The wolf moved slowly but steadily from his hiding place and entered the dungeon through the entrance. James felt a fluctuation in mana the moment the wolf stepped through the entrance and into the dungeon.
At first, it was a good feeling, mana seemed to seep into the walls and become his own. But as the wolf started to move through the entrance hallway, only one word reverberated through his being.
Danger.
The wolf was dangerous. Very dangerous. He moved his presence to the hallway and gazed upon the predator. A large wolf. Its face held a snarl, showing off its large, sharp teeth. The wolf was coated in black fur, the light of the mana embedded in the walls created vile shadows, making it seem even more dangerous for every second that passed. Wicked looking claws dug slightly into the ground as it walked forward.
‘It’s huge.’, James thought, ’even on all fours it’s as tall as one of my goblins.’
“James, this is bad.” Clint spoke up, his voice revealing that even the fairy was uncertain this time around. “That’s quite a strong monster there for your current dungeon level.”
James tried to shake the fear off of him and sent forth one of his goblins, wanting to test the wolf and see its capabilities first. His goblin held the dagger in front of him, and set forth at a quick pace, moving to the first room. There, it waited for the wolf to arrive. The wolf growled and snarled at the goblin once it entered the room, and looked completely unimpressed as it dwarfed the goblin. It charged forward at the goblin like a wild beast. The goblin raised his dagger, holding it steady at the incoming wolf, fear quite visible in his eyes even for James to see. The wolf moved a bit down to the left with its head, and then came back up, its eyes entering the vision of the goblin from up close, staring it down. The goblin shivered at the sight of the bloodthirsty and violent eyes of the wolf, seemingly paralyzed. The next moment, the goblin was laying down on the floor, claws pressed firmly against his upper body, sinking into his flesh as the wolf held him down.
It had happened quickly. A small push from the wolf his head had pushed the goblin off balance, and then the paw pushed him down, claws lodging into the skin. The wolf looked down at the goblin and opened his mouth, giving one lets snarl before sinking its sharp canine teeth into the throat of the goblin, ending the fight.
James could only stare at the huge wolf as it killed his goblin in cold-blood with ease. ‘It’s strong. Very strong. How do I deal with this? What do I do? It’s going to kill me. It just killed the goblin like it was nothing. How.. What do I do?’ His thoughts spiraled out of control, the mana in the dungeon started to fluctuate as James his emotions went out of control and fear took root in his body. The sight of the dead goblin and the advancing wolf proved too much for him to deal with.
‘I don’t want to die... I don’t want to die again..’ He was scared, very scared.
Clint stared at the dungeon core as he felt the mana fluctuate, and balled his fist before slamming it against the dungeon core. A loud clang rang through the dungeon as James was brought back to reality.
“W.. What did you do that for?” A weak sounding voice responded to Clint.
“Take control of yourself, idiot! You still have seven goblins left! Use them!” Clint snapped angrily at James.
Even though it was harsh, it seemed to work a bit, and James calmed down. The flow of mana started to turn back to normal as he gazed upon the wolf, which was slowly licking its claws clean. It stretched its hind legs a bit before moving in the direction of the second room.
‘Seven goblins... I can let them gang up on it..’ James nodded to himself and sent all seven goblins to the second room. He placed three of them in the middle of the room and split the remaining four up in two groups of two, each group taking up position at a corner from where the wolf would emerge.
With his remaining mana, he summoned two more goblins, bringing him down to 40 mana points. They quickly took position at the entrance to the last hallway of the second room. His goblins in position, they all waited for the wolf to emerge and attack.
Which it did. ‘It’s quick’, James thought, as the wolf sprinted out of the hallway and into the second room, toppling over the three goblins, throwing them against the walls. One of the goblins lost his dagger and scrambled to reach it. The last thing the goblin saw was large, sharp claws coming towards his face. A scream echoed throughout the dungeon as the goblin died. The other two goblins didn’t fare much better. One was bitten in his shoulder while another had his arm scratched badly by the wolf’s other paw, yet managed to roll away at the very last second. The goblin lunged forward with his remaining power, embedding his dagger into the shoulder of the wolf, blood seeping out of the wound.
The wolf howled in anger and pain, fury visible in its eyes, shaking the goblins a bit at the massive amounts of killing intent that rolled off the wolf. The goblin that attacked the wolf took a small step back, but it was too late. Teeth sank into his throat. The goblin wasn’t even able to scream as it died.
