The Casual Dungeon
Chapter 2
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Thirty-five days remained until Milo’s ban from Rising Heroes expired. He still lamented his absence from the game and the impending trashing of his seasonal ranking.
Milo stared at his VR gear. It’s been one day since his ban and also one day since he played that other game, the one about dungeons. He hadn’t experienced a lot and he hadn’t even finished the tutorial yet. To be honest, he found the game to be rather boring and slow-paced. ‘Well, that’s to be expected of a management game. I’m too used to playing action games to know any better.’
While he’d rather play something more exciting, his limited finances absolutely couldn’t support another subscription. So with a heavy sigh, he put on the gear and started up The Master Dungeon.
You have chosen the race: Golems as your primary dungeon race. Basic varieties of golems will now spawn periodically depending on the environment of the dungeon.
Golems are lifeless animated constructs powered by mana crystals. This monster race does not require food, drink or sleep, but neither are they capable of natural evolution. Instead, better golems can be acquired by using higher quality mana crystals and better materials to form their bodies. Golems are capable of following advanced instructions depending on the quality of their mana crystals. Golems are immune to most status effects such as charm or mind control, but rare magic exists that can forcibly take control of golems.
Due to the influence of your choice, your dungeon’s earth element affinity is raised. Your ability to absorb and manipulate metals and minerals is enhanced. You gain the ability to spawn tin and copper ores. Increasing your earth element affinity allows you to spawn higher quality ores. Please consult your status screen and skill screen for more details.
Milo hadn’t read the box that popped up when he chose to use golems last night so it still hung in the air. It’s sudden disappearance disturbed his dungeon fairy’s sleep.
“...Mugu.. Oh, you’re awake already?” Philia rubbed her eyes with her tiny hands. “How could you fall asleep like that? I almost thought you were dead!”
“Hehe, dungeon cores need their beauty sleep you know. Anyway, let’s finish the tutorial, but first, status screen.”
The blue box appeared instantly.
Status Screen Name:
“Hmm, that’s a lot more attributes than I thought. Could you explain them to me miss fairy?”
Philia was glad to explain. “As you can see, a lot of attributes don’t apply to you since you’re a dungeon core and not a flesh-and-blood creature like me. I’ll keep it short so I’ll only explain the attributes that are useful to you right now. Perception is your ability to see details that others miss, and is useful in detecting stealthed invaders and crafting very detailed work. Intelligence affects the speed and sophistication of your thoughts in addition to increasing your effective mana pool. Wisdom affects your learning rate and your resistance against magical attacks. Spirit strengthens your soul and allows you to affect the souls of others. This one’s not too important if you’re working with golems, but it’s super important when you are managing living monsters.”
“What about the last two? They seem different.”
“That’s because they’re exclusive to dungeons and other types of rulers. Domain mainly affects the reach of your influence, basically the distance where you can still affect things with your mana. Authority refers to how obedient your subjects follow you. Golems are affected by this attribute but much less than other types. It’s pretty much essential when you’re dealing with undead and dragons, so don’t neglect this attribute.”
“Okay, I think I got it.” Milo nodded his non-existent virtual head. “How can I see my skills? I want to see how I can conjure up some ores and shit.”
“…Just say Skill Screen. You can also inspect the individual skills in more detail by inspecting them with your appraisal skill.”
“Skill Screen.”
Skill Screen Skill Level Description Greater Mana Manipulation 1 Master the ability to see and manipulate your internal mana to a fine degree. Dungeon Appraisal MAX Enables you to inspect all dungeon-specific entities to the fullest extent. Does not work on non-dungeon-related entities, including people and items. Beginner Dungeon Mana Accumulation 7 Increases the absorption of ambient mana from the world and refines it for your use. Higher levels improve the speed of which you collect mana. Beginner Dungeon Absorption 1 Lets you to absorb unclaimed items and dead entities. Records everything you absorb except for sentient entities. Higher levels allow for the successful absorption of stronger creatures and more sophisticated items. Beginner Dungeon Creation 1 Allows you to create any items or dungeon monsters with mana. Higher levels allow you to create more complex items and stronger dungeon monsters. Beginner Dungeon Architecture 3 Enables you to shape your dungeon within your domain. Strengthens your dungeon against physical and magical attacks. Beginner Golem Shaping 1 Allows you to create golems and specify their parameters upon forming their shape. Requires the consumption of a mana crystal to form a golem’s monster core. Ore Creation 1 Allows you to create ore veins at designated areas within your domain. You may choose whether the placed veins will replenish autonomously. Ore veins available: Tin, Copper Beginner Mana Crystallization 1 Lets you designate areas where your internal mana interacts and compresses the world’s mana. Successful compression will form mana crystals of varying attributes and qualities depending on many factors.
