Doyle is about to turn back to working on the fourth floor when something pops into his mind. ‘Hey Ally, what’s up with the coin costs? A copper costs me ten to put down, while a silver only costs 100 and gold 1000. That doesn’t make any sense at all. It takes 100 coppers to make a silver, so it costs me the same to place a silver as it does to place a tenth of a silver’s value in copper. Beyond that, how much does a plate cost? As I pointed out, a tenth of a silver in copper, which is what a plate is worth, costs me as much to spawn as a silver itself.’

Ally nods, ‘You aren’t wrong there. But that mostly comes from system interference and the coins only being available as loot.’

Doyle flashes his core, ‘And why are they only loot? Sure it would end up being super expensive, but I can’t just spawn coins and that seems odd to me.’

Ally rolls her eyes, ‘Remember? The coins aren’t what is important or assures their value. Instead, it is the quintessence trapped in them. You could make a piece of copper that looks like a coin, but everyone would know they aren’t actually money. As for why you can’t put the quintessence in the coins? That has to deal with your creation skill.’

‘Specifically, that it works by turning energy into something else. For most things, the skill can seem omnipotent. The problem with quintessence though is there isn’t anything you can turn into it. You’re fantastic at putting together building blocks to make something, but quintessence is the smallest building block so you have nothing to make it with.’

‘I guess technically if you got a skill that would let you infuse the fake coins with quintessence that would work. That however would require such a skill in the first place. Not likely when dungeons and the system itself are about the only people capable of using the stuff in the first place. Like, I don’t think even the system can just make the coins. From how I understand it, the system has to create them similarly to how you do.’

‘About the only thing I can say is gather up any coins you get. Soon enough you will get people dying in here, and that will let you take whatever they have on them. For most things that will mean just deconstructing their stuff. Coins and a few other specialties, though? Store them away for when you need them. After all, the system will sell things for coins no matter who you are.’

Doyle sighs, ‘So what does this have to do with the coin cost?’

Ally wags her finger at him, ‘Maybe if you hadn’t interrupted me I would have gotten to it already. Anyway, the energy you put in for the lower tier coins will mostly be going towards the material itself.’

Doyle interrupts her, ‘Interesting, but I’ve basically figured out that part. What is the system interference?’

Ally throws her hands up, ‘Eugh, fine. Even with the material accounted for, the early coins could get away with being much cheaper. The system increases the cost of copper and silver coins, so a single copper doesn’t cost less than one unit of world energy. Plates also cost the same as their coin counterpart because they are about the same size and material is the biggest consideration. The only difference between a coin or a plate is the plate takes ten times as long to drop.’

‘This only changes after gold coins. At that point everything increases in cost like you would expect so the next coin type will cost 100,000 instead of just 10,000 which will instead be the cost of a gold plate. Of course the material cost is still factored in and such, so I assume the system is padding the number a little to make it so the values advance in lockstep.’

Doyle nods, ‘So simply put the copper and silver plates cost me the same as the coins but take ten times as long to mature as loot?’

Ally sighs, ‘Yes, if you want to reduce the complex interplay of factors to a single sentence.’

Doyle rolls to the side, ‘I do, thank you for the information. I’m going to finish up the fourth floor now.’

Ally rolls her eyes, but Doyle has already turned his attention elsewhere. With his 31 wisdom there is enough to set up his wolves with some default loot, he just has to figure out what it will be.

Doyle leans back and considers his options. ‘I guess first of all I want to include a copper plate. Would feel wrong to gain a new coin type and not use it. Though speaking of coin types, I wonder if with gold coins I can use them on the fifth floor or after the fifth floor. Then again, if I remember correctly, Ally said I couldn’t use them until the fifth floor boss. Besides that, is the gold plate limited as well? I can understand why they have been limited by the system. If a gold coin could randomly drop on the first floor, it would cause a lot of chaos.’

‘Meh, wool gathering can wait. Already decided on a copper plate. Besides that, I wanted them to drop herbs. I don’t want to set up a bunch of herbs though, so I can do the same thing I did on the last floor with the potions on the kobold mages. And now that I think about it, I didn’t even consider that I wouldn’t be able to have a random loot selection on my monsters. Convenient, but the question is how it works.’

Doyle takes a look at earth mages and pulls up what loot they have. ‘Okay, looks like each of them is listing one potion. I guess that would make sense. Different potions might cost different amounts, so it probably selects a random one when it is attached. Not too important, but good to know.’

