Alex left not long after announcing he had a plan, leaving Zack alone with his thoughts. He kept muttering about how he was going to draw in customers, which made Zack a little bit uncomfortable. Still, if it got him the aether he needed to persist, then who was he to argue?
When night fell and Alex had yet to return, Zack started to grow bored. He didn't need to sleep, but he certainly needed something to keep him occupied. With nothing better to do, he decided he might as well fiddle about with his dungeon some more.
“Let’s see. I’ve basically got just the two rooms: my main lobby, and then the room immediately after. That’s not enough for a solid, even a low level dungeon.”
Zack’s first room—he didn’t count his lobby in this regard—wasn’t too large but also wasn’t very wide. It was long, though. Had he a chin to tap, he would have been doing so deep in thought. The last remaining dire rabbit assumed the thinking pose as Zack pondered how he could best put the room to use.
“Oh wait, don’t I have that bigger on the inside perk?” Zack asked aloud.
As if on command, the perk appeared in his vision.
[Perk: Spacial Bending]
[You are able to bend space within the confines of your dungeon, allowing you to make it bigger on the inside.]
[The cost to increase a room’s size increases exponentially as it grows. The larger the room, the more mana necessary to maintain its bent space.]
“Cool, I’m like a TARDIS! Okay, so, just how much can I twist space?”
Zack focused on his first room and willed it to become bigger. He felt a small dip in his mana as the room seemed to widen, the walls stretching to accommodate the growth. A quick check of the surrounding structure and mental math was enough to confirm that it was, in fact, bigger on the inside.
There was, however an outer limit. Zack flinched as he felt a sharp pain in his mana, his crystal form shuddering as he very nearly overextended. A quick check of his upkeep confirmed his worst fear: bending space only added to his hourly mana costs. If a cubic meter added one point to his mana upkeep, widening space by a cubic meter added two. With a sigh, he pulled back on his mana, causing the room to shrink back to normal again.
“There has to be a way to lower to my costs,” Zack grumbled. “I can’t just be expected to subsist only on the spare aether than people dump into me, right? Especially since I’m not ready for anyone to delve yet.”
When no message popped up to confirm Zack’s question, his frustration only grew. Here he was, alone in the world, a living building, with nobody to tell him how to do anything!”
“Hey, Akashic System, you there?” Zack asked. He didn’t bother vibrating his crystal to make noise, instead directing his words inward, towards his mana.
To his surprise, he felt… something.
“Akashic System, I need a way to more efficiently collect aether to balance out my mana upkeep. How do I do that?”
[Here are the search results for: “I need a way to more efficiently collect aether.”]
[Option 1: Aetheric Harvester]
[Option 2: Mana Upkeep Management]
[Option 3: ??? (option unavailable)]
“Okay, that’s something. Let’s start with the obvious. Mana upkeep management.”
[Mana Upkeep Management]
[In order to efficiently grow your dungeon, you must learn to properly allocate your mana. Essential functions of your dungeon will cost a maintained amount of your mana, such as keeping your influence properly charged or your mobs operational.]
[However, certain parts of your dungeon may not need a constant stream of mana in order to remain operational. For example, if you do not expect your structure to face heavy damage, you can pull your mana out of your floors and walls to avoid paying upkeep costs on them. Instead, you can periodically cycle your mana through them to repair damage.]
If Zack had a jaw, it would have hit the floor. The last remaining dire rabbit did a good enough job of interpreting the expression by slamming its face into the ground so hard as to knock it into a daze. The realization that he didn’t need to keep his mana in his walls and floor was a game changer.
Immediately, he started pulling his mana out of his structure while leaving it inside the air. The moment he did, he felt a chance in his influence. It wasn’t weaker, but he got the distinct impression that it was more exposed. Almost like he wasn’t wearing any clothing. It did have the desired effect, though.
[Upkeep requirements]
[Influence: 20 mana per hour]
[Monsters: 1 mana per hour]
He could still feel the mana upkeep costs in the air just beyond his lobby. It still cost one point per cubic meter of space. Taking mana out of the walls and the floor, though, drastically reduced the cost to a much more manageable level. The space was still dreadfully small, but he could work to improve that now that he had a bit more mana to work with. He got to work stretching his influence again, creeping his mana through the mall floors and walls at a snail’s pace. A little bit of mana to spare wasn’t going to be enough to afford him much more workable space, but it was better than nothing.
“Okay, what about those aetheric harvesters?” Zack asked.
[Aetheric Harvesters]
[A structure that increases your draw of ambient aether. Must be placed outside of your direct influence in order to optimize efficiency.]
[Warning: structures erected outside your direct influence are vulnerable and can be destroyed by hostile forces.]
[Would you like to learn this pattern? Yes or no?]
Zack mentally scrunched up his face before opting to learn the pattern. He didn’t like the idea of some small parts of him being vulnerable, but the chance of increasing his ambient Aether draw was just too good to pass up. Like other patterns learned before, information about both the structure and mechanics of the Aetheric harvester flowed into his mind. He was surprised to find that it was less mechanical in nature and much more magical. It used a crystal lattice to draw Aether in, and then threads of mana to connect directly to Zack’s influence.
