Dorzath wanted his first boss monster to be special.

It was the first passably useful monster that he would have under his command. Boss monsters, unlike normal ones, were bound to the Dungeon steadfastly and could not disobey a direct command. In addition, while they didn’t retain strong memories of every fight that they participated in which would allow them to gain strong experience and defeat challengers with ease, they did, however, gain sentience over time and gain a mild personality.

Its depth of thinking and final strength of character was dependent on their tier and race, a higher ranked version of either would produce a free-thinking creature, and a combination of the two could produce a borderline genius.

It would be able to hold a short mental conversation with him, which he missed a little. Dorzath was sure that a lesser creature would collapse with the mental strain of being unable to communicate or speak out loud for just under two months. But as it was, he just felt a mild irritation in the back of his mind that there was no one to share the wonders of his Dungeon with.

His third floor was finally complete, but when he’d first unlocked it he’d had to resist the urge to immediately create his first boss after reaching his third level. It represented a small hurdle which he could place between himself and the challengers, and even the short time he’d spent with his Cloak of Lament already had him missing it, specifically the fact that it would ignore the attacks of lower tiers, absorbing the blows like nothing.

Nevertheless, he was here now and his experiments with his Mana Crystals had borne fruit, he’d produced several variant species of wolf, and nearly had one for every one of the basic elements, with a few variants thrown into the mix.

He put his first tier 1 of his Dungeon, that he’d created with careful use of his mana crystals to be a monster who would fight challengers, as opposed to the wide variety of monsters he’d created using forced evolution, who were used as nothing more than a means to provide the challengers with an incentive to enter his Dungeon.

He’d used a tier 1 Hunter wolf as the base.

It had been altered slightly, so it was no longer a pure wolf, but a hybrid. It was one of the earth based variant species he’d created, the most common of the hybrids he’d made. Due to the abundance of earth around the creation process, some of its essence had contaminated the mana crystals. Dorzath wasn’t actually wanting a specific evolution or change, which is why he’d let the changes play out as they were.

It was a minor change, subtle enough that there had been no different Job unlocks, but the wolf was sturdier than the average wolf, which combined with its regenerative capabilities as a boss, would make it a problematic enemy for the challengers. Dorzath had decided he needed the monsters he created from this point onwards to be more difficult. He’d watched a small child wander about his Dungeon unattended yesterday, and it had caused him to reflect on the fact that perhaps his Dungeon up to this point had been a smidge too easy.

He had also unlocked the blueprint, curiously named a Rockchaser wolf by the System, and so quickly summoned the creature in the large room he’d designated as the boss room, the last room before his core. It was bigger than a normal wolf, coming up to the waist of a normal human he estimated.

Golden eyes, with sparse brown fur in places, but the skin which showed looked almost identical to rock. Its claws were short and stubby, but its limbs looked like columns. It was probably likely to smash rather than bite or slash and even had the skills associated.

Dorzath opened the new section of the interface which had appeared after he’d reached level 3. Promote. It allowed him to raise monsters to Bosses, Mini-bosses, and Leaders. For now, he could only use the mini-boss function, as a boss could only be raised once every five floors and there was no point in using the Leader function. Although a Wolf Leader would be powerful, there just weren’t enough of them or enough space for them to be utilised that it was worth raising one.

Dorzath pressed on the Accept notification, and before his eyes, the wolf grew in size. It was now at the chest height of a human, and its skin had been polished to a shine, with the fur sticking out like black rocks on a desert floor. Its skill, Hard skin, had been raised to tier 2, Rock skin. In addition, it could make the ground underneath the challengers grow soft or gain short spikes, more of a hindrance than a danger really.

Overall, Dorzath was satisfied, it was a marginally higher level of difficulty than before, but hopefully, it wouldn’t be a problem. The challengers had started coming in groups, while most of them were a higher tier or level than their attacker, it was still difficult dealing with more than one opponent on your own. Alone this boss would be difficult to defeat, but Dorzath had faith that the humans weren’t entirely incompetent. They would have struggled to grow into their space in the Universe as a powerhouse force if that were the case.

Speaking of the third floor, he’d adopted the layout of the second floor and as his creativity was running low when he was designing, he’d simply made the rooms on the third floor a quarter larger, and placed three times as many monsters in each room. The monsters could also attack in groups of four or five, which considering the pack like nature of wolves upped the difficulty considerably, but in response the challengers had begun to explore in groups.

