Mark once again checked the dungeon status page. He could not help but smile, seeing their brand new daily MP rate of 43,330. Only a month and a half ago it had been 27,430. The first raise was only an extra 900 MP. The old Crassius dungeon outpost coal mounds finally ran dry. Of course, Mark already had an additional outpost site ready to go. Once again another subterranean outpost to the south. The outpost was even further south than their last one, but only had six coal mounds for the shades to mine.
Still it was a slight bump, and that was not even mentioning that it was nice and prepositioned within less than a days march of the volcano currently held by Nicholas Holt. Of course to really make use of the site, Mark would have to upgrade the outpost to a settlement, so that units could be summoned, but Mark felt that they were a ways off from taking that step since it would cost 100,000 MP.
The next 15,000 daily MP came from the manna towers that stretched into the air above the home dungeon. They had completed Magic energy production III on day 259, but since each of the three 30 foot spires cost 25,000 MP to build, it had taken a couple additional days to build them all. Mark had even woken up briefly just hours after midnight to build one as soon as they had enough MP.
Their DP currently only sat at 10. Mark had built the 8th floor as soon as the spore spider was unlocked. Then he had spent 225 DP to build the maelstroms for the first seven floors. The first 5 floor maelstroms only cost 25 DP. The next set of 5 floors would each cost 50 DP. The maelstroms would generate wandering units with the average power rating of units set as defenders. It was not much since Mark could not control them, but it would help to prevent enemies from resting on a floor. Five minutes after a maelstrom unit was killed it would be resummoned. There were as many maelstrom units as there were defenders, so it was like doubling their defenses. The maelstrom units would be extremely helpful on the beast floors since Mark could make those fights last due to the maze of tunnels.
The eighth floor was fairly formidable, with the guardian lotus, 4 sunflowers, 5 knotted spore spiders, and 15 gnarled wood goblins. The topiary units all had power ratings over 5.0 when under the full effect of the lotus’s malevolent aura. The gnarled wood goblins were equipped with shields and warhammers. The spore spiders also had an additional effect of being able to send out irritating spores. They would irritate skin, but would also close airways if breathed in, making them a truly threatening addition against flesh and blood enemies. It was just a shame that the spiders would not be evolved.
The last that would not have the option… their dungeon’s RP flipped to zero. After finishing research on the topiary spider, Mark had decided to start sending the 8 daily RP toward unlocking the 250,000 beast evolution. It had been tempting to hold off on summoning the 5 spiders, before it was completed, but dungeon units were reaching terrifying levels of power. Mark was already looking at building a ninth floor as soon as possible. Of course the plan was to unlock their level 3 spider and centipede units to stock it with.
But now… Mark glanced at the 2nd evolution option available for 1,000,000 MP. A second evolution!!! Mark had immediately and hungrily read the details of the first evolution. To evolve a beast would already have to be at the fifth beast bloodline, or a 50% boost to its base power rating. The evolution would double it, meaning an evolved beast would have double the strength when first summoned. That did not take into account a beast unit's experience level.
An expert level beast would have an additional 50% boost. The second evolution would likely be at least another 50%. Of course it would take time to get a beast up to the expert level, but it was not inconceivable for a double evolved beast to be more than 2.5 times stronger than its base level. If he were to double evolve a carnivorous centipede with a base power rating of 3.8, it would have a power rating of 9.88 at the regular experience level that all their units would start at. Suddenly Henry’s 10.4 did not seem quite so overwhelming.
Mark felt a chill when he realized that the good dungeon at the north of the map was based on beasts. It did not seem like the other unit types would get to a high power rating as easily, or maybe they just had not researched that far. After all they only had up to level 4 unlocked on various humanoid class or germination upgrades. Suddenly, Mark felt they were severely behind in the battle. Maybe splitting their focus had been a detrimental mistake.
But then he thought, Or maybe the beast upgrade path increases power rating drastically to keep them at a competitive level. Beasts did not have classes that gave additional abilities. They were not really able to use weapons or equipment, they only had their physical prowess. The bloodline only increased an aspect of the beast. The evolutions gave a sharp rise in strength, but at 500 MP a unit they could not do it indefinitely. A second evolution would raise the per unit cost even more.
Mark could not help himself, he had enough MP to summon up to 16 evolved giant cock roaches at 650 MP a piece. It might be a waste of 10,000 MP, but they did need to understand the intricacies of how it worked. He would stop as soon as felt like he had things figured out. Mark spent 10 minutes thinking on how best to proceed, as he had a normal giant cockroach that was already in existence head his way. The cockroach had some bloodline upgrades, but would be a decent enough non evolved for him to compare them too.
The evolution would work based off of a catalyst, but would also develop the creatures based on what bloodline upgrades were chosen. Mark eventually decided on four of each archetype: fierce, swift, tough, and mind. For the catalyst, he would choose one of the essences that he had an unlimited supply of. He decided to go with toxin, since it would likely go pretty well with most of their creepy crawlies. After summoning the four archetypes and comparing them to a non-evolved unit, Mark realized he probably did not need to summon too many more. It was exactly as he had thought.