“Hmm, if I were to build the harvesters on my influence, I can probably bypass the need for those threads,” Zack muttered. He shot his perspective out of his core and flowed through his lobby, a good enough stand in for pacing.
The walls weren’t a good place to build his harvesters. They were too exposed both to the elements and potential hostiles. The roof, though? Zack zipped out of his roof to the maximum limit of his range and studied it curiously. It was a flat surface with more than a few stray plants dotting it. As this part of the roof was technically still part of his dungeon, Zack quickly absorbed the plants and cleaned up, then erected a single harvester.
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He didn’t have any crystal materials he could use to build the pattern, so he chose glass instead. Theoretically it should serve the same purpose. Like with everything else he built, he overlaid the pattern in space and willed it into being with a small exertion of mana. Immediately, the crystal structure took form. It was smaller than previous objects, and finished sprouting in seconds rather than minutes.
It was about a foot tall and three inches in diameter. The moment it was fully erect, the harvester started to hum with power. Threads of multicolored aether started flowing into it from the surrounding air. Zack quickly check his aether intake to make sure it was working.
[Aether intake]
[Influence: 15 aether per hour]
[Ambient: 15 aether per hour (+5 aether per hour from harvesters)]
[Recovery: 4 per hour]
“Score!” Zack cheered, mentally pumping a non-existent fist. He went to construct a second harvester next to the first, only to receive a pop up.
[Warning: aetheric harvesters require a minimum of two cubic meters of space to operate at maximum efficiency. Placing harvesters too close together will result in suboptimal aetheric pull and can eliminate gains all together.]
“Hmm, that’s not good…” Zack mumbled. He foolishly erected his first harvester in the middle of the roof, which didn’t give him enough space on any one side of it to erect another.
Casually, he moved his first harvester off to one side of the roof, giving just barely enough space for a second harvester. He gave his statistics a quick gander, just to make sure he wasn’t dipping too hard into his mana
[Status]
[Name: Zack]
[Core type: Dungeon]
[Level: 4]
[Integrity: 100%]
[Mana: 13/45]
[Upkeep requirements]
[Influence: 23 mana per hour]
[Monsters: 1 mana per hour]
[Aether intake]
[Influence: 15 aether per hour]
[Ambient: 20 aether per hour (+10 aether per hour from harvesters)]
[Recovery: 4 per hour]
[Warning: Maximum aether intake exceeds upkeep requirements. Risk of mana overflow increased.]
“Oh, huh. I didn’t think of that,” Zack muttered to himself, zipping back into his core.
It would seem part of his job involved making sure his upkeep costs and intake remained balanced with one another. It would be a bit of a challenge, but one he was quite willing to tackle. The benefit of having an increased aetheric intake was that it gave him more wiggle room to play with.
For starters, he upped the speed at which he started stretching out his influence. The faster he could fill the whole mall, the sooner he could put it all to good use. There was still the small problem of the native monsters, but he could get someone to help clear those away at a later date.
Secondly, he repopulated his existing dungeon. He gave his lone remaining dire rabbit a trio of friends, and even respawned Thumper to serve as their leader. The rabbits sniffed each other curiously, then stood around passively.
“Huh, I guess… Uh… Just be bunnies?” Zack suggested to them.
As soon as the words hit the rabbits, he regretted them.
“NOT LIKE THAT!” he practically screamed.
The rabbits stopped their salacious antics and peered at his disembodied consciousness curiously.
“Ugh, okay, how about… We try this?” Zack mumbled. He ran his mana through the room, changing the structure ever so slightly. The tile floor turned to soft soil, which promptly sprouted bright green grass. He didn’t have any larger plants he could give the bunnies to use for shelter, but he did have the Carnage Carnation pattern. He spawned a couple into the room and ordered them to take root and behave like normal flowers.
The flesh-eating flowers obeyed, flattening their teeth against their petals so as to appear like perfectly normal plants. The bunnies sniffed curiously at them, but decided they were harmless enough not to worry about them.
A few more giant flowers here and there, coupled with a pair of stooltoads for extra effect, and Zack’s first room was looking like a quaint little meadow. For added effect, he added a few windows to the ceiling. During the day, they would allow fresh sunlight to stream into the room. The stooltoads hopped away from the exposed ceiling disdainfully, instead crouching instead in a dark corner of the room. Zack was unsurprised to find that the monsters all had preset behaviors.
The Carnations liked to bask in the light, and didn’t mind the presence of the dire rabbits hiding amongst their roots and leaves. The bunnies appreciated the shade and protection offered by the flowers, huddling in adorable little puddles in burrows beneath their roots. The odd bun out was Thumper, who paced the meadow, protective of the others.
“Hmm… You know, Thumper, I think you deserve a special honour,” Zack said. The blue-striped rabbit looked up at his disembodied voice and cocked his head.
Zack pulled up the last quest he had yet to complete.
[Quest Available: Who the boss? YOU the boss!]
[Create a boss-level monster.]
[Reward: ???]
