What Ian didn’t expect to happen after meeting the requirements for Magical Beauty was obtaining the ability to place the Entrance Hall and Boss Room. Wasn’t he supposed to complete the first floor before getting those? It’s not like he wanted to wait longer, but everyone has questions when something happens that they don’t expect. However, the only requirements Ian had left were the connection and passage to the core room. Considering intruders had to enter through the Entrance Hall and exit through the Boss Room, getting the two rooms before the passage requirements were fulfilled made sense. It seemed requirements were more flexible than he thought. He should not focus on requirements as the strict guidelines they seemed, but rather focus on the intent they conveyed.
The Entrance Hall was placed before the room with the five diverging paths while the Boss Room was placed after the room where all paths converged. When placed both rooms conformed to the terrain type of the floor. The Entrance Hall was the volume of one of his large rooms on the floor but square and obviously made to accommodate the sapient races. The Boss Room was between a medium room and a large room and shaped like a perfect half sphere. Now, which room should he start with? ….Boss Room.
His vision focused on the room and the room menu appeared.
Boss Room (Deep Cave Floor 1)
Level:
1
Available Upgrades
Create Boss
0 Mana/0 DP
Finally, something free. ….The tutorial gave a ton of free shit? Shut up.
Ian quickly focused on the Create Boss upgrade.
Please choose boss type.
Single Strong Boss
Slightly Strong Boss with Minions
Party Boss Composed of Monsters
At least he had some options. Why couldn’t he just create his own boss dammit. *sigh*. “Let’s just go with the basics,” thought Ian as he picked the Single Strong Boss. Hopefully he could mess with the options later, otherwise he would be very butthurt. Another window appeared.
Please choose a boss.
Large Jelly [F-]
Large Slime [F-]
Enraged Fern [F-]
Mushroom Man [F-]
Moss Ball [F-]
Medium Clear Web Spider [F-]
No matter its density, any monster could have a boss it seemed. Each boss was a full letter rank above their base monster. These seemed to fit the boss monster pattern in low rank dungeons and low level floors, but high rank dungeons must pump their Boss Room full of mana and DP to get more options.
The window did seem to agree with Ian that the clear web spider was the most dangerous monster making it only medium instead of large. Ian gave the descriptions for each boss monster a detailed read. Just like the spider, the jelly and slime bosses were just larger versions of their G- rank counterparts. The jelly and slime reached two meters tall while the spider reached half a meter. However, their larger size didn’t add any weaknesses like being slower or less nimble which made them harder overall. Mushroom Man was a larger ankle biter with legs. The addition of legs allowed it to move, but it would still only bite intruders. The Enraged Fern couldn't move like the Mushroom Man, but its leaves could extend much further and constrict much harder than the constriction fern. Constant flailing of its leaves even when intruders weren’t present added the Enraged prefix, however it never intentionally flailed its leaves to hurt invaders it simply did so subconsciously. Ian felt ‘enraged’ was a misnomer, but sometimes the system called things stupid names. A scrunched up ball of moss accurately described the Moss Ball. It could do everything moving moss could but faster as it had the ability to bounce around. The ability to bounce around also added physical attacks to it repertoire.
Should Ian go with the strongest, medium clear web spider, weakest, mushroom man, most unique, moss ball, or generic, jelly and slime? The Fern? Ian wasn’t a big fan of immobile bosses. Maybe if the option to have multiple bosses showed up in later upgrades. Hmmm….Moss Ball it was. It fit with the enormous amount of moss he had throughout the floor.
Forming Boss….Please Wait.
Huh. Ian watched as mana poured in from outside his dungeon and started to coalesce into his chosen Floor Boss. After a minute of swirling mana, the Moss Ball formed with a plop. It looked a lot like a Moss Jelly. However, a moss jelly would be squishy while the moss ball was spherical with none of the squish. The outside was covered in moss. It didn’t look like it could absorb sustenance with its roots like moving moss could, but Ian knew better. It could extend roots through its surface, and it could split open and act like a normal mat of moss. Ian liked the moss ball as it was a rarity. Moss monsters had difficulty getting enough experience to evolve. Happy with his boss monster, but hoping he could change some things he reopened the room window.
