It was only a day later that I could choose a focusing option to go with, and while that might seem like a lot longer than it needed to be, it gave me enough time to think it through. While I had no reason to at the moment, I could very well replace rooms and monsters whenever I needed to, but the choice of what to focus on was not such a choice, so, I decided to go with mechanical focusing. Upon choosing it I could feel a tangible difference in the air, almost like the dungeon was priming itself for something, but whatever it was soon passed as the feeling subsided.

Notice!

New Monster choice available.

The core has been moved down a floor.

Now that was what I was talking about though, and zooming to where my core gave way to a set of stairs decorated with a vague factory appearance with brass-colored railings and warning signs. Moving down, my core room had also undergone some changes, possibly from the focusing, gone were the plain stone statues and arches were instead replaced with a larger single statue of grinding gears flanked by two other smaller statues that represented the bio and magic constructs. This new level wasn’t much to look at right now but I was excited at what it could be, with a total of ten available room spaces that I could build, I could easily start ramping up my dungeon, is it supposed to be like this?

As a dungeon grows it produces more and better-quality mana, drawing those that would benefit from being exposed to it.

This is an unintentional benefit and danger as challengers grow as the dungeon grows, creating those that may be specialized and strong enough to enslave or aid those that would enslave the core while also aiding the dungeon's growth.

However, do note that dungeons are timeless beings that are intended to operate at a different scale from mortals.

Well, that’s a concerning fact, I guess now more than ever I should try and plan out how to defend myself, which I’ll have to consider when I get to that monster choice. As for my floor plant though, I think I’ll give it some twists and turns, you know, throw them off a bit. After a good hour of building and planning things out I had a decent setup, just enough turns to make them second-guess while not wasting the dead-end room’s potential defensive benefit, and if not for defense, then perhaps they could be production buildings. Surveying my work, I could already see my critters beginning to move in, the pitter-patter of their feet being some of the only sounds in the stone halls. One thing I did question though was how larger rooms function since I made the final room by combining two of my room slots. The larger room itself was double the size of the other ones, closer to a gym than the smaller ones, it had more space, higher ceilings, and a broader floor.

When combining room slots to form bigger rooms, the production of that building increases according to the number of slots used to make the room, additionally, each room slot used allows for up to one additional monster node not exceeding the floor number.

The price of the building will also be increased accordingly but nodes will remain the same.

Interestingly, with the right room and monsters, I could build a hard wall of resistance using this method, the costs would no doubt be high, but this could be a game changer, one of many recently. That combined with the worm power I’ve got running, I should be able to cancel out the upfront cost of any larger buildings I make, the only concern would be the production cut each of these would take.

But before I could get too far into my thoughts, I could feel the lift coming up, and what I found was odd. On the lift was the demon summoner from before, but rather than being accompanied by another team of hounds he instead had a basket of… metal sheets. He placed them just by the entrance of the hatchery before quickly leaving again, saying something just out of what was apparently the dungeon’s hearing range. Having one of the puppets poke it around, the basket didn’t seem dangerous, heavy by the look of things, but seemingly nothing dangerous about it. Before I used the system to identify it, though I could see and almost feel that the samples inside weren’t ordinary at all, some of the sheets were covered in a layer of frost, and others attracting dust from the floor.

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Analysis:

Standard Materials:

3 sheets of mid-grade steel (absorbed)

3 sheets of mid-grade copper (absorbed)

1 flask of mercury (impure), unlocks mercury options.

Exotic Materials:

1 sheet of low-grade heatsteel, unlocks heatsteel options.

1 sheet of low-grade coldsteel, unlocks coldsteel options.

Interesting, was this a gift or a bribe, he left with no words nor note of any sort so there was no way to gauge his purpose for leaving these here. If it was indeed a bribe then just what was I being bribed about, the fact that he let his dogs loose on me or to not kill him if he entered the dungeon? On the other hand, if it was indeed a gift then I suppose it’s a start.

Reviewing the items themselves, the standard materials weren’t that amazing, and despite unlocking more options thanks to the mercury, they proved rather pointless for the moment since they were mostly decorative, with a ton of [locked] filling the rest of the page. But the interesting bit wasn’t the normal stuff but instead the exotic ones, heatsteel was a rust-colored metal that was described as being a magical metal mined out from volcanic regions or super deep mines, capable of emitting extreme heat at the proper purity and quality. Coldsteel was the opposite however, it was a pale blue sort of color, taken from glaciers and high mountain peaks, it was similar to heatsteel but instead of heat, it emitted a cold aura.

Unfortunately, the options unlocked by both of them were out of reach for now, the modified buildings and monsters were far too expensive to build, and while a canid that could emit stone-melting heat constantly, it was impossible to both pay and justify one at the moment. Despite this though it wasn’t all out of reach, expensive yes, but not impossible. Three options which are just one with three versions, were jointly called the ‘mining room’ a special room that encouraged people to enter the dungeon and mine for various metals and occasionally gems. The first version was just a standard option, normal metals for a normal room, granting a small amount of mana and growth with each piece of metal or mineral they mine out, also providing a small discount to the metal upkeep of any metal-based monsters. The other two versions were for the two exotic metals though, the heatsteel metal focused on recreating a volcanic mine environment along with generating materials found mainly in said regions while the coldsteel did a similar thing but for mountain tops and boreal environments.

Heatsteel Mine (FL2)

Using the properties of heatsteel, this room recreates volcanic mines to produce items commonly found in said areas.

Produces volcanic and standard materials for challengers.

Provides a bonus to fire and earth-aligned monsters.

Mana Production: +10 per hour

Mana Storage: +20

Objects Produced:

Assorted common metals and minerals: 50%

Assorted volcanic materials: 40%

Mining class and ability crystals: 9%

Raw heatsteel: 1%

Creation cost: 200 mana

Coldsteel mine (FL2)

Using the properties of coldsteel, this room recreates glacial mines to produce items commonly found in said areas.

Produces glacial and standard materials for challengers.

Provides a bonus to water and ice-aligned monsters.

Mana Production: +10 per hour

Mana Storage: +20

Objects Produced:

Assorted common metals and minerals: 50%

Assorted glacial materials: 35%

Mining class and ability crystals: 9%

Assorted Fossils: 5%

Raw coldsteel: 1%

Creation cost: 200 mana

The magic metal variants were pricey at my current level, and I had no dedicated monster to put in them, but the benefits outweighed the downsides at this level and worse comes to worse I could just stuff some golems in them. I made the first two rooms on the 2nd floor into both versions, the first room was refilled with dirt and stone before turning into blackened stone or hard orange clay with a visible heat distortion in the room now. The second room became full of ice and gravel, the walls growing pale from the growing frost, and what moisture there was in the room began to snow down, covering the rocky gravel floor in soft snow.

And while yeah the two mines were hardly defensive structures, I was confident that the environmental factors would turn away anyone that survived my canid or any of the monsters before it. Of course, this was all thanks to my worm I was able to afford all of this and with 20 more production and 40 more storage, I was ready to start filling out my 2nd floor and start building the, soon to be, best dungeon in the world!