> There are many gods, but many might not know that before them, there were others, the 'Old gods'.
>
> They were far different from the new gods, beings who have been formed to fill the void left from the great massacre caused by the mad god, the old gods were mortals who ascended to godhood by both talent and grit, being far stronger and, dangerous and powerful compared to the new gods.
>
> This shall be an initiative to record every single one of them, their abilities, personality, goals, dreams, and everything else I can find.
>
> Along with any thing relevant or interesting related to them, all so that those of the future generations hold no need to plunge into the akashic record for any media that even mentions any sort of details about them.
Excerpt from 'Memoire of old gods' Written by an anonymous character going by the name 'Demnos'
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Falc was proud of himself, he had done it, albeit accidentally.
He created an adventurer buffer, most adventurers didn't even try to find the next room, along with the fact that room 5 was made to be annoying to explore and take way to much time to walk around with all the slimes that were being made constantly by Falc.
No one had even thought about there being another hidden tunnel being above the entrance.
And here's a secret, make sure not to tell the adventurers, Falc was in the process of expanding the 'Slime plains'.
But let's be honest, Falc was relieved only a small amount of people were attempting to progress, and he was happy to bribe them with slimes.
It had been about 3 days since he had opened his doors, three bright periods and three dark periods on the surface, and it seemed that the adventurers were harvesting the little fragments that appeared in the a few of the slimes after some time.
From what the adventurers said, Which the core could understand, it was very valuable, and a bunch of it was far more valuable than a single common core.
Falc, Schematic technician, Navator MP; 7.423/10.005 Essence; 3.567 Schematics Quest Skills Common Aspects
Now, you may be wondering what this 'Essence' thing is, Falc did too. It just started to slowly increase when adventurers entered, and the more adventurers there were, the more the essence grew. Also, there was this kid with a collar around her neck that died from three slimes jumping onto her at the same time, breaking her spine. His instincts told him she was a 'Slave', no clue what that is.
Though it was sad to see her die, without her properly feeding me essence, or growing to give even more essence. Falc was still slightly confused why he wanted to see the girl grow, and then die. The girl did give very little essence compared to the old man that entered first. But the past is the past, and he didn't have the aspect of time yet, or life, or something that can bring back the dead.
Now, Falc decided to look within himself for answers to life's greatest question; WHY DO I NEED ESSENCE?!
His origin marrow responded;
> Skills, dumbass.
Falc was enlightened by the secrets of heaven and earth, and quickly clicked on 'Skills', which he had ignored previously.
Core skills Monster skills
He picked; 'Core skills', as the grand dao demanded.
Common
Finding that your adventurers are getting to complacent with the same old monsters? Now you can make superior monsters! Punish those lazy leaks for not getting stronger!
5 essence.
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Adventurers not entering your dungeon? Well this skill makes your dungeon entrance all the more enticing to enter!
7 essence.
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Monsters not properly attacking adventurers? No problem! With this skill, you can roughly guide monsters around.
50 essence.
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...
Uncommon LOCKED
There were a lot of common skills made available to Falc, like way to many. All of them special and unique, but most of them being basically useless. Like '
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
It had no other effect, it said it was good for supporting female adventurer-looking monster in charming an adventurer, or for an illusion monster.
But sadly, Falc was too poor to buy anything useful.
He couldn't help but lament how poor he was, as he was creating slimes at massive proportions to hide from the adventurers the fact; That there were no real obstacles past that giant room.
And people were searching, they were, they were trying to find the exit, and do something. And he, and by that I mean the instincts inside him, did not trust them to be good sentients and not kill him.
He was already extremely surprised the have yet to see through the trick with the tunnel above the entrance, they had done so before with the same trick, so he couldn't really understand the essence of what made it so much better, sentients are just very confusing.
He'd love, and I mean love, to just go back to making better slimes, so that he would never need to waste so much time worrying about the worrying topic of his crystal body shattering into miniscule, discordant, fragments lacking any sense of self, or even a mind for that matter!
But he was forgetting about the other side of skills, monster skills, and he would not be proper, quote on quote, 'Living' being if he did not inspect any opportunity to not die.
Common
Allows for the chosen monster to manifest and propel an acidic substance with ambient mana.
*Requires the chosen mana to hold applicable means to shoot out the acidic substance, or the extra skill
2 essence.
