I looked around my cave, as the other creatures went back to their daily existence. I hadn’t realized it, but even though they weren’t actively fighting, the other creatures had all been ready to jump in if needed. I think they knew they wouldn’t be much help and I was grateful they weren’t just throwing their lives away to fight for me. But that just meant I needed to prepare.
This skink seemed to find my cave entrance by accident, and was luckily weak. I say weak like my monsters could take it head on, but it had been missing its tail when it arrived. If it had its tail, the swing on my mouse may not have missed. Not only that, its description literally said it detached it to use like an ice bomb. If it could have hit either one of my bats, or popped it on my centipede, I would be nothing but dust between its teeth by now.
Not only did I need to look into making a few more creatures, but I needed to expand. I still hadn’t placed a Mana Pool like an idiot, and my Core was just in the middle of the room. I was literally a small glowing ball in a relatively dark cave in perfect view of the entrance.
Name
Mythos
Species
Dungeon Core
Level
4
Sub species
Pearlescent
Life
3/3
Life Regen
.6 per min
Mana
28/28
Mana Regen
5.5 per min
Strength
n\a
Intelligence
22
Constitution
6
Will
33
Dexterity
n\a
Luck
6
Monsters
4
Rooms
1
Ability Points: 9
It seemed killing the skink had also boosted my level, once again showing me that my best bet for experience was to kill those that came in. I worried a little for my future, as I didn’t want to become a murder core, but maybe I would get access to other experience income later.
Either way I also noticed I didn’t get as much Intelligence or Will this time. The past 2 levels I had gotten 3 and 4 respectively, but this time only 2 and 3. I did get another Constitution point, but it only affected my Life regen. And finally I got a point in Luck for the first time. I had tried putting some of my ability points into Luck before, but wasn’t able to. Maybe by surviving this encounter, that I probably should have lost, gave me the point. Even if that was the case, I had no plans to put myself into that kind of danger in the future.
I decided to drop 6 points, split between Will and Intelligence, to boost my Mana. Now I was sitting at 31 Mana due to round up, and a nice 6.1 Mana regen per minute. With this I had 3 ability points left, if I needed it later. I was still a decent amount shy for the max Mana pool of 3x3, needing 45 Mana for it, but a 2x2 was more than doable. But first I wanted to add another room, not quite ready to dig down into the earth for another level. Just thinking about it actually brought up the feeling that I wasn’t able to go down at this point even if I wanted to. For some reason, since I hadn’t dug down when I first awoke, I now needed to meet some kind of qualifications to go deeper.
Either way I wanted to make at least 4 more rooms, leaving me with 5 total rooms for this level. If I needed more to meet qualifications, I would worry about that when I get there. I wasn’t planning on making them linear, instead I wanted it to feel somewhat natural and unnatural at the same time. What I planned for was 5 separate caves, all connected by at least one point or more. With this first room being the connection to the outside, I planned 2 rooms coming off of this. One would be on the middle of the eastern wall, the other to the south. This eastern room was to be a middle centerpiece, with two more rooms connecting by its far wall. One to the northeast, as long as I didn’t break out into the open world, and one to southeast. I also planned to connect the southern room to the southeast room through its own hallway. And if feasible the last connection would be a sort of hallway from the far southeast to the northeast, with a side exit to the middle room.
Though they would be connected by short hallways, overall I wanted it to feel like an open cave network. I wasn’t sure where I would put my core in all this, but for now I just wanted the rooms. I was thinking of putting the Mana Pool in the far southeastern corner room, so that it didn’t draw unwanted attention. Hopefully I didn’t have to have my core in the same room to use it, as I felt that would could be used as a distraction of sorts.
