“That’s the eighth,” counted Viv, seeing another one perish to Xeel. It would take forever to complete the quest.

Main Quest 10

The main way a dungeon generates mana is through invaders. Whether it be from them staying in the dungeon for prolonged periods, or them dying, invaders provide an excellent source of mana. Every intruder's goal is one thing - treasure. The more treasure there is, the more will be attracted to the dungeon, like moths to a flame.

Kill 25 intruders or have 25 intruders in the dungeon at the same time.

Progress - 8/25, 3/25.

Reward - [Magic Item] Menu, Flame Sword (grade 2), Poison Dagger (grade 2), Mace of Heaviness (grade 2), Spear of Frost (grade 2).

The quest wasn’t hard, it was just that Xeel was too scary. Even after B rank adventurers scouted out his every ability, explored the second floor, and killed Devourer, others were still hesitant.

In fact, most of his kills were D ranks. They started coming in like flies after Viv added a chest inside the hellfire goblin’s room. Newcomers often underestimated how deadly the goblin truly was.

Speaking of treasure, it was both a blessing and a curse. He unlocked it after completing the previous quest, and the system behind them was quite complicated.

Treasure Chest (D) 25 mana / day.

Treasure Chest (C) 50 mana / day.

Guardian Chest

He only had access to two tiers of treasure chests - the tier of the chest represented the highest rank monster on the dungeon floor, excluding the guardian. That meant that Viv couldn’t place any C tier chests on the first floor unless he summoned something stronger. As to why the limitation existed, Pecan told him that it was so dungeons wouldn’t give away treasure without sufficient challenge.

The treasure chests could only be opened once per day, and once they were looted, they would use the dungeon’s mana to replenish the contents. Viv intensely studied this process when he could. The dungeon used a minuscule amount of mana to simply create gold, weapons, mana stones, and armour. If he could learn how to do it himself, he could easily arm his entire army.

Concentrating further on a D tier chest, he received a list of every possible reward that could be inside the chest. The most interesting thing was that everything on the list was once absorbed by the dungeon. If Viv let the dungeon absorb a magic item, it would soon after appear in the chests.

As for the guardian chests, they were mandatory. As soon as the guardian was resummoned, the chest would be refilled, though, of course, that consumed additional mana when summoning.

The only chest he currently had was on the first floor. Despite this, he was still haemorrhaging mana. The chests weren’t that bad, but re-summoning slain creatures quickly drained mana. Adventurers would clear the room once and return to do it again the next day. Since the goblins guarding it weren’t named, he had to summon new ones every time.

On the flip side, adventurers seemed to operate on a trust-based system. Higher ranked adventurers wouldn’t open lower tier chests, and new adventurers would have a go at the chest before those that already cleared the room once. The influx of new deaths prevented him from losing too much mana.

Viv vowed to use more complicated traps on the following floors. Even if the trap was known ahead of time, people would still have to trigger it to get the chest, and that would also save on creature summoning costs.

Casting his gaze on the second floor, he looked at the second thing he received from the quest. It was an old, abandoned church. The stone was weathered, the windows shattered, and the tower collapsed. The double doors leading into it were covered with cobwebs, and every once and again, there would be a spider skittering out of it.

In his interface, it was named Church of Lomerei, though he had no clue who Lomerei was. Heading deeper inside, one would find every room abandoned save for the nave. The whole place was dusty and filled from head to toe with cobwebs. The pews were all collapsed, the debris moved to the side.

Instead, in the middle of the room was a giant pit swarming with hundreds of spiders, constantly fighting one another, devouring each other’s remains. Where the altar was supposed to be stood a giant spider fused with a night elf. Commonly known as a drider, she was the broodmother of this terrifying place.

Instead of one type of spider, there were now three. One’s venom paralyzed, another’s caused despair, and the third’s inflicted madness and confusion. The three species fought one another in a never-ending battle.

Thanks to the church, the forest was now crawling with these creatures. The best thing was that there was no mana cost associated with the initial creation, and instead, his mana steadily rose as more creatures populated the plains.

Despite Viv being unable to progress with his quest, he wasn’t idling away. The second floor was almost done save for a couple of things. As it happened, one of his projects was in its last stage. He directed his attention to Lyn, who was busy kneeling over, looking at a couple of mushrooms. Standing beside him were the grovetenders and Zagon, who was unhappily being drained of blood.

The firefly project was a success, and he even got a title for it, though he fed it to his demon lord title moments later. Now, Lyn was working on modifying things that couldn’t be summoned.

It would have been a simple project for Viv, but due to Lyn’s low magical expertise, they had to approach it differently. Viv taught him Cloud of Madness, but Lyn was unable to directly imbue the spell within the mushroom.