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Allows for the chosen mana to heat their claws to a high degree of warmth without harming tissue surrounding it.
*Requires the chosen monster to have claws and a fire-affinity.
16 essence.
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Allows for the chosen monster to form and shoot out a bolt made of their own magical energy, which is causes physical damage.
*Requires the chosen monster to hold mana which they can manipulate.
100 essence.
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...
Uncommon LOCKED
'Huh, these descriptions seem far more professional.' Falc thought as his eyes landed on
Sadly, he was still poor, so he couldn't pick one of the expensive options. He asked his instincts if they held any opinions about what to buy, and they were silent, how useless.
He looked for a few cheap skills in the whole common section made available, there were also some super expensive ones, like 1000 essence, one that caught his eye in that category was
He thought about it for a few moments, considering if he should save up essence instead of spending it, or use it for a core skill- No, those were trash.
He looked at the sentients still looking for the next room... The future it now!
Thank you for your patronage Falc Navator!
*To gift a skill to your chosen monster, all you must do is think of it said skill while in the creation process, and it shall ask you whether or not you wish to gift it in exchange for an amount of mana.
Falc was relieved that this was useable for multiple monsters, instead of just one, which would really increase the chance that his investment hadn't been wasted.
He quickly shifted his mind to one of the slimes he was producing at the moment, and focused on the skill that he had just purchased. There was no screen to request his permission, it was more of a mental prompt in his mind that told him how much mana he had to spend to put it in, an extra 4 mp.
He could afford it, so he affirmed on the most mana intensive slime currently in production, a D-4 slime.
Automatically, 4 mp of mana poured out of him, putting itself into the schematic automatically without any input from him, about half of it being lost as a fee, creating some kind of construct in the slime that was connected to it's weave.
After some extra focus on the slime in question, it was quickly brought into this world- And started to shoot out acid randomly in room 5, killing a few of it's weak brethren. He, Falc, had basically gained something that could attack, but it still couldn't see.
Falc was still troubled by his old foe, but could do nothing to fight back.
He mentally sighed and looked at room 5's inhabitant sentients, he was honestly confused why they kept hunting down the slimes with the stuff formed in them- he actually held no clue as to what they even were- But he was still very much glad they were satisfied with them. But not all sentients were happy with just a 'Weird slime heart thingy', and were still searching, they hadn't reached the edges of his 5th room, but if even one of them had the bright idea of looking back, he would be in deep shit.
So he would have to stop experimenting and start building, it'd also be good if he got a better understanding of his own dungeon. He had sorta made it without too much thought outside of the few mind games he made, so he was honestly less knowledgeable about his own domain compared to a sentient that spent a day investigating.
So it was time to stop attempting to pick up the butcher's knife, and put on the builder's hat.
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Five adventurers sat in a newly built restaurant "We've been searching for a day and we can't even find the next room!" One of them said while slamming the table "At this rate, we'll only get to the core when I'm a decrepit old man!"
The others were also seething slightly, a dungeon core was valuable, pretty much at the peak of their rarity for artificy, alchemy, and blacksmithing. If they sold it, they'd be able to get at least 50 silver, which was enough for all of them to retire to the country side for the rest of their lives, or they could use it to get a weapon or artifact far surpassing their normal means if they wanted to get to the higher ranks.
After a few moments, they stopped ruminating, as started to discuss some matters "So, did you guys see the new building being built in the centre of town?" One of the five asked, getting a few nods, she smiled and revealed "Well, I have a friend in the adventurer's guild, and he said that that was going to be the adventurer's guild branch in this place."
One of their raised their doubts "Are they going to restrict entry? I heard they do that at other dungeons."
"No, no," The female adventurer said "That's only for [Epic] dungeons and above, this one's a [Common] dungeon, so at least not for a while," She chuckled for a moment "And even then, with how much of a gold mine this is for the common copper rank, the empire is sure to eye this place, and they're not going to take kindly to their myriad forces being restricted."
Another raised another doubt "What if the empire came along and took the dungeon? Then they could both manipulate it with their mysterious ways while also make it more dangerous for us."
The female again chuckled "No, no, they only do that for [Rare] ranked dungeons. If they went for every single small dungeon that made a good bit of money, the emperor would basically be a slaver." She was quite proud of the information she held, it was hard to get a proper understanding of all the local countries and factions, this was one of the perks of going to a proper academy!