Boss Room (Deep Cave Floor 1)
Level:
1
Available Upgrades
Create Exit
0 Mana/0 DP
Chosen Upgrades
Boss Created
Yeah, it was definitely ‘Create Boss’ before. Guess the system wanted its windows to have proper tense. Also, an exit but no entrance? Well, he did technically already have an entrance. With disdain is vision drited to the large hole in the wall that connected his main floor with the boss room.
Ian supposed he could simply choose to create an exit and have stairs leading down to his core room, but he had an idea. He closed the window and moved his focus to a square alcove obviously meant for whatever exit he created. Mana wasn’t allowed to reform the shape of a Room, but what about creating magic or magic formations? First, Ian started creating a space formation on the walls of the alcove, but the Room Window appeared. Ian grunted in annoyance, but he had expected this. Instead of laying the formation on the walls and floors of the Room, he made the entire formation in the air like he had done for all but the bottom part of the treasure formations. The window didn’t appear, and Ian was able to successfully complete a transfer formation. For Ian the difference between a transfer and a teleportation formation was teleportation was randomized while a transfer formation allowed for selective movement. Most just called both teleportation formations however.
Selective movement was allowed by adding mana into the formation. As many didn’t have a good handle on changing their mana attribute, Ian added that little function into the formation so any mana would do. After mana was added into the formation, then an illusion would appear that mimicked the system’s windows. This illusionary window would display different locations which were connected to said locations via space mana strings. Touching the location on the window would activate the string and teleport anyone inside the formation to the resulting location. Since the formation had to be off the ground, Ian added a levitation spell to the formation that levitated anyone who was partially in the formation. Sadly even as an EX rank Mage he couldn’t accurately read the mana signature of specific individuals.
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Ian was happy with his work before a window popped into his vision.
To use your teleportation formation as an exit, please purchase the Dungeon Teleportation Upgrade for both the Entrance Hall and Boss Room.
Ian’s vision shook a little. He created it. Why did Ian have to spend DP on something he made? It pissed Ian off, but dammit he wanted his transfer formations. As Ian prepared to purchase the necessary Room upgrades, the window in front of him shook a bit and new words erased the old ones.
*cough* Excuse me. Before you go buy those upgrades, I have a proposition that may intrigue you.
….What in the fresh Depths was this? Was the system talking to him? It was supposed to be similar to an advanced formation that did its job without any thought. ….Was someone using the system to trick him? They must have hijacked it to make it look like the system was talking to him. But for what purpose? Before he could finish his train of thought the window changed again.
You’re probably thinking this is impossible or someone hijacked me and is trying to trick you. However, I am one of the lesser gods of the universe. We simply agreed that it would better for everyone if sapients thought I was an unthinking entity that simply did its job. I know it’s hard to believe, but I really need to make a deal with you. What do you say?
Truly Ian had no reason not to believe it since the idea of hijacking the system was considered impossible. However, Ian knew through Tidon that Greater Gods more powerful than the ones that ruled his universe existed. He decided to remain cautious but believe the system.
“Why would I agree to make a deal with you until I know what you want?”
True. What I wish is to make your teleportation formation the standard teleportation formation across all dungeons.
Couldn’t it have just stolen the formation from Ian? It was supposed to be the all seeing system. ….Except it wasn’t. It had just told him it was a lesser god of this universe. Unera had struggled with some of the formations Ian had devised. It would make sense that if the Goddess of Magic couldn’t understand some of his formations at first look, then another lesser god would have an even harder time. Now, what could he get out of the system?
“An interesting proposition, but what would I get in return?”
Let’s see. How about 10,000 DP?
“....Are you trying to piss me off?”
I….I’m sorry. That was incredibly rude of me. ….What am I an idiot? Offering such a low number to someone supported extensively by the others. Besides there is a very distinct possibility he might be able to kill us.
“I’m starting to believe that you’re the system. You don’t seem very used to communicating your own thoughts over the windows.” Also, a Greater God probably wouldn’t have made that kind of mistake. Although, it could be trying to trick him. *sigh*. He’d be running himself around in circles with this train of thought. He should just stick with his motto of trust them until they give him a reason not to.
What are you ta-....*cough* Let me make you a better deal then. How about a million DP?