‘Hmmm, looks like a nice set of skills. Most are still at level 1, but I can work with that.’ Milo nodded privately to himself. “Seems that creating golems requires more work. The fact that I have to create mana crystals first before making golems is a hassle.”
Philia let out a few Tsk Tsks. “Very few dungeons even bother making golems a regular dungeon monster for that reason. They’re good for guarding important locations, so they don’t get replaced all that often. Don’t worry, simpler golems don’t need to be crafted individually. Or else, how could this little fella show up out of nowhere?”
Something moved in the corner of the core room. When Milo shone some light with his mana, he detected a vaguely humanoid shape. It practically dragged itself closer.
“Is that… a fucking mud golem?”
The golem in question certainly didn’t win any beauty awards. It dripped mud from its large viscous arms only to get reabsorbed by its wide feet. The whole thing might have looked somewhat intimidating if not for its size.
“It’s barely bigger than a dog!”
The creature made no reply. In fact, it showed no awareness at all at the presence of Philia and the dungeon core. The golem behaved as dumb as hamster to the point of occasionally knocking into walls. Any adventurer stupid enough to get killed by one of these didn’t deserve to live in the first place.
“For a natural born dungeon monster, it’s pretty bad, but as long as your dungeon develops these things will get stronger as well. The main reason why you only have mud golems is because a dungeon’s natural environment is not very efficient in creating golem monster cores. It’s better to prepare a golem workshop somewhere hidden where adventurers can’t reach.”
This needed to be done before Milo could work on the actual dungeon. With the help of his new beginner skills, Philia guided him into digging a narrow cavern behind his core room. He used mana crystallization a bunch of times in a row, taking care not to place them too close that they’d be competing with each other for the same portion of world’s mana.
Milo actually went overboard and looped this thin tunnel above the planned floors of his future dungeon. This served three purposes. First, newly spawned golems could drop down their designated areas without bumping into anyone else. Second, his dungeon monsters could group up and reach any area without warning. Third, in emergencies he could collapse the fake ceiling unto unsuspecting enemies.
Unfortunately, those plans were actually still far away. Philia prodded Milo to flesh out the first floor of his dungeon. Under her direction, he slowly used his mana to dig through the cave. Since his mana had permeated into the surroundings, it became much easier to remove the stone. His beginner dungeon absorption ability gained proficiency as he absorbed a massive amount of junk into who knows where. At the same time, he smoothed the edges of his cavern into walls according to his own design.
“This doesn’t look like a proper labyrinth.” Philia complained not too frequently. “You should at least make a few more dead ends for traps.”
“Bah, what use are traps? I’m too lazy to engage in those kind of mind games and I refuse to place something as lame as basic pitfall traps.”
Just because Milo was playing a game in the so-called ‘dungeons and dragons’ genre didn’t mean he had to follow the setting’s conventions. What he wanted build was a personal playground, not some authentic dungeon that would win awards with hardcore tabletop gamers.
So he didn’t mind at all when he placed road marks, maps and other convenient signs. He had nothing to hide at all. He wanted adventurers to know exactly what they were getting into so that if they died to his golems, they had nobody to blame but themselves. Frankly, his weird actions and his extreme reliance on golems scared Philia to no end.
“Relax Philia, it’ll work out fine.” Milo reassured his frazzling dungeon fairy. “You said the folks of the Five Sword Empire love to train their sword techniques. I know a thing or two about the sword so I’m sure I can help them push to new heights.”
