"This sucks..."
Mikoto doesn't know what to do next. She could still enter the dungeon, but only on the first floor. She couldn't go beyond it. If someone caught her entering the second floor, she would be blacklisted to this dungeon.
If she wanted to enter the second floor, she had to pass the assessment to get an Adventurer's License.
That was the only way.
"But I only have the skill to make dungeons. It didn't give me any boost on my body, or anything that will give me an edge in a combat situation."
She also realized that she couldn't really afford for someone to learn about her abilities. If they learned that she was the creator of this dungeon, the Adventurer's Association might actually target her. As for what they would do to her, she doesn't want to think about it.
"What should I do now?" She wondered to herself with a frown.
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It took until tomorrow before she decided to shelved that thought for sometime and plan for the next thing she would do with her dungeon.
"It's useless to think about stuff like this for a long time. I need to do something."
With those words, she started the day by going to the storage room just besides her house. She entered and looked at the objects lined up on each tables that usually had farming tools or sacks of animal feed in it.
They were the cardboard mazes that she had made all over this year. It wasn't just cardboard. There were also some made entirely of clay, plastic, lego, and stone.
This was it. The culmination of her hobby for five years. A collection of dungeon models from her years of creating them by her own hands. She learned carving, chiseling, and many other skills so she could make different types of dungeon terrains.
And right now she was thinking of using one of them.
"Cardboards are good and all, but a dungeon must be a cave-like system. I think I have something like that..."
She had decided to create a new dungeon other than the cardboard one. She couldn't enter her own creation anyway, so she might as well make another while she thought about stuff.
"Clay should be a good base for it." She said as she looked at the section where she put all of her clay models.
This entire room had been renovated so she could store all of the dungeon models she made to this place. She kept making dungeon models on her free time so it was obvious she would run out of space before long.
Good thing she owned this land. If her parents were still living here, they would scold her due to her wastefulness.
On the section for her clay models, there were five dungeon models. From right to left side, each models acquired more details on them. These were the clay models she made on the following year until she mastered it and decided to move on to other types of materials.
"I think this will do." She picked the one with the least amount of detail.
It was a maze-like dungeon entirely made of clay. Just like her other creation, it was a roofless one where she could see the path of the dungeon from above. She couldn't possibly imagine exploring a dungeon if it had a roof that covered the interior part of it.
It was a meter in length, which meant it was pretty large. Though for her it was small. It barely had hallways and only have five small rooms with a single large room.
Though it couldn't be helped. All of her models, even the newest clay model she had were the same size as this one. It's not like she could create a bigger one. It became a bit unwieldy that adding more would just break the model itself if she carried it with her hands.
This was the only storage place she had, so she could only do it like this.
She was just thinking what to do next when an idea came to her mind.
"Wait... my skill have this function to use my other models as an extension to my existing dungeon, right? Couldn't I just connect these five?"
She stared at the other clay models she had stored on their farm's storage house. Then she smiled, her eyes lighting up in excitement at the thought.
"That's right! All of this will be the new dungeon!"
Without wasting anytime, she immediately used her skill and chose the very first model she had.
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After she was done with the manifestation of her new dungeon, the next thing she had did was find the minions for this new dungeon.
She already had a candidate for that.
Currently she was on a plot of land that was formerly her family's potato field. She wore rubber gloves and carried a tweezer and a plastic bottle. She crouched on the empty plot full of weeds, reaching out and then squeezing the insect with her tweezer before putting them on the mouth of the bottle. After that, she continued doing that.
Within the bottle were reddish colored ants commonly known as fire ants. She had decided to put these insects known for their aggressive trait on her clay dungeon.
She still remembered how those soldiers were disappointed at the apparent harmlessness of her cardboard dungeon. So she decided to have these aggressive ants as her new minions. It was also an experiment for her.
She knew she could turn inanimate objects into minions. She wondered if living organisms can be turned, and if they can, how they would behave within her dungeon.
She couldn't wait for the result.
"Oh! Lucky, I got a breeder too!" She said, her tweezer capturing an ant with a pair of wings in them.
This sight was quite surreal but for her she was used to it. She was raised on this province by her parents, so she doesn't mind touching insects or playing with dirt.
After she was done collecting at least a hundred fire ants, she returned to her storage room where her new dungeon was located.
The five clay models she formerly had was now fused. She took out some of their parts so they would seamlessly connect to each other with the extension function. She connected each of these dungeon models in a straight line. She thought that anyone who entered her clay dungeon would notice the better details of the other models than the former one. She made it so they would wander on every clay models she made and witness her improvements of her creation.
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She took out the cap from the plastic bottle and then tilted it in the middle of the dungeon. She shook it so she could force the ants to leave through that opening. While doing that, she peered on the ants who takes foot on her clay dungeon, and then saw the stylish pointers on them.
She mentally picked these pointers and quickly chose them to be her minions.
> Fire Ant Worker (Rank I)
> Fire Ant Soldier (Rank I)
> Fire Ant Breeder (Rank I)
"I see. So my dungeon also identify them as fire ants huh..." She thought it would turn them into something else like what it did to those dusts.
She doesn't really mind. She was just curious.
"Anyway, this breeder should be somewhere here." She stated as she picked the fire ant breeder with her fingers.
This was one of the things she had noticed when she was moving her monsters on her dungeon. Even when they looked like they were busy with something, when she picked them with her fingers, they would become extremely docile and simply let her do what she wanted.
Her experiment was a success as she saw the fire ant breeder was also docile to her and the other ants doesn't seem to mind even when her fingers stayed there for a moment. She put the fire ant breeder on the edge of the room where the most detailed large room was located.
After she put the fire ant breeder there, she opened her Treasury and took a few lesser mana stone within it. Then she pressed it on the body of the fire ant breeder. The lesser mana stone crumbled and then got absorbed by the body of the fire ant breeder, and then a prompt appeared on her vision.
