Ian looked through his list of biota, and was reminded of the medium red cap mushroom. Creating a separate entry for a thousand DP had netted him a larger mushroom with zero development. As Ian stared at the medium red cap mushroom entry with the words ‘a thousand DP’ whispering through his head, he sighed and opened the Dungeon Shop. If he was going to waste DP experimenting, he should at least look for rare creatures beforehand.

Ian flicked through the choices as he searched creatures he had studied himself, heard about from others, and even mythical creatures. No matter how much Ian liked different creatures, even his eyes started to glaze over at list that seemed to have no end. It looked like All Creatures did have a downside.

In terms of his personal studies, Ian chose Draeden’s Touch, a five leaf herb whose leaves looked like human fingers, the Flame Tongued Flasterby Catcher, an insect catching plant that grew in pools of magma, Glow Worms, worms that were phosphorescent, and the Lonely Cave Daisy, a plant that prevented the growth of other daisies in the same cave system. The flame tongued flasterby catcher didn’t really fit the themes he was tying himself to, but Ian’s love of the plant overrode thematic elements this time. They were all ten thousand DP each.

Draeden’s Touch was a key ingredient in making high grade mana recovery potions. The Flame Tongued Flasterby Catcher was used in fire resistance potions. Glow Worms filled the soil with a much denser mana, contributing to increased growth rate in farm fields. And the Lonely Cave Daisy, besides being exceptionally rare and extremely valuable to collectors, allowed the creation of a invisibility potion which made the user nigh unfindable even by someone like Ian.

Ian placed draeden’s touch throughout the maze floor, with its density increasing the farther from the entrance intruders went. However, while doing so, Ian noticed something he hadn’t paid attention to while making the first floor. How were the intruders supposed to harvest the plants if they were planted in unbreakable dungeon stone? Ian thought back to plants he had harvested from cave dungeons. ….Oh right, there was usually a small dirt layer for the plants to grow in or cracks in the rock. He went back through both floors and fixed it so both biotic plants and monster plants lived in dirt or cracks in stone. This also meant Ian had to extend the thickness of the stone for both floors to accommodate the additional material.

With three draeden’s touch before any traps, they would provide an incentive to at least step onto the floor. A couple of free herbs in the beginning would give the floor a less ‘everyone will die if they enter this floor’ feeling, even if that was the actual intention of the floor. Basically, Ian never wanted anyone to reach this floor in the first place, but if they did, he didn’t want to give the perception that it was only there to kill intruders. Dungeons, that had floors which killed intruders and gave no rewards, saw a decrease in adventurers even on normal floors. Ian had wandered around the surrounding towns of these dungeons, and the general mood was ‘if the dungeon made one floor that way, why wouldn’t they change other floors to be the same?’. Once that mood permeated, it was hard to get rid of.

The addition of dirt to his two floors was the perfect place for the glow worms. Glow worms only lasted a couple of months in low mana densities, so when they were used for crops, they had to be frequently replenished. Ian didn’t want to increase crop yields too much, if at all, since more food meant more people, but a few idiots, with make it rich quick schemes, might challenge floors above their level. One glow worm was placed on the G- rank floor, and he would increase the amount by one worm per floor for each rank increase. The maze floor, EX rank, would have around one hundred glow worms however.

Ian placed a lonely cave daisy right next to the exit of the maze floor. It looked like a common white and yellow daisy, with the only difference, beyond its loneliness, being its ability to grow without sunlight. He decided to test placing another one on the maze floor, but it quickly wilted and turned to dust. When he looked at the first lonely cave daisy, it seemed a little healthier than before. Considering their rarity, Ian hadn’t studied them very much, so he was interested in exploring further avenues of research. The fact that they might absorb other daisies being one of them. However, research needed to happen after he was an established dungeon.

