Day 296
Immediately after making all the connections the 6 artificial cores begin to decipher the runes and build simple spells. When I get the other affinities I create new kernels. With that, nothing can stop my thirst for knowledge!
I have fallen behind on the dungeon expansion while building this library and am starting to store mana for future expansion.
Day 304
While the merchant and these guards were taking a tour in the forest as the owner, they were attacked by mercenaries. The guards are powerful but in the face of E-rank adventurers they weren't enough and they all died slowing the mercenaries to allow the merchant to escape. He was however poisoned. And he died in his mansion. No one needs to know he's dead and I need to recreate one quickly.
I absorb his body and recreate it identically, my control over souls has greatly improved and I use a powerful soul by removing those memories and skills, I create a devious and noble personality. I also improve his intelligence to about five times that of a normal human. He has handling and leadership skills. I also provided him with better protection enchantments because they were not useful in front of experienced mercenaries.
As soon as the merchant is created, I put it back in the cellar of the manor connected to my dungeon so as not to arouse suspicion of its disappearance. I have to improve her guard because she has become too weak for her status. I first design ten 2-meter guards full of muscles, it keeps an intelligence equal to that of a human but have stronger muscles and bones. They are also mediocre D-rank adventurers. I equipped them with full steel plate armor and enchanted swords. I also release them in the cellar and they quickly take up their duties as knights.
I then create four assassins, they don't look too much like humans, they have longer arms and legs while being very skinny. They are light and powerful over a short period of time but not very durable. They have assassination skills and can hide in shadows.
I also wanted to create mages but I don't have enough mana or spells to create them, I need more mages to die. However, they are rare among adventurers because they are appreciated by the nobles. They generally accompany the more powerful parts and are protected.
Day 306
The merchant, now 731, began to build connections and hired guards for the town. Guilds of alchemists, blacksmiths and merchants have settled in the city and they are beginning to attract large numbers of people to the area. The total population has just reached 2000 people. This is normal for a new productive dungeon town, but it requires a huge organization to feed and house all the inhabitants.
Day 313
The queen ant mother is ready to evolve again after three months. I enlarge it again but less than usual to the size of 1.50 meters long, the result is rather ugly but I do not dwell on it because it is not its final evolution. I massively increase her intelligence to reach the level of a classic human. She can create secondary queens on the same principle as before, I also offer her instinctive control of the ants under her command. She has much finer control over the darkness, she can now choose if she wishes to impart a slight affinity to the walk. Ants with affinity are slower to be produced but are more powerful. I also extend the evolution of ants with the base which remains workers, they can evolve into miners, craftsmen, soldiers or apprentices.
Craftsmen can evolve into architects to solidify tunnels and create simple structures. The soldiers evolve into either a warrior or a guard, and the apprentices are simply smarter and are meant to help the Queen Mother run the colony. Secondary queens are more productive with a higher birth rate and have a low probability of transmitting the darkness affinity, but retain weaker intelligence than other ants. Each ant is now self-aware but is devoted to the colony until their death. The largest, the guard ants measure 1.20 m and the smallest, the worker ants 60 cm.
Day 315
The new queen is now cramped in the tunnels and immediately the miners are working to enlarge. The last generation miners have no problem tearing the limestone but have to force a little on the granite.
The queen ants is the first inhabitant to have developed a complete soul since the beginning. I have never replaced it but only reinforced with mana with each evolution.
Following the creation of this soul has revealed many of its secrets to me. The soul is built up in layers starting from the innermost and is strengthened in the same way. I can now "peel" a soul by consuming mana, modify memories and personality, and select only a portion of previous skills. I still cannot modify the soul core but I can use it as is.
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Day 337
For my sixth floor, I planned a more open structure. I start from the stairs that start on the fifth floor and arrive at the sixth floor in a room with the appearance of a natural cave, the exit is under a waterfall which leads to a vast cave 150 meters wide and 500 long. . The cave is a forest of trees and various animals improved but without magical power. The only monsters present are goblins in large numbers. They are scattered in groups with a hobgoblin as the leader for each group. I provided them with simple leather armor and daggers for each. Hobgoblins have hardened leather armor with a steel shortsword and small shield. None of his weapons can be taken outside the dungeon because they turn into mana when their owner dies. The guardian's room is occupied by ten hobgoblins armed with reinforced armor and shield or sword.
