-Brian-

I frowned as I thought about the problem of making a convincing dungeon. As much as I would enjoy making the noobs dance, the fact that the first room was a snowflake generating enterprise seemed like it might be suspicious. I decided to ask Mike about it since he had much more knowledge about how this world worked.

Mike was still getting set up for the rune inscription when I rounded the corner. "Hey Mike," I said, "Quick question about the dungeon building stuff" Mike looked up from a rune. "So quick question, man. I set up the first room as a gag. Is that going to be suspicious or anything?" Mike raised an eyebrow, and a thin smile appeared on his face. "No, not at all. You may have unintentionally created something that could be very beneficial to us.

You see, it's not uncommon at all for spirit attuned dungeons to have puzzle rooms or task rooms. These rooms function to generate frustration levels or emotions in the participants. Feelings can effectively cause increased movement of spirit, which directly translates to an increased manna and spirit flow to the core. It is not seen as unusual or uncommon because it is so prolific in this world. "

I raised a hand. "But wait! "Dance might only cause frustration in the toughest, meanest adventures or socially awkward noobs. Otherwise, it could be a fun, joyous party-like event" Mike rolled his eyes. "You're missing the point. Dance is an environment that will create strong emotions either way, through joy, frustration, or any other feelings generated. The main point is it creates a high-energy environment. Experienced cultivators can use this energy, but more importantly, it will cause an increased flow of manna and spirit to the dungeon core. It was a splendid idea to have it as the first room. May other dungeons do similar things. There are even dungeons that use a church building as their first room. The energy of all the people praying can add up over time".

I narrowed my eyes and frowned. We had religions in the empire just like anywhere else. Was there something more going on? Mike's statement made sense now that I knew about the Soul stat. Could there be some powerful entity taking the energy of all its worshipers?

"Anyway," I said, "I suppose that makes sense." I left the room and went to change the dungeon prompt for the first room to show that the delvers would be safe for the dancing.

Level 1-The room of style

Info

Reward

You can beat this room by doing a unique or sensual dance

The dungeon will rate your Dance and adjust the rest of the difficulty accordingly

Bypassing or refusing this challenge will result in more complex challenges or reduced rewards on later levels

Note: Armageddon protects this room from incoming beasts. You're not a yummy snack today!

I then made the next set of dungeon floors up to level 15. After the dance room, the floor was pretty easy, with just a few pitfalls and traps. The floors from level two onwards got much more difficult with traps, mazes, and general dungeon-like ways to die. The only problem was that I didn't have any rewards to pay when a delver passed a level, so I opened a channel to Armageddon. "Yo Armageddon! What do you have for rewards that might mimic a dungeon paying out?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Suddenly a light flashed before my eyes, and the particles in the air seemed to merge as they materialized into a chest. "Check it out!" The Armageddon exclaimed, "I have reprogrammed some nanite machines to mimic the system! Open the chest!"

I slowly bent down, opened the chest, and beheld a shiny brick of gold. I whistled at how polished it was. The Armageddon crackled, "Yeah, score for me! I have excavated many minerals since making that tunnel to the surface from the planet's core. I can distribute rewards as appropriate, and the delvers will think it's a normal system function!" "Well, that's pretty sweet," I replied. "Can we also see if it's possible to get M.R. Tentacles back for the final boss? I think some probing from a stardust grade starfighter would dissuade even the most powerful attacker from going past floor 15." The Armageddon was silent before replying, "Unfortunately, I don't think the strange knows where he teleported that thing, and the quantum scanners are not pinging it. I do, however, have M.R. Tentacles 2.0!"

The floor groaned, the walls shook, and the most horrible atrocity came stomping around the corner, lifted by black coiling nanite tentacles that snaked and writhed like they had a life of their own. I adjusted the ceiling lights, so the cockpit wasn't covered in shadow and beheld the Strange sitting at the controls with a huge grin. Suddenly the loudspeaker blared, "Move over, or I'll make you my new litter box!"

I figured the strange would enjoy his mission to defend levels 10-15. Its small body was quite protected now that the armor surrounded it. He could teleport M.R. Tentacles 2.0, which allowed quick access to any floor, so I wasn't worried the lack of monsters would cause delvers to view the dungeon as easy or less dangerous. Any delve would risk anyone to archmage level being obliterated by the strange if they did not appease it. There was also the fact that once the manna array was complete, it would draw large swaths of beasts towards the area as the change in manna flow would call to them. It was going to be pretty dangerous for any delvers.

I tasked Armageddon with implementing an automated dance rating system for the Room of Style and awarding protection in the manner of traps not triggering or new shortcuts opening for those with the highest dance ratings. This included protection from death blows as long as the successful delver did not try to continue to the fake "Core room" after level 15.

The fake core room after level 15 would serve as the interim cultivation chamber for Mike and me until we got the information on how to automate the ruin inscriptions. The idea was to expand the dungeon, and the manna gathering array to a much larger scale and pipe all the energy back to the Armageddon so the SG66 armor would shield our cultivation.

It would still take Mike a few months to finish inscribing all the runes for a manna array big enough to cover the size of the dungeon area I had evacuated, and I was unable to help as I did not have the required manna inscribing levels.

I needed to level up my Stealth skill if I ever wanted a shot at stealing the manna automating technology from the library near the imperial palace. I didn't think I could avoid people in cities entirely as Mike recommended; it wasn't practical. I felt that with a high enough Stealth skill, I could pretend to be just another peasant and not someone worth noticing from the high levelers and people connected to the soul factions.

I frowned as I thought about ways to upgrade Stealth. Mike had wanted to hide in the dungeon and cultivate to boost stats, but I would lose the ability to openly walk around once my SOUL reached level three as people would be able to see I was a cultivator. Stealth could hide me, but it would be quite a while before it was trained high enough. I needed to develop the skill as fast as possible.

I assumed that using my skills would help them cultivate, and practicing with people seemed like a great way to make the skill practical. The plan was risky because If I messed up and caused suspicion, someone might use IDENTIFY on me and see that I was a marked cultivator.

I shrugged. I could probably run away fast enough if I did get identified, and I wanted to give the city a try. I would lose my chance to walk around once my SOUL stat got to level three so now seemed like a good time to explore the city. Maybe I could learn something about "Her" while I was there. I wondered what the lady at the guildhall had said to me that day. What did she mean by "She wants to know how old you are?"