After leaving Vine Grove, we took several stops as i strategically absorbed many trees without clearly too much land at once. This also included a lot of Dirt that i needed because i needed to construct a new dungeon for the goblin and Orc.
Not only that, i need to make a very large ‘first floor’ to connect the rabbit and wolf dungeon as well so i would have several ‘separate’ dungeons connected.
The materials was already being converted into the buildings but at this time, we set up the small and combined wolf and rabbit dungeon which had the moon rabbits already breeding with the common rabbits and the rabbit taking care of the moon blossom was already switched with real moon rabbits.
The Five Phase Moon Flower was already grown and even in the wolf dungeon they were there. The dungeon of the wolves had an incredibly vibrant moon essence and a very thick pillar of moon light surrounded the Blossoms.
We looked as the moonlight kept descending, it was already night time.
“I can’t believe i get to witness a Silver Spirit Wolves Moonlight baptism!” Luna exclaimed in an eccentric tone.
It goes without saying that during this ceremony, the Moon rune appears and because it's directly associated with the Moon Elf, it could even have a profound effect on her, whose body and blood is filled with moon essence and possesses the moon rune upon herself.
Levi was happily running around the flowers that were getting bathed and sucking up a tremendous amount of moonlight.
As the moon rose higher outside, the brightness of the moon gemstones grew with each passing moment.
At midnight, my book shined and a blue orb flew out. Levi looked at it and smiled brightly before the light began to dance around the light. Waves came off it and Levi’s ears pricked up before she began to do some kind of dance that was really rough due to her lack of practice.
Slowly it grew smoother until it looked like a tribal dance around some kind of totem pole.
Awooo!
Levi suddenly exclaimed like a wolf cub’s imitating a wolf howl but with it, the countless grey wolves and normal ones as well as the several dozen wolf cubs all howled as well.
The echo wasn’t perfectly in sync but it began to react to with the Moonlight. At that moment, the glowing ball released a bright light and when it reached us, we covered our ears.
AWOOOOO!
A deafening howl caused all the wolves to synchronize and the fluctuating moonlight drastically changed as it formed an incredible moon rune. It was even more profound than the first one and like the first time, a blinding light spread out.
The others covered their eyes but me and Luna stood there transfixed by the feeling.
Her hair began to shine as a very dull Moon rune appeared on her forehead. Her hand stretched out just like mine and we began to make countless Moon runes.
The rune on her head kept eating up each subsequent rune Luna made and rapidly grew brighter.
For me, the rune began to grow at a much lower speed unlike Luna and as i reached even half of what she had, the Rune stopped shining and a new Rune appeared.
‘Light’
It appeared in all its glory and was even more blinding. The Orb and Levi was sucking up the mana like sponges while the wolves were eating up the residual energy and Luna was using it to form her runes.
I was having trouble doing the same, i wasn’t in a trance like before and was instead trying to do it manually. What is more, the Light rune was even added, one hand making each and trying to use the mana in the air to form them since it had the strange feeling of both.
The Light rune in my comprehended section rapidly lifted from the lower position it had and quickly moved under the Moon rune leaving behind all the others.
The two runes broke up into four groups and were absorbed by the four flowers that turned into balls of light. Three flew into Levi and one flew into the orb. At once i knew what it was, it was Veria. The orb began to take the rough shape of a human figure before it flew back to the book.
I looked at it again and unlike before where it said 50 infuses now it was like this, ‘Body dead, reconstructing. 10 Infusions of Moonlight essence needed to begin.’
This mean that she underestimated the amount of moonlight she could gather in a month.
I chuckled as the little girl also flew into the book to sleep. The wolves kept howling as several Grey wolves had grown twice the size of ones wolves. It made me think that this might be the true size of an unstarved Grey Wolf who got a full amount of moonlight.
The other common wolves were all the same. They were bigger already. At this time, the Five Phases Moon Flower began to release glowing lights that were like seeds and they began to howl and suck in a few through some unknown force.
I press in the book on both Spirit Wolves to plant their sprouts and place them once more.
When i looked at Luna, she was unconscious while the others were getting up. I quickly pick up Luna and find she has a high fever. “Did something go wrong?” I mutter and carry her while we go put her in a bed to rest for the night and then i head to the rabbit side.
The rabbits were all jumping and catching the glowing lights from the flowers while many were in the boss room while being bathed in the light of the Moonlight Azure Blossom.
As they finish absorbing it, many common rabbits had already undergone a strange evolution into white furred rabbits while the leading moon rabbit was almost twice their size. When i looked at the information it saw it had evolved as well.
