Following Dylan’s silent pain at the strikingly low amount of mana he got from Ali’s corpse, a glowing green screen from Clikchia formed before his vision. Bitterly, Dylan looked over at the screen which had fed him information for a long while.
Hey! I heard your cry for help hehe. I assume you’ve just consumed your first human and gotten a ridiculously low amount of mana right? This must be a mistake? It isn’t. Civilized races such as humans are different compared to monsters. Consider it like this, both monsters and humans use mana for magic and other purposes. Monsters have cores, and humans…they store it within their mind and heart. Both humans and monsters continuously absorb the mana of their environment, then refine it for their cores which is also why monsters may wander towards your dungeon occasionally. Dungeons produce lots of mana. Anyway, when mana capacity is filled up what happens? For monsters, the extra mana condenses into their bodies and reinforces them. For humans and other civilized races, they spew it back out as refined mana since their bodies can’t take it. Basically, monsters are made of mana so its better to consume their bodies, and humans churn mana out for you but are near worthless when dead.
After reading the explanation, Dylan sighed and thanked Clikchia, who disappeared to who knew where again. Based off of what he now understood, humans really were best when kept alive. There was little to no point in killing humans unless they truly threatened him or if he really desired a skill. As a former human, Dylan had also killed Ali as a test to himself; in the future it was highly likely that people would end up dying by his ‘hands’ or monsters. He needed to be sure that he wouldn’t be bothered by their deaths. Although he used to be human, the fact was that he simply wasn’t one anymore, so killing humans shouldn’t have had any more consequences than killing an animal or monster.
He did feel slightly guilty for killing Ali even though he had claimed to allow them to leave, but the decision had been made on the spur of a moment, and the humans themselves didn’t know that he was in control of Charlatan and the wolves as well. In fact, Dylan hardly felt bad about killing Ali, even though he wondered if he should. Snapping out of his thoughts, Dylan came to a swift conclusion; although he felt guilty over killing a human, he would be able to do it again if he needed to.
Let’s just hold off on killing innocents for now…Ah, maybe I should make some sort of tribute for him. It’s best to honor the dead right? Or would this be looked down upon as hypocritical…hm. Dylan pondered as he turned his attention to the second floor. Over the past weeks and days, he had been slowly carving out piece by piece of the mountain. He had carefully carved out the next floor into a large valley, about 8 miles in diameter as of now. Replacing the stone floor with layers of dirt, Dylan had seeded grass dotted with small pockets of bushes and small forest patches here and there. Mana stalks grew in random tiny patches, while stout palms grew in clusters. Low lying shrubs and bushes dotted the land invariably, and tuberants and Dylan’s newly evolved grass known as [Blood Grass] grew sporadically. Throughout the floor, glow bulb fruits hung in small clusters from the ceiling and towering forest trees, drenching the area with mild light reminiscent of the evening. That’s right, Dylan decided to keep his second floor fairly dark.
The entrance to the second floor was accessible through a tunnel which extended downwards from the stone forest in the first floor, entering the second floor from the Eastern end. In addition, most of Dylan’s monsters had been pulled into the second floor. Only insect-type monsters remained within the first floor of the dungeon, along with the fish, Stone-Eating Hermit Crabs, bats, and small animals such as mice, shrews, lizards and birds. Compared to the brightness similar to day felt by the first floor, the evening’s darkness much better suited Dylan’s monsters. Goblins, aberrant goblins, and beast goblins would now live in a large patch of forest tucked away in the southern-most area of the second floor. There, they could recuperate their numbers and train. Horned hares were scattered throughout the floor, and rage boars along with regular wild boars were to be moved to the floor as well. Dylan’s gray and black wolves, along with dire, whistle, wind, and iron-spine wolves were also to be introduced into the forests with the goblins.
Dylan sought to go for a much more mobile approach with his monsters, so he set up a [Dungeon Law] which allowed wolf-like monsters to fully cooperate with all types of goblin monsters even through the effects of [Natural Order]. In addition, he set [Dungeon Laws] for each species living within his dungeon, to replenish their numbers on their respective floors in the event that they suddenly dropped. This way, Dylan would no longer need to micro manage his monsters if more adventurers appeared anyway. Due to Dylan’s design of the floor, if he was truly in danger, he had a hidden card to use in an attempt to completely annihilate his enemies, even at the cost of the whole floor.
