Mark pulled up the interface. The homepage shared the current status of their resources. They had just shy of a million MP. In another couple hours that would not be the case and they would have enough to unlock dungeon level 3. Mark moved on.
They currently were sitting at 28 DP. They earned 4 a day, and could use them for any dungeon purchases such as buildings, terrain alteration, and building their dungeon proper. They had pretty much used them almost exclusively for the latter except for the few times that Mark had been forced to pay the penalty to convert DP to MP for an emergency. The dungeon proper was expensive enough. Each new floor now cost 100 DP. Mark had just unlocked the seventh floor.
Now that level 3 dungeons were coming on line, their dungeon would need to beef up. Dungeons could be attacked in two ways. Either a force could take over the surface of their dungeon and send their forces through the actual entrance, or they could send adventurers through the alternate entrances that had popped up throughout the map. Level 3 dungeons meant more numerous and stronger adventurer parties would soon be on the way. After dungeons reached level 2 there had been a literal culling through this method.
Building the seventh floor was a necessary step to ensure their continued existence in the battle. Each new floor opened an alternate entrance, but it was hardly a concern at this point in time. After the first dungeon had hit level 3 an in game chat feature had been unlocked. The new chat feature would allow dungeons to chat and potentially make alliances with one another.
Not much had come with it as of yet. Since dungeons were all working on leveling up or working to unlock the level 3 techs to increase their production things were relatively quiet. Still Mark knew most dungeons already had access to one of their alternate entrances. To establish a connection many had sent a single weak unit through. Mark could now chat it up with five of the other opponents, not that he did, but the option was at least available.
Mark glanced at Amelia. Her dazed expression hinted that she also had her interface open. From her slack jawed smile, he could tell she was currently chatting it up with someone. There were only two likely candidates. One was Cynthia, their representative for sponsorships. Amelia had banned Mark from that chat since Cynthia mainly seemed to be giving the girl advice on what to do to make them more appealing for sponsorships from viewers. From what he could see, their representative seemed to be working some sort of young love angle. Amelia had started acting more cutesy and touchy since the feature became available.
It was not really as nice as it might sound. For one the girl was pretending. Second, nothing could actually come of it. In battle romance was prevented. How Mark did not really know? But it was not like he would attempt it regardless. For one, it would feel like he was on some sort of reality tv dating show if he did, since potentially millions of viewers could be watching at any moment.
The second candidate for who Amelia might currently be chatting with was Avery Kingston. She was currently sitting fifth in the rankings. Avery was apparently a well known model princess in the Arcadian realm. Amelia had even been a fan of hers. Now the two were in-battle besties. The relationship had an expiration date since only one contender would leave the battle alive, however the two apparently appreciated the outlet.
The relationship did have some merit in the meantime. First, Amelia had gleaned that Avery had been among a cluster of dungeons to the Northwest. It was the final piece of the puzzle that Mark had needed to determine how dungeons had been situated on the map. Dungeons had been clustered in groups of 7 in five different locations. Now Mark knew at least the general area where all of the dungeons were located.
Gale Barbary and them were in the Northwest. Nicholas Holt was in the Southwest. Daniel Hale was in the North. Avery Kingston was in the Northeast. The last two remaining dungeons were to the Southeast, one being the 2nd rank from the republic. The relationship also could serve as a vehicle for a potential alliance. The dungeons were far from another, but so were most of the other dungeons at this point.
The distance between dungeons was just one more reason why their dungeon needed to be strengthened since adventuring parties were now the easiest way to attack another dungeon. Level 3 dungeons would likely be able to send 20 units at a time. It might not seem like much, but if they were all, say giants with good equipment it could be a real issue. Twenty might not be enough, but they could send wave after wave. Dungeon defenders did not respawn quick enough to prevent this method from potentially being successful. Only forcing adventurers to move through a lot of floors and powerful defenses, could Mark prevent their dungeon from falling.
For the seventh floor, Mark had decided to go with a different approach. The types of attacks in other dungeons could be extremely diverse, so Mark had elected to attach their 10 level 3 spiritualists as defenders in addition to 15 level 4 bugbear mages. The spiritualists could summon up to 5 power rating worth of spirits times their level, meaning the 10 spiritualists could summon 150 power rating worth of raised spirits to defend the seventh floor. Mark could only ever have 10 spiritualists and the condition of them only being able to raise spirits of units from other dungeons, made their upkeep difficult to continually replace them, so Mark had elected to give their seventh floor the capability instead. Now the 150 power rating worth of spirits that the spiritualists could summon would never have to be replaced, and their dungeon had a unique new defense.
Devoting the other defender spots as mages was only possible thanks to the spawner exchange, Amelia had worked out with Avery. The premise had been simple. They would both send individual units through to each other's dungeon until they got spawners that they wanted. Finding an alternate entrance to Avery’s dungeon had not been difficult since they had long ago located quite a few of them, although half had disappeared with the falling dungeons. It was not worth much of a sacrifice to send one green goblin through each to identify the owner.
