Doyle turns away from Ally and focuses on his core. It is once again time to form another floor. He reaches deep into his core, down to that single point of darkness. Around him is a sea of power, however unlike the previous two times there is a sea beyond the sea. Doyle takes his time to examine this before realization hits him.
That sea beyond the sea is the extra power. The overflow of world energy beyond what his current floor needed. Doyle shifts his point of view to look closer at the separation between the two pools of power. At the dividing line he finds a net of power, loosely woven of crystalline world energy. Though while he can tell what it is, the construction of the net is beyond him.
Doyle stares at the net for a few moments more before moving on. While such a device would be useful, he fears that if he touches it, the net would disintegrate. Not without reason either. Even just observing the net has caused it to wobble. ‘Meh, something to work for in the future.’
He turns away from the net and proceeds with the usual steps of forming a new floor. From within the infinite void Doyle pushes outwards until the void can be pushed no further. Then the sea of power connected to the void contracts, crystallizing as it goes and taking the core room with it. At the smallest point, the liquid crystal and the void join in an explosion of potential, forcing the infinite to become finite. That final seed of the infinite once again retreating to the deepest point of his core, waiting for the next floor.
{Fourth floor dimensionally anchored
World Energy cap +2900 [Constitution(29) * 100]
Fourth floor spending limit set to 6900 [Previous floor’s limit(4200) + Intelligence(27) * 100]
Random elemental monster upgrade purchasable for 2000we
Monster level cap updated
Quintessence debt paid back by 5}
Doyle looks at the system message and quirks his core to the side at the last bit. ‘[System, show me the miscellaneous info from my sheet].’
{Max 20 floors
5000/5000 world energy till floor 5
Monster Level Cap: 10 [Level(2) + Floors(4)*2 + Path Modifiers(0)]
Quintessence Debt: 88.61}
‘Huh, looks like creating a new floor is my best bet at paying back the debt with any decent speed. Without the floor, I think I’ve paid back less than half a percent of a point. Though I guess that isn’t doing too bad from what I remember of my quintessence regen rate.’
Doyle turns his attention to Ally and notices she is in the middle of reading some web novel or another he remembers reading at one point. As it isn’t anything too important, he coughs to gain her attention.
Ally looks up with an eyebrow raised, ‘Really? A cough? We talk mind to mind.’
Doyle bobbles, ‘It got your attention, didn’t it? Anyway, the floor formed and for some reason doing so paid back five of the quintessence debt. Also, instead of a random monster pack, the system gave me an option for a random elemental monster upgrade. Any clue what is up?’
Ally shrugs, ‘The elemental thing comes from the path you just got. I wouldn’t rely on an option like this coming up the next time though, so I would advise you take it. While the upgrade says random, my bet is you will get a goat upgrade. Though you can try to query what the system means by random.’
‘As for paying back some of the debt? That is odd. If I had to guess, dungeons put off some quintessence when forming a new floor. Though this might be specific to dungeons that form their own dimension, for you it doesn’t particularly matter. All I know is you aren’t getting the full amount paid off for what the system gathered. Could be the system rounding down to a whole number or the system might even count only half of what it gathered. We will know for certain if the next floor you make pays back the same amount.’
Doyle nods, ‘That would make sense. I bet if we didn’t know about the debt, the system wouldn’t even pay part of it off. Can’t be cheap to run the system work. Anyway, [System, show me and Ally what you mean by random upgrade.]’
{Random elemental monster upgrade purchasable for 2000we
Random: A monster type is chosen at random from a list of monsters in the dungeon, and a random possible elemental variant is chosen.
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
List: Created when the option for the upgrade was received. The list has every spawned monster on it. However, if the system has detected purposeful manipulation of the dungeons spawned monsters. This includes such things as removing all but one type of monster. The system will take measures to remove the manipulation. This can include but is not limited to going back and choosing a list of monsters from before the manipulation happened and removing types of monster from the list.}
Doyle laughs, ‘Huh, I guess you were right, Ally. Most likely going to be a goat that gets the upgrade. Still, random is random, so let’s give it a spin. [System, I will purchase the upgrade.]’
{Choosing randomly from 184 monsters...
54th monster in Dungeon chosen...
The chosen monster is the first goat on the second floor under the command of a kobold goatherd
Selecting from possible elemental variants...
