Doyle rolls his core, ‘We can talk about it afterwards then. [System, resume the message].’
{12 points applied to Cows for Milk path...
2/12 - Cows within 10 kilometers of your dungeon territory start producing milk sooner and continue making milk longer, Cows born or created in territory gain +1 Constitution
4/12 - Cows within 10 kilometers of your dungeon territory produce more milk on average, Cows born or created in territory gain +1 Constitution
6/12 - Cows within your dungeon territory will produce higher quality milk, You have earned +5 Constitution and +1 Constitution/Level, Cows in your dungeon gain +5 Constitution and +2 Constitution/Level
8/12 - Cows within 10 kilometers of your dungeon territory more easily follow orders of those that own them, Sapient Cows within 10 kilometers of territory if treated well are more likely to make pacts with non-beast sapients, The milk of variant cows within 10 kilometers of your dungeon territory contain more of their energy
10/12 - Cows within 10 kilometers of your dungeon territory are more able to defend themselves and gain +2 Strength, You have earned +2 Strength
12/12 - Path complete, Cows in your dungeon always produce milk, Sapient cows within 10 kilometers of your dungeon territory gain +5 luck, Cows in your dungeon gain +5 Strength and +2 Strength/Level, You have earned +5 Strength and +1 Strength/Level
10 points applied to Vegetation Variety...
14/20 - Fungi based monsters now automatically change to match their surroundings
17/20 - Fungi and Plant based monsters gain +3 Constitution and +1 Constitution/Level and are more able to survive in extreme conditions
19/20 - Fungi and Plant based monsters are more likely to develop into variants
20/20 - Path complete, Fungi and Plants in your dungeon can absorb more energy and are more likely to develop special qualities, When there is energy to spare random fungi and plants will spawn in your dungeon that matches the place they appear, You have earned +3 Luck/Level
1 point applied to Divine Border...
1/1 - Path complete, +100 World Energy/Hour from filtering out divine energy and absorbing it, Attacks from divine beings will be absorbed by your dungeons dimensional boundary to a point, Divine beings and their influence within a kilometer of your territory will be reported, Divine beings without personal knowledge of your realm have a much harder time finding or scrying it, You have earned +1/Level to every stat
1 point applied to Dungeon Core III...
25/100 - Gold and silver patterns acquired at lv20, Copper pattern set to lv20, +10 to max floors, Monster level cap now goes up by two per a floor retroactively, You gain +10 to your highest stat (Karma) and +5 to your lowest stat (Presence), +10,000 world energy for creation of new floors}
After reading the rest of the notifications Doyle nods, ‘Welp, I’m glad I picked up divine border. Though honestly? It looks like those last two points I spent gave me more than the other thirty plus points. Like seriously? Plus 1 to every stat? Plus 10 to the highest and 5 more to the lowest? Those are crazy gains at this point. Besides that, why in the world would the system just give me world energy towards making new floors?’
Ally nods, ‘It seems a little exaggerated right now but ten k isn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things. If you hadn’t gathered any till now, this would be enough to get your fourth floor. That isn’t even enough for your first boss floor. And once again, those stats increases look impressive right now, but I would only call it a good jumpstart. If anything, all your plus per a level stuff will outweigh those numbers easily enough.’
‘Honestly, I’m more excited for the capstone on veggie variety. It might not sound too interesting that random stuff will spawn. After all, who cares if you get a specialized variety of grass, right? Wrong! It wasn’t specific. Instead, the ability will just spawn in stuff that matches the terrain. Now tell me what you would get if it decides to spawn something in the middle of a lava pool? Even if it is a normal plant, that is going to be something amazing. Though some would debate the use of the term normal at that point. Extremophiles tend to stretch definitions.’
Doyle laughs, ‘I can definitely see that being powerful in the future. For now though, I’m excited about potion dispensary and the milk path. I know, plus ten in the long run isn’t all that much. However, the ability to spike a caster’s intelligence on the low floors seems amazing. And those boosts to potion loot? Now there is half a chance some of my fancy new potions will actually be seen.’
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
‘Like, seriously, I’ve had two loot drops and one of them wasn’t even my own loot drop? Sure, a lot of money is dropping, but a potion or two would at least help them with staying power. They don’t have enough healers to stay in for too long.’
Ally shrugs, ‘Meh, the loot drop thing will improve with more people diving. That and once they start throwing their trash into the dungeon. Though if they just dump it on the first floor, it won’t help too much beyond that. Some energy will work its way to deeper floors but not that much.’
Doyle shakes his core, ‘Yes, I know it is a matter of having more people diving in.’ And he pulls up a window showing the area around the settlement, ‘Now point to where all these adventurers we need are!’
