[Notice: Contender, Derrick Blackwell, has been eliminated by another contender. Contender has been given a unique reward. Contenders remaining 6/35]
The three surviving bugbears appeared back in the middle of their dungeon territory instead of being dropped on the other contender’s dungeon site or where the alternate entrance had been; the two locations that Mark had thought were possible. Both of the other surviving bugbears had become the dungeons' newest veterans. Mark greedily thought that they were perhaps one step closer to perhaps having two more units hit a level where they could push for a unique title, but the thought did not last very long. They had just defeated a dungeon, so there was already a unique reward waiting for them.
During the hour wait for the unique reward to become available, there was indeed another patch notice.
[Notice: It is an adventuring party not an army patch has now been made on the interface. Going forward, adventurers will not be able to take items that summon additional units into the dungeon. This patch does not apply to units who pass through a dungeon’s main entrance.]
The patch had sent Amelia off on a tirade, as seemingly the battle managers worked once again to close off a carefully discovered advantage that they had discovered. She stomped around for a minute or two before she settled back down and started messaging Avery about the outrage. Mark understood her anger, since out of the four patches that had been implemented, three of them had been directed at their actions.
However, Mark had wholly expected this patch. The rock golems had really been little more than fodder in the attack, but they would most definitely not have been able to make it through the battle without them. If the dungeon’s defenses had been less suitable for dealing with the rock golems they could have been far too effective. Not to mention the golem balls were only of average quality. They would be even stronger if the gnomes were able to perfect them further.
The second the timer ran out, Mark pulled up their unique reward starting the new hour timer.
[Unique Reward: Choose between one of the three options
1. Take the money and run.
2. Grave robber
3. Technological leap
Time remaining 60:00]
The first choice was the obliged MP option. At 5,000 MP a day, Mark would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted. Their daily MP rate was 27,430, so it would be a large boost. However, Mark expected to get at least another 15 to 20 thousand MP daily production increase once they finished the techs Magic energy production III and Settlements III, which would diminish the daily production increase. Still 5,000 MP a day, could not be looked down upon.
The second option was perhaps one of the most interesting options that they had ever been offered. When it said grave robber, it meant robbing one aspect of the newly defeated contender. Everything was on the table, including essences, techs researched, branches unlocked. If they went with this option, Mark could snag the level 2 gargoyle class or the ability to make the amalgamations. Of course there were also options that Mark had no idea about. Mark and Amelia would be able to browse over Derrick’s whole dungeon if they picked the grave robber reward.
Mark doubted Derrick had any techs that they would be interested in. Derrick had not even progressed his dungeon to level 3 yet. If they went with one of the essences that Derrick owned, they would get an infinite supply. That would be good, but it would depend on what uses they found for that essence. For their last unique reward they had been offered an essence hoard, and Mark had ended up going with something else.
The gargoyle class or the amalgamations were by far the most tempting options that Mark knew about. After all, they had not even seen what level 3 options the gargoyle class could offer. However there were a few cons that Mark could immediately identify with going that direction. The constructs could have their own unique upgrade system. Mark already had three different paths that they were on, adding a fourth could further stifle progress.
As far as amalgamations, it seemed to Mark that there must be some limit, either time or resources that had prevented Derrick from making as many as he wanted. Through Amelia’s conversation with Avery, it was apparent that Derrick had only used them sparingly outside of the dungeon. How long had Derrick had the capability? Based on having the capability to put one on the fifth floor, Mark had to guess Derrick had the capability at or around the time dungeons started ranking up to level 2. Three or four months worth of time with the capability meant that at best he had gotten one every two weeks or so.
If that were the case, Mark would be better off getting 5,000 MP a day. He could build a fairly strong platoon of units for the amount of MP in a two week period of time. Sure the amalgamations could be put in the dungeon where defenders were limited, but Mark could always build more floors or even strengthen the dungeon in other ways. No, if they were going to go with the second option, the gargoyle branch was likely the better bet.
The third option, technological leap, did not sound near as good until Mark started running through some mental math. Technological leap would not only give them one free random tech from the tech tree, but would advance one upgrade on their other paths. It would also give them one free project for each of their research lab focuses. With option 2, Mark had once again been reminded about the difficulty of maintaining multiple different unit upgrade paths. However for the third option it looked like their diversification would actually net them more benefits.
