Chapter 4 – The Foundations of a Dungeon Floor
[Masters corrosive ability has been strengthened to Rank E]
After two months of continuously strengthening myself with miasma, my corrosive ability as a Dark Pool has finally ranked up to E. It took a considerably long time to strengthen my corrosive ability to the state of a normal Corrosive Ooze, which is a low rank E monster. The volume of my body also increased as I consumed miasma but I just made a deeper hole in my spot so it isn’t noticeable, the pool is now five and a half meters deep and a few centimeters wider.
Sapphire informed me that she has a clock function so could tell how long it had been. I started to refer to Sapphire as a she almost immediately after I had given her a female name.
I thought it would be an agonizing time but my sense of time has really slowed down compared to when I was a human. It hadn’t even felt like a week had passed.
Maybe it was because I am just a pool of water. I also didn’t have any of the needs I had when I was a human. Oddly though, I could feel aroused and from time to time I get that tingling sensation I had when I was talking to Miss Victoria. Luckily those phases didn’t last more than a minute. I had asked Sapphire about it and it said that slimes mature very quickly but there are no know cases of how Dark Pools reproduce, so that question is now pending.
If the other candidates were reincarnated as a goblin or a similar kind of monster, then that person would have needed to open a dungeon after these first two months and would need to defend their dungeons from invaders soon. I on the other hand could continue being underground to collect my strength for many more months. But staying underground for that long would be unwise.
After the first few months the candidates that would have survived will have created dungeons with multiple floors and I would be outmatched by the monsters they can produce in the event that they decide to attack mine.
The adventurers would hinder the other candidates in the first few months, but that would begin to settle down after the adventurers had checked the dungeons if they were manageable and a viable source of income.
The adventurers had probably found many of the dungeons of the other candidates by now. They would have about one large floor or two regular sized floors from the calculations of Sapphire. So that means I am a bit late, but I don’t regret it though considering I could be classified as a special rank F monster now.
Miss Victoria had explained what the ranks signified when she was giving me advice. These ranks were the basis for the Adventurer Guild to assess the strength of the monsters and the adventurers themselves, which the Demon Lords had a hand in creating. Sapphire had the information stored in the dungeon cores’ databanks so I had no problem rereading the information.
F Rank is the lowest possible rank. New adventurers with no knowledge of what they are doing are in this category, these people are most often given herb gathering assignments and not combat ones. The weakest of monsters such as the Horned Rabbits and Basic Slimes are low ranked F monsters. Bat and Rat types are mid ranked F monsters.
E Rank is the next lowest rank. Green horn adventurers with some knowledge and fighting ability are in this rank. Goblins, Wolves and lesser Kobolds are ranked here for the monsters. F rank adventurers with decent equipment would be bolstered to this rank, many adventurers who use firearms are in this rank.
D Rank is the most common rank. Many adventurers get stuck in this rank for many years before becoming C ranked ones. These people have some skill in combat and dungeon crawling. Monsters in this rank start to gain some form of magic or abilities. The warrior classes of the Goblins and Kobolds’ are also in this rank.
The higher ranks go on but I did not need to dwell on them right now.
Special Rank means that a monster can exceed its ranks’ combat power because it has an ability or skill of a higher rank or given the rarity of the encountered monster that no counter measure has been standardized yet.
As a special F Rank monster, this means that I could potentially win against E rank adventurers given the right circumstances. I had also simulated fights and ambushing with the assistance of Sapphire in these two months, to the limits of how a pool of water could do so. I still can’t move by body to a different place without sculpting the soil though.
Now that I reached special rank F I felt that it was the right time to start expanding the dungeon. How much mana do I have now Sapphire?
[Analyzing…]
[Current Mana: 250/400]
[10 Mana is accumulated every hour]
I had created a few empty rooms and corridors to increase the miasma accumulation and capacity in the first month. Sapphire said that the other dungeons should have over fifty rooms and corresponding corridors by now, they would also have five times the generation and capacity I have right now. But the most pressing is that they would have stronger monsters they could make, while I will still be spawning F rank ones.
I had also planned the layout of the dungeon extensively these past two months and I am now ready to begin creating the dungeon.
