He turned to face her, taking in the pure bewilderment plastered across her face. He wanted to follow her line of sight so that he could understand what was so odd about his dungeon, but she gave everything an incredulous look. He started to worry that he may have made a grave mistake.

“What seed did you use?”

“The Tree of Life.”

She sighed, heavily. “I’m sorry for my reaction. I’m just… surprised. People sometimes end up using the World Tree as a seed and it eats away at their dungeon’s strength, quickly killing it in its pursuit of evolution.”

His heart sank. Was he doomed to fail before he even started?!

“But the Tree of Life? It’s thousands of times rarer than the World Tree, which is already hard enough to find. It’s so rare because it brings actual life to your dungeon. Normally, your dungeon’s existence is a mirror of your own. Time passes for you at the same rate as it does your dungeon, but yours? It’s already so developed, it looks like time passes faster for your dungeon and all of its inhabitants. You must’ve picked something like humans for them to do this much though, and gotten lucky with some super smart ones. A whole settlement already?”

He wasn’t going to correct her for the time being. The Amonians could more or less pass as humans, and if they had any quirks that she brought up he would just say that they were a special kind of human from the world that he came from. He was proud of his people though. In the time that he had left, a lot had changed.

The shoddy collection of huts had been organized into a village. The biggest hut was what he assumed to be Nel’s, and it was nearest the trunk of the tree. Fanning out from there, the next closest area was the space that had been cleared out for the blacksmith. Then, there were at least thirty houses leading down the root.

He wasn’t too impressed by this, though. What really got him was the fact that they had already conquered the environmental change. The endless fields of grass were now powerful waves, placing them smack in the middle of the sea; and still the tree was so painfully massive that its roots weren’t even submerged by the ocean.

Shit, this planet has to be way bigger than Earth for things to be this big, right? How am I supposed to properly scout this?

Despite the new humidity of the area, the ice bridge had yet to melt, but even if it had it seemed as though his people would be just fine. Some of the younger ones dove willingly into the sea, equipped with absolutely nothing and evidently hoping that they could catch fish. He wanted to express concern as a gigantic serpent-like fish went to eat the young Amonians, but the kids were able to slay the beast with relative ease and drag it back to the top of the root.

Never mind, I’m sure they can do all the scouting I need. Goodness.

“This seed has its downsides, though. Because of the power it carries, you need to collect more materials to level up the dungeon than someone else would. Regardless, you need to keep this a secret. People can conquer your dungeon for a chance to take your seed and reset their dungeon with yours. As far as I know, there’s nobody with this seed living, so you need to keep it an absolute secret until you’re strong enough to protect it.”

He was taken aback by how transparent she was with him. “What if you try to take it?”

She laughed softly. “And then what? Have it taken from me by a bigger fish? I don’t want this target on my back.”

It was a fair price to pay though.

His appearance in the middle of the village had instantly garnered the attention of others, who fell to their knees in reverence at his sight. He silently wished he could visit the core room before he saw Nel.

That was when he learned that he could freely port inside of his own dungeon, and it automatically brought some people with him as well. It was only Seru and Rea, so maybe they were considered a party of some sort?

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When they made it into the core room, he saw a notification.

‘Essence of Water has been obtained! You can only obtain one essence for each element max. You can consume this on your own, feed it to a summon, or feed it to your dungeon for different results.’

It wasn’t hard for him to decide what to do with it. He gave it to the core.

‘Congratulations! +10,000DP! Your dungeon can now produce denizens with water affinities. +50% water attack and resistance for all friendly units within the dungeon!’

The rewards were massive. He probably got the DP for taking care of his dungeon, so maybe it would be best to give any further essences up immediately. The bonuses couldn’t be used outside of the dungeon, but he also had to think about how he would defend his home from invaders in the future.

He had some other stuff he wanted to sacrifice to the core. He fed it all of the extra items he currently had, which consisted of: All of the regular weapons from the goblins, his old clothes, the extra stuff he bought at the store, and some rainbow quartz.

‘Would you like to feed equipment to the core or the blacksmith?’

He wasn’t sure what the difference was so he chose to experiment with the goblin weapons. When he fed it to the core, the materials needed to create it became natural resources in the world. When he fed it to the blacksmith, the crafting method became available for the blacksmith to practice and upgrade their skills.

‘Rainbow Quartz cannot be synthesized. 1/17 Elements possessed, acquire the rest to synthesize.’

This gave him even more reason to feed his dungeon all of the essences, even though Rea told him he should stick to one element. He wanted to use a bunch of elements from the start anyway, it was more fun if he could play with all of the magic.

“Even your core room is amazing.”

Can we kick her out already, Lord Amon?

She’s been teaching us a lot though. Do you not like her?

I do not. She tried to show that she was superior to me so you’d throw me aside and join her.

Well, I’d never throw you away. We’re family.

He wondered what exactly happened. Was Seru just being territorial, or did Rea actually say that? If she did, why? Was she just the type of person that liked to mess with others, or was she possibly trying to motivate Seru?

He decided to wrap this visit up and returned to the village. By the time he returned, everyone was present. It might’ve been rude for him to feel this way, but he only saw a few main characters living in the village. There was Jack, who didn’t leave his hut. He was a great source of protection from other Players. He seemed like he liked a fight.

Nel was next up. He was the actual leader, so there was definitely a reason his tribe mates respected him. Then there was the blacksmith, whom he had yet to acquaint himself with. She was a burlesque woman that wasn’t much shorter than Nel. Despite her physique, she was beautiful, underneath the soot and veins on her face. Even her green locs, which were tied up in a bun, had a sort of luster to them that he couldn’t deny. Further inspection revealed her name to be Kenja. The last two main characters of the village were Ba and Sa, both of which were present.

“Rise.” He said, specifically to Nel who happily obliged. “You’ve done well so far. Our dungeon is young, but it’s already so well organized. We’re building a powerful foundation for the future, so I ask that you continue to give it your all. Here is my reward to you.”

It was a hefty deposit, leaving him with only 5,000DP left, but he was happy to spend it for the betterment of his people. Once the points were spent, the huts that they had built for themselves were automatically upgraded into small houses, and Nel’s house became the first one to have two stories.

We can leave now, Seru.

Thank the Great Mother.

He laughed a little on the inside. She was thanking his adoptive mother. That reminded him that he should probably find a way to speak to her. She was going to get lonely again, and honestly, he felt like talking would be nice for him too. She had a lot to teach him.

Once they were back on the streets of the real world, he turned to Rea, who offered him a weak smile.

“I’m going to go back home and handle some things. Don’t forget to keep that a secret. Oh, make sure you take your promotion exam to go to the next floor of the tower, okay? You can take it as many times as you want, but I’m sure you won’t have any trouble with them for a while. Later!”

Good riddance. Said Seru.

Let’s go back to the room.