Mark shifted to their tech page. They had seven techs available including the level 2 siege weapon option. That would be a serious blow if that was the one they unlocked for free. Mark shifted to their homepage. They were just under 129,000 MP, but they did have 88 DP that he could convert. It would be a bit of a setback, but since the lowest of any of the other technologies was at a million MP, getting siege weapons if they chose option number 3 would be a serious blow if they took this unique reward. If Mark took it out of the running, they would basically get a tech that would normally take them at least 40 days to unlock if they went into full save mode.
Already, Mark could discount option one with this offer. Getting something worth at least a million MP or more would be the equivalent of 200 days for option one to equal up to, and they had a 66% chance of getting one of the 1.5 or 2 million options since there were two techs at each cost level. And all six options were something Mark wanted as soon as possible. Not to mention the other projects and upgrades that would be finished. At this point Mark doubted that the succession battle would last more than another year before things wrapped up, so it was doubtful they would hit the point where option one netted them a greater MP equivalent than what Mark could get right now. Not to mention, how could he put a price on getting some of these technologies that much sooner.
Mark scrolled to their unit upgrade page. If they did indeed get one from each of their different upgrade paths it might not amount to much. For the humanoid tree upgrades they could get something as low as 1,000 MP if any of dozens of the advanced class options were selected. For the plant tree, they would get either a 25,000 or 50,000 germination upgrade. By far the only sure win would be the level five beast bloodline upgrade that cost 100,000 MP. Overall they would not amount to much when compared to the free tech, but they were certainly a nice bonus.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
As far as the projects from their research lab. They would get five freebies. After the free tech, this would be the biggest bonus in Mark’s opinion. After all it would mean another skill, which would really compliment their last unique reward, the gymnasium, so far their own research, had only produced one as of yet undefined project.
Mark totaled up the benefits of the third option in order to sell it to Amelia. Conservatively, taking option 3 would put them a good 2 months ahead of where they were now right off the bat, on top of the other benefits. There was a 33% chance that they landed one of the MP production increasing techs, which would allow them to quickly increase their MP production. He had expected that she would be leaning toward one of the other options, but after he detailed why the third option was the best option, she readily agreed.
Mark spent another couple minutes thinking through things. After All they did have more DP they could possibly convert. If he really wanted, he could theoretically even change one of their research lab focuses, but in the end Mark just went with converting enough to unlock siege weapons for 150,000 MP completing the last of the level 2 techs. Their MP dropped to just over 0 and their DP down to 65. After one deep breath, Mark selected option 3.
Mark could not resist looking at their biggest gain first. In one way, they had hit the jackpot. They had landed one of the 2 million MP options. However, it was not the one he had been really hoping for, so there was a touch of disappointment mixed in. He had really hoped to get one of the production increasing techs, obviously favoring Settlements III for 2 million. Still the little disappointment was quite quickly forgotten with what they had gotten. They were likely the first dungeon to have unlocked gunpowder.
As much as he would love to look into gunpowder right there, he was interested in what else they had gotten as a part of their unique reward, technological leap. The humanoid upgrade was a wash, crossbowmen for 1,000 MP. A 10% power rating increase for units using crossbows. Mark had to think for a second, on how they had gotten it since crossbowmen had not been on the list of dozens of 1,000 MP level 1 upgrade options months ago. He had not really paid close attention to them in a long time, but then he remembered they had researched intricate design and siege weapons since then. Perhaps it had been added after they had researched one of those.
The fifth beast bloodline option was unlocked for 100,000 MP. Not a surprise since it was the only option they had available. However, the fact that the next upgrade was called evolution was certainly interesting. It was likely a step that had only become available upon dungeons hitting level 2, but since their dungeon was already there, they could not unlock the evolution upgrade for 250,000 MP. A steep price, but it would most definitely be worth the cost based on what information on evolution was available.
Mark could not dive too deeply into it, but a cursory glance showed that an evolution would require a catalyst. A catalyst could be literally anything. The obvious choices were of course essences, but herbs and metals could all potentially add some unique aspect. An evolved beast would take on aspects of whatever catalyst was used. The evolution would also give a power rating increase, but the amount was not detailed in the encyclopedia. Mark pondered on the possibilities for a few moments more before his curiosity on what else they had been given pushed him on.