Sapphire display the dungeons layout.
[Affirmative]
Sapphire showed an interface reminiscent of a computer program. The screen displayed a three dimensional layout of the dungeon showing the rooms and corridors that I had previously created.
Let’s begin creating the dungeon.
Another month had passed since I started on fully creating the dungeon. The layout is nearly complete and I only needed to create the long corridor that will lead to the exit to finish the floor. I had Sapphire calculate how big I could create it without needing an entrance and my dungeon is near the threshold. My dungeon will need an entrance the moment I create the long corridor.
I created about twenty small rooms as the main body comprising most of my dungeon, four medium sized rooms in between some of the smaller rooms with one at the base of the entrance and two large rooms in the middle and final sections of my dungeon. The final room will become the boss room and behind it is the Dungeon Core room where I and the Dungeon Core are placed.
The size of the dungeon is lengthened by short corridors and a few long ones from room to room. There are a few loop corridors in a few sections and I added dead ends here and there. The walls of the dungeon became very hard from the miasma and would take considerable amount of time to dig through. The ceiling varies in height from four to six meters all around the dungeon.
Primitive torchlight’s’ light up the walls along the rooms and pathways, they give a bit of visibility for the adventurers’ line of sight but are dimmer near the floor and the ceiling. I would need to take torches or other forms of lighting from the adventurers when they leave them in the dungeon to improve the lighting. There is also the option of using light stones from the dungeon core archive but the cost for a single one is large.
As for traps, because the Dungeon Core had insufficient materials to work with, the traps available were very crude and simple. These traps will likely be found with relative ease by the professions of scouts and rogues that the adventurers have so I didn’t put too many resources in this area.
I created a trap that creates a small uprooted rock when someone’s foot is moving towards it. These will make many adventurers stub their toes or even end up spraining someone’s ankle if they were unlucky. I call these toe traps and put then all over the dungeon because they were cheap to make and thought they were hilarious. They are actually pretty easy to find when walking but hard to notice if the person is in a hurry.
There are a few places with falling rocks as traps, for those who would be unlucky or inattentive enough to activate those. They aren’t really deadly but will hurt a lot which is what I was going for anyways. These are cheap as well. I also put in a bunch of dummy traps just to mess with the adventurers. Now the only thing missing is the monsters that will occupy my dungeon.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.
And while I was creating the dungeon, I was still slowly strengthening myself and the volume of my body has slowly increased. The pool is now seven meters deep and a bit wider. My corrosive ability was getting more potent and I had also become powerful enough to create slime tentacles, which were about two meters long and could pull a light person off their feet. This has put me at the peak of special F rank.
As for the monsters that would inhabit these rooms, I had already checked what kind of monsters I could summon and I can only create F rank monster to inhabit my dungeon floor right now. I can start creating stronger monsters when the miasma becomes denser and that will only happen when I create deeper floors.
Sapphire can you show me the list of base monsters I could create.
[Initializing monster manual…]
[Current Mana: 145/1500]
[40 Mana is accumulated every hour]
[Currently Available Monsters: Rank F]
[Basic Slime – Mana Cost: 30 per monster]
[Horned Rabbit – Mana Cost: 40 per monster]
[Corrosive Slime – Mana Cost: 40 per monster]
[Dungeon Bat – Mana Cost: 60 per monster]
[Dungeon Rat – Mana Cost: 80 per monster]
[Living Skeleton – Mana Cost: 20 per monster]
[Goblin – Mana Cost: 100 per monster]
[Dungeon Spider – Mana Cost: 200 per monster]
[Dungeon Frog – LOCKED]
These are the only base monsters I could create. The location of the dungeon had a massive impact on what kind of monsters it can spawn in the beginning.
Sapphire had scanned the soil around the dungeon and found traces of the animal corpses which unlocked the Horned Rabbit, Dungeon Bat, Dungeon Rat, and Dungeon Spider monsters. The Dungeon Frog is considered a mid E Rank monster and requires the dungeon to have a larger miasma threshold, so it is still locked.
The Slime and Corrosive Slime were unlocked because I was a Dark Pool which was a variant of slime; I don’t know why the oozes weren’t available though.