In contrast Avery had also located an alternate entrance for their dungeon. It was a bit of a cheat, but they had also sent in unit’s at the others request until they got the spawners that they desired. It had meant two more for Mark and Amelia, since their fifth floor did not have a spawner. Their seventh could have two. The sixth floor had already received a spawner courtesy from the last attack on their dungeon. The sixth floor spawner gave 20 guardians of the various types that Mareth had last attacked their dungeon with.
There was no question that the exchange had given even more intel on what their dungeon had to offer, but they had also learned what Avery had to offer. She had three branches: the fungus branch, tree branch, and the myconids. As far as Mark knew she was the only user of the plant tree, and the spawners they had gotten had allowed him to focus their defenders as mages.
The first spawner was three treants. The tall humanoid trees were powerful units that had a power rating of 4.1. Avery had apparently unlocked many options on the fourth tier of the germination paths. The treants had a base power rating of 2.9 which was raised by 40% due to 4th tier Bold germination they had been given. The germination increased their strength meaning that they were as strong as anything they Mark had seen.
The second spawner gave 50 Roughwood Myconids. They were actually level 1 units, but had a power rating up to 2.5 due to having a level 3 warrior class that boosted them by 30%. The roughwoods were a strong defensive first tier unit. Together they could effectively form a wall that would slow all but the strongest attackers. They likely would not be killing anything that made it to the seventh floor by themselves, but their numbers, toughness, and size would make them difficult to just bypass. They could delay even powerful tier 2 units allowing the mages time to reduce their enemies to dust.
Similarly, Avery had gotten several different iterations of their midnight scorpion. It had been what she wanted and she had tripled down on them. Putting three different versions of a scorpion spawner on her next floor.
Mark had based the floor off of one of Mareth’s floors. There were three levels, each had an outer wall. Units would have to enter a central stair before being able to turn left or right to climb stairs to the top of the first level. It was repeated for the second and third level. Unfortunately, the fortification had consumed almost all of the floor space Mark was allowed on a level, so the level could be relatively short to get through for units once the defenders were killed.
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It had delayed their progression slightly, but Mark had elected to upgrade their mage class to level 4 for 100,000 MP to strengthen the 15 bugbear mages that he summoned as defenders. The upgrade only gave them another 10% power boost, no new spells, but it was what they could do at that point in time. A 3.3 power rating was not great, but one of the mages was made the floor guardian, giving him an additional point to his power rating. Mark had named him Chewy, a name he had been waiting to give to one of the bugbears for a while now.
The defenders and guardian were relatively weak compared to some of them on the lower floors, but Mark had made the floor with one purpose. To hit enemies with a high level of fire power. Dozens of powerful spirits and mages were the best they could currently manage. The floor most definitely had a slightly different flavor than previous floors. It was important to change things around to keep opponents from easily exploiting any weaknesses.
Mark continued on. They currently only had 5 research points, which was not surprising since it was the same everyday. RP had to be allotted by the end of the day. Over the last month, Mark had allotted their RP to several different things. The third mystic tier germination path had been completed a few days after they had taken Mareth’s dungeon. The next 30 days went to researching the intricate design tech. Mark would decide on what to do with today’s RP after they unlocked dungeon level 3. It was very likely that third level techs would be far too expensive. Mark would rather save up MP to buy most techs, Their RP could still knock out some of the lower unit upgrades in a week or two, but Mark would not afford the several months it would likely take to unlock the expensive techs.
The only other resources their dungeon had was essence. They had a near unlimited supply of toxic essence from a pool of the essence they had discovered early on. The only other source of essence they had plenty of on hand was the electric essence that came from their mine. Every couple of weeks or so a new batch was found, making it another essence they would always have plenty to spend.
Their other sources were a little more limited. The gnomes had stone essence in their village, that Mark could requisition, but much of it was used to make stone containers for their other essence types. They had a little of the first essence they had discovered, but they only got 10% of the life essence the source could produce thanks to a deal they had made with the gnomes to get them out of a bad situation.
The final essence source they had easy access to was a spoil of war. Mareth’s dungeon had literally almost been built on a bubbling spring that produced a near infinite supply of brimstone essence. It was what had given her units the corrosive attacks. Mark had not build another outpost there as of yet. For one it would cost a full day’s worth of production. Second, doing so would draw attention to the source out in the open field. Since it was only a day’s march away, it was simple enough to send expeditions anytime they needed more. Which might now be for a while since they had not found a way to use it yet.
Mark shifted to the unit page. He sifted through the list. It took less than a minute to ensure that none of their units had died through the night. Occasionally it would happen where a scouting team was wiped out. At the home base, Mark had a 300 goblin mining division, a 300 goblin archery division, and 150 goblins that had survived the attack on Mareth’s dungeon. They were currently helping mine and build the wall, but they would be a part of the army whenever Mark got around to building one. Other than that there were just a hundred flower units at the home base.
The underground outpost was the weakest. It only had five scorpions stationed to defend it. It was nestled deep underground so it was unlikely that another dungeon would actually ever find it. Without the kobolds help they would never have found the coal mine source. Mark would likely never upgrade the outpost to a settlement since he saw little reason to do so.
