Allison observed the group delving into her dungeon with interest. What really caught her attention now that she had time to observe, was the fascinating way in which mana interacted with their bodies.
It seemed as if it were obeying some obscure rules, that had nothing at all to do with the way physics was around them. The only explanation she could find was that it followed the will of its wielder. Which from all that she knew couldn’t be, energy just didn’t behave that way. Dimensional energy that she knew, had to be guided with energy constructs soaked in dimensional energies previously to be used in any meaningful way, which was part of the reason it took the Terran Federation forever to produce cores in any meaningful way.
Constructs of energy soaked matter could guide the energies in predefined paths, that could then be used to generate the energy modern technology used. What these humans were doing however seem entirely esoteric in comparison.
First of all they built a dense layer of it on their skin which formed some sort of obscuring mist for her vision. She could roughly see the stronger streams of mana within their body, but could neither recognize any detail nor affect those streams in any meaningful way.
Secondly, observing the fireball the girl created in the first combat the team faced, some could expel mana through their fingers. Hell, instead of just expelling, as she did with her core, she seemed to retain control of it, causing the subatomic particles to vibrate, causing a ball of air inside her palm, that was literally on fire. And not just intense heat, but actually burning. The mana itself seemed to provide the fuel for the continuous combustion within the controlled area.
From Francis she knew that the monsters on her 5th floor were roughly equivalent to Stage 2 users, while all mages were at least Stage 5. So it was no surprise the team was easily killing their way across her 5th floor.
Lynx with her mind-attack however, would classify as an equivalent of a late Stage 2 or early Stage 3 user. She planned to have her possible trainees to be at least end of Stage 2 before she would put any real effort into training them, so to pass the challenges of her 6th floor, the first of her challenge floors, they would need to show this strength.
The 5th floor with its size and variety of beasts, would be a perfect training ground for challengers to train themselves to the required level and show the dedication required to advance themselves. For the same reason she decided to not give out any treasures on these floors, as she expected people to be able to motivate themselves, at least for these early levels.
What especially pleased her however, was that once the beasts killed by the invaders were dead, she was free to reabsorb the carcasses and thus increase the return on investment of having them combat the invaders. She already decided to follow dungeon lore and use the energy of the carcass to construct treasures for the adventurers on her lower floors.
The 5th floor and her growth rooms on the 6th floors would remain the same, as most beasts still needed to eat. And if some beasts developed some special trait that she deemed a worthy treasure, she could always just not absorb specific parts of the body.
The death of another pair of shadow wolves brought her attention back to the antics of the team on her 5th floor. They worked together exceptionally well, and after the first 2 nights, even stayed on her 5th floor for the full day/night cycle. They truly had nothing to worry about as long as they stayed alert, clearly being stronger than her Stage 2 monsters.
The brightly glowing spot all of them had within, clearly showed to her their status as Stage 5 users. Francis himself was a Stage 7 mage, so she knew pretty well what the magical side entailed until then. However for the physical users and anything above she only had snippets, learned from the fracturing mind of her previous owner.
With the last obstacle cleared in front of them, The team of 7 invaders finally left the forest at the base of what she called her boss-area of where Lynx used to have her spot. Lynx by now had already made her way to her 6th floor and was eagerly growing stronger in her growth room, though another bobcat had already taken up roost in her boss area, with the same kind of power induced by her in his growth.
For the umpteenth time she tried to listen in on what the team was talking about, but no matter how hard she tried, the language had changed too much since her time to pull any kinds of similarities. There was also no kind of language package included in the datafile sent to her through the battlenet.
If only she had a history of language files she could track the evolution of lan….
I’m an idiot! Just because the other AI didn’t compile an up to date language file, doesn’t mean they didn’t log what was going on around them!
Dedicating a subroutine to the team to alert her of any major developments, she switched her attention back to the small connection of the battle net in the back of her mind.
“Query: Request all pertinent files concerning the evolution of language on Eorhild”
Within moment a reply came through the net
“Specify: pertinent”
“Request audio file of all humans talking with one another since destruction of Terran Fleet”
“Confirmed, Standby”
Once again, the background connection increased in volume and an even larger amount of data came across. Immediately she shunted all currently unused processes into the analyzing of the data, with a priority of constructing connections between different permutations of words that were proven to be used in the same meaning as others.
She even stopped all passive construction of her 6th floor to accommodate the speed she wished for results. Quickly switching partitions, she saw the team was making their way up the ramp, though still a bit of a way off from reaching the top.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Returning to her analysis program she helped to actively sort through priorities for language trees to follow, trying to guide the translation program into the right direction. Even with all the power available to her, she still only barely managed to get a minimal recognition of some words uttered by the team to translate for her.
Knowing that from now on it could improve with only subroutines running it, she quickly focused back on the team, that was just now approaching the top of her boss-area. Looking at them they were clearly ready for a tough fight, though with their strength she was still unsure of how much of a fight it would truly become.
***
The fight with the horned bashers on their way to the top of the cliff was the toughest one yet. They were not only the most numerous, but also worked together exceptionally well. Still with their experience and focus they were more than capable of handling the threat.
It was no surprise they were a bit stronger, as everyone could clearly feel the primordial mana drifting from the top of the cliff, in what could only be the entrance to the next level.
Fabian had agreed to proceeding until this point, even killing the guardian of the 5th level if there was one, but would insist they returned to the outpost after, instead of delving any deeper. Since the Conglomerate expedition would be arriving any day now, he hoped to be there to get some fresh supplies and if possible a monster repelling array for the deeper floors.