Philia had nothing to say that could make Milo change his mind. Eventually, she just gave up and dug out a hidden alcove to sleep in. What she opted not to mention was that she dug out an escape tunnel for herself if things went south.
Though dungeon floors were limited to a single ‘floor’, Milo found out the definition of floor could be a little flexible. Though the maximum volume of his floor was fixed, he could reduce the length and width of his dungeon in order to gain more height. In this way he created a huge central cavern near the entrance of the dungeon. This action also revealed that normal dimensions stopped making sense. The height was so great that he should have broken through the surface already. ‘This means that dungeons are either bigger inside than outside or that each floor is its own seperate pocket dimension.’
He hadn’t carved out a gigantic cavern for no reason. While the tunnels behind branched out into separate rooms that would provide a slightly normal dungeon diving experience, the main experience would remain in this huge area. The real reason why he needed such a ridiculous height despite having limited resources was that he planned to build an arena.
Milo inadvertently fell obsessed in building this massive coliseum-like structure. He referenced the ancient coliseum in italy for inspiration but mainly designed the structure according to his limited expertise. ‘Building those fucking arches everywhere is tedious. Even with my dungeon-enhanced stone they keep collapsing. Fuck this, I’m just going to build solid walls.’
Despite the setbacks, nearly five days passed while Milo remained engrossed in making this structure. He had never played these kind of construction games before and had to admit it was more enjoyable than he thought. His levels in several dungeon skills experienced a fairly fast increase as he paid more attention to such things as decoration and aesthetics. Even if he had zero architecture experience in real life, the game’s dungeon creation abilities were sufficiently forgiving that he could merely wipe his progress and begin anew if he wasn’t satisfied.
In this manner he brute-forced a large lump of rock into a seemingly ancient underground arena. Milo even added in a few chips and cracks in order to make it seem the arena had been built long ago and had been abandoned for a long time. He even added a few statues and other artwork to make it seem like a place with history. Naturally, his sculpting skill left a lot to be desired, so he hadn’t bothered with making any detail and merely made it seem the sand and wind had smoothed the sculptures into a flawless surface.
Even Philia had to admit his creation had a sort of aged ambiance. “Still, what is the point of putting all of your efforts into building?”
“Haha, you’ll find out later when I have more resources. For now, I’ll just keep it empty and let the adventurers guess. By the way, my dungeon’s basic floor plan is pretty much complete. I only need to get a few more monsters before I can officially open the gate. I’ve even thought up a name. How do you feel about ‘The Ancient Dueling Grounds’?”
“That.. doesn’t sound so bad. Wow, you really surprised me. But it’s not a suitable name for a dungeon.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re not really ancient, you dummy.” Philia slapped her hand against the wall of the arena. “You might be able to fool the low levels, but any scholar or wizard would notice there aren’t any records of this place. Besides, some really strong adventurers might decide this place has something worth hiding and won’t hesitate to tear you to pieces.”
“Fuck.. you might be right.”
While dungeons benefited a lot if stronger people came to his dungeon, if he had no defenses against them then it might be game over for him. While the cost of getting his dungeon core stolen or destroyed wasn’t much, he already sunk in a week’s worth of time designing the interior. By now, even if he only treated this game as a distraction, he wasn’t fully willing to throw away his hard work without seeing it prosper.
Seeing her own dungeon core stumped, Philia was naturally glad to get the upper hand again and entered lecture mode. “A good name is important for a dungeon. You don’t want to name yourself something as banal as ‘The Golem Cave’ or ‘Kill Each Other Arena’. You need to have some class and think of the future. I refuse to be partnered with a dungeon that doesn’t have a fancy name.”
“So do you have any suggestions?” Milo retorted.
“Eehh uhhh...”
“Well if you don’t have any suggestions, let me think of something.”
It took a while, but eventually Milo came up with an original name that even Philia approved of. Milo only needed to summon his status screen and digitally click the field where it stated his name was nameless in order to register his new designation.
Dungeon name confirmed. Your new name is now The Ten Pillar Arena.
“Damn, that’s a fine spiffing name. By the way, you can call me Arnie for short.”
