Looking around, Aki could only describe the surroundings as mildly annoying, what with the mist always stopping his sight by a bit, the smell of sweat, blood and rotten meat, plus the mana trying to claim his soul and erode his soul at all moments.
The sound of chains started to overpower the surrounding's silence, iron being dragged around as his reception came closer.
The scrawny dead man with scars in his lips and a limp was suddenly assaulted by hatred, stopping for a moment before he continued his march towards the floating clear bead and the living man standing by it's side.
"Greetings dungeon master. I am a humble servant of Hel, sent as liason to inform you of the rules." He intoned in a husky voice with a mock bow.
"Let's get it done with then. What is my anima tax? Special rules, adequate rewards and expansion requirements." He icily asked while tapping his foot.
"Milord, I am afraid my memory isn't what it used to..." *Garrr* Before he could react, Aki was already lifting him by the neck.
"Finish that sentence and I will make you wish to have been born a woman, castration the lesser of your problems. Do you understand rapist? I need only pay for your soul to obtain it and 'change your perspective' in front of your replacement. Talk, or whoever comes next will." He snarled, releasing the hold of the anima in his hand, the spectre falling through it and gasping for air.
From there, it was easy to get the correct numbers out of the dead man. Though his words were little more than that, threats he could not fulfill at the moment, no one needed to know how under leveled he was.
Different from the human realm, spirits would be directed to his dungeon, generally one group at a time. While they would not die, no one in hellheim had a small amount of negative karma, which translated directly to power and energy for all that the boy with too big plans was going to do.
The gimmick was simple, he made a dungeon where the dammed would bleed out anima, rewarded them a set amount of anima in case of success from their part, and leeched a percentage of their total if they 'died' before kicking them out.
The idea was to have the sinners wash away their misdeeds through torturing themselves and each other while having 'clean' energy passed through them before they were sent back to the reincarnation circle.
While some did in fact reach great heights with such energy, it was clearly not by using it that one might escape since no one ever had been able to. No matter men, mer, jotun, dragon...
Aki didn't have much to do with that though.
The place he'd been summoned to was certainly a instance of the nordic pantheon realms, but it was not like he planned to team up with the god of change to kick misogyny in the balls or the like. Yet. The culture around was extremely confusing on that matter in specific considering so many different aspects even he was stumped on forming a opinion before further studies.
He just had to invest his meager amount of soul energy into the dungeon workings of a one floor trial no one should pass despite them being given the infinitesimal chance.
Thanks to the area, he had the perfect idea.
After some tweaks here and there, he summoned a slime. The clear blob of gelatin the size of an adult man was scary for no other reason than the mind magic effect it constantly released.
There would eventually be a test of knowledge, a test of wisdom and a test of patience. For now, only the last one would be available, as the other two were basically added difficulty.
The idea was simple. Let the slime influence the participants' mental state, then play some irritating music. Whoever didn't become violent passed. Further tests would have more and more powerful influences.
Different from the human plane, the land could not be claimed with time and mana, you had to pay for it with points.
Aki hopped that ment ghosts were used to smaller dungeons, but it wasn't like his dungeon was specially well positioned to get traffic, so only some wandering souls of the closest concentration camp would be coming anywhere near even if his arrival had been broadcasted for those nearby.
On the bright side, that ment he would either win or lose energy quite quickly, and Anima was used as a resource for a lot of purchases, including system modifying tools, so he considered it quite the good thing even if the amount he could hold was finite.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Anything pass his limit would be converted into points however, so he did plan on using plenty so as to not waste it.
Much like divine objects, energy couldn't simply be bought no matter how many points you had, it needed to be produced or traded for.
In the end, he'd be using most of it, Sara would get her feet back faster and get a better evolution. Hopefully integrating magic to her combat stile too. As for the wolves... He didn't really know. The anima would be purified by the dungeon influence, so no risk from it's origin, but generally only dungeon bosses and very old monsters really had any significant amount of it.
It wasn't like he had no idea what could happen, but... Nope. Not going down that line.
As Aki was right about to go back to his body, he noticed a three meters tall man coming in his direction.
Braided beard, grisly hair, runes on his clothes. Apparently killed his father. He seemed to be a giant mage or what they'd pass for it. They had their own pantheon of crazy gods with their own ways of learning magic, but those guys are kind off...