The last goblin of the three thrust his dagger forward at this exact moment and managed to slash the other shoulder of the wolf, moving its attention to that goblin. Its paw moved up and crushed the goblin’s head like a bug, killing it as well.
The other six goblins could only stare at the wolf as it killed three of their kin with relative ease, only having received some shallow wounds. James had hoped they would have done more damage, but he still had plenty of goblins left. He really hoped it would be enough. He didn’t wait for another second as he ordered them to attack the wolf.
As one, the goblins charged to the wolf, their ugly feet carrying them forward. The wolf snarled and turned around as it was getting attack from three sides. It lunged towards the two goblins charging from the furthest side, using its paw to smash both of them against the wall, their dangers clanging on the floor as the goblins lost their grip on them.
The now four remaining goblins continued to charge at the wolf, finally reaching it. As the wolf turned around to face the incoming danger, it was slashed across the face by one dagger, creating a large wound across its face, blinding one eye. It howled in pain and lunged forward with its head, snapping its teeth shut around the shoulder of the goblin, shaking it back and forth as the life of the goblin was quickly depleted. The wolf swung its head to the side and let go, the lifeless body of the goblin hitting the wall.
The other goblins didn’t remain motionless and started to repeatedly slash and stab the wolf, more and more wounds appearing on the wolf’s body, its fur starting to color red from the blood flowing from its wounds. It snarled and turned around, slashing with the claws of one paw towards one goblin while sinking its teeth into the throat of another, ending the lives of another two goblins.
The remaining two goblins fighting the wolf continued their assault, drawing more and more blood from the wolf as its motions started to become sloppy, the numerous wounds on its body started to show their effect. Yet it didn’t save their life, and they too were quickly ended by the wolf. It snarled and turned its head to the remaining two goblins. It stalked towards the first to the left, and slowly sank its teeth into the goblin’s throat, killing him.
As it turned towards the last goblin, the last sight the wolf had was the dagger of that goblin quickly approaching. The goblin thrust its dagger forward, right between the eyes of the wolf. A whine escaped the wolf’s mouth as it fell down to the ground, its life vanishing from its eyes. The goblin staggered back and let out a victorious cry, having defeated the wolf.
“W.. We did it...” James said quietly to Clint. “We really did it... We killed it... We survived...”
“Y.. Yeah, we did. You did well using the goblins like that.” Clint looked pale as he replied. The near death experience having unsettled him as well. As James looked back at the second room, he noticed that the bodies of the goblins slowly started to disintegrate as if they were never there, but the body of the wolf remained. He figured it must have to do with the goblins being dungeon monsters. As he thought back to the fight, he realized just how close to dying again he had come. And how he had sent the goblins to die in practically a suicide attack. He looked at the wolf again and shivered as he had never killed an animal before. What was most unsettling was that he felt no guilt. Would he feel nothing if he had to kill an adventurer, a fellow human, for his own survival? The thought unsettled him, yet hardened him at the same time. ‘I can’t die. I have to survive. I have to become stronger!’ James his resolve hardened as he created a goal. He couldn’t come to death so close again. He had to grow stronger as a dungeon if he wanted to survive in this world. He would only be able to get knowledge if he survived, after all.
He glanced at his mana and noticed it was fulfilling a little bit faster than before. As he looked back at the wolf, he saw that its mana was seeping into the dungeon, helping him to recover slowly. Most of it, however, didn’t seem to go to his mana pool. ‘Hmmm, that’s odd... I should ask Clint about it later.’ He focused on the wolf’s dead body again, and, even though he didn’t want to, he set himself to the task and started to assimilate the large body of the wolf.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Roughly three hours later he had assimilated the wolf and gained the knowledge. As he glanced to his status screen, he noticed that his mana had barely recovered. He had felt the drain of mana as he assimilated the wolf. IT seemed that the larger and more difficult objects would take longer to assimilate and take up some of his mana to do so.
Moving back to his status screen, he opened up his skill monster window and glanced at it.
[Summon Monster]
[Goblin: 80 mana]
[Kobold: 80 mana]
[Slime: 50 mana]
[Wolf: 400 mana]
‘Oh, that’s cool. I can summon a wolf now. But it seems my maximum mana is lacking for now. Guess that’s for when I’m a higher level dungeon.’ As James thought about possible uses for his monsters, Clint spoke up to get his attention
“Alright, so James. Your dungeon is a bit damaged. It seems your plants got hit in the attack, some of your walls are destroyed, and well, you obviously lost most of your goblins. It probably would be a good idea to summon them again if we want to stop another attack.” Clint glanced at where the body of the wolf should have been and looked momentarily surprised as he noticed James had assimilated it. “And quick thinking there, assimilating that. Guess you can summon it?”