Goblins are made of miasma are a considered as lesser demons and are unlocked when I had reached a certain threshold of miasma. Living Skeleton is an undead class monster that was unlocked not long ago when Sapphire found a human’s skeleton deep underground. I could also spent miasma to equip it with armor and weapons but the only thing available right now is a bone club which costs 5 points of miasma.
The kinds of monsters I could create will increase as the miasma density gets thicker or if the local animals and monsters wander into the dungeon. I could alter these base monsters with miasma to get certain traits and abilities but they cannot exceed the power of an F rank monster as of yet.
Now to chose what to spawn in the first floor of my dungeon. Sapphire bring up the information of the monsters.
[Acknowledged, Master]
Basic Slimes – A small gelatinous ball with a core inside of it. They are low F Rank monsters and are slow moving and have a very pronounced weak point. Basic slimes could slowly digest any material they come into contact with and could evolve into a variety of species when they consume enough of a certain material or be exposed to an environment. They will eat anything they could find and would multiply when they consume enough matter.
Horned Rabbits – are small rabbits with a horn on their heads. They use these to ram into anything they find threatening. They have strong hind legs that make them fast and agile but these monsters are fragile and can’t take hits. They could burrow into the dungeon walls to create nests and have a good reproduction rate. They live mostly off of grass but will eat any kind of vegetation they could find. They are low F Rank monsters.
Corrosive Slimes – These are the corrosive variant of the Basic Slime at mid F Rank. They are nearly the same as the Basic Slime except they could corrode anything they come into contact with much faster than the Basic Slimes. Like the Basic Slimes though they would eat anything and asexually reproduce when they eat enough material to duplicate themselves.
Dungeon Bats – are flying creatures roughly the size of a man’s head. They will make nests on high ceilings in groups and live on the blood of other creatures. These monsters live and attack in groups making them a troublesome monster. These are low F Rank monsters when alone but reach up to mid F Rank in swarms.
Dungeon Rats – are the size of a decently sized dog. These monsters can create tunnels and nests along the walls of the dungeon. They have a very fast reproduction rate. Fully grown Dungeon Rats have large claws and a decent bite force but they cannot take too many hits before dying. They are omnivorous and will eat nearly anything. These monsters are mid F Rank.
Living Skeletons – They are the reanimated corpses of the races. They are considered as mid F Rank monsters but the rating gets higher the better equipped they are, reaching mid E Rank. They cannot reproduce.
Goblins – These monsters are the size of a ten year old child. The dungeon variety tends to live in small groups and can learn to use weapons and simple tactics. They have an average rate of reproduction when compared to the animal type monsters. A lone goblin is considered mid F Rank but a small group can even reach mid E Rank.
Dungeon Spiders – are one of the strongest F Rank monsters, being peak F Rank. This species of spider has become adapted to living inside dungeons and have become larger than a grown man. They are solitary monsters that use hard and sticky webs to immobilize their prey. They take longer to reproduce but lay numerous eggs. Although only a fraction of these eggs will survive long enough to reach adulthood.
After reading through this information I realized that most monsters in the dungeon will each other monsters as food. Thinking about it now, why do these monsters even need to eat? They are made with miasma so shouldn’t they be fine without food?
[Answer: They can use miasma to live but the consumption of a dungeon full of monsters will consume large amounts of miasma that could have been used by the Dungeon Master. This has prompted the Demon Lords to find an alternate source of sustenance for the monsters leading to the creation of a food chain for monsters.]
So is this why they cost so much per monster, was it because they could reproduce on their own and create a living ecosystem in the dungeon?
[Affirmative]
That’s cool. That explains why the Living Skeletons are so cheap. It’s because they can’t reproduce. But do they need to eat though?
[Negative. But they can absorb the negative energy from the suffering of the races to become stronger.]
With the right plan an undead dungeon would be good. If my dungeon is located far from the races of Ralos then Undead or the Goblins, which are considered lesser Demons, would have been a good choice for monsters. Sadly, I do not know where I am currently seeing as I am still underground.
Removing Goblin and Living Skeleton from my already limited choices leaves me with the animal type monsters and the slimes. At least the animal types that I had have some form of hierarchy to them, which would make creating the ecosystem easier.
