My mind booted back up, from my old dungeon room. Four glowstone glowed above me, but my walls bore numerous puncture wounds where moles chewed through the stones. Night still loomed on the open-air side of my observations, and I knew I had lots of time before upholding my end of my first large deal. I promised a bound sword and shield, and I was going to deliver by morning. While I thought, I let time flow forward, only stopping every 90 mana to line my ceiling with more glowstone, raising count from 4 to 6. My mana gain rose, from 55 to 69 (nice) to 82. The shadows cast by the moon shortened, only interrupted by the jerky, sped-up movements of wildlife outside. A system chime disrupted my slumber, sending my perception of time crashing to a halt

Skill: Paitence has risen to level 4

Not even half an hour after, one of my dark slimes ventured too close to the zombies outside, and got mauled in a flash. Claws sunk into malleable flesh, teeth tore at membranes, and the pulsing slime core withered and died from another ripping into the opposite side. I gathered up the rest to stand guard, and in my vigilant state realized how exhausting having to watch over all my monsters would be. I needed to make a space for my slimes to roam, all while confounding Invaders. I needed to be a dungeon.

And thankfully, I spent my days raiding a ton of dungeons

First order of business was planning out a route. I ordered my poison slime to wander through the hill and spray a thin line of poison behind it, specifically telling it not to step on any thing it made. The purple creature looked all too eager, painting a thin line across the many blocks of my dungeon like a roadline.

Setting my mind to slow down again, I watch the slime venture. It slid aimlessly through the moledug battleground, charting a course that was by all counts inefficient- but a space-filling curve was what I wanted. The slowness of the slime combined with the indirectness of it's path made almost hour to chart a course, and round it out on the return trip. My core chamber was looking sturdier and brighter, it's count of hellborne manarock risen to 8.

I had... maybe four hours until the night was over, and I was going to make them count. I looked over the route my slime took again, mentally wandering down it and placing a stone brick in the way of each hole or sidepath. I looked back over, visualization of the intended dungeon path all the easier...

Skill discovered: Architecture.

I mentally celebrated. An hour's work to get a single skill was fairly normal, and every odd level seemed to bring something. Between patience's mana boost, observation's split sight, and inscription's rune fuckery, I wondered what something as benign as "Architecture" would become. The night's darkness seemed less so, light from the sky going from black to the darkest orange imaginable. I counted up the tunnel's twists and turns, and an idea formed. I lacked traps, but I had slimes.

And sometimes, slimes had magic.

I let my mana half-fill over the next hour, culminating twelve-drawing slimes like a shameless gacha player. I didn't even look at them as the growing pile of blobs formed from mana until I ran out, the slimes sorting themselves into colours with ease. Four standard black slimes which would likely find their homes as weapon materials, another of each of my old set-- one earth, one blood, one acid, two poison. What caught my eye most however were the fire slimes. Two looked similar, but one spilled light out of it's membranes, whirling firestorm within.

I ordered the fire, poison, and sanguine slimes to take up space in an alcove near the front of the cavern, and began to fill out the low wall. Mana conjured sturdy-ish stone blocks into place, slimes lining up behind them like a firing squad.

Just for fun, I poked a zombie with tremor stomp. It sped up it's shamble towards the wide opening, beelining towards my core chamber and missing the alcove entirely. I sighed, thankful my corps of dark and earth slimes were behind to clean up the mess, kicking things off with a corrosive shot to the zombie's mouth and letting the other slimes knock it down and out.

This dungeon needed funneling. I moved my sight out to the enterance and looked inwards, noting the handful of gaps in the slowly-brightening wall. Over the next hour I patched three up, found the last one went somewhere unrelated, and annoyed a zombie again.

It charged right through my door, hit by a spectacular barrage of spells from my slimes. Poison doused it from afar, A spray of acid dissolved at it's clothing, and finally a beam of fire lanced through it's front. It struck the center of mass and spread, zombie burned through in seconds before the spellcasting slime flopped to the floor in depletion. My slimes didn't exactly have ammunition, but they had a point. Anything harder to replace; from resources to creatures, needed to be placed away from the enterance. My mind subdivided the hill into three levels: highest floor, rejects from trying to get good random luck. Middle floor, standard foes. Lowest floor, customized works of art.

