The harsh buzzing of the system informing me that I can’t do something once again sounds through my mind. Stupid thing, I’ve tried a dozen different things and I still can’t convince it to let me give a full class set as a reward for first completion. Apparently even the system has its limits on what’s fair and what isn't. I resign myself to lowering the reward.
Full superior set? Nope. Five random pieces of Superior Gear? Nope. I lower the reward to a full set of greater equipment (not even class gear) and the System barely allows me to get away with it. I didn’t realize it was so harsh, I don’t see why having this gear would matter that much.
As soon as I thought that the System helpfully informed me of what the local power levels looked like. How was I supposed to know that class gear was so extremely rare? It wasn’t even that hard to make, all I needed was a reference and perfect control of mana . . . actually now that I think about it I guess it is a bit OP. To be fair System, you were the one who pitched being an OP dungeon core to me in the first place.
No response. The System only ever communicates directly to me when I start crossing lines apparently. Stupid System won’t even stick around to take my criticisms. Suddenly I feel a sharp pain in my core as a twist of mana goes through me.
HEY! I’m allowed freedom of speech in my own mind dammit!
No response once again so I give up fighting it. The System seems to gain more personality the longer it's forced to interact with me. I have all sorts of theories around that, but they aren’t worth pursuing at the moment. The System is generally benevolent or neutral to me, better not to anger it too much.
I turn my attention back towards my fourth floor. I want to check in on it and remove the time acceleration if it's ready. I want the floor to be ready for adventurers so that I can open it up properly. This is especially important as I can already feel my next level getting close, the levels come quick when everything is higher level than me.
I snap my attention onto my fourth floor to check on all the changes, altering my own time perception to match the floor's accelerated flow. I notice several things immediately, such as the increased number of creatures living outside of the valleys and the extreme growth that has happened. All the flora and fauna have already made several adaptations to their environment.
A vast majority of the plants have learned to survive using either the abundant earth mana flowing from the walls of the cliffs that surround the valleys or the high intensity bursts of fire mana that surge through the floor whenever a heat wave triggers. The ones adapted to the fire mana have a highly accelerated life cycle in which they steadily grow outside of the valleys and then use the burst of mana from the heat wave to rapidly develop and disperse their offspring, before they themselves are burned up by the intense heat.
I’ve also noticed that the heat waves have decreased in intensity but increased in frequency. My assumption is that it is due to the increasing number of things that absorb the ambient fire mana. Now at first I assumed that this would only result in a decrease of either frequency or intensity, however something different happened. The magical heat waves are triggered by the buildup of fire mana reaching an unstable level and then mixing with surrounding air mana. This causes a cascading effect that replicates active spellwork sending a wave of heat across the whole floor, thus the name Magical Weather.
Now with all this in mind let’s look at how exactly it all behaves. The Fire mana essentially gathers itself up, the more fire mana there is in an area the more they interact with one another and start clumping together. These clumps are then also drawn together until the majority of all fire mana is gathered into a single mass. The size limit of this mass is actually determined by how much fire mana there is to exert their `gathering force`. Less fire mana means less force to hold it all together, which means it becomes unstable faster. This means that as more fire mana is absorbed from the floor the heat waves decrease in overall intensity (power) as they have less fire mana in them, however they increase in frequency as the clumps become unstable faster. If I want to fix this issue I’ll either need to add more artificial Sun’s to the floor or gain the Fire affinity to compensate.
For now I decide to leave things be. I had planned on taking fire as my next affinity anyways. However, based off of the floor I wanted to make, water was also a strong contender. I would need to think about it more, I could always add more Sun's. I just don’t want to change the ecosystem too much now that it’s established.
I move my thoughts back towards inspecting the rest of the floor. I check over my Spiritkin first to make sure that they’ve settled down well on the floor. I move my gaze over their small settlement and smile at all the activity I see. It appears that the Spiritkin have turned the whole mountain into a neutral zone and its being called Spirit Mountain. They trade with all of the various orc tribes for raw materials that they gather from deeper in the floor and in exchange give them crafted goods they can’t make themselves, such as enchantments and potions.
A lot of the Spiritkin on this floor have settled into a more mercantile lifestyle than the town on the second floor. They utilize not only EC but also engage in bartering and haggling, something that the adventurers are sure to love. I’m not 100% sure why the Spiritkin of this floor have decided to like money so much, but who am I to question it. Knowing myself, they likely pulled the whole culture straight out of my head from somewhere.
