The more I have delved into dungeons, the more amazed I am at the power and majesty found in the deep ones. And the more I wish I had time enough to see the small and simple ones grow.

- Heastjack, the Researcher

My mind had undergone a shift over the last hour. I could feel an influence dropping away from my mind. I knew what it was from, too. Apparently, touching and experiencing someone else’s soul had unexpected consequences, for a little bit they rubbed off on you.

In looking at all the traps I had created I felt a certain horror. Some pride, too. Some of these were cruel, terrible, and probably be a bit much to deploy against anyone. Though I didn’t know what kind of power to expect from people who came to the dungeon. Still, that ruthlessness I had experienced had been useful in unleashing my imagination without any restraint. I had created some traps that would be very effective. However, I could also see that my focus had shifted toward the lethal end of the spectrum and caused me to neglect other possibilities. I could think of an entire slew of traps that were non-lethal and that would be very effective. Water, mud, wind, sand, nets, I had a great many ways to delay and trip up an opponent.

I would design those for sure, but for now what I really needed to do was answer that question. How powerful did I need to prepare the dungeon to be? I could simply prepare an entire range of difficulty, of course, but I didn’t know what was appropriate. How did I create the proper challenge?

Actually, I had an idea for that. I didn’t have to create the dungeon blind. I had been making that assumption, but I could force adventurers to go through non-standard tests to even gain entry to the dungeon. There were options in my dungeon menu that were meant to go with puzzles, I could use those. My dungeon was supposed to be special, so having it be odd in other ways would make sense, too.

A little bit later I was able to get the basics prepared. Now that I had various lighting options I could create better lit areas. I decided to name my current area, since there was a map and areas could be named in my dungeon menu. I called the entry area the Starlight Grotto and gained a surprise.

New area designated: Starlight Grotto

Two subsection types available:

Dungeon (default)

Safe Zone

Please choose a type.

Finally! I had been wondering about those two subsections, but they had not shown up anywhere. Since this an entry area, it will definitely need to be a safe zone. I selected the option.

You have created your first safe zone. Please note:

Mutation and monster spawning is disabled in this area. Intentionally lethal traps will not function. Plants and animals will still experience growth that is faster than normal, though it will be slower than dungeon zones. Monsters under your control will not enter this zone under normal circumstances.

It is recommended that you create safe zones in sections, as you may not disband any safe zone while a humanoid sentient is within.

Normally I would have followed its advice and subdivided the area, but I had the advantage of being able to build just fine as long as I had good intentions.

This actually made things easier in quite a few ways, too. I had worried about the changes to the plants and animals I was working with, because I wanted to be able to create some wildlife that wasn’t simply going to try to kill everyone. For decoration, if nothing else. This also meant I could create rest areas in the dungeon itself.

For the moment I diverted my attention to take care of some opportunities this created. First I absorbed everything alive in my little garden lab. Then I recreated everything and named it “The Garden.” Now I should just be able to grow everything there.

I created an enormous room that was entirely isolated from the rest of the dungeon. I had to reroute a few streams, but I was able to find an area that was mostly stone to begin with. I took the time to make it very tall and reinforced the walls. Various sections were filled with deep dirt, sandy soil, clay, and mixes of all of those. I also placed down some of the snow and ice I had in storage to create a snow section. Since I could make ice directly, I also created a glacial section that melted in parts making ice caves. Then I replicated all of the environments I had made several times over and altered how much water would fall down as mist to simulate rain, attached incredibly bright lights to mechanical systems to simulate sunlight, etc…

When I finished, I named it “The Greenhouse,” and made it another safe zone. Then I planted copies of every plant I had been working with so far. Hopefully I wouldn’t need to worry about monstrous plants now here, and could learn what environments these plants actually preferred. Fortunately, I could replicate all the environmental settings now that I had made them once. Rain, sunlight, humidity, wind, even the various soil and landscape types had been added automatically into a modular section that let me designate exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t produce options that were hotter than my geothermal areas, or a little bit colder than freezing from the snow, but I definitely had a good range.

I actually used the new options to create a little bit more variation. Now I had very hot and humid rain forests and dry sandy desert with intermittent winds. I noted with amusement that I could make the wind blow very very hard. No doubt due to some of the extreme pressures I had created when I was doing my projectile testing.

I created a similar area for aquatic environments and called it “The Aquarium.” And then I went and made another that covered all the subterranean environments I had yet to cover, such as the mud pots, basic moist caves in both warm and cold, and more. This was simply unimaginably called “The Caves.” Each was made a safe zone.

These were breeding areas. Non-monstrous stock would grow here that I could put into safe places. I could also re-introduce anything I grew here into various monstrous environments to see if new variations would show up.

I had seen various mutations show up, but I not detected any particular rhyme or reason to them. All I knew was that mana and my aura were helping it happen.

As it was, any area outside of a declared safe zone or my normal aura was becoming a war zone. Creatures and plants growing, killing, attacking, eating, and reproducing. It was madness, but it was a madness that showed focus. Animals and plants became more powerful and dangerous. Even the snotties in the sulfur caves looked like they were starting to take on a life of their own. If I waited long enough I might end up with Darwin’s ideal creature.