The other outpost had a small contingent of goblins for protection, but since it was on a former dungeon contender site to the Northwest of the map, it was well out of the way. However, the five mounds of coal at Crassius’ old dungeon site would soon run out. They had another 20 days, but Mark’s calculation before the initial 200 day supply ran out. It meant that they needed new sites to mine coal from in the next couple of months. Mark also anticipated there being another tech that would allow them to have four MP collecting sites at once.
They could always go back to mining the 3 coal mounds at their home base, but Mark was hoping to find a more plentiful source. They had found other sources with 4 or five mounds quite easily after all. However even they could not compete with the 7 or 8 mounds the underground outpost and garden sanctuary offered.
The garden sanctuary was their only other settlement and was quickly becoming a second base. The unique location had been discovered months ago by the frogmen under their control. It had given them the flower unit branch, but also offered a large cavern with 7 coal mounds. The cavern had been a picturesque site with sunlight streaming through an opening on its roof allowing sunlight to spill down on the sanctuary. The sanctuary even offered a vitality bonus to units that dwelt within.
After months of settlement, the cavern's beauty was long gone. The goblins had built a shoddy barracks, crafting house and were currently building a wall to span the ground entrance. Mark had also moved the manna bellows, manna pumps, and the frogmen hatchery to the more centralized settlement.
The settlement was manned by a division of goblins, but also was practically at capacity for the tadpole and pollywogs the hatchery could spawn. The frogmen units were not overly strong, but they were extremely effective in the water. Which was a good thing since the entrance to the cavern was on the edge of a swamp. They were too slow overland, but now that they were near capacity Mark was using them to map out the rivers that fed into the swamp from the north. It was possible that he could find a water route to Daniel Hale and Avery Kingston’s dungeons. It was even possible some of the other rivers would lead down to the southeast for those two dungeons. Only Nick Holt’s dungeon to the South of them was for sure not accessible by water since his dungeon was in a desert.
Mark continued through the interface tabs. Other than the pharmacology projects they had completed the beast handler class. It fell under the mounted class which Mark had only unlocked the first level. Mark had pictured a calvary early on, but early in-game limits had kept him from realizing it appropriately. The beast handler would be a more effective means of managing the cockroach units versus riders. The ants were too slow and small to be effective. The top first tier spiders were the best option so far.
Level 2 had only added the scorpion and the beast-humanoid cross unit arachne. The scorpion was strong but also slow, and the arachne’s was aggressive even to friendlies. Not to mention the arachnes were actually considered a humanoid as far as upgrades went so a rider would not get any bonus anyways.
There was only one additional option. The thrash bear they had chosen as a reward to get the bugbears. The thrash bear only had a 1.2 power rating so was not overly impressive. Mark had not really used the unit yet, but that would soon change with the beast handler class. A group of the bears could be managed effectively. The only issue was their low power rating, they would only be good to take on weaker enemies. Hopefully they would get more options once they unlocked the level 3 dungeon.
The hardening essence project had been completed a couple days ago. For the last few days, Mark had spent much of his time figuring out uses for the project. Stone essence could now be used to strengthen weaker materials. It would not work on metal weapons or armor, but it could strengthen arrow shafts or other enchanted gear allowing lower quality materials to potentially hold higher level enchantments. They had been stuck at the good quality threshold for the most part.
There had been only one exception. They occasionally found pockets of base essence that allowed them to get up to exceptional quality enchantments which had doubled the effects given by good quality enchantments, but there had been more than one occasion where wooden shafts had blown up in the inscriber’s face. The basic wood material was pushed to its limit to hold the exceptional quality enchantments. Now with the hardening project complete Amelia had even been able to start getting exceptional quality enchantments without the base essence. When they found another batch of base essence, there was a chance she could even shoot for the masterwork or artifact quality levels.
The application Mark was currently working on was strengthening a structure. He would have to wait till the wall was complete, but reinforcing them was on the docket. For now, he was working to strengthen the tower in which he now stood. During the last attack it had exploded far too easily. It only took a day to respawn, but the explosion had taken out the entire archery division which had caused the surface of their dungeon to fall far more easily.
Mark was tackling this job, with the new basic manna embuing project that was on its final stages at 98%. Being able to store a large amount of energy would allow him to give the tower one more crucial defense. They had completed the energy shield enchantment project months ago, but it required too much energy to use it effectively.
They had made a few shields that units could force their manna into the enchantment to use, but even mages would not be able to power an energy shield for long. Even if they could it would render the mages useless since they would run out of manna defending themselves in a matter of seconds.
There were plenty of other projects in work, but Mark only gave them a precursor glance. There was the thunderstrike spell essence project which was nearly complete. It would give mages one more spell to use. Toxin embuing and the witch doctor specialized class both sounded interesting, but they were a little further out.
Mark skipped over the unit upgrade tab since it did not change that often and he practically had them memorized. They had a handful of class upgrades up to level 4. Beast bloodline was up to level 4, and most of the germination paths were level 2 or level 3.
Mark glanced back at the home screen. He sighed still an hour to go.