Time lost all meaning as my mind studied the intricate biology of the wolves, I was both puzzled and extremely fascinated by their alien makeup. They had no cells, no blood, and no organs yet that didn’t mean they were simple at all. Instead it made them even more complex as I had nothing to reference or anything to start off with. It all looked like a big mess of soul essence and mana to me, but I knew it was more than that.
The fact that soul essence was present in their makeup was a big surprise to me, I was going off the assumption that the two didn’t interact at all but clearly I was in the wrong here. The wolves weren’t made up of matter, well, not normal matter at least. Instead they were made up of a material that I had no name for, the material itself was a mix of soul essence, mana and another magical energy that was so elusive it might as well not exist as far as I’m aware.
The strange material itself was partly conceptual and was extremely reactive to souls, otherwise it did nothing by itself.The interesting part was how the information about the wolves stayed within the reactive matter, even after their death. Even now I could see extremely tiny, and I mean extremely tiny wolves working in tandem to shift away the degrading structures around the center of the pattern.
They were essentially stopping the decay of information itself, well not stop but delay. After seeing this I quickly swept through my pattern database and found no similar phenomenon. That in itself was very interesting because why was the pattern degrading? What was so special about this one? The most obvious answer would be its magical nature but that would prompt another question, what exactly made a creature magical?
I had some theories, but not anything concrete. My creatures could be considered magical but not naturally, I had to make them that was, sometimes from scratch. Maybe I’m doing it all wrong but normally there would be a natural process for becoming a magical creature, one that didn’t involve extensive help from outside forces. Maybe there was but it just didn’t apply or work on dungeon mobs, which would be weird and oddly specific but it was indeed a possibility.
In essence what I needed was more information on magical creatures and how they come to be, mana and souls were needed, and from what I’ve seen soul essence too but I feel like I’m missing something crucial.
Man, that old wizard really outdid himself with this one. He gave me such a treasure trove of information that I would feel bad not rewarding him adequately.
That’s it! I’ve decided, lifetime membership for you, my good sir! I had zero idea about how I’m going to implement that but I will! It shouldn’t be that hard, right? I could probably whip up a simple system right now but I decided against it. Such a thing would need my full undivided attention and I didn’t have the time right now.
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Speaking of time, I completely forgot to open the door.
Darn it!
Returning my attention to the present I was surprised to see the old man there, still exhausted and panting heavily. I was a bit confused by this, why didn’t more time pass? Normally when I lose myself like this time seems to leap and run with extreme joy. This was good though, I didn’t mess things up!
Ideally I wanted to wait until more people came back with stuff but that would all depend on how fast this old man took to recover. I know I was being greedy but hey, what If I get another juicy magical monster like those wolves?
And so I decided to take the opportunity fate has thrown my way and wait. People began to trickle back in slowly, each forming a line behind the resting old man whom I still had no name for. By the time he was fully recovered a sizable line of adventurers had formed, stretching all the ebay back to the end of the dirt path that led into town.
I had no idea that so many people would come, heck it's even more than what showed up initially! Could my dungeon support so much? Definitely not, my two floors combined could probably host 30 people, nothing more.
In hindsight I was a dungeon, I should’ve designed my rooms with the intent of accommodating a lot of people but I had no idea I would become a popular dungeon. The idea just didn’t stick, considering that I murdered most of who came inside me but hey, I’m not complaining, not at all. I would have to design future floors bigger though, and I was glad I went ham on the third floor, it was enough to fit everyone here and more.
Sadly it wasn’t done yet, and I refused to rush it just so more people could come inside. That would do more harm than good, the magic system wasn’t done and I had no idea how the ambient soul essence inside would react with anyone who wasn’t of my creation. It could be catastrophic and messy or it could be mild or it wouldn’t react at all, either way, I wasn’t going to risk it.
Anyway! Back to the present, I would only allow ten people inside at any given time for now. The rest would have to sit back and wait. I quickly modified the door enchantment, making room for one that would link up with my pattern database. It was essentially a meter and a tracker, it could project a beam of light outward that would display the number of people inside and would count down from ten each time someone went in until it was capped out.
This would only happen if the offering was good enough to qualify for ten people though, if not they had to put more in until the counter reached a number they were satisfied with. Adding more of the same thing didn’t earn me anything, but I imagine it would be hard to find something unique every time you wanted to delve into the dungeon. So I didn’t enforce that law there, as that would be too unfair.
Only those who offered something could enter though, if you didn’t offer anything and wanted to sneak in with an individual or team who did you’d get slammed back by a wall of force, doing this a third time will result in death.
With that done I let the entire system run and golden light spilled out of the door, shaping itself into the number 10, a beam of light landed on the old man and the number ticked down, moving from ten to nine and the recorder began to speak.
“Choose your team, only nine more may enter.”