Making the new changes to the dungeon for my system pact with Serapheim didn’t take too long to accomplish. At the entrance of the dungeon, I created an obelisk with all the relevant information such as the safe path to the boss room as well as the rewards they could receive from taking on my dungeon monsters. For the sacrificial room I also had another obelisk explain the purpose of the room as well as the rewards individuals could earn by betraying their comrades in it to me. The last thing I needed to do was tell the imps guarding my cursed bronze pieces to give a warning to the adventurers when they attempted to steal the system coins from them.

All in all, everything was going smoothly though I was getting bored with waiting for some challengers to finally show up. When I was building the obelisk, I was able to get a glimpse of the surrounding area near my dungeon entrance. It looked to me like I was in some mountain ranges or something similar considering the rocky terrain meaning I was probably pretty far away from big population centers. While that wasn’t a deal breaker it did mean I was going to have to make my dungeon so phenomenal that people would be flocking to it in droves. The last thing I needed was for only people in the surrounding area to visit and nobody else.

While all of these changes were occurring, I decided to call Larry to my core room to answer some questions. There were still so many things about the system and its various gimmicks that I didn’t understand and the more I knew the better I could prepare for everything. For example, what was the difference between skills and abilities that showed up on my character sheet. Both seemed to me to be the same thing to me so I didn’t understand why the system would need to separate the two. Knowledge was power and in this world my goal was to be powerful enough that no one would be able to threaten me or my continued existence.

“So, you want to know the difference between skills and abilities huh,” he said after I asked. “Well, honestly it’s pretty easy to understand, abilities are natural while skills are learned.”

“What do you mean that abilities are natural? The ability I have isn’t natural at all! Being able to corrupt a person’s soul and then be able to essentially make them immortal seems as far as from natural as it can get.”

“You still have your mind in a pre-system mindset. Normal and natural for you would be completely weird or abnormal for the rest of us. Plus, you’re a corruption dungeon so that ability would be natural for your class.”

“So, abilities are just related to my class then?”

“Your class is only one aspect of it the other is your race. Abilities are unlocked as you advance yourself either through your age or by leveling by gaining experience or on occasion through a system quest like you did to get your dungeon sworn ability. You also will gain additional abilities when your level advances enough that you enter the next tier.”

“I think I’m starting to get it but then what about skills and what do you mean by advancing to the next tier?”

“Skills are things that you learn by doing. For example, a squishy human would be able to naturally learn how to walk eventually even if no one ever taught them how.”

“Sorry to interrupt but squishy human?”

“What humans are like big suits of barely held together meat. Most demons on the same level as a human would be able to splat them all over the place just by patting them on the back. Hence why we call them squishy humans since their so fragile, that and the sound they make when they get squeezed makes a sort of squish sound.”

“Okay I think I get it so back to skills and tiering up.”

“Where was I? Oh yes so being able to learn to do something without needing to be taught by others is abilities. Skills on the other hand are learning by being taught or by just attempting new things and most of the time those skills are related to your profession.”

“Skills and abilities seem to be pretty similar to me.”

“You would think that they were but hey us demons didn’t design the system. But again, back to my squishy human analogy. A human would be able to learn to walk on their own without being taught eventually because it is a natural ability that humans have. But it takes hard work and learning for one of them to be able to learn how to use a weapon in any real efficient way. That is basically the difference between skills and abilities. So, to recap Skills are learned either by being taught or by experimentation while Abilities are things you naturally can do but you just don’t know it yet.”

“So does that mean that all corruption dungeons are essentially the same thing then since they all have the same abilities?”

“Is every squishy human the same just because they all have the same potential? No there is still variance in each one of them so while they all have the same potential, they don’t always reach the same area. Some corruption dungeons will have abilities just like yours but not all of them will have the same ones as you. Each of the dungeons has the potential to get the same abilities but depending on how their dungeon does and what they are doing in it could affect what abilities they get and when they get them.”

“I guess that make sense but what about tier……. WHAT IS THAT!?” A strange sensation came over me that interrupted me before I could continue to ask Larry any more questions. It was like a weird mix of the feeling you get the day before you start to feel sick mixed in with the sensation of ants or some other bug crawling along your skin. I swear if I had skin and hands right now, I would be itching like crazy right now!

“My lord what is it? Are you feeling alright? Is it indigestion, a panic attack?” Larry was flapping around like crazy and started spouting random questions in lightning quick fashion. Though that last one was weird, I mean indigestion I’m pretty sure dungeons didn’t eat anything. Wait, could I even eat anything if I wanted to? I would have to look into my future culinary habits later but first I needed to investigate what was causing this sensation. I threw my awareness to the source and was surprised at what I found.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“My lord, are you alright please say something! You can’t die right now, there is so much you still need to accomplish for me. Otherwise, how else will you be able to cause the mortals to tremble in fear the name of the great demon Larry!”

Ah it looked like Larry really cared for me, NOT. Though I guess that’s what I could expect from a demon. Though I was a little annoyed that while this was all going on Seraphim hadn’t said a word of concern for me as she sat on the steps leading up to my dungeon core. Sure, she hated my guts, but a little concern would have been appreciated by my dungeon boss, however, if she had shown any concern, I probably would have found it a bit suspicious. I decided to stop Larry from spiraling further into a panic and did something drastic.