Ian decided against placing a lonely cave daisy on the first floor. Even if he could easily hide it with an illusion spell, some adventurers were incredibly lucky. Although there was no daisy on the first floor now, Ian had placed one there to see if it would survive, and it was a success. It seemed the loneliness didn’t apply between floors. Whether that was a uniqueness of dungeons, or a uniqueness of his disconnected floor setup, Ian didn’t know. The lonely cave daisies would be for EX rank and future hidden floors.

The flame tongued flasterby catcher would have to wait for a magma floor before becoming prevalent, but Ian did create a room off of the core room, which he filled with magma magic. In that room, he sprouted the plant from its seed and watched its ‘mouth’ open and prepare the inviting treat of high density magma mana. Its root system formed a rock like structure, while its leaves and mouth mimicked a crystal.

Between word of mouth and mythical creatures, Ian surprisingly found more mythical creatures. The mythical creatures, unsurprisingly, cost more than other creatures at a hundred thousand DP each. The unsurprising part being the ‘more DP than other creatures’ part, not the ‘one hundred thousand DP’ part. Which, while more DP than other creatures, was not enough DP for mythical creatures if Ian was being honest. If mythical creatures were this easy to obtain from the store, why didn’t all dungeons have them? Was it another effect of All Creatures? If so, Ian doubted if any other dungeons had that perk.

Ian spent a long while staring at the list of mythical creatures. He wanted them, and the stories about them were one of the things that drove him to study creatures. However, they were mythical creatures. Even if he was something chosen and created by lesser and greater gods, could he actually control them? In fact, he had no space for a World Dragon. Ian doubted he was ready to take care of the Tree of Eden, the World Dragon, the Corrupted Mushroom of Despair, the Elk of Antiquity, or many more. They produced elixirs of life, ate planets, rotted the world, and bought the landscape to life. Would his EX rank spells even be proper protections for some of them? Just because they were mythical didn’t mean they were strong. With uncertain thoughts of the mythical future he wanted so badly, Ian moved on to his two word of mouth purchases. The purchase of mythical creatures would have to wait.

Death Saffron surprised Ian as he had never heard of undead plants before. In fact, even Ian had been able to tell the Rogue was spouting lies in an attempt to pick up the young lad who had recently become a Necromancer. He remembered the Necromancer saying as he got up from the table, “Even if there is such a thing as Death Saffron, your pick up lines suck.” and walking out of the tavern. If that Rogue ever entered Ian’s dungeon, Ian would make sure he saw the Death Saffron.

Also, how in Pusnir’s name is an undead creature not a monster?! Ian was writhing in agony. He wanted to zoom in and figure it out! But, the more time he wasted, the less floors that would be made. If adventurers arrived, and his second floor was still his death maze, they would never come back. With a sigh, Ian placed the death saffron along the maze floor with the same density as draeden’s touch.

According to the death saffron description, the spice produced from the stigmas and styles made a potent poison. However, anything that touched the flower would be infused with poison, so….not the easiest thing to harvest. Ian had taken special care to not let the death saffron touch any of the other plants.

A Golden Apple Tree didn’t surprise Ian, he was more surprised that he’d never seen one before. It wasn’t anything special, simply an apple tree that produced golden colored apples. Not slightly yellowish, but a deep gold. Well, the apples were a little sweeter than the ones he was familiar with, but they were simply fruits.

Ian placed four golden apples trees near the entrance of the maze floor, and few others throughout. They weren’t special but did make nice decor. The golden apple trees were nice and didn’t provide any special benefits, so Ian placed one in a medium sized room on the first floor. He placed it in the room after the gauntlet of small rooms, which had slightly increasing jelly and slime numbers. It would also make a nice place for spiders.

Ian had thought about making darkness oriented creatures for the maze floor, but he was happy with the layout, so his current creatures would fill out the floor requirements. Red caps, medium red caps, G+ ankle biters, web spiders, G+ moving moss, F+ slimes, and F+ jellies were placed sporadically throughout the floor. Afterwards, the entrance room and the boss room successfully appeared.