“That is an Alpha version of the Moon rabbit.” I said and the rabbit turned to me and bowed before twitching its nose and the rabbits soon all spread out leaving behind only the Alpha who jumped and began to sleep next to the unabsorbed blossom that was closed once more and very dull.
“Seems the number of Rabbits increased dramatically after the moon rabbits appeared.” I said.
“From what i know…” Charlotte said, “The more evolved a rabbit while still a monster, the more it will breed. Only if the rabbit become a humanoid or beastmen like Levi would it abstain from crazy sex and would only take one mate unless it dies.” She said.
“How do you know about that?” I asked her.
“Moon rabbits are closely related to a Moon elves diet and survival from their need of moon essence so it's a basic knowledge I learned so that i would not make any mistakes when meeting them or when we have any noble Moon elves visiting the nation.” she replied.
“So you know what happened to Luna?” I asked.
Charlotte shook her head, “No, elves are a magical race and humans aren’t, even mages aren’t even close to what elves have. That said, there is said to have once been a ritual that allowed humans to infuse themselves with magic runes becoming something similar to elves and extending their lifespan but such a thing is no longer possible and may simply be something made by people wishing for longer lives.” She said shaking her head.
This makes me raise my brow at the interesting words but don’t go deeper due to lack of concrete knowledge. Even the old heroes couldn’t discover much and one of them was my class and only had 700 runes at most. Frankly if i could get my hands on his Book of the Dungeon Maker, i am sure i could absorb all his knowledge.
We leave the rabbit hole and got the well guarded farm dungeon where the guardian was in front like a miniboss blocking the path.
Oh right, you all must be wondering how stairs exist right? I ranked up a wooden room into a large room with two doors. The ground is dirt making it like an arena and at the back was a wooden stairway that lead down to a connected room of the same format.
We go down and each split up to do our own thing. There are still too few rooms so the variety isn’t good. At the moment there are a few exp gems though so it is possible to change a room. It is what i am planning, or better yet, what i have planned already.
I already used one to make a Large room called Village room. It's a square dirt filled room with high ceiling, there are light and moon runes that stay at the top and alternate to form a ball in other words, there is a rock with both Moon and Light Runes but they are set up differently compared to the Moon gemstone since the moonlight vanishes during the day deactivating the Moon rune.
The room is a large room so it's 4 times bigger than the wooden room i originally made but with the idea i set up, these rooms would be perfect for making wooden huts. When put back to back, a door forms between them and when four such rooms are put back to back, the walls merge forming a ‘Large Village Room’ but because of this feature, this room sucks up a huge amount of mana to make. Anyway there aren’t enough goblin or orc to require that many anyway.
I will need only two of them and each creature will grow together. I want the make the dungeon of the goblins and Orc a jungle theme with herbs and plants in abundance so that goblins would learn to scavenge for their herbs. As for the other half, i plan to try out the ‘Vein’ Rune and see if i can’t make Rocks, Iron and other metal veins. Even if it's only a spawning point, having that would give them a place to gather ore so they can smith. I am unsure how i will teach them though but that is for another day.
I get to work on my personal field before retreating to the room with the beds we are using for rooms.
***
The following day, while riding the carriage, Luna was literally glowing in happiness.
“I can’t believe i was able to absorb so much Moon Essence! Even my biological Rune evolved into a more pure and developed form!” She shouted.
“What is that?” Hermes asked.
“What? The biological rune? It's what makes elves… well elves. It's what differentiates one from another. Like how there are Dark elves, Moon elves, Wood elves, Aquatic elves and High Elves. Each one has a specific rune that signify which race they are and which branch of mana their biology originates from.” She said.
A moment later, her forehead shined and Moon appeared on it shining. “Previously mine was really dull because my comprehension of what it meant was low but now it is super high and it is even making me stronger! Even my magic would have grown more powerful.” said happily.
“So elves were created by infusing runes into their bodies?” I asked.
“Not sure, the history before the great hero appeared is rather blurry. Only the Great Treant would know, the Elven Hero doesn’t adhere to this though since she is from another world.” Luna said.
It made sense that she wasn’t like these elves after all. Still this is something to think about but not now. I open my book and see how the progress on the rooms is and find the Village rooms done and half the corridors so i begin to build the dungeon, adding a few field rooms in and have the puppets plant an orchid inside, then begin to spread tall grass, bushes and trees in the corridor before planting random herbs around and sending all the puppets to raise it.