After he’d finished the second floor, Dorzath had also received another pleasant surprise in the form of Invim. He’d started visiting the Dungeon again, using the bow Dorzath had given him. In fact, Invim was part of the reason why he wanted to raise the difficulty of his Dungeon from this point onwards. When he’d delved several days ago, he’d quickly reached the lowest floor, dispatching the monsters with ease, that tier 2 skill of his letting him easily dispatch the monsters. Dorzath missed watching Invim fight that Abomination, he missed watching any of the challengers in his Dungeon struggle. There was a fine line between struggling and death. All he’d done was raise the bar so more challengers would be closer to that line.

He’d been taking it easy on the challengers, because he was afraid of several outcomes, of no one entering his Dungeon, of one of the higher-ranked forces being alerted to his presence here on this planet. But he felt like he could relax now that he’d embedded himself into the Village and proven himself to be such an asset.

A System notification appeared on his Interface, the product of a Rule that he’d set, alerting him that someone tier 2 or over had just entered the Dungeon.

It was that Swordsman again, he’d been gone for several weeks if Dorzath recalled correctly. He was accompanied by a tier 1 Clerk, who was holding a roll of paper which he was taking notes on. Dorzath was getting a strange feeling from this Clerk, and he spent the LE which he’d been steadily accumulating lately, on an option which let him understand what they were saying, which was cheaper because he’d already purchased the option which allowed him to see challengers statuses, the two were closely related in that way.

As the upgrade finished forming itself into existence, Dorzath briefly went through the Clerks Status, this was the first person entering his Dungeon who looked at least mildly educated, and his clothes were clean with few marks on them. He was curious where this little man had come from.

Going through his Status, Dorzath noticed he had standard, low-tier skills, except for a skill called Analyse Surroundings. Why … ?

Ah. He was here to check the validity and safety of this Dungeon. Dorzath had heard of these kinds of people or organisations in the past, but they were relatively uncommon in human worlds, only occurring in the safest or most organised countries. In addition, while Dungeons weren’t so rare that no-one had heard of them suddenly appearing, it was a waste of resources to have an organisation devoted to measuring and cataloging new Dungeons. Sure there were probably thousands on this planet alone, but that number probably only changed once every few years, and within a country's borders that number would be likely to change once every hundred years.

As the upgrade finished forming, Dorzath tuned into the human's conversation.

#

“Sir Femmet, how long did you say this Dungeon has been formed for?”

“Just under 3 months now.”

“Very good, very good.” Notes were made while the pair stood still, the ‘Femmet’ dispatching approaching cubs with a casual flick of his sword.

“If I can ask you to accompany me further in?” The Clerk contrary to his tone set off on a brisk walk, not sparing a glance to the Swordsman who quickly followed behind.

The Clerk seemed to be oblivious to what was going on, marching forward at a fast pace, while the Swordsman danced around him, his art flickering in and out of existence like a Glowbug. The Clerk would also stop suddenly, and bend over his writing pad, irrespective of the Swordsman's positioning.

Dorzath lost the ability to listen in on their conversation after the first floor, but he was enjoying the sight of that arrogant Swordsman being forced down a peg or two. Dorzath liked struggle but he hated it when people powered through his Dungeon like it was nothing. The Swordsman was being forced to advance at a breakneck pace and was visibly sweating on the second floor. When they reached the third floor, he had to raise his hand for them to stop.

They finally reached the boss room, where Dorzath had gone with an iron lattice gate, which rose up into the ceiling at their approach. They both seemed a little hesitant, but the Clerk, after a short conversation, seemed to shoo the man onwards.

It was a straightforward entrance, the room opened up to reveal a massive room. Dirt walls, a sort of sandy brown, with black outcroppings of rock, not any sort of unique material, just altered with mana to be harder and look shiny black.

In the center of the room, Pulvi got up off of the ground, his eyes snapping to the Swordsman and locking on. It was a characteristic that Dorzath had given him, he always focused on the strongest physical fighter in the room first. The Clerk barely had time to take a couple of stumbling steps backward, and Femmet to settle into a stance before Pulvi roared at them. It wasn’t a skill of his, but it was intimidating nevertheless, as seen by the Clerk running to the now shut gates, and pulling on them desperately.

The Clerk quickly realised he wouldn't be able to get through and retreated to a nearby corner to stay out of the way.