“Yeah, but I don’t have enough mana for now. Anyway, I’ll get right to summoning them… Ah, I have another question, Clint. I could feel mana leaving the body of the wolf and enter my dungeon, but most of it didn’t go to my mana pool. Do you know what happened?”
“Hmm... Well, it’s probably a requirement to level up. As I said before, adventurers and monsters alike give off a certain amount of mana. The stronger they are, the more mana they give off. Part of this goes towards your mana pool while another is used to make you stronger. The more mana you take in from foreign entities, the quicker you will level up. There’s like, a maximum amount of mana you can take up, though. They continuously replenish their mana so eventually, it’s your own mana. Only if you kill them will you be able to get even more, like what happened with the wolf.” Clint looked worried for a moment before speaking up again. “Please don’t kill too many adventurers, alright? Or they’re going to come in charging and grind your dungeon crystal to dust.”
James took the information to heart and glanced at his status screen again. ‘110 mana points. Not bad.’ He waited until he had 120 mana points before summoning another goblin, bringing his total back up to two goblins, his mana back to 40 mana points.
For the next hour, he started repairing the walls slowly, while repeatedly glancing at his status screen. Once he reached 120 mana points again, he summoned another goblin.
An entire day passed while James brought his goblins back up to eight and his mana points to their maximum. He summoned another two goblins to bring his total amount of goblins to 10, creating some force, even though they were quite weak.
He waited a few more hours to bring his mana back up and tried to summon another goblin, yet failed. As he tried again, he noticed the flow of mana didn’t seem as strong and the goblin wasn’t created. He moved over to Clint and addressed him. “Hey Clint, I can’t summon any more goblins. Is there like.. a limit or something?”
“Well yes. Obviously. Your dungeon can only support so many monsters. If you want more, you need to grow larger and stronger.”
‘Hmm.. I guess that does make sense. Just adding Goblins will only go so far, though.. I need a larger variety of monsters and see how I can combine them. What else do dungeons have.. Think, James, think. You need more than this if you want to survive this weird world.’ James started thinking back to all the games he played, and how he experienced them. In several dungeons, one thing always came back. ‘Traps! I need traps. I need more items to make traps though..’
As James realized what he had to do, he brought all his goblins to the first room and split them up into five groups of two. He ordered the first two groups to go out and gather as many materials as they could, while the remaining three groups guarded the dungeon. Not too long after, the goblins came back and dropped their gathered stuff in the first room. James used the remaining six goblins to sort through the loot and spread it out for him to analyze what he had. Meanwhile, the goblins went out to gather more stuff.
James repeated this process for the next few days. He would send out a few groups to gather items, and then look through what they gathered before assimilating it, adding it to his knowledge. During this time, he thought about how he could expand his dungeon and how the layout should look like. He felt it needed several more rooms, and more hallways, if he wanted to add traps to the mix.
He repeatedly discussed the layout with Clint, who pointed out several errors. ‘Ugh, making a dungeon is quite difficult’, he thought, ‘I can’t make it too difficult because adventurers have to be able to survive. Not that I want to kill anyone, anyway. Gotta make it just right in difficulty.’
Finally, he came up with what he thought was a good layout and set to work. Over the course of a week, James expanded his dungeon. Using both his active and passive skills, he dug out rooms and created hallways while filling up some of the old ones. At the last room, he made a side path to hold an experimentation room to see what traps he could come up with. As he finally finished his work, he moved through the dungeon and was quite happy with the result he had made.
[http://i.imgur.com/EzvB2pN.png]
It had taken quite a bit of work. Only the first hallway and room remained relatively the same. Part of the third room had been used as a hallway, while the second room had been made round. The second room had been filled up completely, which had taken quite some time. He had copied the layout and created the same at the other side of the first room, to create two paths for adventurers and monsters to take. They would meet again in what you could call the fourth room. Here most of his monsters would wait, with a tiny room for some of his monsters to charge from, and hopefully catch adventurers and monsters off guard. That room led to his core room and his experimentation room, which he would use to experiment with traps, to see what he could come up with.
Now that he had completed the layout of his dungeon, he decided to fill it up with several plants again. From the last time he had done this with Clint, he had found out that the more mana he gave to the plants, the better the quality would be. If he gave the plants less mana, they would be poor in quality.
