Chapter 20

Tom decided to stay in Caseville until he reached level thirty, which didn’t take very long. With the experience trickling in from his new dungeons, and the significant boost that he’d gotten from the deaths of the three adventurers, he had been pushed into level twenty-nine.

Tom passed the time by communing with his network, examining the different dungeons as they did their things. He spied on a variety of adventuring parties as they delved, silently cheering them on as they pushed into the depths of the dungeons he’d prepared for them. Their success was his success, after all, and he didn’t want to experience the complicated emotions he’d felt after the deaths of Lorn, Shirls and Sal.

He was especially nervous when one group challenged Iota dungeon, despite the warnings of a banshee in the depths. He watched carefully as they fought their way through to the depths using enchanted weapons and the prowess of their single mage to slay the wraiths that attacked them. The zombies were easy by comparison, but with magic on their side the wraiths weren’t too much of a challenge either.

They seemed to have come prepared for the dungeon, and were unsurprised at the depths that Tom had added to it. They fought their way through floor after floor, clearing every corner as they went with clear organization and experience in their tactics.

Because he only had a vague sense of what was going on through his dungeon senses, it took Tom a while to realize that he was witnessing some of the kingdom’s knights in action. It was their clear organization that gave them away, but Tom didn’t recognize it as such at first. Once he did, he grew a bit more relaxed, as he figured that the professional soldiers of the kingdom were less likely to get in over their head.

When they reached the final floor, the mage cast another spell, one which dampened their sense of hearing. While this was normally a very bad idea, it proved to be a lifesaver when the banshee finally appeared and found her screams to be completely ineffectual. While the mage was occupied with her protective spell, the rest of the squad launched themselves at the dangerous specter and whittled it down bit by bit with their enchanted weapons.

When at last the Banshee had perished, the party allowed themselves a moment to celebrate before looting the ectoplasmic corpse – it had dropped a bit of jewelry, and while it was likely cursed, cursed items had their own sort of a market.

Seeing that they had cleared the entire dungeon successfully, Tom released a sigh of relief. He checked his own experience, and saw that he was just shy of level thirty. The knights had done him a huge favor in clearing the dungeon, although they were likely doing it for the bounties on the wraiths and the zombies of that dungeon, and were completely unaware that he was benefiting as well.

He wished that he could throw in a bit of an extra reward for their efforts, but he was at the limit of his current abilities to do so.

He couldn’t spend all of his time in front of the Caseville City Core, however. Not without drawing more attention to himself than he was comfortable with. So it was while he was playing dice with Rory, Sevin and Jessica that he finally hit the threshold and reached level thirty.

Congratulations! You have reached level thirty!

You have received your level 30 skill: Conjure!

Tom blinked in surprise as the experience clicked into place and he felt the new skill opening up to him. He quickly checked his Status to confirm the notification wasn’t a flight of fancy.

Name

Tom Weaver

Health

270/270

Age

15

Mana

700/700

Race

Human

Stamina

240/240

Class

Controller

Strength

18

Level

30

Dexterity

29

Subclass

Progenitor

Constitution

27

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Endurance

24

After confirming that he wasn’t daydreaming, Tom pressed some mana into his new skill experimentally, and was surprised to find that Conjure was just as nuanced as some of his other complicated skills, such as Customize or Collaborate.

He had a bit of instinct in how to utilize the Skill, so he pictured a dagger in his hand and pushed mana through the skill until it clicked into place. Abruptly, there really was a dagger in his hand. It glowed faintly for a moment, until the excess mana from its Conjuring bled away into the air as wisps of light.

“Okay, what was that?” Jessica asked him. The others had paused the game of dice to study him.

“I just reached level thirty,” he explained. “I was testing out my new skill. It’s called Conjure. And it lets me … well, conjure stuff, I guess. It takes a lot of mana though, I don’t think I should use it very much unless I’m connected to a Core.”

“It’s absolutely unfair that you get experience just sitting around playing dice,” Sevin complained.

“You level faster than I do when you’re challenging a dungeon,” Tom reminded him. “It’s not my fault that my experience intake doesn’t turn off when I’m just doing daily stuff like this.”

“Tom’s right, we should be out leveling,” Rory said, “’stead of fooling around. We’re going to be nights, Sevin and me, and it would be good to enter the knighthood with some levels under us.”

“That’s not exactly the point that I was trying to make,” Tom protested.

After a bit of bickering, the teens went along with Rory’s idea, and they went to challenge the depths of the Caseville Dungeon. They were met at the entrance by a stern faced Antoine. The teens in particular fell victim to the disapproval in his expression.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he inquired.

“Challenging the dungeon,” Rory said. “There’s no point in just standing around doing nothing.”

“Does the fact that this dungeon claimed three lives recently not give you any pause?” Antoine asked.

“They went to the deepest floors. Probably fought the minotaur, and that’s likely what did them in,” Rory pointed out. “Against a pack of zombies we’ll be more than fine. I was fighting zombies as a level one commoner and coming out on top, after all.”

“The way I heard things, you were pissing yourself in a shield wall,” Antoine pointed out.

“What? Who told you that? They’re lying!” Rory protested.

“Regardless, you shouldn’t be going off alone,” Antoine said.

“There’s more experience for us if it’s not divided five ways,” Sevin said.

“And more risk,” Antoine countered. “Get Grant and Emil, and we can all go together. Otherwise, I’m afraid you’ll have to go through me if you want to delve today.”