The Swordsman made the first move, as his art flickered with a bright silver colour around him, (it had been enhanced since the last time Dorzath had seen him use it) as he brought his sword high and then low, hitting a bell which briefly sprang into existence with his swing. The bell released a cone of silver at Pulvi, knocking him over and sending him rolling. Femmet advanced forward, his body propelling itself in a burst of speed which looked like a skill but it could have been Fast Reflexes or Second Wind.

His sword was thrust forward suddenly and violently, its tip glowing with a silver light that left a gleaming trail in the air. Pulvi had gotten up quickly though and batted the sword aside, touching the non-glowing parts of the blade. The sudden attack left him open though, and the Swordsman whipped his sword back around with a sudden flicking movement and moved past the wolf.

A line of silver ripped down Pulvi's side, causing him to cry out in pain, but the wound was shallow. The Silver light seemed to burn him though, and even as it dissipated, Pulvi was howling in pain. Instinctively, Pulvi had softened the ground around him into the mud, sending Femmet sprawling with the abrupt change in terrain, and giving Pulvi time to recover. The sword no longer flickered silver, suggesting the Swordsman had exhausted his connection to his art.

Pulvi had no such issue, however.

He roared and leaped, bringing his pillar-like legs down hard in front of Femmet, causing the ground around the impact to rupture. He used the earth's rupturing to boost his skill, and the cracked earth grew spikes. The spikes weren’t long, but they were still sharp and aimed for Femmets lower body. They pierced into his legs, although the impact seemed to be a little dulled, as he still had legs afterward.

With a cry of pain, the Swordsman stumbled back. He staggered, before steam rose from his legs, as his limited extra health pool tried to repair the damage, only fixing enough to slow and not stop the bleeding. With a grunt though, his breathing suddenly slowed, and the tip of his sword briefly glowed silver, before it was thrust directly into the beast's eye.

The mini-bosses body shook as it tried to repair the damage, but the sound of a bell tolling rang out and a gush of smoke poured out of all of its orifices. The bell had released a silver wave that had spread throughout the inside of Pulvi's body, cooking and melting it from the inside. Even a mini-bosses regeneration couldn't keep up with that. It was only to be expected, after all, a tier 2 was several times stronger than a tier 1, and only Pulvi's mini-boss status had helped close that gap.

The Femmet person sat back with a sigh, and the gate was raised, but surprisingly the Clerk was rushing over and tending to his wounds soon after, his courage had seemingly returned after the mini-boss was slain. There was no danger of it being recreated while they were still in the room, a mini-boss was only remade once a day, and he was just created.

Dorzath switched his attention elsewhere, although he was surprised to see the mini-boss had smoked away, he’d forgotten they did that, leaving a rough circle of black steel on the ground. He hadn’t assigned the monster to drop anything, and it was curious that that was what had dropped, and not a part of the monster.

His Evolutions were coming along nicely, he’d reached tier 3 in some of them, although those things barely looked like wolves anymore, with bodies which were more made of smoke or rock rather than flesh. He had the ability to use wolves for the next several floors

He also thought that while he’d liked the grass and moss themes of the first few floors, he wanted more diversity and a different biome for the following floors. He was thinking of something sand themed or maybe rocky mountains. He wasn’t sure yet, but he was planning to use the Store to purchase some of the relevant materials, he still had plenty of artifacts, some of them duplicates for this very purpose so he would still be able to absorb their blueprints later. He could have just purchased any possible material he would ever need in advance, but his teacher had advised him that it was hard to build a relationship with a fellow DM and he should take every opportunity that presented itself. He would prefer to just exchange with his fellow DMs but there was no search function for that very purpose.

Dorzath reached out to the DM he’d talked to before, asking if he had any tier 0 or above blueprints for anything related to an arid environment. He left materials out of the exchange, hoping to bargain for them later.

/I do, yes. What do you have to trade?/

Dorzath ran his Mana Sense over the objects in his collection, some of them having been damaged in his mad scramble to absorb energy to save Invim. He picked out a damaged tier 3 sword, more of a long dagger or a shortsword really.

/A damaged tier 3 weapon/

It was possible that the advanced Dungeon might be able to restore the sword, it would depend on what kind it was. Even if not, a challenger would still be happy with a tier 3 sword, it became increasingly difficult to acquire high tier equipment the more powerful you became, and it was likely repairable by human hands if that was the case.

