Reaching Eshen didn’t take that long after they cleared the last dungeon but Logan did not take long. In fact, he was extremely quick about it as he found the first A rank old generation golden lion and handed him a magic pouch with all the magic tomes and grimoire saying, “Just popping in to deliver something of highest importance to Olivia and Maxwell. I left a letter inside to explain what it is.” He said and flew back up to his ship and they sped away.
The letter also contained the badge that the guild manager had left him while the letter explained what he went to prepare to do but made sure not to say he already succeeded in his endeavor so that Maxwell didn’t interfere.
Using the communicator to obtain a world map that showed his position, he plotted a course for Elrukia, the continent of the first caravan dungeon.
Naturally he received a call from Olivia and Maxwell after a little while and naturally they exploded with questions but he just said that he stumbled across it while going to get dungeoneer magic so he had a basis to go around his eventual ambition.
“Do you have a copy?!” Max asked.
“Of course, don’t worry because both branches will have capital libraries and I also have adventurer guilds. The size of the micro world will eventually reach national size and I will slowly allow natural wild animals and monsters to be born which will generate jobs and incentive to grow but ultimately I am aiming for a mobile dungeon. I’ll keep in contact as much as possible so take care.” He said.
“You be careful, the other continents are much more cutthroat then Nuntip even if the other orders are still present. Remember what the gods told you, they are corrupt and no longer trustworthy.” Max said.
“I know but in a continent wide order there are likely to still be a few good people that I can befriend. I’ll be careful and we will disguise ourselves with Storm’s dragon magic as natives. Only problem is probably going to be if demons attack the other continent, I don't think the corrupt order can survive such a savage attack.” Logan said.
They all groaned at the thought. Until now only Nuntip was truly crippled but there were demons all over the world. It would have been better if the demons were thrown back to their continent long ago instead of left stranded and left to mate with natives of each continent.
Eventually they cut the connection before Logan got serious. “Alright, how much mana do we have?” He muttered and began to take out loads of gold bars and placed them on the side.
“Hmm… it shouldn’t cost that much to get the row boat sized airships. Let’s see… max number per major boat is… 15. Wasn’t it 10 in the projection? Maybe it is some of the changes the gods are making to this type of dungeon.” he muttered and calculated the price and summoned all the boats.
A few, barely five, gold bars turned into mana and shot outside of the ship and turned into small three man row boats with a small engine and a micro mana generator that powered it.
Logan stepped outside to check on them and found that they were very basic and both machines were also very basic.
“As expected, it is very similar to the caravan dungeons which initially summon wooden carts with round wood wheels and are pulled by common low strength camels. I will probably have to purchase upgrades once they start to limit the main ship’s speed but they should be able to keep up.” He said and looked to the side where a small wooden ‘pier’ formed on both sides where these boats would actually come and link to allow access while in flight.
He returned to the bridge and did not wait and transformed two boats into magic caves and one boat into a fertile island and another into a fertile forest.
This would give sufficient monster spawning space which would reduce the amount that might spawn on the ship itself.
Then he turned to the other six. “Alright, I need to quickly make the bank ship. It was one engine, one dedicated mana generator and three bank boats.” He said.
The price was calculated in coins and was just a few thousand. In all honesty, Logan would very likely be able to make the first major airship before he worked through all of his gold bars. He also planned to do that to set up a good foundation.
When the other boats finished transforming he had them combine.
Negative. Major boat recipe is invalid
“Huh? Recipe?” Logan blinked in confusion. “Wasn’t it just a few pieces of the same type plus the engine and fuel source?” he asked.
Negative. Airship dungeons are a modular system. Minimum requirement for each establishment must be accounted for to build a new ship.
Logan knew it was modular but he didn’t expect that it was to this limit. He looked at the parts he already had but he couldn’t think of what was missing.
“Seriously, what is missing?” he complained, “Help system, how do I unlock new ship types?” He asked
Due to the nature of airship dungeons, the type of models is up to the creativity of the dungeon master.
Logan was shocked that the rooms were not limited but then he thought of something. He opened the dungeon shop and found purchase options for boats, upgrade options for main and sub boats, he found item spawn, which was still limited, he even found options that needed other structures to be built before he could purchase and activate vital stability systems.