Grumbling, Sevin and Rory went off to gather the two party members that they were missing while Tom interacted with the Core stone for a moment. He was surprised to find that his level thirty ability resonated with the Core, and he received a prompt.

Conjure Treasure Chests in this dungeon?

Yes / No

Tom reported the prompt to the others, which required an explanation to Antoine about his new ability.

“Well obviously you should select yes,” Jessica said immediately. “Honestly I was wondering why your dungeons in this world were lacking loot. This is a great thing, Tom, it will up the rewards considerably I think. I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of treasure pops up when we delve.”

“I’m also failing to see a downside,” Antoine admitted.

Tom selected yes, and watched as the mana of the dungeon dropped precipitously.

“There is a downside to it,” Tom announced. “It costs the core a lot of mana to generate treasure rewards. It’s fine in a dungeon like Caseville, which has mana to spare since I don’t have it seeding anything. But in the dungeons like Zeta or Gama or Eta which are dedicated to generating resources, I think it would be too much for a low level core to Seed and Conjure treasures at the same time.”

“Well, you’re the expert on those matters,” Jessica admitted. “Do you have any control over what sorts of treasures are Conjured?”

“I’m not sure, let me fiddle with the menu for a bit,” Tom answered.

After twenty minutes, he gave up. “I can affect where the treasure boxes are placed, but I think I discovered another downside. Wherever I place them, it seems to lure a pack of zombies to that location. I’m not certain exactly why, but it doesn’t seem like the dungeon will let the treasures it Conjures go unguarded.”

“Hopefully that just means that whatever is inside is worth the effort of killing the defenders,” Jessica said.

“Yeah, hopefully,” Tom agreed hesitantly. “I can also affect the quality of the chest, but increasing the quality also increases the number of zombies drawn to guard it.”

“Makes total sense,” Jessica agreed. “I’m certain there’s some sort of technical explanation for it, but either way I’m not seeing a downside to it. Adventurers face a challenge and get loot in exchange. It’s win-win. Except for the zombies, of course.”

“Right,” Tom said. After some consideration, he put some normal quality treasure chests on each of the first five floors, after which he was able to Conjure medium quality chests, and on the final five he was able to place high quality chests. After some consideration, Tom chose to place a Boss Quality Box in Cassius’s chamber. Since he had nothing else to spend Caseville Core’s mana on, he placed as many chests as he could.

Once Grant and Emil had been found and convinced to join the expedition, the party entered the dungeon, paying the small fee at the entrance after signing a document that acknowledged the risks of delving and that they recognized that this particular dungeon had claimed three lives so far.

While the first few floors of the dungeon were dedicated to low level Burrowers, mole-like creatures that weren’t terribly dangerous, the party mostly skipped past them and into the floors where zombies spawned. Rory in particular was jovial, telling his friends how intense his first time delving the dungeon this deep had been.

He had been a Commoner, in a squad of other Commoners. They had engaged in shield-wall tactics to overcome the difference in levels and strength between themselves and the zombies. The noise they had caused had drawn in zombies from three floors below, and the tide had been almost endless. In the end, the guards had been victorious.

The battle had been a life changing event for Rory. Literally. It had unlocked his class, and everything was different once one unlocked a Class aside from Commoner or Child.

This delve was very different than the one that had promoted Rory, however. Instead of waiting for the zombies to come to them, the party charged the incoming zombies. Rory with his sword, and Sevin with his Halberd, made a formidable front line supported by Jessica’s illusions. The zombies couldn’t tell the difference between the flesh and blood combatants and the ones that were simply Mirages, causing them to waste their time stumbling about.

Sevin was the first to find and open a treasure chest. He was surprised when, at first, the chest was empty. He was about to complain when a flash of light distracted him, and after the light died out the chest possessed a javelin inside of it. He blinked and tested its weight.

“It’s just about perfect for me,” he admitted. “Light enough to carry around, heavy enough to do some damage on impact. I’ll have to do some practice to get Thrown Weapons Proficiency so that I can Empower it, but it will be a great way to start a fight.”

Rory agreed with the Pikeman.

Tom considered something for a moment. “Sevin, can I see that?”

“Sure,” Sevin agreed, passing Tom the javelin. Tom examined it for a moment, then passed it back.

Then he Conjured a new one. Half the eyebrows in the party shot up at that, although Antoine didn’t seem very surprised.

“Can you tell a difference between that one and this one?” Tom asked, passing the freshly conjured javelin to his friend.

After a few moments of comparing them, Sevin admitted that he could not.

“If you can conjure those on demand, then I might start opening up every fight by throwing one at the enemy,” Sevin said.

“I might take to carrying one meself,” Rory agreed. “It’ll take some practice to acquire the skill to Empower it, like Sevin said, but I think I should manage to get the proficiency for it.”

“It costs about four hundred mana to conjure one of these,” Tom said. “So it’s not the end of the world if we loose one. Why don’t you each take one of them for now and I’ll Conjure more if they get lost or damaged.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Rory agreed, accepting the second javelin. A moment later, they tested out their new weapons on a pack of Zombies. Throwing the javelins at the start of the fight, combined with Emil’s and Jessica’s magical talents and Grant’s ability to flicker into range, deal a critical attack, and flicker back out before the enemy could respond, proved to be a powerful combination.

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