Day 122
I wake up 1 day later and check my dungeon. The first and second floors are in order and balanced, the goblins are at the top of the food chain but remain cautious of the hordes of rats and bats. My minions are still there and I decide it is time to improve them. I lead them into the ritual hall where I collect their souls before absorbing their bodies. They are in bad condition so I let them go.
I work their bodies in different ways, five that look like elves but without magical power, they are intended for the alchemical garden. I design one that looks like a merchant. He is rather small. 1.60 m and 90Kg fat I give him more intelligence to the detriment of his strength, conversely I design 5 rather silly guards of 2 meters but with strengthened muscles and bones. I give the merchant additional authority over the guards so that he can control them. Finally, I design 10 minions that look like classic humans but a little louder, they will listen to my orders to bring back new things. I still can't keep the skills present in souls, but I can now select some of the memories I want to keep.
I then start building enchanted equipment for the infiltration and merchant team, starting with a large robe and jewelry for the merchant that will make him less threatening and more convincing. Jewels have a shield enchantment that should withstand a few hits. The guards all have a large sword and steel armor, it does not cover the whole body to maintain sufficient freedom of movement.
The gear I provide for the Undercover team is lighter with daggers or potions as well as slave control collars.
I send the merchant and his guards with a merchant cart on a mission to the city to build a small merchant guild, this should allow me to keep a sufficient supply of materials. They bring with them several chests of gold coins, about 50,000 coins. And I send the last 10 minions to the village, some for infiltration and others to capture more humans. They are all numbered from 709 to 730.
Day 126
When I am alone I return my attention to the ant room, the ants have started to be replaced by the new ones, with the increase in the size of the ants the place starts to run out. I thought about moving the room and making it the third floor. But the second stage is not yet powerful enough and the limit is still present. So I enlarged the room to include the cells of the old colonies.
I'm expanding the second floor to 70 rooms, and adding ten more goblins to the last room. The Hobgoblins are bigger, stronger and smarter, I notice his soul is also developing. I do not allow any other goblin to evolve because I keep it for the third floor.
I want to create a network that encompasses the entire dungeon to harvest souls when humans find it. I spend several days thinking before I find the solution in the form of networks of silver thread and small soul crystals linked together up to the large soul crystal. Silver is a good conductor of magic, less than mithril or divine metal, but it is still sufficient to guide souls while being infused with mana. By wanting to escape, they will touch part of the network and will be sucked into the small crystals before being led to the storage crystal.
Day 130
So I set about building this network which takes me another week, I also doubled the capacity of the crystal. My servants returned once to bring me captured villagers, they also had disturbing news. The village chief has issued a quest to the Town's Adventurers Guild to investigate the disappearance of the villagers. The adventurers should arrive in the village within a week while it is getting ready. The dungeon is a two day walk from the village and it will take a while for him to find it but eventually they will.
I send one of the servants to warn the merchant of increasing his reputation and when it is sufficient to buy a noble title and the lands surrounding the dungeon. It is possible to buy a low level noble title but you have to be recognized. The kingdom is wary of potential spies from the neighboring kingdom. It will take him a few months to infiltrate the capital of the duchy.
I can now create my third floor, so I lower my last level and move the ant room to the third floor. I create narrow tunnels that branch out in different directions. Expanding my domain in the air indoors is very easy, so I plan to let the ants expand their territory all around the dungeon. The ants do not have access to the upper floors and vice versa, it is my last line of defense. I finally allow the ants to come out to the surface by connecting one of their tunnels to the room at the very entrance of the cave. However, they must be discreet so as not to attract adventurers.
Day 134
A team of seven beginner adventurers arrived in the village three days ago and I only learned about it yesterday. I should still have a few more months of peace before they reach here. There are no more ants of the first generation and several workers have evolved.
My alchemical garden is operational and it now contains all the plants I owned before converting into a dungeon. There are hundreds of them and it spans 1 square kilometer. I do my first harvest and start to test my alchemical material. I have a hard time at first but I got used to the new material which allows me to create extremely pure potions. I make several potions that I store and start to improve recipes that I know. Potions of stamina, sleep, vitality, healing, speed, invisibility, poison, flight, mana regen, bondage, ext aphrodisiac. I can recreate everything !
I store my best potions in the treasure room. It makes me think that I never made a reward for adventurers. This is essential if I don't want to get rid of me. Men tolerate the danger of dungeons because they provide a lot of wealth that can only be found in dungeons.
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I absorb the bodies of monsters when there are no humans around, but they have time to collect items that can be used for alchemy or to perform magic rituals. I have spread some common magic herbs on the first and second floors but it is not enough. I then design simple wooden and steel chests as well as several types of basic weapons and armor as rewards. They will get iron pieces on the first floor in each room and a weapon or armor in the last room. The same thing on the second floor but the parts in greater quantity and the weapons of better quality. Nothing on the third floor because adventurers should not access it.
Day 135
The last thing I need is a fake core to make it look like the second and last floors, so the adventurers won't go lower. There are, however, many ways to recognize a core for experienced adventurers. I can easily mistake newbies but not veterans or experienced mages.
