After some deliberation, I decided to focus on my floor growth, which meant I now had a rather large [exotic catalyst]. It was a large metal sphere about the size of one of those giant inflatable balls you can climb into on the beach, so boulder-sized I suppose.

The [exotic catalyst] requires a precise floor to be affixed.

Note: The catalyst's efficiency is affected by floor level, the higher the floor, the better it will work.

Neat, and fair, more power, more work and all.

If that's the case, no better place than the boss room.

Boss Rooms are ineligible for placement.

...Which is what I would have done if I hadn't thought of the fifth floor instead.

Selecting the grotto, the large sphere began to unfold, sending thick pipes into the ground and cables to slither into the base of the trees, sparking occasionally with energy. As it stopped, I thought it had finished, but it proved me wrong. I could see water accumulating around the cabled trees, quickly creating a small lake. I even had to lower the ground just to keep it from flooding the area.

[Exotic Catalyst]

Conditions (Primed)

Materials (Ready)

Hydrogen-bonding (Ready)

All Systems are ready.

Activate (Y/N)?

No time like the present, activate the catalyst.

More panels unfolded on the sides, revealing two large hoppers that began to push out bricks of mixed metal, a waste byproduct according to the catalyst. But it didn't stop there, simultaneously the ground pipes started flowing molten liquid through them into the machine as the cables began to release an almost invisible stream of gas. At one of the corners, a tray unfolded into a 3D printer setup, the casting arm slowly going back and forth as it started to print the metal onto the tray.

Printing Catalytic Copper... 0.1% complete.

That’ll take a while then, still, it was progress gained, and now I had one less task to deal with.

Moving on, a tier-two tinker.

First, what is tier-two and why do I most likely not have it?

Tier-Two Exotic Materials

Unlike the uncommon but natural tier-one materials, tier-two is almost entirely artificial, necessitating the service of a skilled alchemist or blacksmith.

Examples:

Alchemical Blood Iron

Savage Bronze

Imbued Minerals

Treated Imbued Lumber

Alternatively, the [Tier-Two Exotic Catalyst] can be purchased for 2000 DP.

Yeesh that was expensive, maybe in the future but definitely not for a while. Most likely I’ll have to work something out with Arthur, hmm, although it might be better to start asking Edward for the time being, Arthur had a lot on his plate, even assuming he doesn’t know about Junior by now.

Is there any way one of my monsters could make one of these? I doubt I’ll be making magic wood anytime soon, but the metals and minerals are a maybe.

Negative, creating tier two materials requires a level of mana control not possible in creatures that do not benefit from the system.

But why?

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Only [soul-bearing] entities benefit from the system in the manner necessary to create exotic materials, [dungeon-born] are not [soul-bearing].

Well, that… sucks I guess, I mean it does make sense I suppose, it was something I distantly remember being told in the past, I think. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s been getting pretty hard to think about my days before becoming a dungeon, I wonder what that’s about? It might just be me but have I been, forgetting, what it was like to be human, the physical memories that is?

The system is unaware of any outside tampering with the dungeon’s previous existence, it has no observable effect on the dungeon, and the system assures the dungeon that everything is fine.

Well, if you say so then.

But if I can’t make them in-house, I’ll just have to trade for it.

Moving on, again.

The final requirement would be the fifteenth monster, and that would be the easiest problem to solve. I had plenty of avenues to get another monster, from the shop to Arthur, it was something that could be solved right now. In-fact, before we even contact Arthur let's take a look at our shop options.

Random Low-Tier Monster- 15 DP

Monster level 1-10

Random Special Monster- 200 DP

Monster level 1-100

Random Medium-Tier Monster- 30 DP

Monster Level 20-50

Random Environmental Critter- 5 DP

Aesthetic Purpose

Random High-Tier Monster- 150 DP

Monster Level All levels 51 and above.

Random Functional Critter- 5 DP

Functional Purpose

Random Existing Monster Variant- 120 DP

Level Dependent on Monster.

Random Miscellaneous plant life- 5 DP

Large packets of assorted plants.

Ok, I definitely don't remember them being that expensive, what happened, dungeon inflation?

In a manner of speech, yes.

Well shi-

The reason for the price adjustment is due to several factors, the majority of which are unavailable to the dungeon at this moment. What is available is that with the increased level of the dungeon, the state of [planar malleability] has decreased, necessitating more DP to perform the standard level of various tasks.

Wait are you saying that this actually is dungeon inflation, and is only going to get worse as I get bigger?

Contributing factors are currently unavailable, ask again at a higher dungeon level.

Ok, be that way.

Sigh

If that's the case then, it might be better to get shop stuff now rather than later. Currently, I only have 200 after buying the catalyst which meant I could buy any one option, some of them several times. My problem was if that would be worth it though, if I cheap out now I could lose a good deal on something else, but if I take that deal then I could be getting ahead of myself and not getting what I actually need right now. What this meant was that I was now having a magical dungeon headache as I pretended to pet Wormy, my hand would just pass through him, but he seemed to enjoy it. If I choose to buy a monster then I would be buying it at what will be the cheapest price from now until infinity, and on the other hand, if I save my cash and have Arthur give me something then I'll probably, maybe, potentially, be better prepared to afford things in the future.

Another thing to think about is that pretty much all of the options are also out of my scope to use properly, if I buy something too high level then I won't be able to use it properly, but something too low level would be a waste in the long term since it would stop being upgraded past whatever its max is. On top of that, I still had to keep myself open and ready to move, metaphorically, based on the movements of the sects, meaning I should also leave some DP for more defensive upgrades or more traps.

What do you think Wormington, what wisdom does the worm of the hole have for me?

...

Assertive wiggle

No, I- wait, that's not half bad.

Confused wiggle

No, that's quite alright Wormington, you have fun eating and pooping, and whatever else a giant worm does in its free time.

I descended to the fifth floor to see how well the plan would work.

He didn't have a face, but if he did, Wormington Wormsworth would look very confused right now, all he did was wiggle, where had his master's great idea come from?

----------------------------------------

Perhaps I could kill several dozen birds with on crystal rather than bang my head against a wall. My issue is that I’m stuck between choosing now or later, paralyzed by the thought that I could be wasting my money. But a (relatively) simple solution came from Wormy, these fanatics were fucking loaded, it was a goldmine of shit to take.

And I so happen to have the perfect helpers to do that for me, my smallest soldiers, my squeakiest boys and girls, my whispered warriors. I was speaking of course about my cute lil rats.

So go my lovelies, and steal everything not bolted down, and then the bolts!