"Things don't always go as you expect them to."
~Random 150 year old human who died from a heart attack during a surprise birthday party
One bright and sunny day, I had a surprise visitor.
A tiger-man. The same one I saw guarding the wooden tower.
The cockroaches alerted me as he flew past, a meter or two above them. Yes. He could fly.
He was equipped with bark armor that still had branches sticking out which seemed like a weird decision to me, and he was still holding his ornate branch spear. His murderous yellow eyes were locked onto the exact direction my core was, and he seemed intent on just crashing through tons of dirt and stone to get to me.
Oh-! I swore heavily after I realised he was trying to kill me. What can I do, what can I do?! I panicked and quickly created a wall of stone in front of him, thanking my past self for practising so much. He just raised his eyebrow and knocked it over into the dirt. The-! I swore even more, realising that the wall wasn't even anchored to the ground and as such, could easily be pushed over like he did. This time, I created stone from deep in the ground, all the way up. He just thrust his spear forward and pierced through it. My fear spiked, and I just threw everything I could feasibly create quick enough at him. This meant boulders of stone, giant chunks of coal, iron, and even cockroaches. All of which he either dodged, or grabbed onto and threw at the rest. Now, I was really fearful and irrational. So I ordered all of my creatures to flood out of the dungeon and attack the tiger-man however they could. I also began the creation of thousands of meerkats. If 10 could daze me, then thousands would hopefully obliterate him. All my minions that came out of my dungeon surprised him and he stopped in midair. He let out something that sounded like a swear, pressed a button on a hidden amulet, and flew back to the tower even faster than his flight towards me.
I mentally sighed in relief and loosened my grip on the summoning, but I had a sudden realisation. He might bring back an army! And so I poured Mana into the patterns as fast as I could, and slowly, painfully, shifted the entire yet-to-be-made army all around him. He looked around him with that glow in his eyes and he cursed once more. The bipedal tiger gripped his spear and a blue aura made its way across its shaft to encompass the entirety of the spear. He then ended his flight and landed onto the ground. The grooves all along his spear lit up intensely, and he swung it around him. The closest meerkats that were just about to pop into existence were destroyed by a blast of Mana. The ones tens of meters away had their patterns destabilised and so, were collapsed. The furthest ones a hundred or more meters away were fine and they collectively appeared in a wide circle around him. I ordered them to perform their sound attack. The tired-looking tiger-man observed all the meerkats surrounding him and closed his eyes, arms open wide. The hundreds of meerkats barked at him and he got turned to mush. Even the armor was destroyed.
I inwardly let out my imaginary breath and looked at the destruction. Craters in the plains, a stampede of my creatures who I quickly ordered to return to their positions, and a... Is that a tree? A tree appeared in the exact position where the tiger-man died. It looked awfully similar to the trees in the forest, but it had something carved into it at the base of it. I was struck with recognition of what it could mean and I checked the trees in the forest. They too had comparable markings. Previously, I had thought they were merely scratches marking territory of the beasts in the forest. But now, since I compared the writing, I figured out that it was the names of the tiger-people who had died along with something along the lines of 'RIP' or 'Here lies:'.
I had a sinking feeling. They seemed like a sort of people to take revenge on anyone, or anything, that killed one of their own. I swore, which I seemed to be doing much more of recently. One of them needed that much effort to be killed. I desperately need to up my game. But first, a check on my capabilities. And so, I looked at my whole status.
Dave Dungeon Core T1
Lvl:10 (10 IP available) EXP:1/X (Ascend to Tier 2 to unlock) T1 Mana:~0.5k/23.1k T1 Mana Regen.:~231/min
Good good. But IP? Like an IP address? Knowledge flowed into my mind. Oh. It means Improvement Point(s), and I can mentally select it to show options. I hesitated for a moment, and then hit it with my mind as hard as I could, just to be sure I did it correctly. A twinge of pain pulled on me like I hit my metaphorical head on a metaphorical wall (which I technically did).
Congratulations! You reached Level 10! At this Tier & Level, you may choose to use your IP on these Improvement options:
Increased Mana to Max Mana 1...5 Increase exchange rate by 2% increase per level taken. Maximum is 100% increase in base value
Current:50%Mana->Max.Mana
Increased Mana Regen. 1...5 Increase Mana Regeneration by 10% of its Base Value per level taken. Maximum is 400% increase to Base Value.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Current:1%Max.Mana/min
Increased Material Mana 1...5 Increase absorbed materials given Mana by 2% of its Base Value per level taken. Maximum is 100% increase to Base Value.
