"Gosh! Leveling up has been so easy since we came here, love. I hope the next floor of the dungeon has some good [Monsters] as well."

Camellia gushed. Avorn smiled adoringly at his wife as he replied

"I hope so too, sweetheart. It's quite good to have a forest nearby since it makes things easier. I don't know what the environment will be like on the other floors, but the first floor is a lot more comfortable than the others we've seen so far."

Camellia laughed as she replied

"Oh? You mean like those goblin caves?"

Avorn shuddered in disgust as he replied

"Those creatures are truly vile! They live in a lifeless cave and they're always using underhanded tricks."

This was the second time Camellia and Avorn were visiting Violet's dungeon today. Killing slimes tended to get a bit repetitive and there was only so much they could collect before their bags would get full. So, they stopped after a few hours in the morning to go sell most of the plants they had collected and to prepare lunch.

While he was hunting, Avorn managed to get an extra squirrel. This alongside a small handful of acorns he had found nearby had been brought to the dungeon as tribute. The acorns were small and could easily be carried in his pocket until it was time to throw them into the tribute well. After all, while there weren't any obvious [Traps] in the garden meadow room, it was much better to be safe than sorry, and having a space designated for rest was quite nice.

Of course, they had been wary of whether the room was safe or a [Trap] the first few times they had used it. However, after not running into any other [Traps] in the dungeon and not having any issues with using the garden meadow room for rest, they now felt much more reassured about the whole thing. The level of safety in a dungeon could change at any point in time, but that was something every adventurer had to get used to early on.

It wasn't like this was Camellia and Avorn's first dungeon either. They had explored dungeons with skeletons, goblins, and even giant rats before. Plenty of those dungeons were dark places with very few challenges, resources, or places to rest. It made the dungeons much less enjoyable to explore and they tended to get sick of them pretty quickly before moving on to the next dungeon. Well, they would often get stuck in whatever town or city they were in until they could scrounge up enough resources to sell to afford to leave, but they didn't tend to stay any longer than necessary.

From what the more experienced adventurers had told them, it sounded like most dungeons tended to have more valuable resources the higher up you went. Most theories were that the dungeons used the resources as a way to convince the adventurers to climb higher despite the increased danger from [Traps]. Challenges would, usually, be sparsely placed throughout the floors with only three to five challenges per floor, at most. Even then, most of the challenges tended to have rewards like magic crystals or enchanted gear that was appropriate for the level of dungeon you were dealing with.

Well, apparently, some of the dungeons in other kingdoms were supposed to be quite impressive. Some of them would recreate jungles, the inside of a volcano, or even have underwater portions. The most impressive ones would have insects and other wildlife buzzing around and challenges that matched the theme of the floor. It was just that this particular kingdom was known for its mining-based dungeons that were filled with dreary caves on the lower floors and only those willing to climb high enough would ever get to see any real value from exploring the dungeon.

In comparison, this dungeon was like a breath of fresh air. There was a good bit of light throughout the dungeon, plenty of challenges to check out, and the [Monsters] were less annoying to deal with. As the leveling up would likely become more difficult as the days went by, it was likely that they'd need to start doing challenges and saving up for better gear. They would certainly need to be more appropriately geared if they wanted to check out the next floor. Avorn and Camellia spent a while longer defeating slimes before leaving the dungeon once more.

Violet happily checked her dungeon points total and noted that she now had 263 DP after the 73 DP from the recent adventurers were tacked on. This wasn't much, but Violet was still hopeful that it would be enough to finish her boss room.

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"How do I set a room as a boss room?"

Would you like to make this room the first floor boss room? This will cost 250 DP. You can only have one boss room per floor. Setting a room as a boss room will automatically reinforce the environment in the room and cause all doors to lock until the boss is defeated or you choose to open the doors. You will no longer be able to change the room's theme and all [Items] added to it in the future must match the set theme, but upgrades will be unlocked for the room.