“Where are monster spawns?” He asked.
Due to the nature of airship dungeons, the option to pick the breed of monsters each ‘floor’ will spawn is incompatible. As such, the only method to have loyal monster minions is to capture wild spawn monsters and repair the positioning of their monster core.
Common spawns are born with mana crystals north side facing down completely making them completely wild. Dungeon controlled monsters need at least a 150 degree angle.
His lip twitched at how the god had designed this facet. This meant they would be fighting against their own dungeon and would have to do the job of the dungeon to obtain mobs.
“How do boss monsters work?” He asked.
Every 10 ships fused will allow the dungeon to support 1 boss monster by picking any monster controlled by the dungeon
“I see, so airship dungeons have 10 floors before bosses are spawned.” He muttered.
The number of floors before a true boss appears actually shows how fast a dungeon will grow more dangerous because bosses are a mana blockade against monsters growing stronger. It is a limiter to protect the dungeon core itself and establish control.
“Alright, so limited to my imagination. What are the requirements of a bank in its simplest form? It needs the work zone… and it needs a vault.” he said and instantly knew what he needed and the system reacted as a new option appeared. It was labeled Vault/Cargo.
He smiled and spawned one and had the ships merge.
It finally succeeded and he went outside as the six boats moved close. The engine and mana generator lined up at the back, the three banks linked up in a line above and the new vault boat, a completely sealed up old metal boat, was in front of the engine boat.
In that formation, they all shined. Logan felt the dungeon domain warp into the mix and fill the interior. The small engine of each boat and the mana generator all glowed and fused with the full engines before the bodies glowed and merged until it formed a full boat completely combined.
That said, Logan frowned because the new ship was only a half as big as the current one but it had half the top deck with a building and he could see that there was a second deck which connected to the engine room and at the bottom was likely the vault.
“Why is it so small?”
Notice. Only the minimal requirements were used to create this boat. Furthermore, you cannot construct a new boat until the completion requirements are achieved.
“So I need to increase the number of pieces I used to make it?” he asked
Negative, you need all vital requirements for this ship to run. A room for breaks, engine crew room, piping, water reserve, waste management, three vaults modules total and 8 bank modules, 2 engine modules total, 2 mana generator total and mana piping to transfer mana through the ship.
“Wah…” Logan’s jaw dropped at the requirements. It was completely beyond his comprehension that there would be so much just to get the ship to full size.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He went to his seat in the bridge and on a notes application, he quickly began to do the math, since the system had told him the requirements but he did the calculations.
“Wah… the prices are all so much higher then what is recorded about caravan dungeons… almost 10 times higher. It must be to consume mana at greater intensity.” He said and groaned at the thought. The large pile of gold bars didn’t look as intimidating as it did before. Furthermore, with the boat’s current size, it could only support 5 row boats.
He summoned the six boats he had used along with five more and made another engine and mana generator first, two more vaults, a boat containing all the pipes, one for water reserve, one to hold a large waste tank and the mana channeling pipe system.
Nine boats transformed and he initiated the transformation and when he watched, he was shocked as the boat had actually broken down to its base modules before fixing itself up and formed into a larger ship about a third smaller and now the bank on the top deck looked small since it did not change.
He finished it up by summoning the required number and it finally reached full size like the original ship and was now fully operational but he noticed a lot of differences. For one, there were large ports on the side. He got to the small pier and the ship came over for him to check and he crossed over even while in movement and walked in.
The bank had wooden floor and walls, had several stations and he could see a stairway to the second floor up which was both the bridge of the ship as well as the bank manager’s place.
He went to the floor below and found the lower deck. Along the middle were several sealed passages along the center of the ship which went to the vaults below and he also found the engine room, engine crew room, and the large tanks for water and waste. The leisure room was one of the few places connected to the waste tank. Both water and waste tanks were connected to a large valve that appeared on the outside of the ship.
“What is that for?” Logan muttered.
Notice, future single function ships focused on water and waste treatment. Process does not happen on this ship and will proceed within another ship to make sure it does not affect the quality of life.