Thus, they had to slowly acclimatize the mushroom to magic. Through multiple generations, the mushrooms were subjected to intense mana, constantly being within the cloud. Normally, it would have taken years, but the grovetenders could speed the whole process up.

The project was already half a success. Regular goblins that inhaled the spore would rapidly descend into madness, but they weren’t as effective on tougher creatures. Only when Lyn himself descended into madness would the project be complete.

As it happened, the moment was now. Zagon was already dead, slowly dripping blood onto the ground. It seeped into the ground as the grovetenders cast their dark magics, and moments later, a new patch of mushrooms appeared. By themselves, they spread their spores slowly, but once Lyn stepped on them, things quickly escalated.

He started looking down at the mushrooms, giggling to himself. Stumbling around like he was drunk, his head snapped to the grovetenders, who had already run far away.

“Useless. Toys created for one purpose, not able to think for themselves. Be reborn in flame you miserable wretch,” he maniacally grinned, gathering fire on his fingertips. The ball of fire rapidly expanded to become bigger than him in size.

And then, he was torn to shreds. A red phantom claw tore his body as a phantom jaw tore his head off. In the distance, a pack of wolves howled, running to drag their prey away. The mushroom experiment was a success, and the dungeon agreed with him.

Title Gained - [Nature’s Warden]

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

[Expansion] Menu can be modified by spells.

Expansion Gained

Grow Mushroom. 1 MP 10x10

Grow Madness Mushroom. 25 MP 10x10

The various forests he had burned down in the past would object to him having this title, but Viv was glad to have it. It would make this process easier in the future, and it wasn’t limited to plants. He wouldn’t have to poison the soil step by step if he decided to do so, now he only had to remember the correct spell.

Resummoning Lyn, Viv got to work on his other projects, though they wouldn’t come into effect until others stepped foot on the second floor. As for the goblins, they were steadily progressing in their relative fields, the only major event being Lyn crafting his first chain.

And so, he waited. Every day, more and more adventurers would come to visit his dungeon. There was already a settlement built around the cave, which made nationwide news as several nations began to claim the forest as their territory.

In particular, both Gaxion and Elythria would be sending people to “inspect” the dungeon. Now that he had seen the next quest’s rewards, he was looking forward to acquiring lumirock artefacts from Elythria, even if it meant he would be giving them away in his chests.

A few days later, adventurers finally descended to the second floor. It was a strange party consisting of both a tortoise, a rabbit half-mix, and an elf. It was rare to see elves, not to mention them joining adventuring groups.

What was more interesting were their powers. The tortoise’s skin was wrinkled, his brown shell covered in numerous scratches. Besides the scratches, there were deep patterns on it, half resembling runes. He used that as his armour, and whenever it was hit, it would glow a soft blue. In his hands, he held a shining mace and a massive shield, both of which were imbued with spiritual power.

The second adventurer was an elf. She was young for an elf, perhaps only a hundred years old. She had her blonde hair tied up in a ponytail, wearing a leaf green robe that constantly fluttered. When she fought against Xeel, she summoned various sprites and elementals, reading from her red grimoire.

Finally, it was the rabbit half-mix. Viv vowed to capture her the moment he saw her abilities. She was a druid with the ability to mend most wounds and manipulate nature. She held a simple wooden staff in her hands. Similar to the elf, she wore a robe, though this one was dirt-stained and torn. Despite that, one could make out the pattern of stars on it.

And so, the three descended. The elf conjured small fire sprites to float in the air, lighting the way in front of them.

“Are you... sure?” The tortoise said in a croaking voice, leading the way.

“Yup, I’m a druid, after all, the plains are my home. The big worm worries me a bit, but I’ll be able to sense it long before it approaches.” The rabbit said, skipping as she walked, playfully waving her staff around.

“If we managed to defeat that demon, we should be able to deal with whatever is here. It’s just a bunch of stupid animals,” the elf replied, scowling as she looked back at the first floor.

“Hey! Don’t say that. They’re actually really smart,” the druid lightly swung her staff at the elf, causing a fight to break out.

When they arrived at the plains, the rabbit excitedly ran around, and even the turtle smiled a bit.

“Grass! Trees! Where did they steal it from?” The cramped dungeon expanded so much that one could convince themselves this wasn’t underground.

“Well, what do you think Lyla?” The elf sniffed the air around her, wrinkling her brow.

The druid kneeled, placing her hands on the soil. Unseen by everyone but Viv, a pulse of mana spread throughout the entire floor, every animal in its path making a tiny sound. She stood back up and pointed towards the forest.

“There’s a lot of angry voices coming from there - hundreds of them. The big worm is below us, but it’s far away to the east. The forest is bad news, we should take out the guardian while it’s isolated.”

