The last three zones were not that obvious at first, but that swamp zone gave me some inspiration. Section four, then... What about smaller and bigger hills? A highland area with a small glacier, full of shrubs and short trees, with occasional marsh amongst sharp rocks. It would be a good place for my wolves and eagles, who could use it to their advantage. Something like the highlands of Scotland, which would tire the brave who would approach them without the proper preparations. Cold rivulets that meander among the landscape would make a perfect spot for some smaller and bigger game, like frost rabbits or red deers. But this area would also be a great encounter zone with some of the most intense fights- the wolves attacking in packs, the large eagles falling on their prey from above, and venomous snakes hidden between the rocks would teach people to always be cautious.
Section five. After the highlands, what about the desert? It would actually be cheaper to change flatlands into desert, since turning the fertile soil of surrounding plains into sand will give me back mana But... Do I really need a desert? I returned to my body. My Ladies had woken up already, and I could see them through the bedroom's doors as they lazily ate breakfast, still wearing their nightgowns. I stood up as well and put on some clothes before I entered the living room.
"Good morning, Darlings," I grinned at them. "I woke up earlier, but you were still sleeping, so I used that opportunity to apply some upgrades to parts of the Dungeon."
"That's great news! I thought you would require at least a beating to get it done." Amber joked, showing me her tongue.
"Very funny." I kissed her cheek and took my seat. "I wanted to actually ask you something. Are there any known deserts on this continent?"
"A desert?" Amber looked at me with surprise. "My parents told me stories about deserts, but sorry, Theon. I don't remember them that well."
"There is a desert on our continent, Theon." Irene tapped her lips thoughtfully. "I think in the south-east, many many weeks away from here. But I never was particularly interested in it. Knys should have exact information about it..."
"Thank you! That was everything I wanted to know." I waved my hand dismissively and grabbed a still-hot toast. "I was wondering if creating the desert area will have any use except the source of quartz sand. Or quartz when we are at this..."
"You have focus stones?!" Amber looked at me as if I had been deliberately hiding that knowledge from her.
"Yes, Amber, we have them. I just never thought of quartz as useful since gemstones make the best-quality focus stones." I shrugged and looked at their shocked faces as they started inspecting their wedding rings decorated with large diamonds of the highest quality.
"Oh... I thought this was just a pretty piece of jewellery..!" Amber's face turned red as she started laughing. "That explains so many things!"
I glanced at them with my poker face activated as they awkwardly looked at each other and giggled like crazy. Luna focused on her large diamond ring that suddenly started shining with silver light. Amber's diamond turned into a vibrant red of blazing inferno as she focused on her ring after she stopped giggling. Irene's gemstone shone a brilliant gold, causing her to smile brightly.
"Now we’re talking!" Irene inspected her large diamond, still grinning slightly as the golden light softly illuminated her beautiful face.
"Okay..." I took a sip of tea, absolutely ignorant of what I was looking at, just enjoying their smiles and joyful reactions.
"Theon, if we only knew that we had such incredible focus stones for all this time... *sigh* we would probably have progressed much quicker with advanced magic." Amber painted a circle in the air and a trail of flame obediently followed the movement of her index fingertip.
"I was sure you identified them. They are not only the focus stones but also incredibly powerful protection items!" I leaned back in the chair.
"Theon, my Darling... Please, allow us to keep some dignity." Luna smiled brightly and took out her crown. "It's bad enough that we are going to spend the entire day identifying every item you have given us."
"Hahaha... In that case, I'm returning to build and reshape." I kissed Irene and Luna on my way towards my comfy chair near the window.
"Have fun!" Amber winked at me.
"I will." I grinned back and reclined comfortably in my armchair after it deployed the retractable footrest. I then closed my eyes.
•••
It was somehow comforting to know that I’m not the only one having problems with adjusting to my new reality. I was fully aware that I made some mistakes or even still did something stupid occasionally, but it was an incredible feeling to have so many people around me. They made their mistakes too; sometimes they were sloppy but they always tried their best to just be decent people. While I am a dungeon and the concept of time had already started to elude me, I still believed that I have my heart in the right place. I still felt I was a human, and that was what counted the most. With that happy feeling inside my soul, I once more focused on reshaping the dungeon zones. I noticed that plenty of adventurers and even lumberjacks had already flowed into Section Ten in an attempt to gather wood, which was excellent news.
So the desert in Section Five. The desert was easy enough to create, but boring on its own. Making dunes would be the obvious choice, and I would add small oases to act as safe zones. Wait! Some of the oases would be safe zones, but others would stay combat zones to act as bait to increase the awareness of the Adventurers. In the middle of the desert, I should build a structure. A pyramid is an obvious pick for me, but I'm not sure if the people of this world knew of them. Oh, well... I wanted a pyramid. I would also include some stone formations to add to the terrain variety. Then I probably should season-lock this entire Section to make it feel like a real desert. A snow-covered desert is just not the same...
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Anyway, the best denizens to populate this area would be snakes, and Nagas and Lamias were also easy choices. Eagles also would work here. But that would be a somewhat poor variety of monsters. Oh! Spiders! Trapdoor spiders, tarantulas, and wolf spiders would work extremely well in the desert. They were fairly powerful spiders and fortunately; they were in the Deathweaving Spider evolution tree. Now that’s more what I like. What about the pyramid, though? The most logical solution would be mummies. However, I do not have any mummies... But I have skeletons and an entire cloth industry. So I planned to wrap the skeletons into bandages... Or even better! I would ask Wendy to make some kind of armour that looked like bandages on the mummy, and I would make a pattern from it for the skeletons in this Section.