Both Room status menus allowed Ian to copy all purchased functions of the entrance hall and the first floor boss room for free. The layout of the entrance hall could be freely copied over to the entrance room, but the layout of the boss room had to be remade. Ian wasn’t surprised at the boss room limitations, as a new boss would have to be formed for each floor.

Before he copied the functions and layout over, Ian wanted to make sure the Rooms worked and looked how he wanted them to. He had spent a lot of time on the entrance hall, so he didn’t expect to change much. The first thing Ian noticed was his pillars would take a long time to fill up, and would give spoilers for future floors. Thus, he changed the pillars to only represent creatures of the current floor. Fully etched pillars also made the entrance hall look complete rather than half finished.

Happy with the etched pillars, magic lights, treasure chest, mana signature reader, and transfer formation, Ian copied the functions and layout of the entrance hall over to the entrance room. Ian checked to make sure everything was working properly. The magic lights, loot collection, and the mana signature reader were fine, but the transfer formation needed adjusting. Ian disconnected the first floor boss room transfer formation from the core room, and connected it to a new transfer formation located where the dungeon entrance was.

As he did so, a window with a countdown timer appeared before him. If he didn’t reconnect the first floor with the core room in thirty hours, he would receive a level down. Also, all his mana inserted into his dungeon levels would disappear. Ian quickly made the transfer formation near the loot collection treasure chest connect to the maze floor, and he placed a transfer formation in the maze floor boss room that led to the core room. An internal sigh of relief escaped Ian as the timer disappeared. He replaced the etched creatures on the entrance room pillars with floor appropriate creatures, and moved onto the boss rooms.

Unlike the entrance rooms, Ian had done the bare necessities for the first floor boss room. He formed the boss and made his magic creations. Depths, he hadn’t even made a door. As such, Ian purchased the door creation, locked doors, and defeat the boss to leave upgrades. To get the latter two, he had to level the room to five. To get door creations, he had to make an entrance, which brought up the question: what was the big goddamn hole in the wall? All Ian had to do was designate the hole in the wall as the entrance, so he really wondered what the point of that upgrade was.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

The most egregious flaw of the boss room was taken care of, so improving the boss itself was next. Surprisingly, Ian actually liked the auto creation of the boss. It meant he wouldn’t make an undefeatable boss for the floor’s difficulty level. However, while the moss ball was unique, Ian felt it didn’t completely fit the floor. He had a wide range of creatures on the floor, and he intended to add a few more, so fighting a moss ball every time didn’t make sense.

Ian purchased all the reshape room upgrades which allowed him to level the room to eight. With the higher level, he purchased the different bosses, door aesthetics, boss randomizer, boss determination, and boss selection upgrades. Ian could now make what he wanted.

Different bosses meant he could have all the available bosses rather than have to choose one. Ian could actively switch bosses between challengers, but he purchased the boss determination upgrade to do that for him. The criteria for fighting a certain boss was determined by the highest number of precursor monsters that were killed on the floor. If moving moss was killed the most, then the moss ball would be the boss. If clear web spiders were killed the most, then the medium clear web spider would be the boss. Ian’s determination rules followed that sort of pattern. The boss randomizer allowed Ian to make the boss determination completely random, and he used it to randomize the boss selection when intruders killed the same amount of two or more different monster types. The boss selection upgrade allowed the boss to be selected before entering. Ian set it so only individuals that had already cleared the floor would be able to choose their preferred boss.

Door aesthetics allowed Ian to create portraits of the different boss monsters on the outside of the door. He also set it so the correct portrait would glow, showing which boss was behind the door. Also, the door was now more majestic looking.

Ian was happy with his boss room upgrades, but should he keep the previous magical features he created? The magic moss was illuminating, but didn’t fit with the rest of the bosses. He decided to make appropriate environments for each boss, and it looked like he needed another upgrade first.

Before Ian could get the upgrade he wanted, he needed to level the Room more. To do so he purchased the quality of life upgrades from the entrance rooms, the translation and instance upgrades. With those purchased, Ian raised the Room’s level to twelve and purchased the Different Boss Environments upgrade. It allowed him to separate different boss environments, but not actually create the environments. Thankfully, Ian had his magic for that.

