Looking at the small humanoid screaming in no recognizable language to his magical translator, Aki decided that no, he'd not be trying to befriend the goblins on this forest.
Quickly gagging it so it'd not bite it's tongue out, he broke it's knees and elbows, signaling his wolf to release the goblin. He'd later study the body and then compare it to known schematics to gain more advantages before he allowed the dungeon to eat it and obtain the blueprint of the race.
The difference was small, but it would later allow for direct modifications and the creation of chimeras instead of cloning and slowly changing the recipe throughout the absorption of different specimens to the best possible monster.
He never really expected to use biology and chemistry knowledge like a mad scientist, but even he could see the fun in discoveries. It was still great to have something showing him the name of each name of the things he had known. His memory had never been the best, nevermind when such strange names were involved.
Walking into the training room, Aki took in the vision of his new subordinate realising a kata as she waited for their session to start. Her body gracefully passed through the motions, muscles and supple flesh ripling to produce precise and fluid sweeps, stabs, slashes and blocks with the heavy spear he'd provided.
She was a tall woman, many a battle leaving a mark on her body, her small breasts and firm long legs complimented by them. The lack of attention had left her hair brittle and unkept, but the fierceness in her eyes could not easily be hidden.
Were it any other time, he'd have immediately gotten a crush on her, but right now...
"You're crying." She stated, interrupting her warm up and turning in his direction.
"It's nothing much." Aki immediately replied, shaking his head. "Just a bad thought still too fresh in his mind." He wiped the two tear drops on his cheeks and gave his all to the day's training.
Or so he'd like, but something sudden finally happened.
An adventurer finally came!
Well, it was actually a newbie, so it wouldn't be an actual challenge of any kind, but actually testing his traps' efficiency was something he'd eventually need to do, so independently of how stupid this guy was, he'd obtain valuable data with his capture.
"Sara, do you know any Donald Quartz?" Aki asked as he took out an actual spear out of the inventory instead of a training one.
"Not personally, but I'm sure that's the young master from my home village. Why?" Answered the confused would-be teacher.
"In that case there's no problem. He's right outside, apparently looking for you if the purple lock on the compass he has is of any indication. I'll let him in to test my traps." He mentioned with a small nod, attacking with the spear's handle so as to distract the woman.
*****
"Finally found where that purple whore hide's." Growled the green haired young man, the shadow of a smirk forming on his face as he stepped inside the hole in the short clifside. The drop was rather sharp, but even if he couldn't just jump it, there was still a safer slope by the side.
He'd been looking for fifteen minute on the wrong altitude! After blind sighting his detail, not all things had gone well for him, little Dony having to carry his own things on his storage ring.
With the magical items his family had traded for with the master wizard, however, he was untouchable even in this forest.
So he'd find the bitch, rough her up a bit, get her back to the village, get a blessed baby, become the next in line, get rid of her and then finally apply for the status of town!
Or so he thought before falling into a spiked hole and impaling both his legs, his right arm and his side on the falling.
*****
"I am impressed at how badly he did against such simple illusion. Like, he's obviously decked out in magic accessories but didn't have anything against illusions? That's weird. Did his family get scammed because their appraiser wasn't so good with magical artefacts and fell for something that had the right rune work?" Cringed Aki, suddenly stopping as the decked out newbie feel for the first spike trap he'd put.
On the entrance room. In front of the only way forward.
There wasn't even dirt covering that hole, just a weak illusion!
How had that guy even gotten to level 39!?
From what he understood it should be possible for someone to be power leveled till forty, but doing something like that was both ridiculously expensive and time consuming. Just how much of a gold sink was this guy?
He hadn't died from the spikes, but his Hp was dropping quite quickly from the hemorrhaging, fist sized holes in his body, and instead of doing any number of choices that had any sense, he summoned and drank a potion.
With the spikes still quite lodged in him.
Aki would have taken the thing from the hands of the screaming and oozing bastard, but dungeon rules said his administrative powers were reduced on the rooms with any challenger, and he'd never get there in time to stop him phisically or magically, so he just...
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Didn't turn off the feed.
He heard the whole monologue and curse list this guy said while looking for Sara ever since he'd stepped into the dungeon territory, which already spanned a hundred meters in diameter over the surface, so most reservations his parents had ever teached him simply were unable to apply themselves to this piece of shit.
The wails of pain reverberated far into the cave system of the first floor, but it did not reach inside the training room, which wasn't exactly on the first floor, but overall very far into the dungeon.
What they did cause, was to energise the mental reserves of a tired psico, the hair all over his body standing on end as he gave a full blown grin that made Sara feel like she was going to be killed.
So she gave it her best for the next few moves, greatly hurting herself and Aki in the process, to which he just laughed a bit and kept going.