“That is certainly a better offer, but I was thinking something more in line with receiving a percentage of DP spent by dungeons acquiring my transfer formation. And any dungeon functions that I can replicate with my magic are completely DP free.”
That’s….That’s a bit much. I don’t want to get yelled at by the others. How about anything you can replicate with magic for free and a million DP? The DP amount is a lot less compared to what you would get with every purchase, but the prep year is when you’re the lowest on DP. It would be very helpful to you right now.
“I see your point. I am going to need one more thing in addition. I want to be able to use my magic on the Rooms without having the Room window pop up to tell me I can’t every time.”
Agreed.
“Alright then. Do you want to use the formation I already made with levitation implemented or use the new one I make after you pay me?”
I’ll take the new one, thank you very much.
“Before I make the new formation, can I ask you some questions?”
I suppose so.
“I understand you can’t steal my formation because you can’t understand it, but the dungeons already come implemented with working transfer formations. Why do you need a better one?”
….I’m going to ignore that first part, and are you having memory problems?
“What are y-, oh right, them. I do make my formations so they can’t be hijacked. However, don’t the Dungeon Killers mainly target low rank dungeons without transfer formations?”
True, their main focus is on low rank dungeons. However, their stronger members like to go after the stronger dungeons. Besides stalling the Dungeon Killers, your formations combined with mana signature recognition will allow intruders to teleport to any floor they’ve been to previously! The old formations only allowed the next floor or the deepest floor the intruder had been to. Your formations would also allow for non-linear dungeon design!
That last part was Ian’s main reason for wanting to use his own transfer formation. He wanted different terrain floors to go from G- to EX rank, but having to go through the EX rank Deep Cave floor to get to the G- rank Prairie floor didn’t make sense. For now intruders would have to go through the G- Deep Cave floor, but in the future he hoped for a mining floor on top which then led to the G- rank floors. However, to get to the core room an intruder would have to clear all floors. He had hoped the system wouldn’t think of the non-linear dungeon design but too bad. At least he knew what the system intended to use the formations for.
“This is just for the dungeon teleportation that intruders use to get throughout the dungeon, right? No traps?”
Of course. Giving traps and trap patterns is under the purview of the dungeon auction. Well, selling not giving.
“Right. Payment please.”
Ian opened his status and saw the brand spanking new one million DP present. He erased the formation in the alcove and made the same one without the levitation and on the walls, ceiling, and floor instead of the air. Ian also made sure to make all parts but the one on the floor invisible. Most dungeon teleportation formations were floor only.
Ian zoomed to his core room and moved the entrance to the Entrance Hall. When he returned, an alcove the same size of the one in the Boss Room had appeared. He created the same formation here and added the mana string between the two. After everything was in working order, the system thanked him and the window finally disappeared.
What a haul. He could freely create magic in the rooms, and he got a million DP. His only regret was not properly looking at DP costs prior to the negotiations. If he had, then he would have known how far a million DP would go. He could only hope that DP purchases maintained their level from what he had seen so far, or he could replicate most of what he needed with magic.
His three Rooms were barebones besides the Moss Ball and his transfer formations. Well, his core room was teeming with creatures, but Ian meant upgrades. He had implemented a transfer formation in the Entrance Hall and in doing so realized he was a fucking idiot. He hadn’t made sure he could create his magic formations through outside mana as other dungeon functions could. The boss had been created with outside mana, but he made the transfer formations with his own mana. He quickly tried to make a transfer formation from the dungeon menu rather than his own mana. A transfer formation appeared, and it worked just like the ones he created. He was lucky, really lucky. The system could totally have been an ass and made him create each formation on his own. He really wished he had the others to help him negotiate, he wasn’t the best at it. It seemed he only really got what he wanted because the system seemed afraid of him. *sigh*
Should he focus on upgrading the rooms, making new floors, or evolving his creatures? The Entrance Hall and Boss Room were pretty bare bones, but at least the floor was comp-, wait, he still had zero floors on his status. Please no. Ian opened the floor menu and was met with his worst nightmare. Even though the connection and path to core room were met, Magical Beauty was no longer met. The horror. It looked like upgrading the rooms was his top priority. He could only hope these upgrades would carry over to subsequent entrance rooms and boss rooms, otherwise that one million DP he just got wouldn’t go that far.