As far as the freebie for the germination upgrade, Mark had to wonder if the battle managers were tweaking with the supposedly random selection. The only unique class had been selected. The tier 3, beast Shepard, had been selected for 25,000 MP. Mark pulled it up the germination upgrade, but it did not say much. The tier 3 germination upgrade would give a plant unit the ability to empower. Presumably the ability would allow the unit to increase the strength of beasts under its control.
As far as Mark could tell, the germination upgrades had stopped branching out at tier 3. Not a bad thing since tier 3 already had 12 options.The tier 4 and the one tier 5 upgrades they currently had available were just upgrades of the same name as their tier 3 equivalent. However the unique beast sheppard class branched out to three options all of which were also unique upgrades, trainer, symbiote, and breeder.
Just from their names, Mark could guess on what each of the tier 4 budding stage options would allow. Trainer was likely the direct upgrade from beast sheppard, increasing the plants control and perhaps strengthening ability. The symbiotic option made Mark think about the amalgamations that they had just faced. Except instead of earth and rocks it would be beasts with plant-like appendages. The final breeder option was perhaps the most enticing. Would they be able to breed more units for free?
Mark spent another minute thinking on the possibilities. It was readily apparent that anything considered unique in the game would present interesting possibilities. They would cost 50,000 MP a piece, but at least two of the new options would be added to his priority list if not all three.
Mark finally shifted to their research lab project freebies. The free projects had been what he thought would be the second best thing from choosing the third unique reward option, but after reading through their five new projects, he wondered whether it could not compete with first. The research lab projects up to this point seemed to rely heavily on things the gnomes or goblins could conceive of, or natural progressions from one project to another.
The enchantment projects for example often came in groups. They got all the stat boost enhancements. Then there were some elemental enchantments. Now they seemed to be going through a resistance or debuff phase, with fire resistance and stun being among the first completed. However, the five freebies seemed to be completely off the wall projects that fell under the realm of the foci. Perhaps some battle manager had felt sad that one of his well thought up ideas would never make it into the natural progression for dungeon units to conceive naturally.
The free enchantment project was called earth shaper. Mark would have to read through the little book that would inevitably come with the new enchantment to figure out what it could possibly do.
The new specialized class, flame jugglers, fell under the mage class option. It was their second specialized classes that fell under the mage class. A welcome addition since the spiritualist class had a strict 10 unit limit among other limitations. The flame juggler class on the other hand had no limit so could become a dependable part of their force. At level 4, flame jugglers had several spells that were available including create flame and manipulation. However, they only got a 10% boost per a level unlike the 15% boost that the warhammer class gave. Mark would have to make a flame juggler to find out anything more.
The free essence project was a corruption incendiary. The project was based on the sulfur essence they had secured from Mareth’s former dungeon site. It would be the first use of the essence that they had found. Once again, Mark would have to make one to see its effects.
The embuing focus was one of their newer foci with only one completed project, manna embuing, although there were currently three more projects in the works. The first two were the basic projects of health reinforcement and stamina reserve. Basic embuing projects that likely would increase a unit's health or stamina pool. Neither promised much use for Mark since the resources required would be more effective elsewhere. Leaders and powerhouses like Henry would likely be the one exception. However, based on resources that would likely be quite common for embuing projects.
The new project was called void embuing. Certainly, sounded cool, but once again Mark would not know what it did till they had one built. He would have to commission the gnome craftsmen to void embue a gem to see what it could do.
The final focus was the brand new skill focus. Currently, there was only one spell, thunderstrike, in work, but it had been in work prior to even taking skills as a focus. But now there was one completed project in the column, the reversal skill.
Eager to find out what the skill would do, Mark was tempted to build a unit right then, but he calmed himself. Actually tomorrow would be the day that another round of skills would be given out in the gymnasium. Another batch of 9 bugbears would finish their time through the gym with the 3 basic physical skills. Mark decided to keep 6 of them in the gym while shifting three of them out for Henry and the other two surviving veterans. He could wait 8 days to find out what the reversal skill would do.
However, it did not mean that today they could not get an idea on what some of their other new projects could do.