“Everything is fine Larry; in fact, everything is wonderful. I just need you to fly over to your position within the dungeon. It looks like we are about to have some guest in here in a few minutes.”

“Does that mean,” he said hopefully though a bit hesitantly to say what we had been waiting for hopefully out loud.

“Yes, the first invaders of our dungeon have arrived to challenge us.” I noticed that at my words Serapheim’s helmet jerked up to look at my core. No doubt she was thinking that these would be the individuals to prove the worth of humanity. I had to chuckle at that since from what I saw of those coming towards us I wouldn’t call them the ideal people; in fact, I wouldn’t even call them people.

“Unfortunately for me and you Serapheim our little bet will have to be put on hold for the moment.”

“Trying to wiggle your way out of our pact you little piece of demonic excrement! “Well too bad the system will ensure that our wager will take place and there is nothing you can do to change that,” she sneered at me.

I started to chuckle slowly, before it built up into full blown laughter. I couldn’t believe how arrogant she was, thinking I was so scared of her that I would try to get out of our deal. As if I would break my word when I already knew my victory in our bet was assured. I decided to reveal what I saw to the both of them.

“Well, you see my little celestial our bet binds us when it comes to human adventurers trying to brave my dungeons depths. However, these invaders are decidedly not human so there won’t be any handicaps for them.”

“Wait does that mean what I think it means!” Larry shouted in glee as he flapped around in a circle over my dungeon core.

“That’s right we have a group of monsters coming over to challenge my dungeon. When I analyzed them, it showed that the vast majority of them are goblins with a few orcs mixed in. This gives us a chance to test out our dungeon without too much risk and as a plus side I get to have a little revenge against the goblins.

************

Orc Chieftain’s Uzekahl Perspective

Damn the pink skins and their menfolk for ruining his attempted raiding party against their city! When the system came online on this world many monster races were randomly spawned into this world. However, his tribe was different since they had survived long enough in their original world to gain sentience after ten generations. Yet due to being monsters they had been forcibly teleported into this new world to challenge the inhabitants of the world.

When he and his tribe had been forced into this new world, they had felt their blood boil in excitement of raiding new lands and gaining new slaves. At first it had all been going well with them easily subjugating a hive of goblins. With the fresh slaves that they could use as weak soldiers they had then marched into one of the ‘humans’ villages and raided taking many of their women and children as slaves. The fighting had been glorious even if the pink skins had been weak against his orc warriors. Emboldened by their relatively easy victories they had moved their raiding group and attacked one of the larger settlements with the towers that stretched to the sky.

Uzekahl had hoped to conquer one of these places the humans called cities easily and begin to aggressively grow his clan. What he hadn’t counted on was the number of humans located in their cities nor how aggressive some of them were. What he and his tribe had thought would be an easy conquest turned into a bloody battle. While his tribe had been able to slaughter thousands of the humans the other side had superior numbers to counter the orcs’ strength as well as strange weapons that threw pieces of metal at the orcs. Most of them couldn’t pierce the tough hides of the orcs but on occasion some of them did lowering the orcs tribal strength even further.

As he internally fumed at his failure to conquer the human city, he saw one of his warriors approach him.

Bartel Ul’Tervah

Male Orc

Level 3

Class: Barbarian Raider

Titles: Bloodthirsty, Ravager

This one has grown quite well despite our setback, he thought to himself. When they had been transported to this new world the system had reset the entire tribe to level one. No doubt to try and make things more equal for the pink skins since they were the newly integrated species. Yet already they had leveled up quite a bit, gaining an advantage over the weak humans whose vast majority had apparently not attempted to level yet instead of living in denial. When his tribe returned to full strength, he would raid their city again as well as regain all the human slaves they had to leave behind when they fled in defeat from the humans.

“Chief are scouts have reported that we are close to reaching the dungeon.” Bartul growled as he gestured to the north of them. “Just a few more minutes and the entrance will be in our sights.”

“Good with our tribe using the dungeon we can gain levels and strength and once we have conquered it, I will shatter the dungeon core and gain even more power!” Uzekahl growled triumphantly as he licked his lips in anticipation for the fight to come that the dungeon would no doubt put against, he and his orc raiders.

“Press onward my brothers and sisters of the Ul’Tervah Tribe! Onward to glory against the dungeon so that we can gain strength. Onwards so that we may one day get revenge against the humans and one day rule over them as we should!” At the chief’s words his tribe shouted out eagerly, even the numerous goblin slaves gave a weak cheer. Uzekahl looked over his stats again as they marched ever closer to the dungeon entrance. He foresaw no chance of defeat since a newly awakened dungeon would have no chance against a being of his level.

Uzehakl Ul’Tervah

Male Orc

Level 9

Class: Mystic Berserker

Profession: Chieftain

Titles: Bloodthirsty, Ravager, Duelist, Conqueror

The dungeons life would be cut short by his axe the chief thought the chief as he grinned barring his fangs in the direction of the newborn dungeon.