Yes

No

Violet smiled happily as she selected the [Yes] option. Normally she would have to spend 150 DP to set a normal room's theme and then a separate amount to cause the doors to lock. Having the environment reinforced also sounded like it would be more difficult for adventurers and [Monsters] to burn the place down or destroy the bushes to get through the maze more easily. Of course, even if the maze was set on fire, without being able to leave the room, whoever was inside was likely to die from smoke inhalation, if not end up burning alive.

This brought Violet's total down to 13 DP, so it was unlikely she'd be able to make any more upgrades right now. Instead, she spent her 50 MP on further digging out the pond hole before going to rest. The pond would only need another 35 MP to be completely dug out, so it wouldn't be much longer before it would be finished.

The slime parkour room had been much easier and quicker to complete, but that was also because the room was smaller than the new round room the pond was being built in. Even though both would end up being 10-Units deep, the surface area made the biggest difference in how much mana it took to build the bodies of water.

David and Alice stopped by later that night. Apparently, it was getting closer to winter time as David ended up bringing a large crate of rotten apples to Violet as tribute. When David had explained what the tribute was, Violet had made a face of disgust, but she wasn't sure she could really complain. It did end up giving her an entire 150 DP for the 50 rotten apples and the wooden crate they were stored in.

David and Alice were staying with some local farmers who had an apple orchard. Most of the apples had been harvested on time and were going to be made into apple butter, among other things, and only a small number of apples had gone to waste. To make the most of the situation, David offered to collect the bad apples and bring them to the dungeon as tribute. It would reduce the bad smell from the rotten apples remaining on the ground as well as give Violet a better tribute than she normally would.

Of course, most of the value from the tribute had been from things like the nails and wooden planks the crate was made from. Violet had also gotten wooden crates as an [Item] schematic, which she wasn't sure if she'd have any use for or not. She wasn't exactly planning to give away entire crates worth of goods to visitors any time soon and she wasn't sure if she wanted to put anything purely decorative in her dungeon or not. Well, maybe she'd find a use for it one of these days.

David had struggled with the slime parkour challenge, but he just barely managed to make it to the other side. While the first time he had seemed incredibly happy and relieved to have completed the challenge, this time he seemed slightly less excited. Violet supposed this made sense since it was the second time he was completing the challenge and it was only natural that he would get better at it over time.

Similarly, Alice seemed to complete the slime jigsaw puzzle nine times out of ten. She had figured out how it worked and so it was more of a repetitive task that she needed to complete each night rather than something she was struggling to figure out. Alice didn't seem to have much joy in completing the task either, which made Violet wonder if she wasn't getting to enjoy the iced carrot bread from completing the challenge.

Of course, that was actually what was happening, Violet just had no way of knowing about it since David didn't discuss his private life with her. He had told his daughter that she could keep the rewards once a week and the rest would be sold off to pay for her schooling when she came of age. That would be something she would be happy about when the time came, but there was very little joy in it right now.

David also attempted the flower hunt challenge and crossed some more wrong answers off of his tablet, but he didn't manage to complete it this time around either. As for the capture-the-slime challenge, it seems that it was being set aside for the time being. Since it was a difficult challenge and there were easier challenges they could rely on when it came to earning the reward, they wanted to concentrate on those.

The first time David and Alice left for the night, Violet put the last 35 MP towards digging out the pond hole. Then the last 15 MP was used to begin filling the pond with water. Violet felt happy to see one of the goals she had been working on completed, but it still felt like it would be a long time before the pond would be finished. Well, it would likely be finished in a matter of days from start to finish, but it wasn't like there was much besides sleep to keep Violet entertained.

Similarly, the last bit of mana Violet earned for the night was spent on adding even more water once David went home. While the water cost half as much as manipulating the land to create the hole, Violet still needed another 20 MP to finish filling the pond. However, that would have to wait until tomorrow since it was unlikely she'd have any more visitors tonight.