The ground is a forest in which the ceiling is 20 meters high and I was able to test many classic plants as well as the first birds. I also added magic plants in inaccessible places as rewards. There are some chests with one or two silver coins and an enchanted item as a reward from the guardian. I am satisfied with the stage and the following ones will look like it with a higher difficulty.
Day 364
The discovery of the floor surprised the guild and a few low level D-rank adventurers arrived which energized the town.
Natural plants quickly evolved under the high mana concentration and became more vicious, some became blood-sucking trees. With hollow thorns they grab their prey and then suck their blood, the process is slow but if you are alone you can be in danger.
Day 369
I am once again upgrading my core to contain the influx of mana and it is now 5 meters in diameter, I have never heard of such a huge core for dungeons under 100 floors and I think it is because I am an alchemical nucleus.
The deepest dungeons are on the Lost Continent but no one dares to go there. On the deepest central continent is a main land attribute dungeon and is in the realm of Bismuth, it has 178 floors but few people have reached the bottom, only heroes or unranked adventurers can. It is also the oldest and the dungeon that comes after is only 124 floors, rumor has it that Bismuth dungeon has been fed by prisoners of war and political prisoners throughout its life. It is over 900 years old and the country has suffered two civil wars! The number of victims is in the millions. I keep the false core at a size of 10cm in diameter.
Day 371
The city begins to be cramped so the merchant remakes a plan with a system of palliation. The upper town is located inside the current perimeter wall with the keep, the mansion, and the guild and administration buildings. The commercial district will be built around the current walls, a little below with a second enclosure then the residential and artisanal district in the third enclosure. The plan is titanic and foresees to multiply the size of the city by ten, the layers of the city follow the slope and are lower than the previous one by 15 or 20 meters. This results in a stepped town with three steps. Beyond the last wall, a plain then the forest, there will surely soon be slums.
I provide a lot of gold to the merchant for this work and I divert an underground river for the water supply and the sewers.
Day 377
A week later, a new wave of builders arrived and started construction. The size of the city and its fortifications are exaggerated for a simple baron and the merchant begins to scare the nobles of the region. When the work began, he planned a trip to the capital of the kingdom to pay homage to the king. He got an audience in two months, which is quick for a simple baron. It will take him three weeks to get there so he will be leaving in three weeks to prepare for the hearing in the capital.
I stop taking care of them and check the library progress, several common spells have been collected and I can now incorporate them into one of my creations as basic skills. These spells are barely offensive, just creating water or a candle flame, but the progress is steady. I have to spend more and more time making breakthroughs in alchemy and enchantment so I focus on a discipline that I know less about, rituals. There are all kinds of rituals, some are used with alchemy but generally the rituals are related to the soul, there are many death magic rituals but also divine rituals. I am particularly interested in the rituals of invocations.
Heroes 1000 years ago were invoked by a divine ritual in the holy empire, no man could have invoked a hero but they were greatly helped by the gods. By sacrificing treasures and several powerful churchmen, the gods were able to create a channel to another world, then they had to sacrifice some of their own power to draw souls into that channel and rebuild a body for them. The gods were injured for several centuries after that.
These souls seem to undergo an unknown process which strengthens them and makes their bodies more powerful in this world, perhaps it is also the many blessings received from the gods that play this role.
I want to test my theories, I am still far from the power needed to summon heroes but I can test the principle on worlds closer to ours. The demon world is partly aligned with our world, and their world is known to be easily accessible from anywhere.
So I start to build summoning runes and sealing runes to do my experiments, there is no complete ritual for demonic summons but several grimoires mention this possibility. I am quite familiar with Sealing Runes as they are common to many areas, but Summoning Runes are unknown to me. I can now do millions of operations per second and I decipher the runes very slowly, I also test them one by one regularly. My mana regeneration cannot keep up and so I use meditation to help me.
Day 397
The merchant leaves the city for the royal capital but I continue my experiments, I made great progress because I determined a ritual of demonic sealing and some runes related to the general invocations. I keep this work of deduction in parallel and begin to think about a more pressing problem. The creation of a mana potion that can be used by dungeons.
I cannot use the potions I create, their only use is for my minions and as a reward even if I haven't given any yet. I divide my attention in half, I acquired this ability by reaching the fifth floor.
The goal is to create a more powerful version of mana crystals that only requires plants to be created. I start by upgrading the 5 minions who work in the Alchemical Garden and adding five more. I created enchanted wood golems with an array of alchemical gardening tools in their body and arm, they now have a full soul with a lot of herbal knowledge and can work day and night.