Primordial essence, as far as he could tell, Daniel thought he was the first to discover it. The battle creators had placed the essence that was above all essences in the exact center of the map, on an island in the middle of a lake. A prize that all of the contenders should supposedly fight over. However, the battle creators could not control everything, and things often go differently than they likely anticipated when building this world.
How could they have expected that a contender would dare hold the island, taking the benefit all for themselves. The island had defenses, both natural and unnatural. Getting across the lake would likely be a major barrier for most dungeons, but even after getting onto the island the contenders would have found an inhospitable environment filled with neutral units that spawned all throughout the island.
The battle creator’s intent was likely for dungeons to send expeditions to gather and carry back as much of the essence as possible. There were a dozen different coal mound locations for dungeons to build settlements along the lake shores. Locations where expeditions could bring the essence back to in order to use. After all, the island would be too dangerous with a good hundred units spawning daily. Some with power levels closing in on double digits.
It had hurt Daniel a bit, since he had to sacrifice a small army to clear the island of all the enemies, but once the island was clear, killing the units as they spawned was a simple matter. After all, he had been doing so for nearly a month now. Occasionally he lost some of his tier 1 units; the units he sent to scout out and find the spawned creatures… and now units from opposing dungeons.
Killing the spawned creatures was a different matter. He currently had 4 of his 6 uniquely titled beasts responding to his tier 1 units calls to take out the constantly spawning threats. With the threat taken care of, maintaining his outpost, now settlement, was an easy matter. Now he had an inexhaustible supply of the primordial essence that would make his forces stronger. Primordial essence was far better than the dozen other essences that he had found over the course of the battle. After all it gave a direct power rating increase with any summoned units, even more when used as the catalyst for evolutions. Who could say what other uses he could find for the essence in the future.
It was a wonder that he was still only ranked third, but then again there had not been a new ranking since he had taken control of the island. He was interested in what would happen in a couple of days, but it was not like it would be surprising if things stayed the way they were. Nicholas Holt and Leonard Boulevic were most certainly the biggest obstacles that he had left to face. Until it got to the point that it was obvious that he would win, Daniel was doubtful that he would ever regain the top spot in the rankings.
In some ways he had been as surprised as everyone else, when he had held the top rank for the first few rankings. Then again, he had exploded onto the scene right out of the gate. His initial momentum might have seemed insurmountable there for a while. However, eventually his momentum had stalled as dungeon level 2 evened the playing field for the other dungeons, and the hype around him in the outside realm must have died down.
Daniel now understood that he had been one of the few that had elected to start the battle by opening the beast unit tree. Tier 1 beasts had been the perfect complement to his weak mind, strong of body specialization, where his units got a boost to strength if they had a combined intelligence and wisdom of less than 10. For each point less they gained an additional attribute point in strength. It was not much, definitely a specialization that was strong early in the game, but tapered off to nothing as higher tier units exceeded the threshold. The specialization came with the foraging and basic minerals tech, which was perfect allowing his beasts to survive on their own in the wild and discover useful resources.
The lack of intelligence and wisdom had not mattered overly much since his units did not have access to magic at the beginning. No need for strategy either, when dungeon’s defenses had been so crude. Strength and speed were all that had mattered. Of course he had not realized how much simpler the upgrade path had been for beast units, until he had gotten a branch of another unit type. It had been simple enough to get beast bloodlines unlocked to level 4. A 40% power rating increase on top of his specialization was already enough for him to take on most dungeons. It was especially true since his beasts did not rely on weapons, when other dungeons had to research two technologies to even get metal weapons, with the second, metallurgy, being locked behind by dungeon level 2. The only real annoyance had been enemy mages.
His first step was maxing out MP production and unlocking beast bloodlines, all while scouting out his region. Getting set up meant that he was not the first dungeon to conquer one of the others. Several dungeons fell prior to him unlocking beast bloodline level 4 and really taking off. He took 3 of the dungeons in his region down in quick succession, and a fourth through an alternate entrance that he had discovered.
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By the end of the 4 dungeon conquest, he already had four unique titled units. All came from his starting branch, cats and dogs. The branch was the cheapest option on the beast tree, not counting the base animals option. The branch only started him with four unit types.