“I see… until I make the large ship, this will function in its place.” He said and understood. Basically, the life of an airship dungeon was dependent on his creativity to make this dungeon habitable. It was this ‘survivability’ that made it possible for a dungeon to exist or not. He still felt the first ship was unstable because he was forced to use so many rowboats to create other ships.
Now he was free of that burden. Logan headed to his ship and got the gold before taking it to the first vault and dropping it inside. He instantly felt the dungeon stabilize by at least half as the ship finally started to stabilize.
He looked around and knew he had to man these ships and he also knew what would be needed.
“Okay, defense team means barracks for training. Wait… since i am aiming for a divine city i should directly make them a squire barracks. Or should I make a temple first?” He muttered with a groan.
Jade came in at that moment and heard his comment and smiled, “I think a simple training field is enough.” She said.
“Huh?!” Logan said, almost getting lost. “Oh sorry, I was absorbed in everything. The dungeon is really a pain to build. I thought it would have made built in things but you need to pay a lot for the pieces of each ship.” he said
“I know, you don’t need a super advanced training field though.” She said.
“I know but we have to make the basics, the barracks to train defenders already made into the form and containing specific things needed for it to be a religious structure.” He said.
“What do you intend to use to make that happen though?” she asked.
Logan thought a bit as he went through the knowledge the gods gave him and suddenly thought of something and snapped his finger, “Obviously! So stupid to not think of it! A prayer altar! Since I basically control the form of the boats and their form modifies my vision, I can make the Squire training ground with an altar, dorm and training field in one building. I can make a similar ship specific for training priests and disciples. Add in the requirements for the defense systems like boosted armor, cannons and such and they can work as the merged cruiser ship’s left and right ranged defense weapons as well.” He said and asked the system to bring up the original graph he had used to test the stability and began to calculate the number of ships needed.
“I can probably reduce the number of extra ships by distributing the water treatment system since the dungeon generates water naturally in the reserves for the time being. If I split it among the waste treatment and the pipe network I can free up one boat.” He said.
“When are you going to spawn a ship crew?” Jade asked.
“We can’t.” Logan said and sighed before explaining how dungeon minions worked.
“Wow…” She said in shock and Logan nodded, “Yeah, can you and Storm go check out the caves that I made to see what is available or what is forming along with what kind of monsters you encounter in there.” He said.
She nodded and called Storm from below and each one took one cave to examine.
Logan focused on building the first cruiser, as much as possible.
He ran through his gold supply like leaking water but the dungeon got more stable as he added more and more farm, forest and magic cave boats to suck up the distortions.
He made the squire training ground ship followed by the priest temple ship.
Then he made the leisure ship. The dungeon forced it because it seems to register whether mental health was being satisfied. The soldiers were hard at patrol and not really relaxing.
It was another hurdle and took quite a while for him to figure out the ship recipe. The leisure area required a brewery which consisted of at least 3 modules, a kitchen of at least 2 modules, a tavern of at least 5 pieces and any form of game house. The automatic default was a gamble house but he instantly shut that idea down and restructured it as more of a pub with games like pool, non gambling card games and mental games like chess.
It should be said that each new ship he made cost more then the previous but it wasn’t significant of a change initially.
After that was a ship dedicated completely to the engine crew dormitory, basically all ship crews would gather here to sleep. It was much simpler and just needed a bathroom, water reserve and waste reserve alongside the rooms.
Then came both combat and common monster quarters, specifically the ones that stayed on the main ship to react instantly, at least half the native monsters of the ship would be living in row boat dorms while the other half was in here. Finally the water, sewage and pipe networks. The water nodes were worked into each of the other two and just fit into place.
Finally all the pieces were there just short of the sun setting.
The dungeon is lacking heavily in the room count and domain stability to support the creation of the Cruiser class ship.
Logan knew and naturally spawned all the small ships and made them fly in line with their own ships and he began to make the dorms with half the ship and then made just 1 cave, 1 field and 1 forest.
The remaining ones he thought of all the things he saw in the Caravan dungeon and began to make blacksmith, lumber yard, miner’s camp, mason, workshop and more. Similarly, there were taverns, inns and such all to produce a ‘city like’ structure until he had gone through all basic ships.