The low-grade focus stones nodes would be hidden in the stone formations scattered along the dunes. Inside the Pyramid, I would build underground sections that would connect it to the Mausoleum and the Cave, and deeper into the reversed tower. I would also make another boss encounter where the people brave enough to explore the pyramid would fight a fake mummy king that would drop some nice loot. I also planned to place medium-grade focus stones throughout the Pyramid’s interior. Obviously, this Section was one of the hardest in the above-ground parts of the dungeon, so monsters and rewards would be adjusted accordingly. When I looked now at all this sand, I realised I had to prevent it from getting into other Sections or deeper into the Castle of Avalon itself. It's not as if I hate sand, like a certain individual, but I'm not a fan of it where it does not belong. Fortunately, it can be easily prevented by locking the Section. After some thought, I locked the swamp as well. I don't need mosquitoes, either.
That leaves me with Section Six. Previously, it had been an open, low-level zone for surrounding villagers to farm and obtain food so their villages could survive the winter. After absorbing the villagers and making them my residents, the need for that zone disappeared. That being said, I had to do something with it. Hmmm... I always liked mountains. So why not just make an artificial mountain range..? Well, maybe not that tall or long, but certainly mountains nonetheless. I wanted them with smaller and bigger waterfalls and lakes, with a temperate forest full of pines and other evergreen trees. Among the valleys and peaks, the hidden caverns and wavy roads would make an entire network of incredible trekking tracks. Maybe a small bamboo forest in one of the corners would be a nice addition. When I now looked at this section and all the scenic sights it had to offer, I was no longer so sure I wanted to place a combat zone here at all. For now, I decided to leave it be...
The thing that was bugging me was the Sections’ numbering. Soo... Maybe it was time to sort that out. Section Nine, with the most basic zone, would be Section One now. Section Ten, with the cave entrance, would now be section Two. And so on with the Mountains in the previous Section Six… they would now be in Section Eight while the farms would be in Sections Nine and Ten. The Sections that connected Avalon with the outside world were: Section One, the starting zone, Section Three, the dense forest, Section Five, the cemetery and Section Eight, the mountains. The same zones had gatehouses to the Middle Castle. For safety reasons, I should shift them to other Sections... But the gatehouses, while technically being the weakest spots of the wall in this particular case, were the biggest trap my enemies could fall into, so I would leave them be for now.
I looked critically at my creation and I reminded myself to nod with satisfaction later once I returned to my body. The caves, after the care applied by Vernon and Beryl, looked awesome, so I was going to ask them once more for help. The caves would need to be about five floors deep, and after that, the people would reach the inverted tower that dives deeper. Sigh... I really could use something like a teleportation circle that allowed for fast travel to other teleportation circles once some criteria are fulfilled. Wait. System? Any help?
A fast travel gate that can be placed in various places of the dungeon, allowing for instantaneous travel between gates.
Cost: 100000 mana for the first gate. The cost increases for every subsequent gate.
Special rules: If the original gate is destroyed, all other gates also stop working and the entire network has to be rebuilt.
Status: Building Locked.
To unlock this building, you have to research the teleportation spell at your Magic Tower.
Okay. So making Stella develop a teleportation method was not a waste of time. I did not expect her to find a solution anytime soon, but at least this research was already scheduled. I didn't think building any deeper would be wise at this point, since some stubborn or particularly stupid adventurers might just get stuck somewhere.
Huh... I finished rebuilding.
I opened my eyes and pondered for a moment about the finished task. After a moment of self-appreciation, I took a look around and noticed the insane chaos that had taken hold in our living room. I decided to stay where I was, and upon further inspection, I determined it was not chaos at all, but a planned endeavour. My wives were surrounded by their attending slime maids who were bringing them their items to identify, and taking away already identified, in order to put them back in their proper places. Each Queen had at least six maids near them to keep the constant flow of items to identify. I wasn't sure how much longer it would take, or even how much they already identified, but the dents in their mana status bars were significant. I decided to sneak out since they were fully committed to their task and I teleported to the Magic Tower.
Stella was buzzing angrily over a pile of sheets of paper and an even larger pile of crumpled paper balls lay at her feet. She must have sensed my arrival, but when she looked at me and sighed with resignation, I realised how badly whatever she was doing was progressing.
"My King! I'm stuck!" she almost cried. "No matter what I do, it's pointless!"
"Calm down, Stella. What are you trying to develop?" I asked and took a seat near her desk.
"A teleportation spell. I need to think of it before we can create corresponding runes." She lowered her head, defeated.
"Stella, I never expected you to sit on the solution. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it's fast, but developing something new always takes time and effort." I shrugged. "Is there anything I can help you with?"
She hesitated, but I knew that gaze. She was trying to find a diplomatic way of saying I should just go away since my magic knowledge was, even nicely put, poor. However, she quickly focused on me and slowly nodded.
"Actually, that would be very helpful, my Lord," she responded seriously, surprising me completely.
Hold on... How?!