“Akashic System, how do I make a boss monster?” Zack asked.
[Here are the search results for: “how do I make a boss monster?”]
[Option 1: Assign a boss flag to a monster.]
Zack waited to see if any other options would pop up, but when none did he mentally shrugged and selected it.
[Assigning a boss flag to a monster]
[In order to assign a boss flag to a monster, you must first designate a room as a boss room. Boss rooms cannot be populated with other monsters unless they also share the boss flag.]
[Every five levels, you gain access to one additional boss flag.]
[Current available boss flags: 1 of 1]
“Oh, that seems simple enough,” Zack mentally shrugged. He quickly checked his influence and found that it stretched deep enough into the mall that he could make a second room, and quickly did so.
Like the meadow before it, his new boss room looked like a grassy nook. He grew the grass extra tall, to give Thumper someplace to hide, then covered the walls with leafy vines and moss. He blocked off the back of the room with another wall and added another skylight. A quick reference to his mana upkeep made him wince, but it was nothing another couple harvesters on his roof couldn’t amend. Now that his actual dungeon was larger, he had a bit more space to spare.
Satisfied, he added a curtain of vines to divide the meadow from the boss room. With a small exertion of mana, he designated this room as his boss room.
“Alright, Thumper, come on in!”
The rabbit hopped through the curtain and looked around curiously. Seeing no threats to his safety, he dove excitedly into the tall grass and made himself comfortable.
“I would like to designate Thumper as a boss monster,” Zack said, filtering a bit more mana into the rabbit.
The tone of the room abruptly changed, like something snapping into place. Thumper cringed, crying out in pain as Zack’s mana rushed into him. There was a snapping of bone and a shredding of flesh as he started changing, growing longer and sharper. His horn stretched out in length and gained a razor sharp edge, his muscles grew tighter and larger. The scariest part of all was how he doubled, then tripled in size. His fur rapidly shifted colors, until he was completely blue in color with white stripes running down his length.
When it was finished, Thumper looked completely different. He cleaned his face curiously, panting at the pain of his abrupt growth, then looked around curiously. Zack stared at his trusty rabbit and pulled up its status information.
[Thumper, Dire Hare]
[Level 3 Boss Monster, Beast]
[Fierce guardian of the Northville Dungeon meadows. Dire hares are exactly like normal hares, just dire.]
“Oh cool, you leveled up in the process of that,” Zack said, ignoring the fact that Thumper had gone from rabbit to hare.
Thumper cleaned his face, seemingly ignorant of his altered scale, and nestled comfortably in the grass. Zack wished he could give his little buddy a flower to nestle under, but a quick glance at his mana was enough to discourage it. He didn’t have enough room to erect another harvester, which meant he couldn’t afford to spare the mana on another boss. He winced as he realized that Thumper’s increased level also increased his mana cost by one point per extra level.
“Eugh, this is going to get expensive…” Zack mumbled. Before he had a chance to lament his costs again, a fresh pop up appeared before him.
[Quest Available: Who the boss? YOU the boss!]
[Create a boss-level monster.]
[Reward: Monster Spawner]
[Monster Spawner]
[You can create crystal nodes that will automatically respawn monsters, using ambient mana and aether in your influence rather than your manapool. The node will activate after the room they are in remains devoid of non-dungeon born life for a period of fifteen seconds. It can also be manually activated to trigger a spawn.]
[Each node can only spawn one type of monster, to a maximum of five mana worth. You can designate how many monsters each can summon, provided they do not exceed a total of five mana.]
[Monsters spawned via spawners do not contribute towards mana upkeep, and instead draw mana from their spawners.]
“That… is incredibly helpful, actually,” Zack said, reading the description over again. The actual upkeep cost to maintain the spawn nodes wasn’t even that much, only three mana apiece, and that was upkeep handled almost exclusively without his input.
Zack quickly spun up a node in Thumper’s boss room and assigned the dire hare’s pattern to it. He despawned his boss and waited a few seconds. The glass crystal blinked with blue light as it recognized that Thumper was missing, and a second later the boss reappeared in a rush of blue particles.
“Hah! Score!” Zack cheered. Thumper did a backflip, mirroring Zack’s excitement.
Zack quickly spun up more spawners in the meadow, assigning them to each of the different monster types in turn before despawning them to recover their mana. For each node, they blinked blue, then spawned their associated creatures. Zack opted to let the Carnations be level 1 and the stooltoads level 2, given how many of each he was populating the room with.
Finally satisfied that he had a halfway decent dungeon, Zack turned his attention once more to himself. It felt undignified for him to simply be a rock laying on the ground. He was the dungeon, after all. Did he not deserve a place of respect?
At his command, Thumper returned to the lobby and gently scooped Zack up in his mouth. With a nimble leap, the hare leapt onto the desk and gently deposited him on its surface. Satisfied that he was no longer in danger of being stepped on, Zack dismissed his companion back to the boss room, and settled in for a long night of waiting for Alex to return.
“At least I can keep myself busy by stretching my influence deeper into the mall. That’ll give me more space to build from, and more room for Aetheric harvesters…” Zack mumbled.