/I would prefer an undamaged tier 2, a weapon preferably/

Dorzath had several pieces just like that, but he was reluctant to part with them, it would be a long time before he was able to create equipment again himself, so he had to ration it out when he could.

/Only equipment, apologies, although I do have a few foci and some arrows/

They went back and forth, eventually coming to an agreement. Dorzath hadn’t traded the previous month so he was able to send off two items, an enchanted tier 2 arrow, of which he had hundreds, and a tier 3 cloak, which would protect against light magic and allow the wearer to be elusive in darkness.

In return he received a tier 0 pangolin blueprint, a Sneaker. He also received several building materials for what he’d determined would be a sand type environment, at least until the tenth floor. He’d also received a base tier scorpion, which he was very thankful for. The DM had been strangely generous, it was possible that he too was hoping to develop a trading relationship. Something to watch out for, his motives were unknown. Powerful DMs were scary existences, close to immortal and surrounded at all times by an army. Occasionally though, being an immortal existence was mentally tiring, and they might decide to stir things up a little. A bored Dungeon was one of the scariest things in existence, and although calling them mad was an exaggeration in Dorzaths opinion, he’d heard stories…

Resolving himself to be more wary against future interactions with fellow DMs, Dorzath grinned a wide grin in his mind and finally got ready to tick something off his list which had been there for a while

#

Night fell. The Dungeon was emptied, except for the Guard who’d decided that he would stay a little longer on the second floor. Dorzath had checked, and saw that he was fast approaching the upper level of his Job. There were very few conditions required for upgrading the Job of Guard, other than levelling it, as it was such an arduous task in and of itself. Either way, he wasn’t a threat to Dorzaths plan, and so he continued on regardless of his movements.

The mini-boss Pulvi got up with a start, eyes gleaming like black diamonds. The low light from the ceiling above signalled that it was night-time for any stray challengers still wandering, but continued to be usable as a source of light.

He strode out of his room, slinking past the iron gate, with a surprising amount of grace considering he was made of rock. He approached the core room, and Dorzath watched as he obeyed the commands he’d just been delivered mentally. Pulvi approached the stone cube which had been reinforced several times over, so it now sat a towering height of 4m. The humans had been curious about what was within it, but thankfully none of them had attempted to break into it.

He rose up on his hind legs, and then in an abrupt motion, brought his paws down on the cube. The Cube shuddered but held. Dorzath could have simply reduced the structural integrity of the cage, but the small flicker of amusement he received from the mini-boss convinced him otherwise.

The mini-boss backed up a little, then sprinted at the cube, the surrounding ground accompanying him, slowly building up a layer around his limbs. Pulvi brought his limbs down again, their increased mass showing as the wrecking ball-sized limbs cracked the surface of the cube. Again he raised his large frame up, bringing his ball-sized paws down in a massive blow, this time with large pieces flying away. It was messy and by the end of the process, Pulvi’s rocky chest was shaking from the effort. But eventually the cage cracked open, revealing the imp.

Or rather, the space where the imp was supposed to be.

Dorzaths Mana Sense exploded forward, he had not been able to monitor what was going on inside the cube for several days now, but he had attributed that to the imp experimenting with mana while he was bored and growing to dominate the area around him. He saw the interior of the cube, scratch and burn marks covered the walls, old marks though, with the earth having hardened around the impacts.

Covering that layer though was a new layer. They were fresh and wet, marked with fire and blood. They were runes he realised, only two of them from what he could see, and it had taken the imp several practice runs, but he’d managed to successfully carve the runes and then activate them.

Dorzath recognised the runes, they meant loosely ‘Call Home’. Some Demons used it as a way to communicate with a superior, or if they were on a scouting/probing mission. It required the user to know exactly who they were contacting however, and that imp should never have even encountered anyone, let alone formed a connection with a demon or something otherwise.

Dorzath thought the situation over, the imp had clearly been teleported away, but by who or what he had no idea. This was puzzling, but also gratifying as it meant the imp was no longer his problem. He had sent Pulvi here as he was confident that it could easily eliminate the little imp, and he’d reached the third floor so he no longer had to keep the imp continually summoned.

Either way, the imp was no longer his problem, and if something had the power to reach into his Dungeon and teleport an imp away, there was little he could do about it. Even the runework he knew would be unlikely to stand up to a force that strong, and he wasn’t even in any position to be using runework currently.