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The fierce cockroach with 5 bloodline boosts to strength and endurance, became the largest of the 4 new units. Although all 4 were bigger than the non evolved, the fierce evolved was about 80% bigger. The mandibles also looked the most dangerous from the group.
The swift evolved cockroach with boosts to dexterity and agility was only 20% bigger than the non-evolved, well at least body-wise. The legs were longer making it stand higher off the ground. The body was more streamlined. During a demonstration, it was far faster than any of the others. The fastest unit Mark had seen during the battle by a decent margin.
The tough evolved cockroach had a noticeably thicker carapace. It was the second biggest body, perhaps 50% bigger than a non-evolved evolved, but its legs were closer to the ground. It also ran noticeably slower than any of the other four cockroaches, but it was a natural tank.
The mind evolved cockroach was apparently the mage equivalent. All four evolved cock roaches had toxic melee attacks, a trait from the toxin catalyst, but the mind evolved had two magic attacks. The weakest of which was an attack called toxin missile. It formed in between the cockroaches mandibles before streaking out like a magic missile. The toxin missile hit the tree trunk blasting off the bark in the spot, but not much else. The liquid slowly slid down into the bark below like sap. Upon closer inspection the wound was starting to fester, but it was definitely not a quick process. It probably would not be super effective against plant type units or the undead, but beasts and humanoids it probably would.
Mark imagined substituting the brimstone as a catalyst. It would probably end up similar to the corrosive attacks Mareth’s units had used. The second attack was basically just a bigger version. The toxin bomb exploded against the trunk sending the liquid out in all directions. It would be a good area attack.
Mark summoned a different cockroach, this time with only one of the mind beast bloodline upgrades. The idea was to get the magic attacks while developing the cockroach in other areas. It was a failure. He found that it took at least 3 bloodline upgrades in mind to get the effect, but the cockroach only got one spell. The spell was called toxic needles. A spray of toxic needles would shoot out. It appeared that the attacks would not always be the same, although similar. Another test with 3 mind bloodline boosts proved it.
Mark had used the same other 2 bloodline boosts as the last. The result was once again only 1 spell, that was also different. Although this attack was the single target type of spell. The two cockroaches' stats were also slightly different. It appeared that the evolution process always delivered something different.
The fact that it took multiple mind bloodline boosts to get spells was not overly concerning. The cockroaches had poor manna based stats to begin with, so he would need all mind bloodline boosts if he wanted them to be useful. It was possible other naturally smarter beasts would be different, but none of them were really that smart to begin with.
Mark could not help but to summon two more. One swift cockroach with electric essence. The result was not disappointing. The cockroach was even faster than the other swift cockroach. Mark had expected as much since the electric essence was more conducive to speed. Interestingly enough the electric cockroach had basically an energy bar that it could burn to move even faster, or use to electrify its attacks. The bar would apparently only refill slowly though. Mark expected it was due to having a poor wisdom attribute.
The second cockroach evolved using stone essence as the catalyst. The armor became even thicker, the cockroach slower, and the defensive stat had sky rocketed past the other evolved cockroach tank. It was clear that catalyst’s were not a one size fits all, if he used the right one it would reinforce what he was going for. Whereas the toxic essence might have actually been less complementary resulting in a weaker defense, but the toxic tank also had the toxic attack. Everything was a trade off. Mark did not have enough stone essence to make a line of tanks, but it was likely that metal from the mine would be fairly effective.
It had taken 8 samples, but Mark felt that he had a good understanding on what they would need. He sighed, the 8 cockroaches only had a power rating of 2.1. They would be little more than fodder at this point. Definitely not worth their cost of 650 MP.
Mark sent them off as he contemplated on where to go from here. Months had passed since the first of the dungeons had hit level 3. Things had been relatively peaceful for a while, but things were sure to kick off at some point. Once again, he was starting to feel that time was growing short. Dungeons would start making their move soon.
Mark shifted to the notes part of the interface to see the latest tallies. Looking at the numbers always brought him some comfort. Months with no action, meant months of building their stockpiles. Enchanted arrows were their biggest surplus, and had broken into the six figures just recently, but they also had spare armor and weapons. They had enough potions and pills to give a large herbal shop a run for its money.
They had so much that Mark had to have two large warehouses built, one for each of their main settlements. No longer would they store so much in the core room. If the warehouses were destroyed in an attack, they would respawn with everything they stored in perfect condition.
The only issue with replacing an army now, would be the MP constraints of resummoning units. With things the way they were, Mark knew that they should start ensuring they had a buffer of MP at all times once again.
Other than their equipment, their dungeon's defenses had come along nicely. The wall was now about 12 feet tall. The double level archer tower was back further up on the hill, with full coverage. However two dozen smaller archer towers were scattered along the wall's length. Each would support eight to ten archers. Then there were the other defenses, Mark thought smiling. Of course they would only work once.