Grassen Goat variant chosen}
{Grassen Goat (lv3)
S[10] A[3] C[30] I[2] W[2] P[6]
Skills: Camouflage(grass) lv20, Charge lv3, Photosynthesis lv3, Rooted lv1
Cost: World Energy[25]
Description: An ancestor of this goat at some point ate a powerful herbal grass that refused to die and instead grew into it. The ancestor however was strong enough to not die from the invasion. Instead, they formed a symbiotic relationship that developed to the point that its offspring were infested with a lessened form of the herb. With time, the grassen goat variety formed. Though the power inherited from the two ancestors has lessened to where this variety is simply a goat with grass instead of hair.
Ecology: Water, Sunlight}
{Water pattern goes from lv1 to lv 4
Dungeon Lights upgraded to allow for more natural light output}
Doyle looks over the new variant and shakes his core, ‘I don’t know what I am going to do with this. This variant looks almost like a joke, especially since the cost is so much more than a normal goat does. Besides that, I need to ask. What is up with my lights? At first it made some sense that I would get a type and be forced somewhat to stick to it for a while. Now though, I have patterns for everything, including air and water. Why don’t I have a pattern for lights?’
Ally waves his questions away for the moment as she inspects the new goat type. With great interest she observes the description and mulls it over for a good three to five minutes before she turns towards Doyle. ‘This goat is special for two reasons. The first is its camouflage skill. While limited to grassy areas, a level 20 skill on a level three monster is very rare. The real kicker with the skill is I am certain it isn’t a magical effect. Since grassen goats have grass for hair, my bet is they just blend in that well.’
‘Besides that though and the reason it costs so much is the ancestry. I don’t know about the goat ancestor itself. Could be any high level goat or it might have been some elemental variant that is fully made of dirt or rock. Doesn’t matter, what does matter is the fact the herbal grass could survive being eaten and even attempt to take over. Either it was a spiritual herb, IE a herb with a soul, or it was a variety of herb that tries to eat animals. No matter which we hit the jackpot.’
‘While a grassen goat is just a goat with grass for hair, there is still a bloodline connection to those two ancestors. The goat and the grass both will be more likely to advance. More likely to upgrade into better variants. You just need to set up the right sort of location for them to live. Too bad it is a level three monster or I would tell you to put one on top of that cliff. As it is, wherever you place them, you need to flood the area with herbs. While it does claim that they only need to drink water and lay in the sun. The goat is just a goat. They should still be able eat plants and I suspect herbs would help them develop faster.’
Doyle nods, ‘So the goat is expensive because of potential instead of being worth it in and of itself. Still going to use them. Though at this point all my stealth monsters are specialized for greenery. Be nice to get something that can blend into the rocks. The cattle and wolves aren’t exactly ambush predators. Admittedly the stone wolf comes close if not for there only being plates of stone instead of a full body makeover. Now how about those lights?’
Ally scratches her neck, ‘I don’t know. The system isn’t telling me anything, and it isn’t like we have another dungeon to ask. How about you go about building your fourth floor and I take some time to research it?’
Doyle nods and turns back to his fourth floor. The territory has rapidly expanded and there is enough for him to place rooms. Though before that he takes a glance back at Ally, only to find her with her nose back in the book.
‘Well, that’s a thing. Guess I will need to figure the lights out on my own. Not that I don’t have a guess of my own. Actually, now that I think about it, I should have also asked about the fact that the world energy towards my next floor ended up capped at the required amount. Though of everything that one, I understand the best. The net vanished when I formed the new floor. Without that separation, the pool filled up, and any extra bled away. I bet if I had looked at the info quicker there would have been some overflow still left.’
‘The lights though, that is probably something the system is hiding. Not that I have a clue why. My guess is that the lights are more of an inherent feature of my body. Like stars in the sky, my lights float in the void of my floor. I don’t have a skill for expanding the size of my floors after all. There is probably a way to train it, but that can wait for later. For now I need to figure out the basic design for the rooms.’
‘If I plan to have stone wolves and such at the end, I need to make the terrain more helpful for them. On the last floor I went with rooms on top of one another which could be interesting. Instead though, I’m thinking tall rooms. Tall rooms with an absolute ton of stalagmites and stalactites. Stuff for my stone wolves to play with.’
‘Besides that, I have a lot of points to play with and once the floor finishes growing, it should be 34 by 34 small rooms in size. Wolves and stone wolves only cost 50 and 75 apiece. With 7800 points to play with, even if I only use stone wolves, I can fit 104 of them in. For some reason, I don’t think that is quite a survivable situation. Though it gives me wiggle room to up the levels on any monsters, I do place. Now I just need to place down the labyrinth to hold them.’
‘Actually, you know what? Classic labyrinth is perfect for this. Let’s see how many turn backs I can fit in.’