It had been a week since we were summoned, and I had finally understood what made the hero group exceptional over common folk and why Altgar had the custom of summoning them instead of dealing with their own problems. Take a look.
Status:
Name:
Ace Cross
Class:
Dungeon Maker
Level:
1
Health:
780
Mana:
800
Strength:
75
Intelligence:
75
Agility:
52
Wisdom:
85
Endurance:
92
Vitality:
64
Skills
Dungeon Archive
Level 1
This skill allows the caster to seal constructed parts of the dungeon within the Book of the Dungeon Maker and make copies.
Can currently make layouts for 3 dungeons.
You can store only 5 different corridor layouts.
You can store only 2 room types.
You can Store only 5 different traps.
Magic Hole Formation
Level 1
This skill allows the caster to open a magic hole into a separate dimension where the constructed dungeon exists, it allows monsters in and out openly. The magic hole draws mana from the air making the dungeon more comfortable. Eventually, if seeds are planted or brought in by the dungeon targets, it can make natural drops like magic plants.
Can currently make 1 small magic hole.
Crafter
Level 4
This skill allows you to learn all craft skills for the purpose of making a dungeon.
This skill level will grow with the overall skill of all crafts learned.
Current crafts learned:
Blacksmith Level 6
Carpenter Level 5
Short Sword Mastery
Level 4
Your master with the short sword.
Increases damage by 4%.
Short Sword Arts
Level 3
Arts that only masters of the short sword can learn.
Level 1: Double Slash
Runic Writing/Language
Level 5
This Skill corresponds to the level of comprehension towards the Runic Language and how many runes you have learned and can use properly.
Current runes known: 40
Can be found in runic dictionary within the Book of the Dungeon Maker.
Decrease mana consumption when using Runes by 3%.
Increase magic control when using Runes by 3%.
Mana Manipulation
Level 1
A skill that shows your ability in controlling Mana and using magic.
Decreases mana consumption by 1%.
Increases control of magic by 1%.
Meditation
Level 1
Meditation is the art of calming one's mind and controlling the flow of energy in one's body. When used properly it allows you to gather mana from the air at a faster pace and counter the effects of mana exhaustion.
Increases rate of mana recovery by 1%.
Rune Index
Elements
Shapes
Unique
Directions
Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Light, Dark, Ice, Lightning, Sand, Iron, Mana, Wood
Ball, Spike, Shards, Pillar, Chain, Sword, Spear, Lance
Enchant, Harden, Accelerate, Shrink, Explode, Trapping, Lengthen, Shorten, Widen
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Forward, Upwards, Curving Left, Curving Right, Backwards
Weak effects
Action
Slow Healing, Slow Poison, Weak Antidote
Lunge, Spin, Revolve,
My stats had risen by a shocking degree, I was told that we had different growth rates for leveling, but we would get between 1-6 stats in all stats for each level. It all depended on each class, but training stats still improved our strength and we were only training stats.
I had expanded my magic repertoire making me quite strong and being beaten by Misaki had made my body rather durable.
I learned carpentry as well, it was rather easy after the first day and I leveled rather quickly. With the help of the two masters, I was even able to start planning how I should build the layouts and ways to keep them from collapsing.
That said, we had all been gathered in one of the war rooms for some kind of meeting.
The room was wide and at the center was a large round table with a 3D carved map of the land. I could only see a single glowing pillar over one point.
The table was almost 4 meters in diameter and had plenty of space for everyone to be spread around the table while giving the royal family members space to remain near and gather everyone’s attention on them.
Before going, we were given different kinds of armor and I got some riveted leather armor with padding on the inside so it was rather comfortable. Misaki also got leather armor, but she had hers look a tad bit more like a samurai while having leather armor that looked like her shrine maiden outfit.
“Now then, thank you all for joining us so quickly. As regretful as it is, we would have preferred to allow you all to train more before this happened,” the queen said.
“What happened Your Highness?” pretty boy asked.
The queen suddenly shut her fan, did a small tap on the table and a line began to stretch around a specific area circling it. The rest of the map vanished before the space stretched like a zoom.
“Wow…” I muttered.
The area became more detailed and I saw that the light was falling on a city.
“This table is an artifact left behind by a hero. Using his knowledge from his world plus our own magic he created this. The function is to allow heroes, who possess blessings from the gods, to teleport quickly to places in danger, naturally other people can use it as well. At the start you can only see a single ray of light which is where we currently are, this room. Whenever danger arises within the nation this table displays it,” she said tapping the table again causing several balls of mana to gather and turn into moving stone monsters.
One was a huge almost gorilla like monster with two huge tusks jutting out its lower jaw. Another was several small wolf statues and next to it were short scrawny men with swords dressed either in rags or different types of armor. Some statues had the little men on the wolves.
Another looked like a fat cyclops, while others looked like the little men only they were naked and held three tipped tridents and had bat wings on their back.
They all came from the same direction.