Sapphire what do I need to start the ecosystem on the first floor?
[This task had originally been assigned to the Dungeon Core by the Demon Lords, Master.]
Oh, right. The majority of the candidates would not have cared much for something like this. You can do what you have been tasked Sapphire, I will be observing.
[Master, I will begin distributing the vegetation that will act as a base for the ecosystem. There are two kinds of grasses, four kinds of mushrooms, and a species of vine available in the dungeon cores database. Two of the mushroom types are used in potion creation and another type is poisonous, will these be allocated all over the dungeon floor?]
Distribute the vegetation as you see fit, but increase the number of the usable mushrooms by a ratio of 2:1 with the poisonous ones.
[Affirmative]
Half a day later Sapphire had laid out the vegetation of the floor. Admittedly, most of it was mushrooms. If I want to get more variety in flora I will need to take it from the area surrounding but that would require the entrance to be opened.
Now that the plants have been set, I’ll create a batch of each of the monsters as a test run.
I started by creating both Basic Slimes and Corrosive Slimes in groups inside the Dungeon Core room. They immediately separated and started wandering aimlessly around the dungeon and would eat the mushrooms when they found them. They all had the habit of going onto the walls and ceilings of dead end tunnels and narrow corridors where they go inactive or maybe they go to sleep? It may sound boring but I actually found watching them wander around enjoyable, like watching fish swim about in a fish tank.
After watching the slimes go to the dead end tunnels for a few hours, I wouldn’t have realized that it had been that long if not for Sapphire giving me an alert, I created a group of the Horned Rabbits.
The rabbits actually moved in a group immediately towards a room near the entrance of the dungeon where a large patch of grass and edible mushrooms were and started digging a hole in a secluded part of the wall. I guess they instinctively know that they were low on the food chain so they created their nest far from the deeper parts of the dungeon.
Sapphire can you increase the production of that type of mushrooms when close to a rabbit nest when they create one? I might forget later on.
[Acknowledged, Master]
I didn’t wait for the rabbits to finish their nest before creating a batch of Dungeon Bats. After summoning them they quickly left the core room and settled in the large room in the middle of the dungeon. That place had the highest ceiling and had barely any light from the primitive torches along the walls, so I guess it was the perfect place for them.
I increased the ceiling height there and in another few places in the dungeon where I wanted the bats to occupy. And I also created a few crevices for the slimes to hide in, in those dead end tunnels they seem to like inhabiting.
I immediately started creating a batch of Dungeon Rats. These rats separated into groups of two and moved all over the dungeon. I guess they found mates already. They started creating tunnels to make nests of their own. It is going to take awhile for things to get going.
Sapphire increase the mushroom production near rat nests as well.
[Acknowledged, Master]
I actually needed to wait a few days to be able to create the Dungeon Spiders, Five of them to be exact and each one of them cost two hundred mana.
The moment I spawned the spiders I could immediately tell the male and female apart. The females were larger and had darker fur than the smaller male spiders. The largest female actually stared at where I and the Dungeon Core were and stood still for awhile. When a male approached this female something strange happened.
When the female Dungeon Spider realized the male was approaching, it immediately attacked the smaller spider. The male was surprised by the sudden aggression of the female that it couldn’t fight back and ended up being ripped to shreds. The female didn’t even eat the corpse of its kind and made an odd screeching noise before climbing up the edge of the Dungeon Core room and making a spider web there while the rest of the spider monsters left the core room.
Uh… Sapphire, what was that all about?
[...]
[Analyzing…]
[Searching…]
[Search found nothing. No known answer to the behavior of the female Dungeon Spider has been previously recorded.]
Hmm… Oh, female spiders only let male spiders get near them in mating season. And they also try to eat them then as well. But this one just ignored it instead of eating it. Maybe it’s not hungry yet? I forgot all about that detail on spiders. That was mana wasted on a Dungeon Spider. At least the spider’s corpse returned twenty mana to the dungeon.
Sapphire remind not to spawn Dungeon Spiders together.
[Acknowledged, Master]
I’ll let this one live here then, the room felt rather empty anyways. Let’s call you Sheila.
Now let’s see how the monsters do inside the dungeon.