Ally shrugs again, ‘Going with how the system places people there should be at least three other settlements around who’s population will be equal to or greater than the population of the original population of both the old towns. The only reason people haven’t found us yet is because no one is looking too hard. Just consider the wolves that attacked. The settlement beat them only because they did a suicidal charge towards your entrance. Now consider how well a small scouting group out in the woods would do against them!’
‘Besides that, everyone seems to have forgotten a key thing. We already know about a nearby settlement or something similar. Just up that river over there is someplace that can be traded with. Whoever is there probably doesn’t even know what went on here at all. After all, if you are some kind of thug, would you tell the neighbors about it? Those few mooks who escaped up that way should have lied about some kind of disaster happening here and are either hiding out or moved on. That place should be sending someone to check on what has happened here within the month, sooner if the mooks left.’
Doyle sighs, ‘You don’t seem to be all that worried. Right now my third floor is keeping the people in check, but they will figure it out soon enough. Besides that, the third floor is providing them with material to improve their equipment situation.’
Ally nods, ‘True enough. The ore will allow them to advance not only their gear but the skills related to said gear. Kind of hard to improve an armor skill if you aren’t wearing proper armor and what not. Though we don’t have to rush. It is just a fact of life that dungeons are slower to develop. At the moment we are speeding along, but that is because of how small we are right now.’
‘Don’t forget that we are immortal. As long as we survive the first thousand years or so, our lifespan will be measured in how many universes we’ve outlived. In the normal swing of things a dungeon will get about a hundred floors within the first thousand years and we already have three going on five! Sure the early floors come quickly but still.’
Doyle dims, ‘I thought being an immortal was special?’
Ally sighs, ‘Being a True Immortal is special. What we are is the mortal definition of immortal. The whole not dying from natural causes thing. Unless something kills us, we won’t die. Beyond that, you’re a dungeon core. That means being immune to some easier deaths like from disease or starvation.’
Doyle nods, ‘So immortal like vampire immortal. Though I thought that level of being immortal discounted things like disease and starvation? I don’t know how it works in the rest of the universe, but our stories have beings like that being able to survive that kind of stuff.’
Ally rolls her eyes, ‘That has more to do with the fact that creatures that are naturally immortal will have those addons. In fact, most beings can become immortal and it isn’t all that hard. Just get enough levels under your belt and find some path or outside influence to preserve your life for you.’
‘While some snobbier immortals will sneer at someone for it, being immortal through an outside power is about the easiest path. Heads of planet wide religions and other similar types of people will generally be immortal as long as they hold that position. Of course, just being immortal won’t let a person survive when the dimension they are in dies. Not even you break this rule. It is just that your dungeon is the universe you are in, and it will live as long as you do. All the dungeon types that put you in your own little pocket dimension share this trait.’
Doyle laughs at this, ‘Well that’s just cheating! Good thing I get to take advantage of it. Though I guess this explains why you aren’t too rushed. Still, I don’t want to take chances. If this is my period of growth, I want to take full advantage of it.’
Ally shakes her head, ‘It isn’t so much a period of growth as it is there being less of you to grow. It is a lot easier to go from one to two than it is to go from ten to twenty. In fact, you will experience more growth in the future because more people will be around. It just won’t matter as much once you have ten or so floors.’
‘Though since you are on track to get your first boss floor soon, I can’t wait to see what nonsense you get for it. I assume with what you’ve done until now it will give you a choice between a kobold boss or a goat boss.’
Doyle dims, ‘Don’t I get to make my own choice on what becomes my boss monster?’
Ally shrugs, ‘Yes, but no. As per the tutorial box that just popped up, you can make whatever choice you want. However, after you make the choice, the system will sanity check you on the first boss monster. That means you can very well go and choose to make a rabbit your boss monster, but the system will veto it. Though don’t think this is purely to make sure you don’t have an underpowered boss. The system will also veto any overpowered boss option.’
‘This is only for the first floor though and from reading between the lines, this seems to be because the first boss is where most unaware dungeons mess up. Because by the fifth floor most dungeons don’t even have half the variety you do, their options are limited. Maybe an undead wandered in at some point and so when the dungeon chooses a random monster as the boss, it lands on that undead. Now there is an undead dungeon that doesn’t know how to keep its head down.’
‘Anyway, you just got a lot of new stuff and the ability to make some more floors. From what I can see outside, no one else is coming in for a deep dive, so how about you change up whatever needs changing now?’
Doyle nods, ‘I do want to make some changes on the existing floors and the fourth floor isn’t going to make itself.’