do you?"

  "Rabbits are the best! They are cute and they are fluffy!"

"Ok, let's get started. Please tell the golems to take this table with us. We would need the make some adjustments to get it to work later, but I think the sensor array could come in handy when we are looking for new creatures later. At last, grab the black crystal from its mounting over there. It is the key to this formation, with it, we can later teleport back in the tower and open the vault."

After everything was gathered, Neo started charging the formation with mana. Something that took only a thought before now would occupy him for a few days.

"Luna, this will take a few days to charge. You can go to sleep if you want. I will wake you up when we are ready."

  "Ok, good night."

After three days, the formation was charged. Before waking up Luna, he went over the inventory of his tower in his mind level by level. He was looking if he forgot something the golems could get and that would be helpful to a new dungeon. When his mind reached his cold store, he thought about all the meat and food in there. It was protected against aging, that's why he stored enough food for one person for a few years. It would give him a good start for creating animals and plants. Neo woke Luna and told her about it. It took the golems another day to get everything, but then they were ready and he activated the formation.