The moss ball environment stayed the same. The medium clear web spider got multiple attribute and colored webs strewn throughout the room. Mushroom Man received the same room treatment as the moss ball but with mushrooms instead of moss. For the enraged fern, Ian created small ferns with angry, screaming faces that writhed. The slime and jelly had either slime or jelly constantly dripping from the ceiling.

Pleased with his improvements to the first floor boss room, Ian copied the functions over to the maze floor boss room. He maintained the same aesthetics, but only allowed a single boss type to be formed, the A- blink hobgoblin. The environment Ian created wasn’t based on the boss itself but rather the floor. He covered the entire room in darkness magic as he had done for the main floor. A door with a large blink hobgoblin portrait completed the Room.

Even with the Rooms complete, Ian had to get the finishing touches done. He made sure the transfer formations went Entrance Hall, G- Deep Cave, Entrance Room, EX Maze Deep Cave, and finally Core Room. The previous names would be displayed before intruders using the transfer formations. Later on, Ian would make floors whose difficulty he wouldn’t give away by their transfer formation title. Those floors would be focused around a different main theme like stealth, magma, water, climbing, rescuing, or something else he hadn’t thought of at the moment.

His finishing touches primarily focused on fine tuning the new environments he created in the boss rooms. It took Ian around ten days to meet Magical Beauty’s high standards. Not as long as the first floor, but not short either.

Ian had two floors, so all he need to do was infuse himself with mana to level up.

Dungeon Level [2] → [3]

1 Cubic Kilometer Floor Space Gained.

Mana Generation Increased by 10,000.

DP Generation Increased by 1.

It looked like he got the same bonuses as last time, and besides the mana for the next level, he needed another floor again.

Ian was pleased by his main floors, but felt that the G- rank floor needed more variety. The maze floor was primarily a trap floor, so variety didn’t matter as much there. The first floor, however, would be the first thing people saw when they entered. What was the thing he wanted to present to the world? Was it his magic? A reasonable difficulty dungeon? Cool monsters? ….That last one played well with his interests, but would it help him accomplish his goal of getting more mana into the universe? He had some guesses about what would accomplish that goal, and if he was right, then getting a Tamer’s Guild focused on his dungeon would help him massively.

Ian glanced through his creature list. Should he create different varieties of every creature on the floor? No, that was too much. Also, he couldn’t do that for some of his monsters. He should focus on expanding what he already had on the first floor then.

He hadn’t properly tested it out yet, but based on the creature tree, it seemed easier to produce different varieties of monsters by converting biota into monsters. The mana attribute change only took one evolution, while changing Yirvin’s attribute from neutral to strength took until adulthood.

Based on those conditions, Ian was left with the web spider, red cap mushroom, and green cave fern. He supposed making mana hearts for new biota was also an option. However, new mana hearts for biota was mana intensive and mildly time consuming, so Ian put that off the table for now. If he was targeting tamers, then red cap mushrooms and green cave ferns were out. It wasn’t that tamers never tamed plant monsters, but the majority tamed animal monsters, seeing as it was generally easier to move around with animal monsters than plant monsters. Spiders weren’t the best option either with how scared some people seemed to get of them, but they were the only biota Ian had left.

Nature infusion gave Ian the Web Spider monster. It had the same skills as the clear web spider, but had the same coloring as the biotic web spider instead of being clear. Of course, the main non-physical difference between the two were their attributes. The web spider was nature oriented, while the clear web spider was attributeless oriented.

Ian infused, into four separate web spiders, what a lot of people considered the four basic elements, fire, water, wind, and earth. He received the fire, water, wind, and earth web spiders. They were pretty generic names, but Ian supposed they might become better later on. Although, who was he to complain, clear web spider and web spider were just as generic. Each spider became a light shade of red, blue, green, and yellow respectively. Their skill list did change with the addition of a resistance skill of their respective element. There was also no decrease in their other skills, likely making these spiders stronger than the clear and normal web spider.