They had stopped just below the edge of the plateau on top, letting Horace scout ahead to determine whether a guardian was present or not.
“So, what did you find?” Patrick immediately prompted Horace as soon as he returned around a boulder just ahead of the point the team stopped to wait for his return.
“There is indeed a guardian ahead.” He confirmed “Its currently waiting inside a small cavern just beside the exit to the 6th level. There is a small square in front of both, that the path exits onto through a small arch. I expect it to come out once we arrive on the plateau. I appears to be another of those bobcats that sometimes pounce on the pillars.”
“Did you get a good look at it?” Luke, their other speed specialist, asked
“Not really, it’s waiting around a small bend in the cave, though from what I could tell of the size of what I did see, it seems to be slightly bigger than the others we saw.”
“So no information if its still a beast or a monster already”
“Sadly no. Either way it is alone, and we should be able to take it even if it did develop to monster tier already.”
“Ok listen up then.” Fabian turned towards the rest of his team “Mia I want you to prepare a fireball already before we cross into the square, though hold back a bit with blasting it immediately. Illia be ready to assist in case of any surprises. Patrick and Lomar, you will be our flankers right and left respectively. Horace and Luke be ready to intervene as well but I want to test its strength first before we overwhelm it. All clear?”
“Yes”
“Let’s go”
“Yeah”
The others all gave their consent. Before lining up and making their way to the top.
***
Allison eagerly watched as they spread out as soon as they entered her combat area. The magic girl already had a marble sized ball of fire cupped between her hands, and the three burly looking guys each had a shield held in front of them.
The 2 thinner and quicker guys that she now finally new were called Horace and Luke, stayed near the arch with arrows knocked to their bows, however not yet drawn. She quickly sent a mental pulse to the bobcat to awaken it, but for now decided to let it act on its own aggressive nature to defend its territory.
It immediately jumped out of the cave jumping back and forth to avoid getting trapped into a corner by the three attackers in the front. Trying to push behind the invader on the right Allison saw it release a pulse of mana towards the guy. Unlike with the horned bashers, the pulse could not invade the mind, but it did manage to cause Luke to flinch from some kind of effect nonetheless.
While this momentary lapse in attention allowed the bobcat to complete its movement and arrive behind his target, he was in a team for a reason. Before he could pounce on the relatively unprotected back a stream of fire and 2 arrows sprouted out of its back, rooting it in place from pain.
A quick strike from Luke quickly finished the deed and the death of the evolved beast released a huge amount of mana into her dungeon.
***
Though relatively minor compared to the densities the team needed to truly advance further, Fabian still quickly ordered everyone to meditate and absorb as much as they could, before the extra essence dispersed.
Within minutes everyone absorbed enough mana for what would have taken them over half a day on the same level otherwise.
Loosening his concentration from absorbing mana Fabian spared a glance at Luke
“So, what was that about? I never saw you flinch like that before, especially not from a mere beast, no matter how scary it looked?”
“It’s hard to say, it definitely was not a beast anymore though.” He replied
“Oh? What did it do then?” Fabian was curious.
“It felt like a blanked of clouds descended all over my body. It felt like it tried to restrict my movements, though it was easy enough to shake off with a bit of concentration. I believe I won’t be frozen at all anymore next time, now that I know what to expect.”
“Interesting. So, some kind of weak slow or freeze effect. Seems reasonable for an early Tier 1 monster indeed. I agree, not a beast anymore and truly a monster. Definitely a floor guardian for the next floor.”
***
While she listened to the assessment of their short fight, she agreed with them. It was weak compared to them, but definitely above a simple beast. Plus they seemed to classify the monsters into Tiers.
Deciding to thank them for their friendly first delves, and trying to encourage them to keep coming back, as they seemed to show potential, she decided to do something special. Instead of just reabsorbing the energies of the corpses she grabbed it and started to arrange it into a new form.
From what she knew, society still worked on hard coins, so she decided to simply copy some from her databases. Anything more fancy would have to wait for lower floors. At first the team ignored her when she absorbed the corpse, as they were clearly used to the process from other dungeons.
Using only the energy of the corpse to create rewards, she figured that way she would never risk giving out too high of a reward. Though to be honest the difference between assembling the metallic structure of gold compared to copper was minimal. However other materials would indeed require higher amounts, especially if she ever made some premade weapons or armor.
The clinking of the few coppers she created form the corpse, compared to the dissolution of the corpse, caused the team to immediately go alert however and draw their weapons from the unexpected sound. When they saw the coins lying where the corpse of the bobcat was just moments before, they adopted very confused faces.
Listening to them talk to each other, she realized that this transformation of the energy of the corpse to the rewards directly was not the way most dungeons did it. They tended to hide treasures in the vicinity compared to directly rewarding invaders for combat.
Deciding that would not do at all she immediately uploaded her procedure into the battle net for the other AIs to adopt should they see merit in this new protocol.
Picking up the few coins the leader, Fabian, turned back to his team and after a quick look through the cave of the bobcat returned through her 5th floor back to the surface.
Making sure another bobcat made its way from her 6th floor to take up guard position in her boss area, she quickly also checked population numbers throughout her 5th floor to make sure none were in danger. Seeing everything in order she once again delegated some of her subroutines to managing the 5th floor, returning her attention to building and construction, and with more information about the behavior of mana, experimentation.