“Each piece or pieces shows different demon tribes that are moving through our nation. The area in black where they passed is where they have already caused damage or passed through,” the king said clutching his fist and grinding his teeth.
“So we are being dispatched?” the longsword guy asked.
“Precisely. We have determined several tribes that are moving toward key cities that need to be stopped. These towns all possess a stone platform that allows you to teleport, but unless you drop your blood inside it won’t activate,” the queen said.
“How do you expect us to reach those towns before they are attacked?” someone asked.
At that exact moment several lights fluctuated on the table.
“We had our spies use sleeping drugs and extract blood from all of you and run to all the sites that are known,” she said.
Everyone frowned at this but considering she was thinking about her nation it was obvious they would take measures to do such things even if we got pissed off.
“We are sorry for what we did, but we needed it urgently so it was done on the day you were summoned while you were still unconscious. Sleeping drugs were administered to lengthen the time you stayed asleep so we could ensure we got the blood,” she explained.
“Enough about that. There are seven parties between us all, considering the number of tribes each party will go to one location?” I asked.
The king frowned hearing me talk, but the queen didn’t even blink.
“Exactly. Obviously, we have our own armies there, but each party’s specialization was taken into account so we know which party is best to fight which tribe,” she replied.
“Understood,” I said.
“Any more questions?” she asked.
No one asked, and after a moment she nodded.
“Okay, now starting with our hero Richard, your party shall help lead the offensive on this one. This is a tribe of ogres, they number around 200, and you will be leading our elites. Ogres are powerhouses and use brute strength and are from two to three meters tall. Their leader is a low ranking demon commander and a unique variant of ogres called a red ogre. He will be hard to fight, but the 500 elites will be there to help,” the king said.
“So pretty boy’s name was Richard, could have sworn it would be something like Azriel or Michel after some archangel or something,” I thought.
“Sir Nickelous will lead his group against this group,” the queen said looking toward the sword guy. She pointed toward the small imps with tridents. “These are imps, and the lowest class devil race. They are about two times stronger than a common male human, but they move in swarms from a few hundred to a few thousand. Their leader is a lesser devil,” she said. In between the group of imp pieces, a larger human sized one appeared, but it was still scrawny, though he wore something that looked like bone armor.
“This lesser demon is cunning and a coward, but he is at least at a commander's strength level, his stats should be no more than 100 in any stat,” she said.
“Understood, it will make a good first blood for my blade!” he said, and a fierce light flashed past his eye.
“Now, Sir Ace, you shall fight this group, it consists of the low ranking demon tribe of goblins. This particular tribe is called the Dire Wolf Tribe due to their skill at taming the wolf that follows them. They use them as mounts and specialize in hit and run tactics, but they number in the upper hundreds which is why we are sending you there,” the king said.
“So set a trap for them? I can do that, I have already read up on basic dungeon traps, and just need to build the layouts now,” I said.
The other parties were given the other weaker groups.
“Good. Now then, there is a two-week period before any of these groups reach the towns. You will need to go to, so you will have that amount of time to train, and kill them or push them back,” the queen said.
“How do we get there exactly?” I asked.
“Just touch the light. It will teleport each of you to the place you touch. If you wish to return here, you must put mana into the platform, but it needs to be charged with a lot of mana for the teleportation spell so as soon as you get there, you should already start charging it or you want be able to return so soon,” the queen said.
“Understood,” I said.
“Good, so Mr. Richard, please touch this one.” She pointed to one light near the center close to the first one.
He moved around the table until he was closer to it and touched the location of the light. The next moment his body was covered in light before he broke into particles of light and was absorbed.
“Now can his party please follow,” the queen said.
The few that were in his group made a worried expression, but touched the location one by one.
When they were finally gone, the queen looked at me.
“Mr. Ace, this is the location you shall go to. It isn’t as large a town, but it should offer a good location for you as the area is rocky limiting their movement. It will be easy to set up traps,” she said.
I nodded and looked at Misaki who nodded.
I walked over and touched the light. A large suction force held me in place as mana covered my body before a light blinded me.
After a moment of feeling as if I was being tossed around, my vision cleared up.
What appeared, was a forest filled mountainous zone. I stood on a huge stone with a five meter wide plateau that had a circle loaded with runes on the top and seven pillars also covered with them.
It began to glow as light particles appeared and gathered before forming Misaki.
Right in front of us was a stairway down into a road. Down the road we could see a stone wall about seven meters tall.
“So, this is where we will be staying for the next few weeks,” she said.
“It's a good location for sure, the demon tribes will definitely not have an easy time around here,” I said.
“Hey, do you believe that the demons started to war or was it the other races?” Misaki asked.
“Don’t know, could be either, if the war is really over 1000 years old, then that knowledge would already be lost unless someone used magic to leave a recording or something,” I replied.
“Guess so,” Misaki said.
“Let's head to the town and get working, I need to start building the traps and building a decent enough dungeon to kill a large number,” I said.