Due to all of them becoming Low Grade Mana Wood puppets, particularly the farmers, have an extended reach for their control of mana.
Grass and bushes were grown quickly and herbs followed while trees were the slowest but soon reached the size needed.
The fires were all made into regular fires but it didn’t raise smoke and all the plants were made in a way to avoid the fire itself.
When this small amount of work was finished, i released the orc and Goblins into their respective ‘rooms’. When they appeared, they were confused at first before their dungeon seal shined and in their mind the thought ‘This room is your home.’ appeared followed by the order, ‘build your homes’.
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After that, i dropped a few tools the puppets made for each of them.
WOOSH! BOOM!
At that moment, something shot out of the stagecoach into the woods causing a huge explosion.
“Ahaha! No wonder they say that those in the party of heroes are always abnormal.” Luna’s voice traveled out.
We looked at the destruction and i looked through the window as she had the blade from her umbrella out and she had just stabbed out. Looking at the target, we saw several trees with a huge hole in the middle.
“Are you crazy?!” I shouted at her.
“Sorry sorry! I was just too excited!” She laughed.
I shake my head and spur the horses on to get away from that destruction to the next town as fast as possible before this hyper elf wrecks the stagecoach.
Just before noon, we finally reached the next town that was at the other eastern side of the Darkvine Forest. It was called East Grove and similar to the other city, it had tall walls and lots of guards.
The passage through the forest wasn’t without problems though, several demon monsters attacked them along the way prompting me to question, “Why are all monsters branded with the demon lords seal?”
“When a monster reaches adolescence, they will instinctively perform a self binding ritual because that is a powerful curse the demon lord put upon the land of our nations. His kingdom is at the edge of the continent and has to pass through us to get to the rest of the continent so to weaken us from the inside, he gathers monsters as minions to kill adventurers and the army. It is common for there to be monster waves every so often because of this.” Charlotte explained with a solemn expression.
As we reach the gate, the guards did a check and let us pass when we presented authentic adventurers ID cards.
We go and find an Inn so that we could eat and hear any rumors about anything.
We didn’t get anything though and went walking on the way to the adventurers guild to see if there were any missions.
DING! DONG! DING! DONG! DING! DONG!
Suddenly a loud bell began to ring from the eastern watchtower.
“What’s that?” i asked.
“That is the alarm bell!” Luna said with a frown.
DONG! DONG! DONG!
Suddenly a loud gong was struck three times and the faces of the three natives turned into scowls. “It's a demon raid!” Charlotte exclaimed.
“Demon? As in the demon army?” Misaki asked.
“Yes mistress, the elven nation has lost a tremendous amount of forest land because of the demon raids, seems they have come to attack the Darkvine forest as well!” Luna said.
“Should we go help?” Hermes asked.
“Yes, look, the adventurer parties are heading out so it is a call to arms.” I said calmly.
With a nod we all run towards the eastern gate.
As we reach it, we find a stairway up the wall and quickly climb it where the archers were heading while the warriors were heading through the gate.
Looking out with the archers and mage on the walls, we see a flatlands that had simple weeds and grass growing instead of forest that stood behind us. It was easy enough to see how much fire damage was required to cause this and in the far distance, such smoke could be seen.
Looking out, suddenly figures began to walk out of the smoke.
“UNDEAD!” someone shouted from the watchtower and in his hand a telescope.
When looking at the undead, they weren’t simple humanoid skeletons. They number in thousands and were in the form of armored animals, humanoids, some were burning skeleton and some were frozen. It was a full on undead horde from all sorts of places. Zombies took the bulk as did weaker skeleton but the more powerful ones were riding undead beasts of war.
At the back, appearing on the back of a skeleton drake, a very disturbing skeleton appeared. With a demonic skull that had many horns jutting out and a fiendish tail like a scorpion coming out of it's robe, this was the leader.
“DEMON LICH!”
Suddenly all the people began to panic and some took a step back.
“What is a demon Lich?” I asked Charlotte.
“It's one of the demon armies Middle grade commander race. A Demon Lich is an even more fiendish than a common Lich, they are one of the more sensitive magical races undead subraces. Their moniker is called the Dungeon hunters… they appear whenever a new dungeon is born.” Charlotte said.
Everyone began to sweat at the words, they knew that it would be a hard battle, “Their middle grade so their strength would be similar to the Living puppets we got right?” i asked.
“No, those puppets are only at 40% of their capacity if i remember what you said. These creatures tend to level above level 90, they’re A class threat monsters.” Luna said with a solemn tone. “This town shouldn’t have any A rank adventurers besides the Guildmaster. There is also all those undead, more than half of them are C rank and common undead like skeletons and zombie when in a horde are ranked D rank.” Charlotte explained.