I am planning to remake a separate core without a soul but not sure if it is possible. Recreating a second core is easy, but I don't want it to have a personality or a soul. I want him to be able to take care of the upkeep of the upper floors for me because that would free me from hard work. So I started to experiment, by creating a core and then fusing a soul core with a lot of mana, I was able to create an artificial spirit. The problem is that it is independent so I have to link it to my control. I carved a simple, smooth obsidian pillar, positioned the artificial core on it, and connected a very thin wire of divine metal directly to my core with a device to destroy it in case it was needed. I was then able to control him and tasked him with overseeing the ecosystem on the upper floors, absorbing corpses, and renewing rewards when necessary. I still watch the floors but I don't take care of them anymore.
Day 150
Two weeks passed while I was creating this and two new beginner teams arrived in the village. They have started patrolling around but have not yet discovered an anomaly.
The ant colony is growing rapidly and the soldiers have started to patrol the forest to bring food for their queens. The mana that the Queen Mother has gathered is now enough for me to change the generation of ants.
I recovered the queen and I further enlarged her to 70 cm in length by greatly increasing her intelligence, I left her combat abilities almost nil. I once again increased her fertility and birth rate per day. I also boosted his Dark Affinity which granted him a skill that can grant Dark Affinity to his children with a low probability of 1%.
New worker ants are 40cm tall and can evolve into smarter artisan ants, minor ants for digging, or soldier ants for combat. Soldiers can evolve into war ants for attack or guardian ants for defense.
I also strengthened their bond and ants no longer need pheromones to communicate and can do so with mana subconsciously.
The queen mother can also produce secondary queens by consuming a large amount of food and mana but this will prevent her from producing more eggs for two days. These secondary queen eggs will take 4 days to hatch and then another 2 days before producing new workers. These secondary queens cannot transmit affinity or produce other queens, they have no fighting ability and are less intelligent than the queen mother.
As I released the Queen Mother, I noticed that she was starting to have self-awareness. The colony immediately got to work expanding the tunnels and raising the new workers. Only queens need food to survive, other ants can feed on mana.
Days 152
My mana regeneration has greatly increased with these new inhabitants.
Today one of my servants returned to warn me that a group of adventurers was heading towards the dungeon from the village. There are five of them with a tank, an archer, a thief and two swordsmen, they all seem to be beginners. They should be there in a few hours at the latest. I can't wait for them to arrive to test my dungeon but I won't let them go because I don't want to be discovered yet. The disappearance of a team of adventurers will attract attention, but it will give me more time to prepare.
Two hours later, I receive a group which enters my cave. They seem to hesitate on how to react. One of the swordsmen seems to be the leader, they are all excited because they have just discovered a dungeon whose news can make them richer but the archer and the tank are against exploration, on the contrary the thief and the other swordsman are for. Finally, the leader chooses the exploration.
They go carefully inside with the tank first followed by the swordsmen then the thief and the archer. The corridors do not allow them to be two abreast. They quickly pass through the first rooms, killing snakes and evolved insects. They have their first fight against a pack of rats but win with a few minor injuries. They arrive at the end of the first floor and seem surprised at its size for a young dungeon.
Seeing the bear, they don't seem worried, after all it's just a normal bear. They fight him and the tank has a deep wound on his arm. The bear is dead and I am quite disappointed with its fight. I confirm they are newbie adventurers, he seems to only have two health potions and the tank takes one, his wound stops bleeding and slowly heals itself. They debate whether to continue but end up doing so.
The archer and the thief collected many plants and pieces of dead animals to bring them back to the guild. The dagger the safe gave them at the end of the first floor seems to please the thief. I gave it to motivate him to continue.
They get to the second floor and finally start to really fight. They spend more time. Surprisingly they easily manage the goblins but have trouble with other inhabitants including a rat leader and a bunch of rats. They suffer several injuries and use their second potion. They are tired but arrive at the door of the last room. I'm afraid they won't get in because the tank is arguing to turn around. Finally the thief agreed with the promise of good equipment. They had a good harvest between the iron pieces and the animal pieces but humans are often greedy and accept the danger for money.
They therefore enter the room, the door closes which is a common configuration in dungeons. The hobgoblin and the twenty goblins line up and the faces of the adventurers harden. The goblins surround them and are led by the hobgoblin. They are quickly exceeded by the number but the swordsmen in particular the leader do damage. Several goblins died before killing the tank and the swordsman, the thief tries to escape but the door is locked and he ends up stabbed by two goblins who have their necks cut off by the leader.
The battle calms down and the swordsman defends the archer, the only woman in the group, the goblins have regrouped and only the hobgoblin and seven goblins remain. They get closer little by little then the hobgoblins charge the leader and start a duel, he is not his equal and is supported by the other goblins who ignore the archer. The swordsman eventually succumbs but the archer is panicked and has already killed three goblins, the hobgoblin has also lost an arm and is bleeding profusely. Unfortunately for her the remaining goblins turn around and I tell them that they don't have to kill her and that will be their reward for their fight. Goblins are very fertile but human women have always been a trophy for goblins because they give birth to more children faster and stronger. When it is captured I take care of the hobgoblin because I am satisfied with it. I then absorb the weapons and bodies of the dead.
I can feel the artificial core recreating the bear, some goblins, and supplying the chests. I think a group of cautious beginner adventurers are capable of conquering the upper floors. I must quickly do a third floor.
I send a servant to warn the merchant to quickly buy his title of nobility and the lands surrounding the dungeon.