Doyle looks at the option for a random monster again. ‘Eh, the first floor is stocked up and while I should probably use my world energy on the second floor why not? [System, I want to buy the random monster package].’

{Selecting random monster…

Axe Beak Selected}

{Axe Beak

S[11] A[9] C[10] I[1] W[4] P[6]

Skills: Blunt Trauma Resistance lv3

Description: An axe beak is a tall flightless bird with strong legs and a heavy, wedge-shaped beak. It has a nasty disposition and tends to attack any unfamiliar creature that wanders too close. While they can be found in groups if there is more than five, they will ostracize one until it leaves and the size of the group is small enough. Their natural habitat is in the small valleys between mountains.

Ecology: goat, horned lizard

Cost: World Energy[60]}

{Axe Beak gained at lv5

Ecology Updates...

Goat already exists in the database…

Goat goes from lv9 to lv10

Dungeon Pattern Database goes from lv14 to lv15

Horned Lizard gained at lv1

Prey Insect goes from lv1 to lv2}

Ally tilts her head, ‘welp, we got another big dumb monster. Though this one is more palatable than the assassin vine. Odd that it only costs 60 but that might be the intelligence dragging it down. To have a score of one means this thing would barely even count as sentient. I mean really, there are slimes with a higher intelligence.’

Doyle chuckles, ‘Oh goodness gracious, that is a silly creature. Though I let it distract me. I need to throw the six stat points I have somewhere. I was tempted to sink it all in constitution. It would limit how much world energy I lose when adventurers are stomping around. A higher cap means I can store more after all. But looking over my stat line I don’t think so.’

‘With the second floor I will be able to dump the energy there for the moment so it isn’t as critical. However I noticed that my presence isn’t even a ten yet. Since I don’t have enough points in my soul stats the description probably won’t tell me much. However, if the average is a ten at maturity I don’t feel good having it below that. [Hey system, stick all six of my stat points into presence.]’

{Presence raised from 5 to 11}

Ally nods, ‘That is an excellent idea. Would have been nice if you had run it past me first, not that I would have suggested different.’

Doyle’s core takes on a gray shade, ‘it felt straightforward enough. I only had six points.’

Ally shrugs, ‘eh, it’s your dungeon. And honestly? Points like that are generally better used on stats you aren’t getting per a level bonuses to. Though depending, you might end up with all your bases covered. Most people end up focusing on one type of stat but a dungeon seems to take it all. Now time to work on your second floor. Do you have any plans yet?’

Doyle returns to his normal color and wobbles, ‘not much to plan with yet. How big do you think the new floor will be?’

Ally rests her chin on her fist, ‘There isn’t an exact formula for it even under the system. This early on each new floor will probably add on space equal to your first floor. It will seem like a lot here on the second floor. After all that is twice the size. The third floor will disabuse you of that notion.’

Doyle does some quick math in his head, ‘yeah I can see that. If we take the standard small room as the unit of measure the first floor is a bit more than 17 to a side. The second floor will only add seven rooms to a side. Still good enough and paths will probably help with that. Though speaking of paths, where will I get all the skill levels I need?’

Ally laughs, ‘Now that you have a second-floor things will pick up. Before you got limited by not being able to do anything for most of the day. If anything territory control and creation will skyrocket as you will be able to use them constantly on the second floor. That and you just need more skills.’

‘You only have six at the moment. Most people cap out their skill slots early on. Even those who plan ahead and save some slots in case of something special popping up generally only save a slot or two. Your only problem here is we don’t have any list of viable skills you could pick up so I say just let nature take its course.’

Doyle sighs, ‘I guess that is true. Though let’s look at the available paths. At the least the axe beak should have added its own path to the list. [System, list my available paths please].’

{Available Paths: Dungeon Core III 10/100, Vine Warper 0/15, Kin Slayer 0/100, Voidborn 0/250, Axe Sharpener 0/5, Commanding Subordinates 0/12, Energy Well I 0/3, Vegetation Variety 0/20}

Ally pauses, ‘huh, well you weren’t wrong. In fact, you could finish two of those with your current point total. Though I don’t know if you would want to invest in the bird yet. We don’t really know how it will do.’

Doyle nods, ‘Going to hold off on that for the moment. Energy well on the other hand is cheap enough I don’t mind it even if it isn’t the best option. If anything, I want to know what it came from. Plus it might help with my passive world energy generation.’

Ally shrugs, ‘possibly. Though I am at a loss for where you would have gotten it as well. For such a cheap path I can’t imagine what it is for. The name isn’t ominous or anything so it shouldn’t be a dangerous path.’