As a dungeon core I technically had perfect recall, including things from my past life. However in practice a memory would only make itself known if I actively called on it, otherwise my mind would get overloaded. Personally I found it quite convenient that my mind was essentially turned into a library. It still didn’t help much with my focus issues, but hey nothings perfect.
I forced myself back on track before I started side stepping too far again. I refocused onto the evolved fauna of the floor getting an overview of some of the changes. Several different critters had moved their way out of the safe valleys and onto the harsh rock plateaus above. Most of these critters were different ant species that seemed to have taken the term `fire ant` literally.
The little monsters had started absorbing the abundant fire mana that was present outside of the valleys and had grown to the size of rats. Their venom became less of an itch and more of a burn, causing serious damage to anything lacking fire resistance. Some of the soldier variants could even spit a highly flammable substance that would ignite on contact with their venom. It was quite terrifying to watch them burn prey to death from both the inside and outside.
Even with all these adaptations they were still being predated by other creatures. A large pangolin the size of a bear with shiny black plating had adapted an extreme fire resistance. They were able to easily consume dozens of the greater fire ants before getting chased off of their nests. The creatures fire resistance was so high that they could even survive the heat waves by curling into a defensive ball leaving only their hard keratin plates exposed. I checked the tag of both creatures.
Magma Termite (Greater)
Burning Ant (Greater)
Obsidian Pangolin (Superior)
Fascinating, it appears that some of the insects are based off of termites and some off of ants. Both species were incredibly similar in appearance and behavior when above ground. It’s only when I look deeper beneath the rock that I see the larger differences. For one the Magma Termites build large constructions that stick up above the ground, unlike the Flaming Ants who only burrow. There are also the more standard differences between the two, like how the ants only have a queen while the termites have a king and a queen. The ants also appear more predatory than the termites, their main food source is other creatures. The termites actually appear to consume a mixture of earth mana from the rocks and fire mana from the air, which explains their name pretty well.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
There are also other creatures living outside of the valleys, but most of them are just heat adapted versions of other existing creatures. Although there are a few more standouts that live both inside and outside the valleys.
There are several bird species that make their nests outside the valleys to keep them safe from the predators there, but they themselves hunt/forage for food within the valleys. There’s also a particular species of bird that looks like it adapted from a large vulture that is doing quite well for itself on this floor.
Giant Vulture (Greater)
Titan Buzzard (Superior)
They grouped in large flocks of ten to fifteen individuals with a dominant pairing of Titan Buzzards ruling over several of the Giant variants. It appeared to be a linear evolution system with each successive rank up making the bird larger and more predatory. They had such a high flight endurance that the majority of the birds all nested on the large cliffs that made up the borderlands of the floor, each day they flew deeper into the floor in search of food.
Normally creatures like these would seek out carrion, and if there was any I was sure they’d love it. However in this harsh environment no creature let anything go to waste, this means that the birds were more predatory than a mundane version. They would use their large size to swoop down and grab a chosen prey creature, then they would take its struggling form up to height before dropping it to its death. Their builds were heavily focused on strength and vitality, being able to endure hits long enough to kill their prey through fall damage. That being said they still packed quite a punch with their sharp beaks and grasping talons.
I moved my attention deeper into the valleys to see what changes have overcome the more competitive environment there. On just a cursory glance I can already see dozens of new species all ranging from the Greater to Superior ranks. Looks like nothing has managed to evolve its way to Legendary on its own yet, but I would give it more time.
There were far too many different species to go over them all. That being said, there were several standouts that I noticed. A species of huge worm creatures that dug out large subterranean tunnel networks that dozens of other species used as shelter. A species of massive spider that inhabits the undersides of overhangs, they tag as Viper Tarantula (Superior). There aren’t that many of them as the spiders appear to dominate whatever area they reside in as the apex predator and they don’t tolerate other members of their species. It seems that only the females grow excessively large, with the males being incredibly tiny with the sole purpose of breeding and then dying.
I move my attention away from the beasts and towards the true powerhouses of this floor, the orcs. I can already tell that they’ve formed factions and started fighting each other, which is a good thing in my book as that means that they’re proper orcs. Plus they can still gain experience from killing one another, just not as much as would be gained from killing dungeon intruders.
Right now there appear to be three large factions that are each led by a Legendary rank warlord. There are the Boggerz, led by Bognoz the Terrible who is a Troll Warlord (Legendary). There are the Smashaz (Smashers), led by Red Belly the Ruthless who is a Redcap Warlord (Legendary). Finally there are the Beast Breakaz (Breakers), led by Grobnozz the Greedy who is an Orc Warlord (Legendary).