Now I needed to see if I could focus the mutations for my own uses. I made a quick blueprint of the three areas I had just made, and recreated them elsewhere. With the very high levels of ambient mana I had available they were created very quickly. I didn’t bother to name these. I just left them as normal dungeon territory. I would observe how everything changed and adapted to the environments as they mutated.

For now I got back to my original objective. The Starlight Grotto was massive, and even with all my statues, fountains, and lights, it had large areas that were simply blank stone hidden in the darkness. Plenty of room to add new things.

I started with a small building dedicated to traps. It was a long subterranean corridor with only the entrance showing up above ground. It was easy enough to set it up so it would only accept a single person at a time. The actual traps were very simple. They were all pitfall traps that only dropped someone a foot. What changed as the corridor continued was the difficulty of finding the traps.

At first everything was well lit and the traps were painfully obvious. Then the lighting grew dimmer or intermittent and the traps became more and more difficult to spot. The terrain changed over time too. Some traps became cloth covered by sand in an equally sandy biome, others a thin mat of leaves in a similarly changed environment. I mixed up what I could until the room was pitch black or blinding flashes of light were periodically released and the traps were essentially indistinguishable from the surrounding terrain.

If I was still human I would have had no chance to spot most of the traps, but I needed to know what adventurers were capable of.

When an adventurer went through any testing area it would reflect their score on a token they would be given when they tried to enter the dungeon. That token would need all the tests to be finished before they could enter the dungeon. Once someone completed a test they would need to wait a while before they could do that test again. Hopefully the time it would take people to do the tests would let me adjust the difficulty as needed.

The next section was a measure of strength. Individual sections were separated into rooms, and each had weights of increasing heaviness. It would be interesting to see if they used magic to move the weights too.

After that would be a group weight test. The weights there started heavier and went into the absurd. After reinforcing stone continually I was able to make some stones of reasonably small size that weighed at least 20 tons. The handles on the side made it theoretically possible to move it if someone was strong enough.

And if they could lift something that heavy… then I wasn’t entirely sure what to prepare for them.

The third test was a test of dexterity and mobility. It started off as simple climbs over objects with simple jumps. These were things I could have done myself. From there the difficulty rose. I placed later sections over nets or water, so that falling would not be dangerous. Eventually adventurers would need to be able to push off from a single hand hold over and around brightly colored obstacles to grip another single hand hold which would crumble away in moments. And then repeat that. And there was wind with colored powder that would “kill” anyone that it touched so they would fail the room. And timed switches, and much more. Overall the room started to remind me of a Japanese game show that was always playing at the local sushi joint. It would be fun to watch people try it out.

The fourth area was a test of magical senses. I honestly had no idea how easily people could detect mana. Tam had been unable to see mana directly. The first area had tons of objects that were entirely mundane and a single object that practically vibrated with mana from the full mana crystal hidden within. The amount of mana in the correct object would gradually become less and less.

I considered making a puzzle room, but that was something I could make in the dungeon proper if I wanted. Maybe something with math so that I could learn it and use it to understand them better?

Well, an endurance test would make sense. And it was easy to make. I started off with a room that was just uncomfortably warm. They could leave at any time, but would need to wait for a while before the next room would open. And the next room was hotter. And the next, and the next, etc…

If I had access to colder temperatures I would use those too, put I would just test heat for now.

I had a thought and quickly checked my AP store for things related to survival points. I had unlocked them not long ago and hadn’t checked to see if anything new showed up. Honestly there wasn’t much. A skill to be able to see how much an adventurer would be worth in survival points if they left or were killed was all I saw. Nothing to generate them passively or even get more of them at all. That made the ten percent boost to survival points from investment specialist very rare.

The skill available for purchase was also the second time I had seen a mention of getting survival points when an adventurer left. This meant I didn’t have to kill to get them. Apparently just getting them to enter the dungeon would be sufficient. I was not an idiot, there were sure to be drawbacks to this method, but it suggested that a compromise was possible.

Exsan was not going to just accept a non-lethal dungeon though. I could tell that just from having been exposed to the effects of his soul. There would need to be a compelling reason. The adventurers would need to offer something. The first thing I thought of was mana, but I really had more of that than I needed already. That might change in the future, but survival points were the real bottleneck.

I thought about everything I had gained before I even teleported here. I had gained cloth from two different sources. Wood, metals, and more I got from Tam. What I really needed was variety. New items, new plants, and new animals. For that I could offer a form of protection. Huh, very Mafia-esque. I would need to find a way to make it automatic though. Actually that part was not too difficult. I could tie that into the token they got and use the puzzle controls to increment a counter upwards when I absorbed an item and they “completed the puzzle.” What I needed to find a way to make automatic was saving them. The dungeon system didn’t have any options that would work properly.

I sorted through the AP store again. It took me a while but I eventually found an ability that should work. It was called rule of law. It was not cheap either. The laws were supposed to start out simple, but hopefully it getting bumped up to level II would be enough to work. Well, before I even bothered it was time to go see if I could make a deal.

Exsan? We need to talk.