“Arnie, huh?” Philia rolled the name off her tongue. “Not bad. But why did you add the Ten Pillars specifically when you haven’t even built a single pillar yet?”
“No reason except to make the name more distinguishable. Just having the Arena as a name won’t impress enough adventurers to come take a visit so I added a random flavor. Heck knows why I picked pillars instead of columns. I’ll just make some pillars later on and create a special function.”
With a name in his belt, all he had to do was create some formidable golems. This would take some work. When he looked up to see the progress of his crystallization nodes, he was pleasantly surprised to see that half had already produced results. While the low quality mana crystals wouldn’t impress even the greenest magic apprentice, in the hands of dungeons with their superior mana manipulation skills these unassuming sources of magical energy could be turned into formidable monster cores.
“Now, lets see how much I can do.”
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Congratulations! You have succesfully synthesized a golem. Your created golem has formed into a: Misshapen Sandstone Golem.
Its uneven weight distribution has reduced its agility by 15%.
The God of Artists Jakiro greatly disapproves of your golem’s crude adornment. The health of all golems of this type is reduced by 40%.
The golem’s hands are too clumsy to wield weapons. Barehanded damage increased by 25%.
“Damnit! What does the God of Artists have to do with golems? Don’t they have better things to do, like looking up their priestesses’ skirts?”
Milo had stumped his head trying to create a proper golem. He tried to take the forms of the famous terracotta army as a model, but even when he got the proportions vaguely correct it all turned out misshapen in the end. Each failure was costly as he not only used up his time, but also lost the mana crystals involved in the crafting process.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Okay, I give up. What am I doing wrong and how can I make a working golem?”
Naturally the smug dungeon fairy couldn’t help but boast. “Hah, you think it’s easy to make such human-like golems at the start? Remember that your Golem Creation skill is still at the beginner stage. Rather than start making life-like golems, you should instead start from the ground up. Take the mud golems as a basis and try changing things slowly.”
Milo looked distastefully at the retard that called itself a mud golem rolling senselessly around in his core room. The stupid thing somehow managed to get its arms and legs tangled up. With a flick of his mana, he untangled the mud golem in order to study its structure.
‘Hmm.. it’s fucking big… wider than a normal person. Thick legs with thicker feet provide a lot of stability. From the waist up it gets a little narrower, probably because it have any chest and abdominal muscles. Arms are fairly thick and stronger than they look, just like an orangutan but without the fugly fur. It doesn’t even have a proper head, just a raised bump with two holes that function as its eyes.’
In short, the mud golem was the extreme budget version of golems. The ends of thick arms weren’t even shaped into hands, as if the golem only needed to sling around its arms to deal damage. ‘Not the most elegant solution, but I guess it does the job at its price.’
Having learned not to bite off more than he could chew, Milo reluctantly took another mana crystal and initiated his golem creation skill. He followed the initial steps of his skill by summoning sandstone around the core into a loose ball. Using mana as his hands, he plied the magically malleable material like a piece of dough, thinning out four extensions that represented the golem’s limbs.
This time he skipped the fancy stuff and merely smoothed out the surface of the golem in the proportions of a mud golem, making sure to form the joints carefully. If he had to make the joints himself he would have been lost, but luckily the skill guided him into making rounded balls that connected the other pieces of stone together. Only after he had raised the top of its chest and formed two round holes for its eyes did he receive what he wanted.
Congratulations! You have successfully synthesized a golem. Your created golem has formed into a: Crude Sandstone Golem.
Your Beginner Golem Shaping skill has leveled up!
The golem’s crude body shape is not optimal for its weight. Its agility is reduced by 10%.
The golem does not possess hands and cannot wield any equipment. Barehanded damage increased by 50%.
Your Crude Sandstone Golem has been added to your dungeon bestiary and can be summoned directly in the future.
Though the message said that Milo could summon the same golem instantly, he’d have to pay double the mana cost if he didn’t have a low quality mana crystal available.
Still, after all that hard work trying to create a simple human-shaped doll, he’d take what he could get for today. With the formation of his first sandstone golem, the dungeon’s mana-rich environment should start creation sandstone golems without his intervention. Though this wouldn’t stop the formation of useless mud golems, it would at least curb their numbers.