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This hidden card was a series of small caves set into the southern wall of the second floor, in the deepest section of the forest. Both Kuraura and Grotho were to be placed at this point to deter any of Dylan’s other monsters from wandering into the area. Within the small caves, the effects of [Natural Order] were turned off due to another [Dungeon Law], and several dozen ember wolves lay or stood stock still within them. Their glassy eyes occasionally shifted left to right, and a few would paw the ground or take whiffs of the area before becoming alert once again. This was how the monsters within a dungeon would normally operate.
Although the second floor was fairly dark, the atmosphere was incredibly dry in certain areas due to the lack of wind, rain or running water. In the event that an enemy which greatly threatened Dylan appeared, he could mobilize the ember wolves to set the entirety of the second floor on fire, turning the entire floor into a field of blazing fire. When he finally reaches a high enough level, Dylan also sought to place a fireball wolf within the cave and resummon Charlatan (Charlatan requires over 1000 mana to summon after all of his upgrades).
However, the task would be surprisingly hard to complete. Dylan had also found out that his mana production had dropped significantly due to the multiple [Dungeon Laws] showing their effects on both his first and second floor. Apparently maintaining a dungeon law drained a considerable amount of mana, but in the end, it only slowed down Dylan’s mana collection, and it would rise again as more monsters were born within Dylan’s dungeon.
With the second floor completed, Dylan made final changes before finally ordering the monsters he had gathered to move to the second floor. A tirade of wolves, boars, goblins, and other species made their way through the dark and steep tunnel which directly led into the second floor. From there, they scattered to their specific territories over the span of several hours. Kuraura carried Dylan’s core to the directly to the forest where the goblins lived. After an hour or two of travel, Dylan’s core was now nestled deep within the cave along with the ember wolves. Grotho and Kuraura both stood guard outside of the cave as well, and eventually, Dylan’s dungeon settled back into its natural, peaceful rhythm.
Even with his hidden card the ember wolves, Dylan wasn’t exactly sure if he could resist a powerful adventurer or evil human/monster who wanted to steal his core or destroy it. The only option was to get stronger! Dylan desperately needed more powerful or numerous monsters. With the exception of Charlatan, who had well over 1,000 mana pumped into him from both his evolution into a beast goblin, his naming, and further upgrades, all of his other monsters and both of his other two guardians were capped out at the (D+) rank!
Dylan immediately sent out beast goblins from his dungeon, along with dire and black wolves to live in the forests outside. This way, he could still divert the blame in case the humans remained suspicious. It also made sense to Dylan that there would be more “wolf-men” lurking around within the forest since they had been “discovered” already, and he didn’t want the only trace of the beast goblins to be linked back to his dungeon. Before the beast goblins and wolves left, Dylan ordered them to go deep within the forest and establish their own territories there. They were allowed to increase their numbers, and were to capture monsters and animals not found within Dylan’s dungeon. If they encountered monsters from within Dylan’s dungeon looking for more creatures or plants, they were to inconspicuously protect Dylan’s dungeon-sent creatures to assist Dylan’s gathering of new species. Lastly, if they were attacked or found by humans, they were to retreat and find some way to enter the Dungeon or contact Dylan.
After they left, Dylan heaved a mild sigh. With most of the beast goblins and dire wolves gone, the strength of his dungeon had fallen slightly. Hopefully they would pay out in the future and gather new things for Dylan to absorb later. If everything worked out fine and the humans did not suspect Dylan’s dungeon in the end, then those beast goblins could hopefully pass off as wild monsters and could end up assisting Dylan in the future.
There were still many other things Dylan needed to do to further secure his grip in this world, such as making more fire-resistant creatures in the event that his trump card couldn’t kill an enemy straight out. He needed monsters that dwelled within fire and thrived in it. To do that, he would need to evolve his monsters. But the most important thing to do before that was level up!