"Puny new dungeon, just wait for me to drain you of anima. You will be my escape." He clamoured, crazed eyes shining before he charged in. Immediately being teleported out, because he'd completely ignored the stone table in the middle of the room and the notification he was supposed to receive and just blasted the slime with icecles.
The lone monster had been immediately reformed and the dungeon reset with a mere fifth of the energy the guy had just lost. With another fifth being the standard tax for land usage, Aki just stood there and watched the man instead try to boil the slime seconds after he'd began the patience test for real.
Seeing as there were some more men coming this way, while screaming obscenities about a jotun, jackass smiled sweetly and added one more thing to the cave entrance coming out of nowhere in the cold rocky plains. A sign with with word 'VIOLENCE' in bold letters. Which he also attached a 'violence slime' to.
Fast forward to five minutes of vikings being vikings later, and the guy who'd come first was dissipating, completely out of anima, his pursuers not much better and Aki having absorbed every drop of energy they cuted and smashed out of each other.
With the mage dying, his anima storage reached around eighty percent from the ten he had when he reached it. Then it dropped to fifty percent again as he quickly applied it into upgrading the dungeon in it's collection and generation of resources.
"Wow, you are dumb." He exclaimed, laughing with mirth at the four survivors of the original seven, eight surprised eyes turning to watch him. "You didn't even think about attracting attention before fighting like madmen. Say, why shouldn't i shatter you all and collect myself a memento for a day where i watched such hilarious play?" Jovial expression accentuating his real age, Aki's killing intent was made scarier by the contrast as he slowly stepped foward.
"We don't want any trouble. We'll give you half our reserves if you let us go." Said the leader of the group, the man having practically bottomed out at this point, the mental effect of the area barely registering to his already tired mind by sheer tiredness.
"Why would i want any of your meager energy?" He snorted. "I will give you two choices." The look on his face made it clear to the men there was no good choice. "You will leave behind the jotun's full spoils and half of your energy." Looking directly in the eyes of the tall blond man with a full beard and a ripped body, Aki inocently smiled. "You filth can run and loot as much as you can, leaving behind the items here. The next time i see any of you in my turf you will die. Imediatly. This one has to stay with me for a night of fun however."
It took a moment for the vikings to process what he implied, one more than the others, but the next moment had several things happening in quick succesion. Three men bolted, leaving their winded companion behind to the beast. Aki blinked and followed their movement. The three men shattered in an instant.
"Stupid actions are legally bidding." Murmured Aki, smiling one last time before beggining to collect his loot.
*****
Far, far away, a certain ginger snickered as he read there was a new applicant.
After reading the full thing, however, he did have to hand it to the kid, he did good.
It'd be untoward of him to not encouraje such briliant behavior.
*****
{CONGRATULATIONS! An Annonimous Aesir has deemed it interesting to bless your dungeon! Several achievements unlocked! 25k DP awarded! 1 Trait point awarded!}
'Thank you. System, are there no achievements from receiving the blessing of a jotun? Would Frey's blessing count as that of an Aesir or a Vanir?' Aki snickered, rolling his eyes.
{Fair point.}
{CONGRATULATIONS! A Mighty and Wise Jotun has deemed it interesting to bless your dungeon! Several achivements unlocked! 1 DP awarded! 1 Trait point awarded!}
'I will certainly make sure to try and get the love sick idiot to get me his Vanir blessing them. With some luck it shouldn't be too hard to get the blessing of all elvenkind too. Who knows, maybe there's an achivement for having a blessing from every major power?'
There was no answer to that, and so the young man went back to explaining how he would not actually be forcing the mountain of a men with green eyes to sleep with him.
"And so i have lost my patience. I like both men and women, will not sleep with you or anyone because i am grieving, and am the dungeon master of the place you are standing at. I have more to do than acomodate you, Sara can explain some things to you, i have heavy duty training planed and already wasted too much time." He waved, teleporting the quickly nauseated undead spirit into the world of the living and getting up from his 'spiritual meditation'. "Sara, this is Ben, Bjorn, this is Sara, your direct supperior. Answer when someone calls you Ben, here's a notification with a copy of the contract i scamed you into becoming a part of.