‘I swear these mud golems are the rats of their race.’ Milo swore as he swept throughout his entire floor and erased those useless golems. He only kept the initial mud golem in his core room as a memento of his first dungeon monster. ‘He also gives me a laugh or two when he does something retarded again.’
Too bad Philia hated the stupid creature. Not only did it splatter mud everywhere, it also bumped into her from behind a few times, completely drowning her in disgusting soil and filth.
Naturally, Milo ignored her complaints and kept the mud golem as a pet. A mentally retarded pet, but something worth keeping around until the first adventurer comes and bashes its monster core.
Now that he successfully created a sandstone golem, he was able to use its template as a starting point. He made modifications to its shape to experiment on what kind of effects they had on the golem’s attributes. He learned quite a bit from these experiments, though none of his attempts allowed him to succeed at making a higher quality golem.
Most of the effects were easy to understand. If he narrowed the golem’s arms, its attack speed would rise but its durability and strength would suffer. If he just scaled up the golem’s size, it would gain health but also drastically reduce every attribute except for weight. When he tried to give a golem eyes in the back of its head, it quickly went crazy and started attacking senselessly.
Not only did these actions raise Milo’s golem shaping proficiency, it also enlightened him to the limits of what he was allowed to do. Despite their origin as a lifeless construct, he had to consider them as living creatures. Once he mentally adjusted to this perspective, he found that the system accepted his adjustments easier. While most changes raised one attribute and lowered another, but making certain optimal decisions he could maximize the gains and minimize the losses.
He created variations that were a little faster, stronger and more durable. Yet no matter what he shaped, he couldn’t get rid of the ‘crude’ designation. ‘Perhaps I need higher levels in golem shaping.’
At least most of the golems would be put to good use. For now, he grouped his variations by their type and let them populate his barren dungeon.
“I think you’ve created enough dungeon monsters to open up your dungeon.” Philia said as she inspected the latest batch of golems wandering around aimlessly. “There’s only two things you need to do to finish things up.”
“Hmm?”
“First, you need to set the loot the golems will drop when they are defeated. Every monster needs to reward things like gold, gems or even equipment when they are defeated by adventurers. This is especially important for golems that aren’t made out of precious materials. Nobody will waste time fighting your sandstone golems if they only get chunks of rocks out of their efforts.”
“Ah right.” Milo said. “That makes sense. Teach me how to do that.”
It didn’t take long for Milo to get a hang of it. He only needed to concentrate on a type of monsters to assign a loot table of sorts. He could set things up so that one object would drop a lot of times while something else might drop once every thousand times.
The problem right now was that he didn’t have anything worthwhile to drop. The best he could come up with was a bunch of tin and copper plates. That wouldn’t work in the long run so Milo really needed coins badly, particularly silver and gold.
Philia naturally thought of this as well. “This is my second suggestion. You should open up your dungeon entrance and try to attract some attention. If you’re lucky, some peasant or two might stumble upon your entrance and when they die, you can take everything they have in their pockets.”
The current entrance was just a pinhole that allowed Milo’s dungeon access to outside mana. Since he didn’t need to hide anymore, Milo straightforwardly smashed it wide open. ‘Hmm, I think I’ll clean up the entrance and make a couple of those fancy Greek columns. Can’t go wrong with that neoclassical shit.’
Milo didn’t waste too much time on this project since he only had limited influence in the outside world. His domain had enormous difficulty extending outside the entrance of the dungeon, as if being indoors was an inherent trait. He only made a few columns and stairways so as not to give outsiders the idea that his dungeon was just a shabby cave. ‘In the end, my architecture skill is still too low to give me better control over what I want to create.’
Still, his dungeon fairy reminded him he still needed to finish another step to finish a basic dungeon. “Hmph, don’t be so quick to think you’re done. You still forgot one essential dungeon necessity: a boss!”
‘Of course! How could I miss something so basic.’
“To create a dungeon boss is very complex. Luckily, all dungeons get a helping hand when they create their first dungeon. You just need to create a regular monster first before choosing to enhance it to a boss.”