They had come here to explore. There was a permanent bounty for any new information about the dungeon, but at the same time, the guardian chest was tempting for C rank adventurers like them. So, they merrily started making their way to the east, but just as luck would have it, the worm began to move in the direction of the forest, which drastically changed their goal.

“If we can find out what creatures are in the forest and what their abilities are, there’s tons of gold for us from the duke. Don’t be such a coward, Orian.”

The turtle said nothing as he led the way, carefully scanning for threats. Their first challenge appeared when they neared the forest. The flame spirits mixed with fireflies, making it hard to discern which was which. It wasn’t until one of the fireflies flew near Lyla that she yelled in surprise.

“Get back!”

The party reacted immediately, both Lyla and the elf dodging backwards. Orian was too slow to dodge, so instead, he withdrew into his shell. With a loud bang, one of the fireflies exploded, causing a massive chain reaction.

The first explosion caught both fireflies and flame spirits in its grasp, causing the next one to be more powerful. It also revealed the first major flaw in Viv's dungeon design - the explosions tore through both earth and trees, and when they finally stopped, flame rained down on the nearby trees, igniting them.

It was a testament to the turtle’s resistance that after all that he stood back up. His shell was cracked in some places, but all in all, he was mostly fine. Looking back, he saw his companions lying on the ground, covered by a shimmering barrier.

It took some time to regain their bearings, having to shout to overcome the constant ringing in their ears.

“Why didn’t you say anything before?” The elf threw out accusations, looking angrily at Lyla.

“How was I supposed to know? They looked like regular fireflies to me, just with a bit more mana. I’m not some sort of god that knows everything.” Lyla shouted.

“You’re a shoddy excuse of a druid and we all know it.” This led to another argument, which devolved into a shouting match in the middle of the dungeon.

“Wait,” Lyla said, her face dropping. “There’s a large number of creatures running toward us. I sense some creatures behind us as well - almost as if they’re surrounding us.”

“Let’s go back. That’s enough excitement for one day,” mumbled Orian, running his fingers across his cracked shell. The rest agreed.

Unfortunately, it was never that easy. Looking back, they saw a rolling wave of spiders rapidly approaching. Worse yet, they saw a pack of wolves bounding toward them from the front. A collision was inevitable.

Lyla closed her eyes for a few seconds before saying, “It’s not working. I can’t communicate with them. They’re set on attacking us.”

What happened next was a tense fight between the wolves and the adventuring party. The elf conjured an elemental made of fire that the wolves avoided like a plague. Instead, they exclusively targeted Lyla, the weakest of them.

The wolves were slow and cautious - the longer they dragged this out, the more their victims would bleed. It didn’t help that there was a horde of spiders behind them, threatening to engulf them any minute.

The party’s breaking point was when every other creature on the floor showed up. Cheetahs that left trails of lightning behind them and deers with hypnotising horns, all creatures that were strong even on their own.

That was when the elf decided to flee. Seeing Orion and Lyla bogged down by the wolves, she withdrew her fire elemental, ordering it to protect herself and bolted to the exit. She didn’t deserve to die in a filthy place like this along with companions she despised.

“No, wait, that direction is-” Lyla was too late. Their eyes met as she looked back, moments before the giant worm burst through the ground, swallowing her whole.

Looking at it, Lyla almost dropped her staff in shock. It must have been at least a hundred metres in length, if not more. Its teeth rotated as it ground through earth and stone. A glimpse beyond the teeth revealed a red vortex, constantly spinning.

Every escape route was sealed, and there was no chance of retreat, but they were adventurers - they fought until the end. The fight lasted until the spiders arrived, crawling under robes and armour to bite at flesh. Paralyzed and confused, they stared as the rest of the beasts slowly withdrew. Five goblins emerged from the crowd, carrying their bodies deeper into the forest.

For Viv, it was a slight blunder. He didn’t want to resort to doing this, but his forest was burning down and there was no one else on the second floor. He had never heard of dungeons commanding monsters to specifically target and kill select people, but that was likely because those dungeons didn’t survive for long if humans found out.

Still, he finally had gotten his hand on some living beings. The grovetenders dragged them deep into the forest, dropping them through solid ground next to a tree. Viv repurposed the pit trap’s illusion, building a tunnel leading deep underground where he had created an impromptu dungeon. Soon enough, he would have a real one.

Quest Received

Side Quest - No Escape.

The Demon Lord, in his quest to find how to escape, has decided to capture creatures from outside the dungeon to use in his experiments. Whether it’s to collect their blood or drain their mana, they’re guaranteed to never see the light of day again.

Imprison 5 humans.

Progress - 2/5

Reward - Dungeon, Slave Collar (grade 4).