‘Now besides the herbs, do I want to also include potions? I do know that I don’t want gear on them. All the other floors have gear drops for days, but herbs are only harvestable before now. I don’t want to dilute the loot table. Though I must admit, potions aren’t exactly a common drop. Guess adding some thematic potions to them wouldn’t be out of place.’

‘Oh, and one last thing. I should be able to make a wood box. Another thing I don’t have a pattern for, but a box is even simpler than some of the other things I would want to make. If I can craft those trees on the second floor, a box should be no problem at all. About the only tricky part is the lid, but even with that I only need three pieces of wood. Let me try it.’

In Doyle’s core room he creates a long and narrow bit of wood with the center sunken in to form the box’s body. Along the inner edge of the box is a ridge so the lid can be inset and on one of the long sides that ridge extends all the way to the outer edge. For a finishing touch, there are two holes where the inner ridge extends to the outer edge.

To match the body, Doyle creates a simple plank of wood that fits perfectly into the body’s ridge to be the box’s lid. The only fancy bit on the lid is a hole going all the way through the long side that matches up with the two holes on the body. Finally he makes a wooden dowel of the same diameter as the holes on the other two parts and that is as long as the body’s width.

Doyle takes the lid and fits it into the body. Once that is lined up, he slips the dowel into the hole, connecting the two sides. With that, the box is mostly complete except for one important detail that he notices just now. There isn’t really a good way to open the box up. In fact, since the lid is squared off on the hinge side, it can’t open, anyway.

After only a moderate amount of embarrassment, he fixes the two problems. To allow someone to open it, he extends a small tab off of the lid opposite the hinges. Then on the body he removes enough material to fit that new tab. Now someone will be able to open it from there, or rather they will be able to once he fixes the hinges. Good thing that isn’t a difficult thing to fix either. All it takes is to round out the corner of the lid that is down to the box. With that one one final change to shrink the dowel a little so the hinge isn’t too fragile and the box is complete.

Or at least it is complete as far as being a box. Doyle has one final plan for it to complete what he wants it for. The whole mess with Moota and the godly alchemy association came about from him deconstructing an alchemist vial so it would be a waste not to use the spoils that he got from it. With a little mental effort Doyle carves the preservation enchantment into the inside of the box. Now the box will preserve things that are put in it, such as herbs.

Then the system dings {Hinged wooden box of preservation pattern created at level 12}

Doyle rolls back, ‘Huh, that will do. Though I wonder what exactly its description is. I don’t exactly have a skill to identify things. Maybe my database skill can be queried about it? [System, can I see the description for the preservation box pattern?]’

{Hinged wooden box of preservation: An amateurish wooden box with a preservation enchantment carved into the inside. Because the enchantment is only carved into the wood with no supporting materials, the enchantment will only last for a year before wearing out.}

After he reads the description, Doyle nods. ‘That is exactly the thing I wanted. I bet I could increase the lifespan by using metals or some such embedded into the wood in the enchantment's shape, but I’m good with this. If they really want a lot of these boxes, they can figure out how to craft them themselves.’

Satisfied with his new creation, Doyle turns his attention to the only other things in his core room at the moment. In a back corner is a small chunk of stone, a selection of plates, and a large pile of equipment. He lifts the copper plate and observes it. ‘These plates basically aren’t any bigger than the coins. In fact, it seems like plates have sides the same length as the coin’s diameter. Welp, better deconstruct all this stuff. I’m especially interested in the strange dungeon stone because it definitely wasn’t that shape just a moment ago. Guess it lives up to its name.’

With a slight bit of effort Doyle deconstructs the pile of stuff and is only slightly disappointed when he realizes that all the equipment exactly matches what gear patterns he already had. Well, almost exactly. He gets a small surprise when he finds a pickaxe among the weapons. Happy with the results, Doyle asks the system to show him the strange dungeon stone’s description.

{Strange dungeon stone: A rock formed within dungeons with a [strange] modifier in their type. While one of the requirements to start forming this type of rock is a fiftieth floor. The dungeon type required for it to form makes it near certain that such a dungeon will get it before then. By those versed in dungeon structures, this material has been compared to the magical combination of spackle, silly putty, duct tape, and WD-40. Highly psychoactive even when compared to other dungeon based materials, its ability to fix minor problems in a floors design is unmatched. Though do not mistake it for a one size fits all solution. While the uses are quite wide, the actual depth of these uses is shallow.}