“So I can just boost Muddy and he’ll be some kind of giant mud monster?” Milo asked as he pointed his mana at the stupid mud golem.
“Hmph!” Philia frowned. “I’d die of embarrassment if my dungeon partner uses a mud golem as its first boss. Listen up. Normally, dungeons would use a ferocious dungeon monster that has battled against numerous other monsters or a formidable outside creature as its boss. But since these golems don’t live and don’t have the capacity to evolve, it’s better to design a new golem from the ground up. I think you should take the time and put your full effort into it. Don’t just use mud or sandstone as the base. Try it with bronze.”
As an earth element aligned dungeon, the Ten Pillar Arena already possessed a fair amount of tin and copper ore deposits. He could even create copper and tin ingots instantly when he figured out how to smelt the ores, though the cost and quality left something to be desired. By referencing an online guide, Milo somewhat managed to create a decent copper alloy ingot.
With the composition set, Milo then went forward to create a pile of ingots, not caring that he essentially drained half his mana to do so. After that, he scanned the hidden floor of his dungeon and grabbed the biggest low quality mana crystal as the base for his monster core. ‘It’s really just a pity all I have are low quality crystals, but I guess it would be too much of a cheat if I can grow medium quality crystals so soon.’
A dungeon’s advancement didn’t just depend on the time it took to absorb mana and expand its dungeon, it was also dependent on harvesting the lives of the civilized races. With each expenditure of mana, the purity of mana inside the dungeon degraded. Without an influx of mana from the presence or deaths of humans and other advanced races, they would eventually devolve into a feral state. Only by proactively attracting adventurers would dungeons be able to become more formidable.
At the Ten Pillar Arena’s current mana capacity and purity, even a single bronze golem stretched Milo’s limit. Therefore he couldn’t afford a mistake here. ‘Eh, I’ll make a humanoid golem once I level up the golem shaping skill. For now, I’ll just go with the standard shape.’
Still, he didn’t want to create a simple monster and call it a day. Milo still had some pride, after all. He first took the mana crystal and gathered a clump of bronze ingots. His golem shaping skill automatically made the metal as easy to manipulate as clay. He only took about a third of what was needed for a usual golem and only created a very thin and tall shape.
The golem in progress looked more like a stick figure than a living creature to be honest. Milo took extra care in making the shape symmetrical before polishing its surface. But that wasn’t the end of Milo’s plans. He ground its two arms into a pair of sharpened spikes. ‘This is gonna be one fast mother fucker.’
Already the golem seemed to be finished as mana light reflected off its gleaming surface. It was now that he revealed his real intentions by taking out the rest of the bronze and carefully layered it over the basic shape.
Philia widened her eyes at the movement. “You’re making a second layer!”
He already knew this was possible when he tried giving a sandstone golem a breastplate. It just wasn’t worth it most of the time as the excessive weight only provided a moderate amount of protection. Though the dungeon core didn’t know if this next attempt would be any better, he was betting that the boss transformation might smooth over these kinds of imperfections.
As anyone could imagine, layering a large amount of bronze over a thin shape was exceedingly difficult. The outer layer needed to conform to the shape of the inner layer while simultaneously provide enough room for shifting its limbs. Puzzling out the correct shapes took most of his time, while the rest was spent on polishing the surfaces in order to reduce friction when the golem made complex movements.
“Hmm.. seems like it’s too difficult to keep the outer layer in one piece.”
In order to solve the problem of flexibility, Milo divided the outer portion into separate discrete sections. Leaving these gaps exposed a number of very obvious weak points in exchange for drastically improved agility. Thus, despite its formidable weight and armor, the golem should be able to keep up with a jogging human and turn around swiftly enough to counter a sneak attack from behind.
“This golem has a good balance between strength, speed and durability.” Philia complemented Milo’s work sincerely. “It’s also good you left those weak points. If you made a golem into a single solid piece, those adventurers who use bows or daggers can only cry if they encounter such a monster.”