It was only some time later when they stopped and the older woman scolded him that he had the chance to actually ask the questions he had internalised.
"He... died?" She blinked several times in confusion. "To the first trap? Just like that?" This made her frown and think for a bit before turning to face the patient Aki. "Did you put an illusion over it or something? Those normally don't appear on dungeons until the middle levels, and he didn't have any reason to think about it, much less a way detect them, so that'd make sense." She muttered, nodding at the end for finally understanding it.
That, in turn, made Aki confused. How could a young master walk around with so many items and not have anything against basic illusions?
It made sense up to the point that he'd not have a good danger sense or the like, but illusions would likely cause infinite trouble for rich people not in possession of any detection capabilities or item because of soft power dinamics rather then falling into holes, so it was rather unthinkable that the man in question would not have one such equipment.
"Sara, I know this may sound weird, but how hard is it to obtain either the capabilities or a item to detect and dispel illusion?"
The woman just looked at him like he should know the answer to such dumb question, but ultimately decided to humor him.
"Almost impossible. You'd have to find a wizard willing to sell you enchanted goods and then buy the stupidly overpriced gear, something so useful likely costing hundreds of gold coins, or get lucky over dungeon drop, though neither would necessarily be something that is always active as in contrast to becoming a mage's apprentice and being lucky enough for said master to know and teach you said technique." She elaborated, noticing that Aki's eyes flickered several times, which he had explained to be him checking the dungeon and system interface. By the end of her explanation however, he had a conflicted expression that seemed to hurt.
"Great. Just one more thing, what would be the view of an elf on such matters?" He asked while massaging his browns.
"How the fuck would I know? Those pompous asses would never get in proper contact with humans." She sneered.
"Bitch shit, this will hurt." He muttered. "Sorry, forgot all my words are translated. Idioms don't pass over well. Anyway, I take this means you know almost jack shit about magic if anything, right? Yeah, that fucks with my plans way too much. You're not going hunting with me till you are at least a mid tier spellspear." Aki groaned, summoning a floating book and a pen before quickly joting down several notes and tips on body reinforcement, how to train with it. He'd prepare a grimoire with basic control exercises, cantrips and several basic spells later.
"What?" Was all she could say before the taller young man shoved the small book on her face.
"Sara, I am level 2. I've been fighting toe to toe against you this whole time despite the fact you have more than three times all my stats because I've been using magic to equal our phisical prowess. I thought you were going easy on me by not using your own reinforcements, but no, it's just that this world is shit. People haven't reached a sliver of what's possible with the system this way. There are too many things I've assumed about this place." He explained, his first revelation reverberating the most with the woman in front of him.
As he walked to the entrance of the training room, Aki whistled a shril sound. The mana reverberated and all thirty wolves heard his call. They'd stop their recruiting and return.
"Sara, start training with the book, i have some things to start." He said with a serious air of a superior to a subordinate, sitting with his back to the wall, three system screems opening in front of him.
{Available dungeon seed location:
Muspelheim (Traits/Achievements)
Jotunheim (Traits)
alfheim (Magic)
Nifelheim (Defalt)}
{Purchasable traits:
Arcane dungeon 5pts
Lupine specialisation 1pts
Defense specialisation 2pts
Horde specialisation 3pts
Military specialisation 2pts
Dungeon law control 2pts
Dungeon field control 1pts}
{Midgardian gold coin - 100 DP (87 in storage)}
'I really want arcane dungeon, but that's for later. Lupine would be a terrible choice, and I don't have near enough monsters to form even a small horde, nevermind it isn't really my stile and choosing it may invalidate other options right now. That leaves me a good repertoire however. Purchase five trait points.' He quickly decided.
{Confirm purchase of 15000 DP?}
'Yes.' He confirmed, seeing that the price scaling for points was apparently not exponential but additive. He could deal with that.
With the dungeon already having reached level three through his several achievements and their strangely timely 'Size requirement for next level decreased', he now had 7 trait points.
{Defense specialisation purchased - Dungeon inhabitants gain small bonuses when defending and traps become more refined and deadly. Defending against intruders now gives XP which can be used to better dungeon features.}
{Military specialisation purchased - All monsters become more organized. Chief type monsters gain bonuses depending on their following. Chief type monsters become capable of using dungeon features for communication. Naturally groomed monsters gain a higher chance of becoming elites while training.}
{Dungeon laws have become available. The cost depends on the effect. You can either make one law per floor or several laws for specific rooms, the amount depending of the floor size and energy available through the dungeon.}
{You can now control dungeon fields so as to change their shape and size, and with it their maintance cost. You can now overlap fields.
Midnight horrors field unlocked.
Brilliant illusions field unlocked.
Regeneration field unlocked.}
Nodding at his gains, Aki relaxed his breath and went into deep thought as to how to best implement his new options into his next dungeon.