Current:50% Material Mana absorption
I stared at the options. Okayyyy. That's a lot to take in. First, what does it mean by 'At this Tier & Level?' I waited a second for the expected bits of information to enter my mind, only to be surprised by it. I mentally get prepared for inevitable equations to come. In Tier 1, even if I get to the maximum Level for its Tier, which is Tier times 10, I only get these three basic options. And for every Tier increase, another one will appear. But a good reason to level up exists, every level will give you 1 IP and increase the maximum level of these Improvements to half the current level (rounding down). Hm. I thought. That would mean that if I was Level 39, I could only put 19 of the IP into an Improvement, and the other 20 into the others.
I took a second to gather myself. Foo. That was a lot.
I continued. Okay. Nice. I think I got maybe 56 EXP from killing the tiger-man-. I pause my excessive math-solving mindset that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. How could I be so casual about killing a sentient, or was it sapient? being? I coldly shrugged it off, which was odd even with my normal uncaring-of-random-people attitude. Whatever. SO, system thing, what's determining the EXP I receive? I felt the system try to display something to me, but it gave up and shoved the information in my mind.
Equation Tables:
Tier EXP 1 10 2 40 3 90 4 160 5 250 n n squared * 10
Level EXP 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 n n
Woah! I get ready for even more math. Two tables slammed into my thoughts. Not the eating on kind, but the type that displays information. So, huh, the calculation is Tier squared times 10, and then you add the Level which equals the EXP you get. That means he was Tier 2 and Level 16, if my calculations are correct. I swore. I was lucky to be alive. I was only Tier 1 Level 0 at that time. Even with the apparent advantage that Dungeon Cores get in the form of being able to increase their Max Mana and Mana Regeneration just by taking in extra Mana (I still didn't know if others could do the same thing) and minions to boot, I felt if he got close enough, I doubted I could have stopped him.
Well. I chuckled darkly. I suppose it was at least worth it, considering the amount of EXP I got. Then, a thought occurred to me, how exactly did other people or creatures ascend the Tiers? I got a short answer from the system. Interesting, when they hit the maximum level for their Tier, they automatically get a Tier up.
My long train of thought finally over, I wondered what options to choose. Hm. The first and last options are basically the same thing, except the last one also still has its effect when my Mana is not full. The second option. Eh. If I choose to put the maximum of 5 IP in there, that would be like having a 1.5 times increase on regeneration. That would be useful, but I could just absorb a ton of stone. My mind made up, I put 5 points each into the first and last Improvements.
...
I didn't feel any difference. I tried absorbing a 10 by 10 by 10 meter cube of stone deep down in my territory away from my dungeon. Maybe a few kilometres deep because, why not? It took much longer than usual for some reason, which was probably because of all the pressure down there, but I got the expected 1100 Tier 1 Mana which I presumed there would be due to the percentage increase, along with a bone fragment. A tiny one. That alone gave me almost 10 thousand T1 Mana. What? I examined the pattern in my mind. It was strong. Really strong. Extraordinarily strong. Strong enough, I estimated, to be hit by a meteor, and crack it into several pieces, all the while, being completely unblemished. That might have been a bit exaggerated, but it still was stronger than anything I had seen before. What have I stumbled into? I wondered in fascination. I felt a rumble. I pinpointed its location and sighed. It was a stampede of buffaloes running away from something. And towards me, coincidentally. I focused behind the herd and gasped. Tiger people. A group that was relatively small, yet scared me. Two of them were holding spears, one was duel-wielding swords, and one-half was holding a staff.
And by half, I don't mean half of the group. I mean a literal upper half of a ghostly tiger-woman floating in midair. The same one I saw before, except now, more ethereal. And purple.
The rest of the tiger-people in the group seemed normal comparatively. The only weird thing about them was that they were flying too.
They... The fact they are heading in my direction doesn't necessarily mean their goal is to kill me right?
The tiger-people group continue herding the buffaloes towards me, adding more buffaloes as they go along. They soon reach the tree where the tiger-man died and the ghost-tiger stopped. She placed her hand against the tree and muttered something, but resumed flying with her group a couple of seconds later. She stared in my core's general direction with literal fire in her eyes and continued gathering the buffaloes. The tiger-woman said something to her team and they nodded at it, looking at my dungeon entrance.
Okay...
Never mind.