I honestly didn’t expect any orc’s to make it into a leadership position when there were more powerful evolutions contesting them. That being said, this Grobnozz fellow seemed to have gained so much power by specializing in beast taming. Something that certainly gives an edge with all the highly evolved lethal killing machines that inhabit this floor. I look forward to seeing what else he’ll accomplish.
I do a quick check of all the fortresses that I put in place to make sure that everything is in working order and that the orc’s know how to use it all. They appear to have adapted to the machinery quite well and I have yet to see a single unmodified fortress making them all unique. The three Warlords all took over the best fortresses on the floor, each claiming large intersections with paths that lead to Spirit Mountain. The rest of the fortresses are vassals of the Warlords, led by high ranking officers in the Warlords army.
I gaze across my fourth floor, proud with how it turned out. I can’t wait for adventurers to start exploring it and fighting through massive orc armies to try and challenge the warlords. Perhaps some of them will even try allying themselves with a certain faction like in the Royal Woods. I can’t wait to see what they do. I decelerate the time flow back to normal and open the floor up properly. With that done I continue to make minor adjustments while I wait for the first group to beat the goblin village that serves as the entry point for this floor.
----------------------------------------
Second Floor of the Eternal Dungeon, Goblin Village of Hokoto
We had been preparing for this for weeks. The raid on the northern region had failed horribly, ending in a total party kill of all the people involved. Luckily my group had sat that one out, instead I had organized a raid for the goblin village to the east. It was obvious from the levels of the monsters that the dungeon had plans, and that it didn’t want its northern or southern regions conquered yet. That was why the Spiritkin warned people away from those areas and why no one ever made it back from an encounter with the bosses there.
I was smart enough to recognize this and had been planning a raid on the village for weeks. It was obvious that this area was meant to be taken on with more than just a simple party of five. The sheer number of goblins alone was daunting, add in the hobgoblins and the higher evolution variants and you had the recipe for a raid zone.
We had spent a lot of time testing out our Raid teamwork by taking on parties of goblins that left the village. You could always find goblin hunting and foraging parties wandering the eastern woods searching for food. I figured out through some scouting that eliminating these parties would actually lower the amount of goblins within the village overall. This meant we could reduce their extreme numbers before our attack.
That had started two weeks ago and now, we were ready. Their numbers had been cut down by at least half, although that was only goblins. Once we attacked the village we would have to fight standard Hobgoblins as well as the high forms of them such as the Warriors and Shaman. I was confident that the boss would be one of the hobgoblin variants and that we could kill it, we had been practicing our teamwork for weeks and were a proper raid group. We would succeed where the northern raid failed and actually beat a new boss of the dungeon.
“Alright. Is everyone ready? Everyone knows the plan?” I asked one final time, checking in with the raid leaders.
After I got positive confirmation I nodded back and spoke a single word to start our raid
“Begin”
----------------------------------------
A massive fireball crashed through the front gates of Hokoto and twenty human adventurers charged through the burning rubble. They broke into specialized groups of five, two of the groups holding off the goblins while another engaged with the hobs. The final group was left free to fight with the Shaman and his three guards.
Spells and Skills were exchanged dozens of times in a dance of death as the two sides fought valiantly for victory. There were several close calls when the Shaman cast his strongest curse spell on the frontline Tank, stopping him from holding off a warrior. However a quick interjection by the rogue from a different party saved the encounter from going south.
The end of the fight was signaled by the parties engaging the hobgoblins finishing their battle and joining the fight against the boss. Once two teams of five were engaged onto the Shaman and his guards they were quickly overwhelmed and defeated. In the end the Shaman managed to take down one of the casters by overloading a spell, however he was quickly slain afterwards.
The Raid Party had only lost one person over the course of the fight, which to them was an acceptable outcome considering the revival mechanic of the dungeon. They finished off what remained of the village, forcing the goblins to retreat from their own home while they raided it for loot. Once they had confirmed their progression and checked the whole village for treasure, the group went back towards the town to retrieve their fallen comrade and to begin the quest to unlock the next floor.
Quest Unlocked: The Sounds of Waaagh
Your party has defeated the forward scouts of the Greenskin Hordes, however larger and stronger war parties prepare themselves to raid the lush lands of the World Tree. Gather together a raiding party and bring the attack to them, lest you find the Waaghs of orcish hordes chanting on your doorstep.