The Core was shocked at how effective his defenses had been, just one mantis had been enough to drive off the entire horde, and he had gotten three new class Schemas, new monster Schemas, and some plant Schemas, all from someone whose pack they had abandoned when the first mantis attacked. It immediately got to work making some new monsters, it created a small island in the middle of the lake, and then it created a Mana Tree in the center of the island, it rapidly grew, terminating at around two hundred feet in height, and it had hundreds of branches and was perfect for my purpose.

It created a vast flock of the Stymphalian vultures around five hundred of them, with their metallic feathers they were a perfect deterrent against those who attempted to enter the lake, they would be my last defense if Starbreaker were slain, it comforting to the Core that it had a safety net against invaders.

Then the Core moved on to a more pressing concern, now that he had the Schemas for Moon berries and Moonflowers, he needed to place them in the dungeon but there was only one place where he could place them, the dens of the Lunar Triad, it was strange but also quite welcome since the Triad only ate the cave tetras, and if they could get past the Prid then they would feast on the Cave Fishers and Cave trout, so the Core placed Moonberries around the entrance to the cave and Moon Flowers at the top surrounding the ponds. The final change was to create its final Mini-Bosses, using its new Greater Earthrunner Cheetah Schemas, it made five of them and designated them Mini-Bosses, the screens followed its wishes, and the floor was completed, [Mini-Bosses created, Specuis: Greater Earthrunner Cheetah, Mini-Boss Name: The Earthen Quintet, Classes: Earthen Strider (Rare), Earthen Clawknight (Rare), Earthen Defender (Rare), Earthen Magus (Epic), Stone Lord (Epic), Class Schemas Granted, Skill and Spell Schemas granted,

Stone Bolt, Earth Wall, Earth Dome, Monolith, Stone Meld, Tectonic Carapace, Earthen Leader, Roar of Wrath, Inspiration, Battle Sense, Crown of Gaia, Stone Sentinel, Parry, Earthen Stance, Charge, Strength before Death, Taunt, Stalwart Guardian, Natural Armor, Tough Hide, Adrenaline Rush, Heavy Blow, Earthen Claws, Claw Mastery, Bestial Wrath, Earth Stride, Tracking, Keen Senses, Trail Blazer, Stealth]

That was perhaps the most Schemas the Core had ever gained in such a short amount of time, it was already causing its mind to hurt, but the reward was amazing, thirty Schemas gained, not counting ones from the Raid earlier, this be so helpful in creating for bosses but for now the Core that this floor was complete.

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Harry, a [Carpenter] was surprised at how productive greed was. The outside of the new dungeon was a flurry of activity, artisans were hastily creating buildings, merchant were hawking their wares, and multiple adventurers were helping create a Guild Branch. Since a new Orichalcum-ranked dungeon had been discovered, it had attracted multiple nobles, and a few bandits, the Camp had already dealt with three attacks for the last week, but the noble’s guards had easily repelled them, still though it wouldn’t take long for before one of the more notorious [Bandit Bosses] like Three Mind Evan, or Storm King Valoth to attack, that’s why he was currently helping erect a temporary palisade, it would help against monster incursions and low level [Bandits], still it was better than nothing. Suddenly a commotion erupted in front of the dungeon entrance, it was a group of newcomers, his [Value Sense] told these were a collection of Coppers, Silvers, and an Electrum-ranked Adventurers, Idiots, a group of Golds, Platinums, and Mithral all nearly died in there, they won’t even get past the entrance.

The Adventurers had a certain swagger to them, which told him maybe they wouldn’t die in there, “Still, unless they have multiple people with Rare classes or higher, then they don’t stand a chance, but if they succeed…” The sheer amount of loot that they would bring out would be incredible.