Choose an option.
> Upgrade
> Role Designation
> Variance
> Improve
This was the function to turn a monster into something else. By using the mana stone she got from the loots on her dungeon, she could turn them into something else.
Upgrade has two options when she picks it. They are Rank Up and then Loot Upgrade. Rank Up increases the rank of the monster, while Loot Upgrade will show two other options which are Loot Amount and New Loot. Loot Amount increases the amount of loot a monster will drop after it dies. New Loot will enable that monster to drop a new type of loot after it dies.
She only used this function on her Paper Golem. Both the Rank Up and Loot Upgrade, and she also chose both options on the Loot Upgrade so it would drop something decent.
She recalled what they got from her Paper Golem after those soldiers defeated it. It was a large roll of bandage and a large mana stone. She knew because she had it on her Treasury.
Role Designation enables her to choose a role for her minion. Their default role is Dungeon Minion. If she chooses Role Designation, she can change their roles into either Floor Boss, Area Boss, Special Boss, Guardian, Hunter, Lurker, or Dungeon Boss. She still didn't know the difference between each options, though she at least knows about Floor Boss themselves.
Floor Boss was the one she chose for the Paper Golem. When she picked that, she just knew that the Paper Golem became stronger. This is what she plans to give the fire ant breeder.
Variance, based on what she glimpsed at it when she tried to pick it, was an option to mutate the monster. There were two types of options for Variance. They were Fuse and Mutate. She still doesn't know what it actually does as she haven't proceeded to use it at all.
Then there was the Improve option. This option enables her to give everything to the monster. A permanent status buff, an increase in strength, increase in vitality, an elemental resistance, a weapon, an armor, anything she can think of.
All of this uses mana stones.
She picked the Upgrade option so she could start with the creation of the boss.
"Let's see... oh, it needs 1 magic points to rank up." She said, surprised at the large jump in cost.
Magic points is the quantification of the mana stone she use for the monster. The lesser mana stone she uses comes from the sentient dusts that got killed by the soldiers. Their mana stone is equivalent to 0.01 magic points.
When she is upgrading the Paper Golem, she needs 0.1 magic points, which means ten mana stones from the sentient dusts. Compared to the Humanoid Paper which dropped mana stones with a 0.02 magic points in value. She prefers them hunting the Humanoid Papers rather than the Sentient Dust, as it gives her more magic points.
Anyway, the difference in costs cleared some of her questions.
"So the cost of their upgrade really depends on the type of minion I'm using it." She nodded to herself.
She used the mana stone dropped by the Humanoid Paper, so her balance shown on top of the head of the Fire Ant Breeder was 0.02. She decided to pick more of these mana stones and then dropped it on top of the fire ant breeder's head.
After she got at least 3 MP in total. She ranks it up and then increased the amount of loot it will drop along with unlocking a new loot for it.
> The Fire Ant Breeder's rank has increased!
> The Fire Ant Breeder (Rank II) loot has increased!
The Fire Ant Breeder (Rank II) unlocks a new loot!
> Fire Ant Breeder's Wings
After that, the next thing she did was changed its role into a Floor Boss.
"Now it costs 2 MP?"
She shrugged and then chose that option.
> Fire Ant Breeder (Rank II) has been promoted to 1st Floor Boss!
> Fire Ant Breeder (Rank II) evolved into Fire Ant Princess (Rank II)
> Some of the drops has been changed/replaced/added.
> Mana Stone >> Greater Mana Stone
> Fire Ant Breeder's Wings >> Fire Ant Princess' Wings
> Fire Ant Egg (NEW)
>
>
She wasn't that surprised about it. That's what also happened to the Paper Golem when she turned it into a Floor Boss.
"I'm still not done!"
She mentally chose the props within her clay dungeon model. The first clay model doesn't have any designs other than having hallways and rooms made of clay, but starting at the second clay models, she put some details within them using clay.
Flat walls turns into brick walls, flat floors acquires those ridges and edges. The details of the doors becomes more pronounced, and the design of the room becomes more gritty.
At the fourth clay model, they were painted. Doors looked like actual doors, and there were models of torches within it among other things. The fifth model was just the high quality version of her fourth clay model.
She knew that even objects made of cardboard could be turned into something functional within her dungeon. The treasure chests on her dungeon actually worked, and it automatically replenished the loots within it every hour.
She wondered if she could also do that to the props on her dungeon models?
Would you like to turn this prop into a dungeon torch?
> Yes
> No
"... It's working..."
She pressed the mana stone on the torch prop she painted on the dungeon model, and gasped when she saw the prompt. She quickly picked the "Yes" option and it absorbed the mana stone she pushed into it.
Then, that prop suddenly flickered. The flame part of the dungeon prop was now moving.
She was a bit bothered that her cardboard dungeon had no lights within it. She always wonders how she can give the dungeon some illumination so people won't have to wander around in the darkness. Learning that she can turn props already part of the dungeon model into a real one solves that problem. Now she just have to actually make some props for it.
'Next time, I'll make some lamp props on the cardboard dungeon. For now, I'll focus on this one!'
She didn't want to leave the first part of the clay dungeon dark, so she picks goes to the back of her storage room where she puts most of her materials for dungeon modelling and pick the unused clays within there so she can start making some dungeon torches.
It didn't take long before she is finally done. A dungeon with lights within it, and some functioning traps within it.
As for the location of its entrance, she puts it a bit farther to her house. She thinks it will be suspicious if another dungeon appears near her house.
"Okay! It's time to check my newest dungeon!"
Feeling satisfied with her creation, she left her clay model within her storage house. Her next destination was the clay dungeon, which was located beneath a bridge on a river just on outskirts of this village.