The ‘First’ title was given to Vivi, the caracal. The weakest unit of the branch caracals only had a power rating of 0.6, but they were quick and nimble. They were simply perfect for exploring, which is how Vivi picked up the ‘First’ title. Just one of eight caracals he had immediately summoned and sent out, Vivi had successfully discovered another dungeon before nightfall on the first day.
A second caracal, Vince, had also earned a title, the Wanderer. The ‘Wanderer’ title was awarded to the first unit that had traveled 1,000 leagues. The last of his initial unique titles, Vince had completed the feat in just under a month.
The third title, ‘Peak’, had been earned by Luna, a moon wolf. The title had been earned by the unit after reaching the point of highest elevation on the map. Not a difficult feat since his dungeon had started in the mountains where it was located. A moon wolf’s base power rating was 1.3. Of course, like the rest of his named, Luna’s power level was nearly 4 times that now, with a maxed out bloodline and two evolutions. Once he had built a lair and unlocked higher bloodline levels and then the evolutions, he had of course quickly empowered the unit as much as possible.
The strongest of his first four was the shadow cat, named midnight, who had earned the ‘reaper’ title. Somehow the cat had survived through all of the initial battles, when most of its peers did not. Midnight had earned the title by being the first unit to eliminate a 100 power rating’s worth of units. Initially shadow cats had a base power rating of 1.7. Now Midnight was over 7.0. However she was not the strongest.
Several months passed, but Daniel finally got a fifth. This time the unit was from the first of two branches he had chosen as one of his unique rewards. The tree branch had been the fourth of his five branches, and luckily it was the strongest level two unit possible, the treant with a base power rating of 2.9. The treant, World tree, had earned the ‘Earth shaker’ title by starting a landslide moving hundreds of tons of rock. Unfortunately, he had not developed the germination pathways to the end, so the unit’s power rating was still just shy of 10.
Thankfully, the sixth unique title, was once again earned earned by a beast. He had expected something for his first unit that used the primordial essence, and he had been right. He had double evolved an earth dragon from his fifth and final branch, ‘Dangerous reptiles.’ The ‘First Primordial,’ titled earth dragon, had been the strongest of his level 3 options at 3.5, and now it was probably the strongest unit in the battle at 14.1. He aptly named the earth dragon Pinnacle, a beast that would stand above the rest.
His second and third branches that he had spent MP to unlock were the primate branch and the big game branch. The primate branch was useful, being the only branch that could use weapons, like the units from most of the other dungeons. The top unit was the Garillion, an ape with four arms, with a base power rating of 2.7. Well that was excluding the branch's Topiary combination unit he had gotten up one leveling up his dungeon to level 3.
The big game branch had given him the strongest units for a while. The branch only had five units between tier 1 and tier 2, but with the weakest being a longhorn ram with a 1.0 power rating the units were all power houses that each brought something to his armies. The most powerful unit was the cave bear with a 2.8 power rating.
All of his units were nearly double their base power rating after being double evolved. The only thing really limiting his armies were population caps and his MP. Power rating wise, Daniel knew he was the most powerful dungeon, however through his own observance of other dungeons, and his late-to-the-game, limited development of his own research and equipment, he knew power rating was not everything. Weak tier 1 units could bring down units three times their power rating with the use of enchanted gear, and enchanted gear was only one of the avenues of power that other dungeons had to fill the gap.
Having scouted all five of the other remaining dungeons, he knew he could not take this battle lightly. Sure right now, he was positive that he could take out Avery Kingston. She had fallen behind, but there were a lot bigger fish to fry. Knocking out other weak dungeons, now might not be the best move for him. After consolidating their respective areas, Leonard Boulevic and Nicholas Holt had not made a single move. Neither had Gale Barbary. For her, she had not made a move all battle. Her forces were building behind her ever growing walls, presumptively to sweep across the map, like a tidal wave.
If he focused on wiping out anyone at this point, it would actually be a detriment as other dungeons continue to grow. No, he would continue to develop his power and monitor the situation. What did it matter to him that the major factions were receiving sponsorships weekly. A mish mashed army of strong units would not make up for his well planned armies.