With her opinion Doyle goes ahead with purchasing it, ‘[System, put three points into energy well]’.

{3 points applied to Energy Well I…

1/3 - You have earned +5 passive World Energy recharge rate

2/3 - You have earned +5 passive World Energy recharge rate

3/3 - Path Complete, You have earned +10 passive World Energy recharge rate, Sapients near an entrance portal but outside of your dungeon gain a buff to the recharge rate of any energy pools they have}

Ally smacks her fist into an open palm, ‘I get it now! I don’t know if you have been paying attention to those outside your dungeon but they have been doing more than just guarding the portal. Those on guard duty have been exercising their skills whenever their pools were full. Being so close to the portal they probably pulled some of the purified power out when gaining the power back. As a big part of your purpose is to put that energy back out in the world, the system must have made the path really cheap for you.’

Doyle sighs, ‘I am just happy it limits it to those outside the dungeon.’

Ally laughs, ‘the system isn’t stupid. I bet you get higher versions of it easily enough. The people outside should notice the difference soon enough. A passive recharge bonus is a massive boon to them. Though if you like the people currently in charge out there I advise you hold off on the higher versions. Whatever effect it has at the moment is minor so others won’t covet it too much. Boost it up enough and you would call down every nearby community on their heads. That is the sort of thing they fight wars over.’

Doyle sighs even harder, ‘that just makes me even happier that it only works outside of my dungeon. Now though I need to expand this second floor if I want to get anywhere.’

Ally nods, ‘true that.’ And she goes to her room. Though once there she requests Doyle puts up a couple of screens there for her to watch what is happening in the dungeon. Just basic stuff like the view out the entrance, an overview of the first floor, and the energy count till the next floor.

Finished with Ally’s requests Doyle gets down to expanding the second floor. With the experience from his first time bursting out of the core room is easy enough. The biggest difference this time is there doesn’t seem to be an outside. Rather his influence creates space wholesale. It doesn’t cost more to do so but still an odd experience to top off all the rest he had had over the last day.

Now he knew that pushing his influence into the void space would use more but at this point he just wanted something to do. The size of the floor balloons outward until he runs out of spare influence. At that point it drains his world energy but he doesn’t have much to do with it yet anyway so he keeps pushing.

Doyle kept up with it well into the next day. The first couple groups come and go but being on the second floor none of this disturbs him. He only slows down when his available energy gets close to 1000 so he has enough for his first floor to restock itself.

While it distracts Doyle, there is a bit of a kerfuffle going on outside his entrance. While the buff from energy well wasn’t noticed right away, it just took one of the guards checking his stats to notice it. Ace, Ruby, and one other member of the founders all stand around the portal to the dungeon.

Ace sighs, “So Kelly, you’re the researcher of our group. I know you don’t have enough information to have a proper opinion yet but I need something to go off of. People will notice. A plus one an hour to mana or qi isn’t much but it adds up.”

Kelly goes to push up her glasses before she remembers that the system had healed her eyes. She sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose instead. “You know, I almost miss my glasses? I was one of the lucky ones. My vision problems stemmed from actual damage and not just a genetic problem or birth defect. Though I have to wonder why those don’t count. Probably just a matter of them happening before birth or something arbitrary like that.”

“Anyway, my one skill gave me some clue as to what happened. Now as I am sure you both know a dungeon is actually a living creature. Specifically the core crystal is a sapient being just as much as you or I. With sapience comes a soul and more importantly for this matter, paths.”

She turns to Ruby, “With the full clear last night the dungeon should have gained quite a bit, just as your team did. That means path points to spend and our group does something others don’t that probably resulted in this change. As we don’t have any real fortifications yet our guards on the dungeon have to stand right up close to the portal.”

“My skill tells me the plus one recharge rate comes from a path the dungeon has taken. In other places from what we know people only get close to the dungeon when they are entering it. I say from what we know because this is a straightforward path to trigger. We haven’t even been around this dungeon for a full month yet. Now maybe it is only available to new dungeons but my bet is that out in the universe there are organizations which have built their primary locations around such dungeons.”

Ace nods, “That would make sense and we have already tested it, the bonus doesn’t work inside the dungeon. Now that I know it isn’t temporary or with a downside I can make a decision. I am stuck between trying to keep it a secret and only letting those we trust stay by the dungeon. This wouldn’t be hard, we would just say something happened and we were worried about a change to the dungeon. Not a lie, I am very much worried about this. The other is to make the area around the portal a giant training field. The more skill levels we can get on our defenders the better. First though let me hear what your opinion on it is?” And he gestures towards Ruby for her to speak.