Chapter 6 - The big bad wolf
Day 6
"Shit!"
After seeing the wolf killing the rabbit, he ordered the other ones back. Then he contemplated his options for a moment. He was not ready for the wolf. His one working trap was designed for the rabbits and it was too weak. The wolf would be at least on the rank F0, so Neo's mana pool would be too low to just explode it, like he did with the rabbits. He could wake up Luna, but then he would have to answer questions about the traps, and how he got the rabbit blueprint. Coming to a decision he started creating rabbits.
He already had a small army of 50 rabbits when the wolf gulped down the rest of its kill and made its way to the second room. Neo ordered all of his rabbits to kill the wolf, while he kept on creating new rabbits without pause.
The wolf immediately killed the first rabbit, but then it was surprised that the other rabbits started biting at it instead to flee. The wolf killed another rabbit, and another one, going more and more into a murderous frenzy. However it was not able to kill them faster than Neo was creating them.
After three minutes blood and rabbit parts were splattered everywhere and Neo was not able to see the wolf under the rabbit horde. He noticed that he had not enough mana to create another rabbit and checked his status.
Name: Neo
Species: Dungeon core
Affinity: None
Rank: G-0
Level: 1
Structural Integrity: 1/1
Mana: 9/9 (78)
Mana Regeneration: 100 /h *50000% = 13.88 /s
Life Energy: 6
It seemed like living dungeon monsters blocked some of his maximum mana amount. With this information, he waited for the next rabbit to die and then he replaced it. This went on for ten minutes, until the wolf finally died. He was not sure if the rabbits killed it, or if it just died from exhaustion.
The wolf carcass was not a nice sight! It was without eyes and tongue, was missing it's genitals and the fur was only noticeable if one knew that there had been one. A scream wrenched him out of his thoughts.
"Oh my god! What happened"
"Oh shit."
Then Luna immediately started crying.
"The poor rabbits. What did they ever do to you? Why did you do this? Luna told you she loved rabbits!"
Neo glimpsed over the room. It looked like a butcher shop of a psychopathic maniac with a major hatred for rabbits. The floor and the wall were red from blood, there were rabbit parts everywhere. He checked his material status.
Animal material: 1051 kg
With his 78 living rabbits, this meant there were 283 dead rabbits in the room.
"I'm sorry Luna. The wolf attacked and I didn't know what to do. Why don't you go with the living rabbits to the new room while I clean up. I promise I will create a special, extra cute rabbit only for you."
"You promise? But it has to be extra fluffy. From now on Luna will kill every wolf she sees. Luna will protect the innocent rabbits from the evil wolves."
When Luna took the rabbits with her to the other rooms he started absorbing the carcasses and traps. After he was finished, he extended his dungeon to the rest of the cave entry.
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He prayed that this episode did not cause some mental damage to his small fairy. After expanding the dungeon through the rest of the room, he checked his status.
Name: Neo
Species: Dungeon core
Affinity: None
Rank: G-0
Level: 1
Structural Integrity: 1/1
Mana: 22/22 (78)( 1 for every m² at minimum 10)
Mana Regeneration: 100 /h *50000% = 13.88 /s
Life Energy: 27
Finally he was able to open the skill menu, but then he paused and checked the wolf blueprint before.
Black forest wolf
A normal forest wolf, common in most temperate forests
Rank: F1
Traits: frenzy (rank 1);
Costs: 200 mana ; 40 kg animal material
He was confused for a moment. 200 mana probably meant 20 life energy, together with the six rabbits that died in his dungeon, he should've had 26 life energy. Then he remembered the one rabbit that died outside of the dungeon and which corpse he absorbed later.
This was good news. It meant, he didn't need to have creatures die in his dungeon. It was enough to absorb the corpses. For a moment he thought about coal and crude oil, weren't they remains from long dead plants and animals? But that was something for later, he decided. With this Neo went back to his status window and opened the skill menu. There was only one item.
Upgrade dungeon level -> 2 Costs: 10 life energy
He directly bought it.
Upgrade dungeon level -> 3 Costs: 20 life energy
He did not have enough life energy for level three, so he went back to his status menu to see what had changed.
Name: Neo
Species: Dungeon core
Affinity: None
Rank: G-0
Level: 2
Structural Integrity: 1/1
Mana: 22/22 (78)
Floor area: 100/300 m²
Max dungeon extension from core: 75 m
Mana Regeneration: 300 /h *50000% = 41.64 /s
Life Energy: 17
Wow, his mana regeneration tripled and his max floor area increased by 200 m². While the increased regeneration was not very important right now, the increase in floor size was good message. As an extra he only needed three more life energy to level up again. The maximum dungeon extension was new, but he thought it made sense, otherwise a dungeon would be able to just create an endless straight hallway for hundreds of miles. The dungeon core had to be able to control the area, so it made sense that the range was limited.
After checking his status window, he directly decided to kill all the plants in the burrow and to absorb them. There were no special ones among them, only a lot of cave mushrooms, grass and a small berry bush at the entrance of the burrow. But the plant material was nevertheless a welcome harvest.
Animal material: 1375 kg
Plant material: 2982 kg
Life Energy: 21
After checking his life energy again, he immediately bought the next dungeon level.
Upgrade dungeon level -> 4 Costs: 40 life energy
Then he went back to his status window.
Name: Neo
Species: Dungeon core
Affinity: None
Rank: G-0
Level: 3
Structural Integrity: 1/1
Mana: 22/22 (78)( 1 for every m² at minimum 10)
Floor area: 100/700 m²
Max dungeon extension from core: 77 m
Mana Regeneration: 600 /h *50000% = 83.33 /s
Life Energy: 1
It seemed like the cost and the increase, in his maximum dungeon size, doubled with each level, while the mana regeneration only increased by the level times one hundred. This meant on higher level it would take longer and longer to refill his maximum mana and his immortal grade mana gathering technique would become more and more important. The floor extension almost stayed the same. It seemed to be maximum floor area divided by level squared. He roughly calculated the numbers and came to the conclusion that it should expand rapidly on higher levels. With this he decided to move his core himself to the last room.
"Where is my special rabbit? You promised!"
"Sorry, it has to wait for later. At the moment my unblocked mana is only 22 and I don't want to kill your rabbits to free up some more. It's not enough to created an awesome rabbit."
"Ok, but you have to keep your promise, otherwise Luna will get angry."
"Yes of course I will keep it. For now I have good news, with the life energy from the dead wolf, I was able to level up twice and we can build two more floors now!"
"Cool, let's directly start. How about you make the big bad wolf the first floor boss and the only monster on the first floor. Then every visitor will kill it."
He was not sure what to think of this and Luna's evil smile. He just decided to go along with it.
"Ok, good idea. Let's start expanding. But first, is it still possible to change the first level later on, if I already have a second one?"
"Yes sure, but it will cost more mana to do it."
He decided because of his high mana regeneration that this would not be a big problem for now and began tunneling down.