Ian created the Glowing, Regenerating, and Distorted Web Spiders from light, healing, and space mana respectively. The glowing web spider had turned white and produced light from its body, but it had no additional skills. The regeneration skill allowed the regenerating web spider to slowly regenerate body parts, but there were no outward differences compared to the web spider. Similarly the distorted web spider had no color differences, but its body constantly shifted in size and shape while the same density was maintained.

Next, Ian used darkness mana and illusion mana to create a dark web spider and an illusionary web spider. The dark web spider was the opposite of the glowing web spider, it was completely black and absorbed light. The two spiders did share the fact that they had no new skills compared to the original clear web spider skill set. There were no physical differences with the illusionary web spider, but it had gained the body double skill which created an illusionary body double. As a level one skill, the body double would not be hard to spot for most adventurers.

With ten new spider types, three of them, regenerating, distorted, and illusionary, were completely new species. Ian received a total of 31,000 DP for his new creations.

Since most of the spiders congregated near the ceilings on the first floor, Ian wasn’t worried about adding more of them. As such, he added all ten new species to the floor. He kept their ratios the same as the clear web spider, so the first floor became a far more spider oriented floor. Ian’s original thoughts about the slimes and jellies being the main attackers of the floor were no longer present.

Besides simply adding spiders to the floor, Ian decided to make the medium room with the golden apple tree the new spider room. It would be in a similar vein to the moss, mushroom, and fern rooms. Ian shifted a large number of all eleven spider types from other rooms and corridors to the golden apple room. Slowly but surely, the spiders were covering the room in webs. He couldn’t wait to hear the high pitched screams of arachnophobes as they entered that room.

Now that he had ten new species of monster, he also had ten new boss monsters. The problem was Ian didn’t want his boss monster door to be overrun with spiders. It took a lot of precise determinations, but Ian was able to make the spider portrait count towards all spiders. The actual boss spider would still be determined by which spider type was killed the most.

With Ian’s new spider additions the total amount of spiders was approximately equal to each of the moving moss, constrictions ferns, and ankle biters. Thus, the moss ball, mushroom man, enraged fern, and spider bosses were the most likely ones to appear. Maybe he should make a reward for killing all boss types? Ian attempted to slap himself, but just slammed his book shut loudly. He didn’t need extra stuff like that at the moment.

The only things Ian had left for his floors to feel truly complete were creating the twenty blink hobgoblins he needed for the maze floor corridors, and buying quality of life improvements for his main floors. Ian wanted fifteen default blink hobgoblins and five variant blink hobgoblins, so he needed to wait about fourteen days before he had enough mana.

To begin the quality of life process, Ian bought the same functions that he had bought as upgrades in the Rooms. The different translation functions, instances, and creature respawn. Creature respawn wasn’t one of the Room upgrades, but Ian couldn’t wait anymore to buy it. Ian changed the instance requirements from one hundred individuals to parties, since he had the party detection function. He was glad to finally apply the knowledge he learned about main floor instances a half year, or five months, ago. The translation functions meant he wouldn’t suddenly stop understanding the intruders as soon as they entered his main floors. Creature respawn took over the job of repopulating the base floor after creatures in instances were killed.

Ian could have sworn there was at least one more quality of life function he had in mind, but it must have slipped his mind. He scanned his floors and checked his functions to make sure, but there was nothing that would cause him….oh right, trap and treasure respawn.

With those two purchases, all Ian had left to do was wait.

After the fourteen day wait, Ian placed the blink hobgoblins throughout the maze floor. Each of the five variants were placed near the entrances of the checkpoint rooms. The fifteen default blink hobgoblins were randomly scattered, except for two of them who were placed before the traps began on the left and right paths from the entrance.

Ian finally felt there was nothing that bothered him about his floors. There were, of course, things he wanted to add, but they were bonuses and not things he felt were needed at this time. Now, he couldn’t wait to make the G rank floor.