Milo’s regular golems already presented enough headaches to rogues and archers. What can an archer do if his arrows just chip away a few pieces off a sandstone golem? And what else could rogues do when their daggers are only able to stir some mud off his low level mud golems? Naturally, higher level adventurers wouldn’t be so helpless, but the novices Milo’s dungeon aimed to attract wouldn’t have a big bag of tricks to deal with every situation.
Once Milo was satisfied with the basic design, he further polished the outer surface and engraved some decorative details. Naturally, he wouldn’t go overboard and make another terracotta soldier ripoff. He mainly limited his art to the head by shaping some eyebrows and a thick grooved mouth. This simple addition turned the golem from a lifeless construct into a semi-living avenger of death.
Congratulations! You have succesfully synthesized a golem. Your created golem has formed into a: Warborn Bronze Golem.
Your Beginner Golem Shaping skill has leveled up!
Your Beginner Golem Shaping skill has leveled up!
Your intelligence has increased by 2.
Your perception has increased by 1.
Incorporating additional layers has given your dungeon monster two hitpoint indicators.
The total weight of the golem surpasses its strength, reducing its speed by 30%.
The God of War Meneas the Darkhammer approves of your creation. Your golem gains two free levels while all other golems of this type gains one additional level when they are created.
Milo couldn’t help but smile with pride. Despite knowing that he was just playing a game, it felt good spending hours on a piece of art and get acknowledged by someone, even if it was just some kind of AI moonlighting as a god. ‘Goddammit, there’s no reason to be proud right now. This is just the Pavlov reaction to a reward for doing something I’m suppose to do anyway.’
Philia on the other hand just floated there with her eyes wide open. “This.. Meneas himself blessed your golem! Do you know how incredible that is? He typically only blesses masterwork weapons and armor. For him to pay just a tiny bit of attention to your golem is already an acknowledgment your golemwork surpasses most other dungeons.”
“Oh? So gods have that kind of function.” Now that Milo thought about it, for a god to ‘bless’ a creation was something they probably did all day when they were sitting bored out of their asses high up in heaven. It didn’t mean they were putting their undivided attention on each and every thing they blessed. ‘I really want to have a word or two with the God of Artists though.’
Naturally, an ant had no chance in attracting a god’s attention.
Curious how this golem was different from others, Milo focused on his new creation and tried to appraise its status.
Status Screen Name: Warborn Bronze Golem Title: None Race: Bronze Golem Prestige: 0 Level: 7 Blessing: Minor Blessing of Meneas Attributes Strength: 22 Intelligence: 5 Agility: 12 Wisdom: 9 Dexterity: 7 Spirit: 10 Perception: 12 Charisma: 3 Vitality: 19 Stamina: 31 Elemental Affinities Earth: 10
Milo learned quite a few things from the appraisal. First, a two level bonus was quite a major gift considering the golem’s original level was just five. Second, the golem had attributes typical of a physical brute. Only its dexterity was terrible among its physical attributes, but that might just be because it had no hands to articulate. ‘It probably won’t matter.’
The stats would likely change once adventurers were able to force the golem to shed its outer layer.
“Philia, come look at this appraisal. How good are these stats?”
The fairy took a few seconds to study the blue box. “Hmmm… not bad. For a level 7 dungeon monster, it’s about average. You do realize that monsters that are created artificially always have lower attributes than monsters that came from nature. From that point of view, this golem’s physical stats are quite decent, especially its defense. Its only real weakness should be magic and certain types of soul attacks. But if you intend to use your free boss transformation on it, the golem won’t quite be so helpless.”
“That’s good to hear.” Milo replied, reassured of his worries. He didn’t want his boss to be defeated in a single shot by a flick of magic. He was still extremely uncertain how magic worked in this game. Without having seen it himself, he was resigned to wait until adventurers came.
He turned his attention to the golem again. Since its birth, it had automatically taken a guarding stance in front of his core, which Milo was very glad to see. Now he needed to make the next step and initiate the boss transformation.
Do you wish to turn this Warborn Bronze Golem into a dungeon boss?