When it all finished, all the distorted and unstable dungeon domain was sucked into all the ships and finally stabilized.
Dungeon has stabilized, to proceed with the merge, please evacuate all occupants of the ten primary air ships until the process is complete.
Logan smiled and called all the active knights on patrol and they each entered the fields, since they were open and could watch from this space.
When everyone was clear, the dungeon came to a pause in the air and Logan stepped off and looked as the field ship moved away and they saw all the ships begin to glow and break down into their modules.
“Huh?” Logan muttered surprise that they would break up. They all moved in amazing synchrony around the first ship and they saw many similar parts getting into a very complex formation until finally it all shined. The last one to glow was the first ship as the threshold of mana finally surpassed the material bond and it began to change.
The first thing to form were the metal defensive bodies of the two weapon systems before it spread around as thick wood bodies took the shape of a giant ship. There were too many engine modules and a lot of them collected into the main engine but also into four large turbines on the front and back to keep the giant ship airborne.
While it all transformed, Logan felt a lot of problems in the structure, like a lot of redundant pieces in the mix. He was bonded to the core so he could vaguely feel areas of instability.
With one final flash the entire ship solidified into an amazing ship with few or none of the same.
All the people exclaimed in shock and Logan got to the field to reach the deck. “Everyone, please remain here, I need to check something for stability sake.” he said and went to the bridge.
The core was glowing in the middle and a large bridge allowed far greater control of most systems on the ship but only the activation and monitoring of said systems.
“Help system, please examine the cruiser and calculate all the parts and what is being regarded as excess parts that are not being used and are just adding bulk to the ship.” He said.
The core shined at the command as the world system intermediated.
A model of the ship appeared and broke down into individual pieces. Soon the many boats turned blue completely before others started to turn red.
There were a number of ships that were redundant and just gathered in a corner.
“If I were to remove them, would it destabilize the dungeon system?” he asked.
Affirmative. However, as long as all the pieces are merged into a more complex ship, the dungeon will stabilize in the same fashion.
Logan smiled and began to count the number of engines and mana generators and then began to combine a number of small ships into minimum requirement ships. Workshops, taverns and more all combined but there were few of these and a lot of spares.
When he went through it he debated on it before adding two engines and generators and began to combine mines until the dungeon accepted the merge. He kept adding them until he had 6 modules combined.
He did the same for the field and forest, making a single large ship for each. He made sure every piece was used even if it just made minimal requirement ships and finally finished.
He got off the ship and went to the field and got everyone to enter the micro world and flew into the air. The ship's main ship broke down and rebuilt itself in the most efficient form without extra bulk and other ships began to combine and formed smaller ships.
When it was all done, he examined the structure and felt it was very stable unlike before.
“System, are the ships made with spare parts from the primary ship ‘floors’ or just large ‘rooms’?” He asked.
Dungeon has stabilized.
The purpose will depend on desire and how many parts constitute one ship. A fully constructed ship will always be a floor.
“Good.” He smiled and arranged the ‘desire’ but in the end, this single ship supported 150 row boat sized ships.
Warning, support boats do not possess the propulsion to accompany cruiser
“Of course.” Logan muttered but he just opened the dungeon shop and began to upgrade the main ship and row boats.
The upgrade to the body made them double in size and engine upgrade improved the basic engine.
It should be obvious but this also caused a bit of transformation in the main ship which had to undergo another restructuring as the modules were upgrading.
Only when he finished completely did he smile and nod. He called out the knights to show them the massive ship that was their first dungeon city.
“Welcome to our dungeon city.” he said with a grin.
They cheered because the ship was literally the size of a town and could probably house a few thousand if they included the row boat dorms.
Of course, Logan told no one that he had used 80% of his gold bars even if it seemed like very little but the slow increase had a big result in the end.
To continue to make more airships would require, at the bare minimum, quite a while to gather money for the process.
“Now we need to start gathering minions to fill the dungeon space and we can then move from there by taxing weekly.” he muttered.
With a mental command, all the ships started up their engines and began to pick up speed on their way to a new continent while the patrols were divided up and a group was sent to the new larger mines to start capturing a few specimens of each monster breed to start identifying the breeds.