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The Core was done with the floor, it had created a potent defense that safeguarded him, but there was the chance that someone would get past Starbreaker, that someone with a powerful class would move to slay it, so the Core wanted to go deeper, to ensure that by the time Starbreaker was slain that they would find nothing but another entrance, the next floor would be a maze, filled with twisting tunnels and fatal traps, it would perfect it so that invaders would be trapped in the shifting maze. The Screens heard his wish, [Floor Completion acknowledged, desired Floor type acknowledged, Calculating Performance, Calculation complete, Performance, Phenomenal, Reward: Floor type given, Shifting Spacial Dungeon, Traps Schemas Granted, Averian Fire Trap, Acid Pit, Lava Pit, Decoration Schemas Granted, Puzzle Lock, Trapdoor, Door, Archetype Schema Granted, Statues, Monster Schemas Granted, Space Walker Kobold (Rare), Mimic (Common), Space Walker Minotaur (Epic), Gelatinous Cube (Common), Animated Armor (Common), Spacial Laughing Skull (Rare), Spacial Boneclaw (Epic) Spacial Vampire Mist (Rare), Spacial Mephit (Rare), Space Walker Goblin (Rare), Giant Rat (Common), Willo-O-Wisp (Uncommon), Archetype Schema granted, Skeletons]

The Core was blindsided, the Screens acknowledged his belief that the Floor was complete, the Core was happy and quickly looked where the Maze was now, it immediately started making changes, first it made the first room always the same, and then it started trapping the room to point that every surface was a trap to trigger, first it surrounded the ladder that dropped down into the room with if Averian Fire Traps.

The only place that wouldn’t be blasted with the fire was behind the ladder, there was an arrow trap and a lava pit if an invader survived the flames and arrows, they would meet a fiery death in the pit, the room was around fifty feet wide and seven feet tall was filled with monsters and more traps, first the core created fifty Spacial Mephits, they were small, winged creatures with spiked ears, with short slender legs, a long pointed nose, they had swirling stars around them, good for disorienting invaders, then it made the entire ceiling arrow traps. Next, the core decided to make a corridor filled with Gelatinous Cubes, then it placed twenty-six Animated Armor with thirteen on each side, above the cube it placed more Mephits.

The room after the corridor was filled with five Spacial Vampire Mist, with twenty giant rats scurrying around beneath them, it was here though that the Core remembered one of its first Schemas, the Giant Bloodborne Cricket, after placing three of them in the room the Core directed its attention to the territory of the Mantises and immediately created around five hundred, it felt a slightly harder to create them but the Core dismissed it as a figment of its imagination, it was embarrassing that it had taken so long to create one of its first Schemas, it decided to work off the embarrassment, it created another corridor that was trapped, the entire ceiling was again just arrow trap with fire traps lining the whole corridor, not the most creative but it would suffice for now.

In the next room, the Core discovered how its Skeleton Schema worked, it found that it could create the skeleton of anything that had entered its Dungeon or that it owned a Schema of. It had decided to create a room filled with the shambling beast.

Two Spacial Boneclaws led the horde, under their command they had ten Lunar Cave Bears skeletons, five Spacial Minotaur skeletons, and fifteen Flaming skeletons, they were just human skeletons that had so much power running through their weak bone that it manifested itself as ghoulish green flames covering their bodies, and finally floating above them were three Flame Skulls, with malevolent red eyes and blazing green fire covering them, they were only ones capable of casting spells, the Core had seen them creating glowing green hands that could grab opposing invaders, launch hundreds of deadly needles composed of pink energy, create a magical shield capable of blocking most attacks, blur themselves, making appear to shift and waver in the air, could create spheres of glowing flame to entrap an enemy and finally launch a deadly ray of fire. They were one of the Cores’s more versatile monsters, though it was known that many of the monsters on the first floor also had innate spells.

The Core decided to just clone one of its earlier corridors and simply copied it over though it replaced the Mephits that floated over the Cubes and Armor with three Flame Skulls, there was still so much work to do.

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The [Lich-King] Arlorn Blodroth was planning a detour to a new dungeon that his [Spy] network told him had formed, he had around ten subjugated already but it would be fun just giving it Red Dragon skeleton and seeing what would happen, it would be fun to give a few powerful Schemas, More chaos, more power, eventually the world will fall

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The Lich would have his wish fulfilled as his empire burned around him