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First things first was starting to carve out the hallways and caves. I decided to work on the center one, off my eastern wall first, so that if I ran into anything I could make changes as necessary. First I used my Mana Integration and Mana Control to carve away where I was already soaked in, before pushing deeper. I made it about 2 feet wide, and only 5 feet tall. This was going to be my entrance to the next cave. I only planned for it to be 2 feet deep, as if this part of the wall had just been thin enough to open to the next cave. As I did that I could feel a pull on my current room. It seemed it wasn’t quite sure what to make of this hole just yet, and the dungeon core magic was confused. I guess most dungeons make all their rooms with just magic, not fully carving things out.
I decided to keep going this route, only because the message had said the costs and effects of the dungeon magic were based on several factors. The first 2 factors, Will and Intelligence, are what caused the room to generate a more natural look. While carving the area beforehand allowed it to possibly become bigger than the original plan. Knowing this, I hoped to only have to carve out a general outline of the rooms and use my 2 stats for the rest. As I continued I tried to see what was happening to the stone I was carving out. It wasn’t disappearing, but instead I could feel it going into something that was connected to me. Looking into the connection I found what felt like a subspace that all the extra stone and such was going.
Thankfully my dungeon instincts came to the rescue, informing me that this space was only for materials carved and was what was used when forming the room’s extras. This is why I had the extra stalagmites and stalactites in my first room, as well as extra copper vein nodes. It seems that even though I wasn’t mining them, I was getting small amounts of copper by just having the veins. The veins were acting like a static node in some video games, where as long as I had them, I was passively collecting it into my subspace. This meant I already had a small supply ready for when I wanted to use it later on. As of right now I had nothing to use it on, but maybe once I finally placed the Mana Pool.
Looking at the rate I was carving I realized it was probably going to take about a day and a half per room. Even If I specifically aimed for the room I was planning on putting the pool, waiting almost a week didn’t seem like a good idea. With that I decided it would be best to just make a Mana Pool here. Hopefully I could move it, otherwise I would just destroy it and rebuild it elsewhere. In fact if it was like the copper nodes, just having it would help collect passive Mana in a liquid form. Looking at my subspace showed that not only the copper and stone, but plant like matter was there as well. I wasn’t too sure what I was supposed to do with this, but maybe I could infuse it into the rooms design for better growth. Or better yet, infuse it into my Formless template for plant monsters or a Nature affinity.
Either way I stopped carving so that I could gather my Mana. Using Mana Vortex helped speed it along, actually boosting my regen by a full point. In less than 2 minutes I was full again. At my max of 31 Mana, I had one point more than what was needed for a 2x3x1. Focusing on the ground below my Core I pulled up the Mana Pool template and pushed 30 Mana into it. Immediately I felt a massive pull on my Core as 99 percent of my Mana just disappeared. It didn’t hurt, but I could feel the strain. Below me, sitting at a foot high, the Mana Pool was much like a box with an open top. Made out of a white marble like stone, it caused the area around it to glow brightly enough to light up almost half the cave. The sudden fear that this light could be seen outside came and I almost destroyed it immediately.
Instead I decided to wait it out and see just how much it could help. Luckily having my Mana so low didn’t cause any adverse effects, such as passing out or weakness. With the fact that my regen rate was so high, it meant I would be full in only around 5 minutes. Once I filled my own Mana, immediately I felt Mana gather at the bottom of the pools base. A nearly clear liquid began to form, filling the base of the pool slowly. I focused in and felt that it was filling at half of my regen rate. Scanning it, I could feel just how much Mana was in the pool at any given moment. Waiting for a minute I realized that it was a little over 2 points of Mana gathered.
I left it for 5 more minutes, watching as it reached the halfway point. It would seem that the Mana Pool held the same amount of Mana that was used for its creation. That meant that when it filled completely, I would have effectively doubled my Mana currently. Of course it was limited to the max size of 3x3x1. It seemed that at the current level of Mana pool could only be a foot in height, but upgrades could possibly change that. I was also limited to one Mana Pool. That meant that I couldn’t use this pool to make a bigger one, as I couldn’t even pull up the template for it, while this one existed. I wasn’t happy about the light it was making, but for now it was worth it for the extra Mana.
