Novels2Search

Chapter 41

After the deaths of the group who wanted to bind and sell off her core, Amy did not receive another visitor for another couple of days. Even though she could see more and more boats docking at the floating town. She even sent Calder to discover why nobody was coming through. Apparently, the head of the adventurers guild put a block on entering the dungeon without permission.

It was curious that even with the order, she still did not have people sneaking in.

But that order was lifted within days of the group's death, and adventuring groups started coming to her iceberg.

When they reached the portal room, most of the groups ignored the little collection bowl that she had placed beside the portal. But those groups that did offer just a couple of things, a lot less than the group that started all this. Amy was grateful all in the same for these objects and went back to watching the people within the iceberg and dungeon.

There seemed to be quite a rush, as she could count 20 groups coming into her territory. Interestingly, when 14 groups, all ranging between three to six members, the 15th group that tried entering through the portal was blocked. This surprised her, but not really. When she studied this block, a blue screen popped up.

Max numbers of 50 sentients allowed on the first floor have been reached. Until more have exited or made it to the second floor, the portal will prevent more sentients from entering. Each floor is allowed 50 sentients to be on the floor at any given time. Later on, the dungeon core can have the ability to change the set limit.

This surprised Amy, but it also gave her a measure of protection. If there was only a limit of people who were allowed to enter on each floor, then an army or a large force that would try to subjugate, bind, or destroy her core would be limited.

But to get to the second floor, an adventurer group must defeat the boss floor. So that might be a problem if Fisher dies, does not respawn quickly. There was also the problem of adventuring groups that were left waiting to get into the dungeon.

She could potentially solve this by creating a "safe area" outside her dungeon for those who are waiting to rest. Or maybe have people who could potentially rent space on the iceberg for a time. Of course, that would be the day merchants or adventurers renting space on her iceberg. Well, if she did this, Amy would at least be able to procure rent or different forms of rent.

Thinking back to the offering portal, Amy could try to make an exchange of some sort where the adventurers gift her something new, and she gives them something of value in return. But that was for another time, and she can think of ways to solve this later.

So Amy turned her attention back towards the 14 adventuring groups. She watched them spread out, interact, fight, and search within the first floor. Most of the groups were within the southwest and northwest side of the dungeon, but one group had made it around the large coral reef and into the largest kelp forest.

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This was one of the groups that were doing something interesting. The group, which was made up of four members, was all aquatic in nature. Two of the members had a fishtail with the two colours of red and blue. The third member appeared to be a human with otter features, and the last had gills but looked to be fully human. Like the previous group who brought in paper with them, this group seemed to be working off the map and continuously adding. They have been lucky so far in only encountering one augment penguin, which they killed with a medium amount of injuries that was healed by the one with the gills.

Another interesting group was a group of three that did not even go deep on the first floor but has been slowly following the edge of the dimension. They did not seem all that interested in the dungeon itself but much more interested in the plants and animals themselves than exploring and fighting. All of the group wore a piece of metal on their mouths, which Amy assumed was a type of respirator or something like that. It made sense, as the group looked like they were humans or something similar in looks. What made the group interesting was that one of the members kept on taking samples, cuttings, roots, whatever they could find, and placed them within small vials of glass or crystal. Then, about 20 minutes into their studying of the plants on her first floor, they encountered their first monster.

There had already been nine deaths on the first floor. Most of them were caused by stupidity, carelessness, or not being prepared for the monsters. But when the plant studying group was prepared, they encountered their first monster, an archer penguin.

The archer penguin charged at them and flung its razor-sharp feathers at the group, just slightly slower than it would be if it was done in the air. Then, with startling blue eyes, one of the humans raised his hands in front of him as if shielding his other team members. With that action, a solid wall of water formed in front of the group, protecting them from the feathers.

The women of the group rushed at the penguin with two swords. With two slashes, she cut the archer penguin in half. It surprised Amy that she could do this as the swords appeared sharper.

Before the penguin could fade back into the dungeon, the man who was quite interested in the plants started taking samples of the dead. He harvested the eyes, beak, feathers, and some of its organs into glass containers and vials.

As soon as the man finished harvesting and putting away the collection of materials collected from her monster, the group exited her dungeon and left her territory with their rewards.

What that group did leave her realizing that maybe she should offer rewards of some sort or not absorb the monster's bodies as quickly so that the adventurers could harvest from the bodies. Even though it might seem cold, there were benefits that she found that came from the adventurers. And it seemed to be in her best of interest to at least be able to tempt some adventurers to enter and explore.

The benefits that she obtained from the adventurers were that if they stay in the dungeon for a bit, she gains a small bit of mana from the adventurers. It seemed that the small bit of mana that she obtained from the adventurers gets incorporated into her core. The same thing happened when the adventurers died within her dungeon, except she received much more of their mana than when she passively got the mana when they were alive.

As the adventurer's mana gets added to her core, Amy felt it fill up with something that she cannot describe. She could feel that it was somewhat halfway full from the maximum. It was like it had to reach a certain level before it was realized. It left Amy to ponder what this meant and why she did not notice it before when she had other adventurers and invaders within her dungeon.