He instantly agreed, causing a bright spark of lightning to jump from his dungeon core and hit the golem right through its chest and into its monster core. Mana of a quantity more than a dozen times of Milo’s maximum mana capacity instantly boiled from within the golem. The energies crackling within the shape couldn’t be contained, resulting in the golem breaking into pieces. Yet instead of being flung apart, the pieces of bronze instead grew larger, as if spontaneously absorbing more bronze out of pure mana. Different flashes of light jumped between the pieces, as if making sure they would not spread too far apart.
Philia explained what bosses are and what made them different. “Every dungeon has a boss because they are the ultimate defenders of a dungeon core. It used to be that they were only used as deterrence, but nowadays they’re just an extra challenge for adventurers to overcome. As bosses are supposed to be stronger than normal, nobody can blame anyone if they die to it, so boss fights are in fact the best source of harvesting adventurers.”
“Right. But as dungeons develop, the bosses will eventually stay stagnant right?”
His fairy laughed at that. “That’s only if you don’t take care of your bosses. If you nurture them and let them absorb your excess internal mana, they can grow in power. All bosses are bound to your dungeon core. Each boss transformation not only makes them stronger, it also enhances their soul and entangles them with your own soul. They’ll never die.”
“Ah, I see. So they can learn from their mistakes and level up?”
“Right, but not many people know that. We don’t want that kind of information to leak, after all. By letting bosses fight at the same level while continually growing stronger, you can surprise those groups that come with bad intentions.”
The vortex of energy slowly subsided. The pieces of brass puzzled themselves back together, making sure the inner layer remained slim and the outer layer sturdy. Its feet landed against the dungeon floor with a large boom, making it obvious to everyone that its weight was at least thrice as much from before its transformation.
Please state a name for your dungeon boss.
Milo actually took a minute to consider the golem’s name. Right now, his dungeon revolved around the theme of an arena. What he wanted was to create an environment where humans didn’t go do the usual shit they can do in other dungeons. He wanted people to come to his dungeon to risk their lives and submit to a challenge in order to grow stronger. If he wanted his boss to embody that message, then he needed to pick an appropriate name.
“Let’s call this guy… The Challenger.”
Your Warborn Bronze Golem has turned into a boss. Your new boss has acquired the name: The Challenger. The Challenger is now soulbond to you. The Challenger submits to your authority.
The massive golem now towered over the regular sandstone golem. Its sinister eyeholes glowed brighter than any miniature star. From the thickness of its massive arms alone, Milo fully believed this golem could wreck a regular sandstone golem with a couple of punches. Very curious about this fellow, he focused on appraising its new status.
Status Screen Name: The Challenger Title: Dungeon Floor Boss Race: Bronze Golem Prestige: 0 Level: 9/9 Blessing: Minor Blessing of Meneas, Minor Blessing of Status Immunity Attributes Strength: 32 Intelligence: 9 Agility: 15 Wisdom: 15 Dexterity: 7 Spirit: 20 Perception: 22 Charisma: 3 Vitality: 30 Stamina: 41 Elemental Affinities Earth: 20
“Damn, he’s a badass. I don’t know how strong he is compared to a level 9 adventurer, but I have a feeling these numbers are pretty nice.”
“That’s a given.” Philia confirmed without hesitation. “Your boss has two attributes above 30 and one above 40… normally only level 15 adventurers can reach those kinds of numbers. He can also grow stronger over time when he fights, so I don’t think you should worry too much about bandits trying to steal your dungeon core. Also remember, just because he’s doesn’t have a real soul doesn’t mean he’s stupid.”
“Oh, I’m sure I have a lot to teach him. Right now I only have this fellow to defend me. I’ll be sure to construct a good boss room and add a few variables to the mix. I’ll be sure a party of adventurers won’t simply be able to tank and spank this guy.”
“..Tank.. and spank?”
That wasn’t all. How could Milo give his boss such an ostentatious name such as The Challenger without making his boss encounter reflect his values.
‘I’ve still got a lot more work to do.’
Right now, Milo’s dungeon could be considered the most basic of its kind. It lacked many things such as proper loot, additional floors and even other monster types. Yet now he felt an indistinct pride for his creation. ‘Maybe this game is not so bad. I at least want to see how other people will react.’