“Y-You can’t forget… elves aren’t religious, holy magic is something many elves can’t use and is a High Elf unique magic. To fight an undead army without priests…” Hermes said trembling.
It was obvious that the young alchemist was out of his element here.
“Hermes, you should get back, try and find alchemists or some herb shops and get to making potions, help as support and stay away from the battle.” I said and summon a common puppet who was armored with everything but a helmet as his guard.
The boy nodded and quickly ran away from the wall where the war was going to happen.
“We have no way around this, we need to start buying time.” I said.
“Filthy tree huggers! Surrender the Dungeon core you have acquired and ‘wish’ to plant!” A deep rough voice came from the undead horde.
A chill ran down everyone's spine as they heard this voice when suddenly a bright light shined out from the inside and slammed down onto the wall.
An armored blonde haired elf stood there with silver and green colored armor. “Filthy undead scum, you think you can simply come upon our land and take what you wish?!” the man roared. “Even if we have to destroy the core we will not hand it to you!”
“That’s the guildmaster!” “The guildmaster must be worried about losing another dungeon!” “At least we have a chance now!”
At once, many comments began to spread and at that time, the vice guild master and the army chief of the town appeared. With the other two at B rank in strength, they were very strong compared the other people around here.
“Let’s go down and prepare.” I said.
“You should stay up here.” Misaki said.
“I am a sword fighter as well.” I replied.
“One that doesn’t level up. Think about it before you do something stupid like super leveling, use your puppets and guide them from above where it is safer. Your living puppets are leagues above the strength of the common one don’t be an idiot and waste your life.” Misaki pointed at my face and turned around, “Charlotte-sama, Luna-san come on.” Misaki said and ran down. Taking out her armor from her back, she quickly assumed the armor of the samurai and summoned her artifact.
I frowned but nodded, I called out the Guardian, five warriors, five swordsmen and three armored beast puppets i had made and sent them to the gate before summoning the three acolyte and three archers before heading up to the wall.
The acolyte were like mage apprentice, they weren’t very powerful but as Low grade Mana Wood puppets, they were much higher quality but they lacked levels to accompany their power.
I looked at my skill and used one of the exp gems on Dungeon archive so that my puppets had extra space to evolve.
You have leveled up Dungeon Archive
Dungeon Archive:
Level 15: Exp 5,528/9600
This skill allows the caster to seal constructed parts of the dungeon within the Book of the Dungeon maker and make copies.
The archive is a separate dimensional space within the Book of the Dungeon Maker. For the Dungeon maker to seal the construction layout, you must place the Dungeon Maker Rune Pen I the structure and say 'Archive Corridor/Room/Trap/Material/Vegetation/Minion'
Can currently make layout for 18 dungeons
You can store only 16 different corridor layouts
You can store only 22 room types
You can store only 10 boss rooms
You can store only 26 different traps
You can store 20 types of minion.
You can store 50 common non medical plants and 35 common fruit bearing plants and crops, and 21 medical herbs
Repairs to dungeon reduced cost by 15%
Repairs/Recovery rate of Minions is 15% faster
Cost to cast runes decreased by 22%
Dungeon attracts monsters and demons from 6 km away
Dungeon can gather naturally from the air up to 15000 mana to run the dungeon and to attract monsters.
Dungeons can now support plant life if they are made of dirt or other organic materials.
Dungeon Layouts can now be connected inside the Book of the Dungeon Maker forming one dungeon out of many but can be disconnected in the similar fashion.
You can now Archive killed dungeons and analyze their structure to make them your own dungeons and make rooms and layouts of the same type.
Your dungeon can produce Spirit Gems naturally 1 gem per month
Runic Pen Option:
You can now access ‘Magic Circle Pen Mode’ and can return to ‘Runic Pen Mode’ by speaking either name.
Dungeon Archive cannot advance past level 15 unless you achieve unknown conditions
Not having time to mind about the condition that just popped up, i looked out at the undead, the verbal showdown had gone poorly, obviously, and at this time the Demon Lich roared for the undead to advance.
“Attack!” the guild master said and jumped to the front as his body glowed and his sword burst into a glowing ray of light that swung out and released the powerful burst.
The incoming horde was blasted and sent flying.
I stared in awe but quickly got my focus back as i took out the book and thought, ‘Minion control’ hoping for some kind of control method and thank god the book flipped to an empty page before forming the writing that i wanted. It showed all my minions and how i wanted to control but i filter it down to those that were summoned out.