Skill: Architecture has risen to level 2

The system voice congratulated me with another level, and the curiosity of what was in store at third level. I ordered the easier ranged slimes to remain in their alcove and shored up the wall for good measure, capping it off at the ceiling to prevent climbers from cresting the wall, and filled in most of the gaps with stone. the one-block hole fit nothing but my ranged slimes (three poison and an acid), primed to sicken and corrode anything that passed by.

Turning my sights upwards, I saw the ceiling. Making use of another alcove, I broke through some blocks to make a path to a murderhole in the ceiling and ordered the dark slimes through, alcove itself stationing some the earth and sanguine slimes. I told my biggest earth slime to stand guard, be the wall that stops Invaders, that sort of thing.

My final trio of fire slimes got stationed to a new alcove. Two moved with ease, the final one dragging it's gastropod. As I finalized the room, the system rewarded me again

Skill: Command has risen to level 6.

Realizing how slowly my fire slime was moving, I broke a block in the floor of their alcove. If glowstone helped me recharge mana, imagine what it could do to my slimes.

Minutes phased through, slime seeming to deflate less, until I placed the block in the center of the fire slime clubhouse. The half-depleted one clung to it, drawing mana out, when I heard the system chime again.

Skill: Architecture has risen to level 3. Gain structure: Monster nest (Chosen)

My jaw could have hit the floor. "You mean all this time I could just have automated the damn thing?"

Choose Monster Nest Slime pit Zombie husk Nether portal Elemental bonfire

Summons one dark slime per hour

5% chance per hour to spawn 2d6 dark slimes instead

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Costs 90 mana, Consumes 5 mana per hour

Summons 1 zombie per hour

Can be overcharged with 120 mana or the equivalent amount of meat, tripling spawn rate for the next half-day

Costs 180 mana, Consumes 10 mana/hour

Costs 300 mana

Remains open, draining 20 mana per hour

Allows communication with the nether. Removes the cost of summoning imps

Costs 900 mana

Summons a small fire elemental every 15 minutes, which will attempt to gain fuel

Burns up 90 mana per hour when not fueled

Slimepit. Slimepit all the way. It satisfied my gambling desires, had the smallest costs, and slimes were cute! I chose it, marveling at the squish and bounce of the slimes as they waited. Granted, I didn't even want to think about the unwieldly costs of the hellforge nest.

As the dawn cracked, I scraped together enough mana to place the slime pit. I almost chose just outside my core chamber, when an absolutely absurd idea struck.

I aimed break block upwards, chipping away at the ceiling past my glowstone. If some glowstone could recharge my slimes, what would a lot of glowstone do the nest?

As the sun rose, I had enough mana to place it again. And place, I did.

My status window:

Scarlet Brimstone, Hell Forge [Iron] Core Attributes Skills Actions Life force 120 / 120 Observation 6+1/10 Rune analysis 100 mana Focused infusion 80 mana Mana 12 / 200 Command 6/10 Flame Whirl 45 mana Infuse equipment 33 mana Mana gain 110 / Hour Inscription 4/10 Ignite 23 mana Heat ray 23 mana Mana wages 10 / Hour Patience 4/10 Conjure block 5-10 mana Break block 1-5 mana EXP 0 / 160 Enchantment 3+1/10 Corrosive shot 3 mana Promote monster general Level 9 / 16 Patronage 3/10 Cantrips (1 mana) Runes 0/24 Perk points 0 Selection 3/10 Place block Drain blood Blood-boiling rune x0 73 mana Bonus levels 0 Architecture 2/10 Poison Spray Tremor Stomp Efficiency rune x0 40 mana Nests Dark deal Flameshot Thirst rune x0 18 mana 1x Dark Slime Ignition snap Oil drip Range rune x0 10 mana Summon Monsters Conjure Blocks Hell forge (321) Fire elemental (90), Imp (21), Zombie (18), Dark slime (9) Stone brick (2), Cobweb (5), mossy cobblestone (10), Grass (25), Sight crystal (30), Glowstone (90) Free monsters: imp Inventory: empty Perks: Well-armed (monster), Blackening magic (zombie), Arcane tutor (magic), Well-crafted (itemcraft), Arcane blacksmith (itemcraft), Hellblade affinity (meta), Quality up II (itemcraft), Durability up III (itemcraft), Serration I (itemcraft) Layout

Arrow slit: 3x poison slime, acid slime

Murder hole: dark slime x4

earth slime, large earth slime, fire, sanguine slime

Slime Lavalamp: fire slime x2, firestorm slime

Slime pit

Core chamber (8 glowstone)