The next several days were spent carefully creating the healing herbs. In the first room, he created two low-quality plants, enough to create some interest. Each circular room held one plant of medium quality. Most of the time spent was in the last room. He wanted a good quality healing herb there as a reward for beating the largest section of the dungeon. It wasn’t easy, though. As he pumped more mana into the plant, it would break apart. He had to carefully control the mana while he created the healing herb, and adjust it accordingly. It was only on the last day that he managed to create a good quality healing herb.
[Active Skill Mana Manipulation has reached level 2]
His efforts were rewarded, and he gave himself a pat on the back as he reached a new level in mana manipulation. He could once again feel the knowledge flow into his mind as he gained a new, better understanding of how mana functioned and how one had to control it. Now it was time to create some traps and see what the kobold and the slime could do.
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Somewhere, in a different part of the world James now inhabited, there was a busy town. The town was surrounded by a sturdy stone wall with guards at the four exits. Grassy plains surrounded the town. Further, at one side, were some hills, at another a large forest, both connected through a large mountain range. There were many farmers working the lands, with tiny villages scattered throughout the plains. The marketplace was probably the busiest place in the entire town, with taverns surrounding it. People came here to buy their daily food, or browse through arms and armor. Adventurers would haggle with craftsmen, while innkeepers were buying wares from the farmers.
Besides the marketplace, the Adventurers’ Guild was likely the second busiest place in the town. Here people gathered to place requests, and adventurers would complete these for rewards and fame.
Taverns were frequently visited as well. Here adventurers, merchants and farmers alike would come together to fill their bellies and practically drown themselves in cheap booze while throwing out dirty jokes at each other.
Everyone was welcome to start as an adventurer. A test would be taken to see if you had any combat capabilities. Based on this test, you would be assigned an adventurer rank. If you had no prior combat experience, you would be put as an F-rank and go through a training camp where a senior adventurer, currently employed by the Adventurer’s Guild would teach you the essentials.
Emi was one of these adventurers. She was one of the cat-people. Her fluffy cat ears were located on the top of her head. She could form large claws from her fingers and easily retract them again. A fluffy tail swished from side to side as she walked through the busy town. She had large red eyes, the color just as bloody red as her long hair, which reached all the way to her lower back. She was currently wearing a crude set of leather armor. It hadn’t cost a lot at the stall where she bought it. At each hip hung a scabbard, each containing a one-handed sword.
Her pace had a small extra step to it, nearly skipping through the busy street as she watched around happily, her ears twitching a little at the sounds she picked up. Catching a whiff of something delicious, she stopped mid-step, her tail standing up straight. Her head tilted to the side as she let out a “Nyaa?” while looking for the source. Her large, round eyes quickly fell on the pancakes being prepared at one of the stalls, a bulky man preparing them, his booming voice sounding throughout the marketplace, “Pancakes! Buy your pancakes here! Just five coppers a piece!”
Curiously, she approached, her nose taking in the scent of the delicious treat. Her hand dug in the little coin purse hanging from the leather belt and she took out five copper coins. She nodded to herself, this would be a good way to celebrate her graduation from the training camp.
She handed over the copper pieces and received the pancake. Holding it with both hands, she munched on it, an overly happy expression on her face as she took large bite after bite from the treat, even closing her eyes once in a while. Her tail slowly coiled around her leg as she walked through the street while finishing the pancake. Once she was done eating it, she threw away the little paper that came with it to hold it into a trash bin and licked her lips, trying to get as much of the aftertaste as possible.
Emi headed for the inn she was staying at and entered the establishment. She sat down at one of the many tables and ordered a hot plate of food together with a mug of ale. She let out a deep breath as she was finally able to really relax after a long day of training. Tomorrow she’d be able to do her first quest as an F-rank adventurer! She was overjoyed, and when her food arrived, she raised the mug and took a big gulp of the drink, the alcohol slightly burning her throat. “Nyaah, that hit the spot!” She said rather loudly, some of the other adventurers around her looking up and at her. Some looked at her with a mildly amused look, remember their days of just graduating the training camp of the Adventurers Guild. She gave them an embarrassed smile. Others, however, looked at her with disgust. She shrugged her shoulders and ignored them. Beastkin like herself weren’t really wanted by every human, but she didn’t really care.
Finishing up her food, she walked to the stairs, and, after saying good night to the innkeeper, headed up the stairs to the first floor and entered her room to the far right in the hallway. She locked the door behind her and, after disrobing, fell down on the bed and crawled under the covers, promptly falling asleep.