I was only going to summon the Living dolls if things got serious, i am unsure of the power of the Living dolls at this time so i will use it as a trump card.
That said, this plan went down the drain in a very short moment as three elven mage unrestrainedly called out their own Living doll.
“Strike them with Holy Magic! Aim for that section with them most grouped up!” they ordered.
The puppets body shined and began to form a glowing ball and pointed her hands forward before it shot out all the way into the middle of the horde.
BOOM!
“YEAHH!!!” The elves and few other races present cheered when Living Dolls appeared in the battle force.
“Since i can’t be left behind…” I muttered and flipped to the minion page and pressed all of them. “All 8 Low grade and the two middle should all be repaired and with dresses.” I muttered.
Suddenly around me, ten large summoning circles appeared and the puppets appeared exquisite and beautiful women walked out with glittering hair. Eight of them had the same simple white one piece held by a choker at the neck but two of them were far different. The one my left was the doll that was recently captured. With Light pink hair and peach colored skin, her dress was a full on gothic lolita with a frilly hair band, her hair was silky and straight. Her dress was split into two pieces, a long sleeves silk upper piece with many white frills and a wide skirt while her feet had a simple pair of slippers and thigh high stocking with frills at the top. I saw because she came out with her dress waving around.
The other one was a green haired girl and her dress was similar to the other one but in green color and the fact that her hair band was actually in the shape of a small light green hat with ribbons and a ribbon flower that hunt towards the left.
“You have called us master?” They all said together and bowed.
Everyone was looking at me for calling out ten living dolls, all of which could talk. My face burned at the fact that i had not thought this through.
“Yes, can you all use Holy Magic?” I asked.
“We can master…” The pink doll said.
“Then attack the horde of undead with it.” I said.
“As you wish master.” They said together.
I look at the puppet Acolytes, “Work alongside them.”
The puppets move behind them and the dolls raised their hands.
BOOM!
An incredible sight appeared. In front of the ten dolls, mana began to spin and form a magic circle. Their dresses waved in the wind as mana was drawn into their bodies and runes began to appear all over before some began to form in front of their hands.
The puppets did the same but they could only supply mana because the magical ingenuity of Living dolls was leagues ahead.
Runes flew out and formed a complex magic circle.
“Wes come the soul, dark and light arise. Wes come the dark, light shall fall. Wes light come, darkness shall be purged. ‘Light Judgement’” the dolls recited together.
In the battlefield, not one person missed the chant that seemed to ring out across the land. The magic circle that was almost 5 meters across shined as a bright ball of light shot out and flew higher up into the air until it passed fifty meters.
BOOM!
At once, it burst and from it, a rain of light blasted from above. It was not a weak AOE spell either, if one lacked magical knowledge, they would not know but this spell was an attack type purification spell that requires what is called Choir chanting. In other words, it can only be cast when more than five powerful mage or sorcerers chanted in harmony.
For humans, without years of training, it is impossible to achieve but with their first time doing it, these dolls were able to perfectly synchronize their mana and magic to the low grade strength and cast the spell.
In one go, these shards of light slammed down into the middle of the horde. Roars from the pained screams of departed spirits could be heard as the persistent magic purified the land of darkness. Within the area of effect, the shards of light radiated a bright light that hurt the undead and weakened those uninjured.
In the back of the Horde, the Demon Lich hissed, “This is how you wish it to be, then this is how it shall be!” he roared.
The undead Drake roared as well and suddenly the ground shook.
A fear, almost primordial to man and beast, appeared. A desolate aura came and with the shaking of the earth, they finally saw it, a looming shadow in the distance, then another until ten were formed.
Standing over 10 meters tall, what was called the Giant race and was lead to extinction by all the races of the continent, rebirthed as giant skeletons and armored with thick armor, Undead Giants walked slowly but firmly.
“This shall be your day of reckoning!” The Demon Lich roared.
The already sentient undead roared along and rushed forward once more even through the aura filled spaces.
My face was solemn, “How long until you can prepare an even stronger spell?” I asked.
“Master, we cannot sustain too great a magical pressure, to do so would cause us to collapse.” replied the green doll.
“Can you, as a group, take down the giants?” I asked.
“With a single focused attack unlike before… we can make it collapse… but not kill.” the pink doll said.
I frowned and looked at the Demon Lich. It was the leader and thus the source of their power and control.
“Seems we will have to aim for their head.” I muttered.