The option had shown back up again.

! Upgrades available !

>Advanced Menu Details

>Enhanced Status Submenu

I had been burned by this before, but there was still the matter of this ‘voice’ that Duke had mentioned. If it did what it said on the tin, then this might be the best chance I had at straightforward communication.

What made things worse, is that either I risked it on this gamble, or I flailed around blindly with the menu stuck in tutorial mode.

“Well here goes nothing,” I thought and selected ‘Advanced Menu Details’.

The menu glowed bright white and a new notification appeared.

! Advanced Menu Options unlocked !

>Upgrade path is now visible for three steps in mob spawners

“Hmm maybe the voice is a special mob like a scion?” I wondered as I pulled up the [Cat Spawner] which was beginning to resemble something owned by a person with more cats than human connections.

My eyes wandered over the new options. On the [Stalker] fork there was a mob called a [Hellcat] that was obviously designed for combat.

The [Stray Cats] could potentially be upgraded into [Greater Strays] directly from the menu.

“Ah there it is!” I exclaimed as I looked down the [Lucky Cat] fork.

“Looks like we’ll need to unlock another mob before we-” I said before my brain did a full stop as I read the description.

“It seems Mr. House is being strange again, brother,” Carmen said, “should you talk to him or shall I?”

“Everyone!” I exclaimed, ignoring Carmen, “we HAVE to get more EXP!”

“Seems like that’ll be unnecessary this time,” Midnight said.

“Did you discover how to unlock this ‘voice’ Duke mentioned?” asked Carmen.

“Oh right, the voice,” I said, “yes, but there’s something else that will bring in so many more clients and expand the kinds of games we’ll be able to run.”

“Oh?” asked Midnight, prompting me to continue.

I grinned as I read the description.

[Beastfolk: humanoid felines]

***

“Oh hey Jasper, haven’t seen you around much lately,” Zee said.

“Yeah the cart rentals have been keeping me pretty busy. There’s been an increase in demand here recently,” Jasper replied, stretching a bit before asking, “How’s the dungeon spying going?”

“Yeah about that, sounds like there was another attempted robbery this morning,” Zee noted.

“After what Duke said about the entire floor being trapped, I do not envy those idiots,” Jasper said, shaking his head.

“Think we should look into it?” Zee asked.

“Eh, I’ll ask around and see if anyone’s heard anything,” Jasper shrugged, “you tell Duke yet?”

“I did and surprisingly he didn’t go dashing off in the direction of the warehouse district,” Zee replied.

“Holly hells!” Jasper exclaimed.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Yeah, he said he was meeting with some people to try to get them into a boarding house while they look for something more permanent,” Zee agreed.

“Rain and Honey, right? Good for them,” Jasper said, nodding in recognition.

“Still can’t believe that Honey knocked over that building,” Zee muttered.

“Oh relax. Most of those buildings have been abandoned for years,” Jasper said rolling his eyes.

“Well yeah, but she did it all herself,” Zee pointed out.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to get on her bad side,” Jasper agreed.

There was a bit of a pause.

“So hear from Alma recently?” Jasper teased with a shit eating grin.

“Oh shut up!” Zee exclaimed.

***

Things had started to pick up recently.

Before the attack, people mostly wanted to come by and sell scrap material. However there had been a distinct uptick in the number of people who were checking out the place. They weren’t necessarily coming to gamble, even though gambling had increased as well.

It was hard not to notice what people were saying about you especially since I was pretty much standing next to everyone in the dungeon at all times. Apparently, the word had gotten out about the thugs, who were apparently part of a group called the Skisfinks, and now people were hanging around to see if it would happen again.

Honestly, I didn’t know how to feel about that.

On one hand I’m glad that the thugs didn’t drive everyone away and I was still in business.

On the other hand, I don’t want to become a spectacle where people come and gawk while I try to defend myself. Not to mention, I’d be right back where I started except now with spectators to worry about.

I also needed to figure out how to get EXP without waiting around for more invaders to show up. The quest for common materials had been a help, but it was a paltry sum compared to how much was expected I would be getting from fights.

Building the [Alchemy Station] needed a few units of wood, iron and glass, of which I had plenty, but it also needed something called Fine Mercurial Crystal and a Flame Imbued Ruby. The menu upgrade now had pictures for a lot of things, but it still wasn’t any help to me if I had no idea where to start looking in the first place.

Maybe if I figured out how to make retrieving the new materials a new quest. Surely retrieving magic rocks would be worth more than throwing out the broken chair you’ve had in the back room, but never gotten around to getting rid of.

“Hey Midnight, you busy?” I asked.

Midnight sighed from his position curled up on the counter of the trading hub.

“I suppose sleeping doesn’t count?” he asked.

“It’ll only take a minute and besides, Carmen has been working hard all afternoon,” I said.

“Yes, but she likes to show off,” Midnight countered.

“Sure, but you still aren’t doing anything and you two are the closest thing I have to hands,” I replied.

“All right House,” Midnight sighed and got up, “I’m all ears.”

“Great, I’m going to jump in your head for a second,” I said.

“Fine,” he complained as I zoomed into his point of view.

“Wow it’s roomier in there than I was expecting,” I joked.

“Hilarious as always, House,” he replied with a deadpan tone.

“Okay, now let’s see if we can open the menu while I’m in here,” I muttered.

Fortunately, the overlay showed up in all it’s annoying glory.

“What’s this?” Midnight asked as he tried to paw at the menu.

“You can see it? It’s how I control the dungeon,” I explained as I opened up the [Alchemy Station] blueprint and pulled up the picture of the two exotic ingredients.

“Can you carve this into a plank of wood like you did with the other sign?” I asked as I crafted two squares of wood and deployed the chisel.

“Can you move the picture over the wood?” Midnight asked.

To my surprise, the picture snapped to the wood and resized itself to fit the dimensions.

“Perfect. Give me a moment,” Midnight said as he picked up the chisel with his telekinesis and began carving.

“Wow, you’ve got a talent for this,” I said as he put the finishing touches on the first piece.

“For some reason, this comes easy to me,” Midnight said in a surprising moment of almost humility.

! New Quest Issued: Retrieve Fine Mercurial Crystal !

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” I said, looking at the new notification.

“Looks like you won’t have to wait for more intruders to come and tear the place up again,” Midnight said.

“Sure, but how much should we set the bounty for?” I asked, “It’s not like the ledger had prices for anything like this.”

“The better bait gets the bigger rat,” Midnight replied, “besides, you only have one tenth of your gold in the coin pushers.”

“Yeah you’re right, it’s not like we’re running low. How about we have starting price at five hundred?” I suggested.

“Seems reasonable,” Midnight agreed as he carved the number in the bottom right hand corner.