Even though I had made it to collect Mana as extra storage I could feel that I wasn’t allowed to use it for my Formless Template skill. That meant I wasn’t about to create a monster far beyond my current level unfortunately, but I could see why I was restricted. My bat was rated as Average – Uncommon and had cost 24 Mana technically before discounts. I could only imagine what I could make with 61 Mana. The Mana core was what helped the challenge rating, and the bats core had cost 6 Mana. Focusing in on the costs, I could tell a Tough level Mana core cost 24, while the Hard core cost 120. A Weak core only cost 1 Mana and Basic 2, so it seemed that each level multiplied by its ranking number. That meant the final ranking of unsurpassable needed over 360,000 Mana for it.
That definitely fit the ranking, as I couldn’t even imagine having that much Mana. Even if I got 4 points of Will and Intelligence per level I would still need to be at level 90,720 to match it. Even dumping the 5 extra ability points per level meant I would have to be somewhere around 55,827 levels. It had taken killing a nest of mice, a small passive experience income, and an Ice skink to reach level 4. I felt like I would need to be killing God-like beings for that kind of level gain. Just thinking about the math to calculate the experience needed per level gave me a headache.
Going back though, with just this Mana Pool, if I was able to use it with my Formless skill I would be able to create a Tough ranked creature. Plus still have 37 Mana to play with. The upgrades for my bat were only 2-4 Mana each, and even if I doubled those numbers for each upgrade, I could get 5 decent upgrades. My bats had 4 upgrades themselves; their echolocation, wing talons, size, and enhanced legs. Making and modifying the base had been the most expensive part, costing 12 Mana.
But none of that mattered since I couldn’t use the Mana Pool. Daydreaming was nice and all but it was time to work. The Mana pool meant that I was able to push more Mana into carving, effectively doubling the rate at which I was making the rooms. That meant instead of 36 hours to build one cave, it would only take about 18. I burned through my Mana, using the Mana Vortex to help boost my regen rate, and got to work.
Luckily I didn’t have to focus too hard on the work and kept an eye on the entrance. I also took a peak at my monsters, noticing that my centipede was curled up in its nest still. I had noticed after the last battle it had maxed its levels, but for some reason, it wouldn’t let me pick an evolution. I guess it had reached level 5 before eating the core and becoming my monster, so I didn’t get the chance to choose. It felt off, since it had been created by the Ecosystem Skill, but that’s just how it worked I guess. My mouse was sitting on the edge, with 4 out of 5 levels, while I hadn’t actually checked the bats.
Name
No name (female)
Species
Foxen Bat
Level
5/10
Family
Bat
Life Points(LP)
14/14
Mana
15/15
Skills
Echolocation, Ringing Blast, Enhanced strength
Name
No name (male)
Species
Foxen Bat
Level
4/10
Family
Bat
Life Points(LP)
13/13
Mana
12/12
Skills
Echolocation, Ringing Blast, Enhanced strength
It seemed the female’s Mana had surpassed her health, while the male’s was still slightly behind. I guess they got more towards the Mana stats then the Life stats per level. They also hadn’t gained any new skills, which while slightly disappointing, not to unsurprising. Unless they started using their Mana for new abilities I doubt they were just going to get skills with level milestones. They had been using their enhanced strength on their talons to cut into the skink, but I guess that wasn’t enough. Maybe I could encourage them to try using the Mana for more sound based attacks or something.
For now all I had left to do was work and wait. I planned to make some traps as well, but I wanted to carve these rooms out. I also still needed to make a few more creatures, but I wasn’t sure what to go with. I was going to stick with the cave theme, but I wanted a creature that could hold its ground, being the tank as the bats did hit and runs. My centipede could also fill that tank role, but it felt better suited for just straight attack like a vanguard, seeing how it used its speed and venom to inflict pain.
Well these were things to think on, while I could only hope my luck held out just a bit longer for me to get ready.