“Sure,” she replied and we went down the teleporting stone to head to the town.
“Halt! Who goes there?” a voice called from the walls.
“My name is Ace Cross, we came from the capital on order from the queen. We are part of the summoned heroes that came to aid in getting rid of the advancing demons heading this way,” I said.
“Oh! Come right in sir hero!” the man said and turned. “OPEN QUICK!” he shouted.
Soon, the iron gates slowly rose and we were able to cross through before it closed. We found a humble town with the main roads paved with gravel and some stone houses with the rest being log cabins.
“Great heroes, it is good you came, we have been encountering numerous scout parties of the Dire Wolf Tribe,” an older guard said.
“We know. The main force is around two weeks from here,” I said and kept looking around a bit before looking at the man in question. He was dressed in plate armor.
“I need the help of all the carpenters and blacksmiths, can you call them and if possible is there a place we can spend our time?” I asked.
“Yes, since we had heard the heroes were summoned to every village, town, and city, we built a house for the heroes to stay. I shall lead you there while my men call the men you requested,” he said.
We followed him to one of the few two story houses and entered. It was furnished with pelts on the ground and filled with all kinds of pots and pans for us to use, and the furniture was all wooden.
“The carpentry work here is rather high class,” I said.
“Yes, we have a large supply of wood. And with that, a number of our youths work as carpenters. Our merchants sell the goods in the bigger cities and even the capital,” he said.
“Good, I will be needing good carpenters more than blacksmiths so this works for me,” I said.
“What exactly do you need them for?” he asked.
“My class isn’t hero, it is dungeon maker. I make dungeons to kill monsters and not spawn them. This is why I was sent here because the tribe in question is large of number, so I must thin them down before they reach the walls so that the dispatched men coming this way will be able to handle them easily,” I said.
His face showed shock, but he nodded smiling.
“Yes. Yes. This will help greatly, having such hero killing a large number of demons. We will support you as best as possible,” he said.
“Good, now where are the men?” I asked.
Knock! Knock!
Hearing the knocks, the guard captain opened and with a young guardsman walked in a strong man with lots of soot from a furnace and a hammer at his side. Oh right, I forgot to mention he was one meter tall with a large beard. Yep, a dwarf through and through. Next to him was a middle aged man wearing leather clothes and an apron with lots of tools on his tool belt and in the pockets of his apron.
“Sir, I brought the head smith and carpenter,” the young guard said.
“Good, you are dismissed,” the captain said.
“Oi Gerald, why ya call us ta this place?” the dwarf asked.
“This is Ace Cross, he is part of the summoned heroes group and he was assigned here to help deal with the Dire Wolf Tribe heading this way,” the captain said.
The dwarf looked at me and scoffed.
“Looks a bit squishy to me,” the dwarf said.
“I wonder, is that a blacksmith saying because my smith master, Grunt Drift, said the same thing,” I said.
“Oh, you know old Grunt,” the dwarf said. “So what ya need Greenhorn?”
“Don’t mind him, he is like this, but he means well,” the carpenter said.
“I prefer it like this, I hate people that like to butter up others since it’s too fake. As for what I need, I need help building the layout and traps I need to use in my dungeon.” I said pulling out blueprints on parchment and spreading it for them to see. “This is a straight section of corridor. This is an L turn. I need one for left and right. A T section, and finally an X section. Then, I need a single dead end room and a corner room. As for traps I need a floor spike trap, pressure plates that launch the targets toward other traps. Another one is like this, a wall trap that rises and a wall trap that closes both sides of the corridor crushing whoever is inside, and one for the rooms to lower the ceiling on them,” I said.
Everyone just looked at me as if I was speaking gibberish.
Then the dwarf walked up and began to look through everything.
He then split the pile in to traps, rooms, and corridors.
“Johnson, get yer men to do the rooms an corridors while I get my boys to make the parts fer the traps. Brat, yer gonna need to help construct these though, we will probably only be able to make the parts for these,” the dwarf said.
“I expected as much. At least we have two weeks to make these and set up the dungeon so even if we have time, we don’t. If it takes too much resource you can talk with the royal family or if you want, when we survive this, the prey caught in the traps in the dungeon I will give you equal compensation for the work in loot gathered,” I said.
The dwarf’s eyes shone hearing that.
“Hehe, yer a rather reasonable fellow. Last time I met a hero some 80 years ago, he was some stuck-up prick,” the dwarf said and walked over and stuck his hand out. “Glad ta work with ya kid.”
I grabbed it and shook.
“Likewise,” I said and looked up. “Now let's get to work,” I said.
“What can I do?” Misaki asked.
“You’re quick on your feet so why not scout the region with some of the hunters and learn the lay of the land. I have plans for traps that we can put in the woods for both hunting and catching any scouts they have,” I said.
She nodded.
“Come on miss, I will call some men for you to take out and show you the land,” the captain said and left with Misaki while I left with the two craftsmen.