Dorzath felt he had done what he could with this situation, and any further measures he could take to protect against this unknown entity were out of his reach, or would break his cover. He would like to message the General, but if he accidentally interrupted him while he was engaged mid-battle, the fallout could be catastrophic. Their connection was less of a mutually beneficial relationship and instead a superior who would be ordering lists of materials occasionally.

So he once again devoted himself to the task of further refining his Dungeon, and thinking of possible layouts for his upcoming fourth floor.

#

A month later, Dorath looked over the challengers entering his Dungeon, and the few who’d made it to his desert-themed fourth floor, the Swordsman, Invim, the Guard, now a Wall Defender, and a tier 0 Novice. Invim and the Novice were making short work of the tier 1 Poison Stingers that Dorzath had deployed on the floor. As he watched though, their efforts quickly brought more running. They were at and below the tier of their opponents so their ability to quickly eliminate their enemies was slow.

But as he watched, Dorzath was quickly shown why a Novice was considered the most powerful tier 0 job to receive.

The female Novice advanced, no weapon in hand, the village was far too poor to provide the resources to support a Novice after all. The scorpion they fought, a big black monstrosity with its tail reaching their waists in height, clacked its pincers. Its stinger whipped forward at a blinding speed but was intercepted by an arrow from Invim whose eyes were staring fixedly at the fight in front of him, even as he fired to the sides, to repel and kill the advancing reinforcements.

She dashed forward, her speed that of a regular child but in her hands frost started to form and as she reached the scorpion her hands whipped forward, lightning-fast. The frost sprang forward, like it was alive and skewered the scorpion through the head in one breath, and then going further and pinning its body to the floor. The tail jerked forward, however, the scorpions death spasms doing more damage than it did when alive, as the blunt side of the tail smacked into the girl, sending her flying into a sand dune.

Invim was already racing to catch her, but it seemed even his sight had limits as he had failed to warn the girl.

The girl was fine however and she’d already reached her next tier, although Dorzath would have to wait until they reached the first floor again to inspect what she’d received, although if he had to guess he would say Ice Mage.

He was very happy with how this floor had gone. The design was simple, and he’d asked the DM he’d received the materials from for advice for a desert theme, hoping to further their business relationship in the future as well. He’d recommended a wide-open layout, to mimic a natural desert with the occasional trap, and to save the Pangolins as an attacker, and leave to them the creation and maintenance of the traps for the floor.

The Pangolins took to traps like a fish to water. After a brief period of trying to get them to forcefully ascend by placing complex machinery near them while they consumed the mana crystal, and finally unlocking a tier 1 Trapper pangolin, he’d quickly unlocked their tier 2 and 3 versions within the day.

The tier 3 version had somehow created a bomb almost immediately and managed to accidentally set it off, saving Dorzath the effort of having to kill it, but raising questions about how useful it would be on later floors. Either way, they were small and fast and would be continually trying to reinvent traps, using their sand dune surroundings as well as the rock walls which ringed the room. Nobody had died, which was surprising considering the lack of traps up to this point but people had quickly adapted and would visibly tense up whenever they saw a tiny pangolin run past in front of them.

Overall, Dorzath was happy with the layout of the floor, although he only had three of fifteen rooms completed so far. He was also planning to modify this floor in the future so that it was faster to traverse, but for now, it would be linear, with one room after the other, and almost ten minutes to travel to a new one, with just over a kilometre of distance for a challenger to cover for each room.

What he wasn’t happy about was that he’d received his first communication from the General, it was just a formal check-in, to see who’d survived their first few months, and to check if anyone needed quiet assistance. The other objective of the communication, however, was to check in with his relative position to the Frontline, and the estimated time until absorption by the army and eventually the Duke.

It turned out Dorzath was the closest of all of the DMs to the Frontline, while not actually being a part of the space which was generally designated as the Frontline. While his primary purpose here was to generate resources, his secondary purpose was to provide support and potentially conquer the planet before the army arrived. According to the Generals predictions about his approach he estimated that the army would reach his position in just over 30 cycles. That had strangely put a damper on his mood.

Dorzath was enjoying himself.

After he’d accidentally put himself into a slave contract with himself for several cycles, his life was miserable, and the only reason he had managed to force his way out of it was that he’d gained his Skill to manipulate low-tier runes. Even after that, he was just planning on delaying the time until he reached the Frontline by as much as he could, maybe he might have rushed off to the war at the first chance he got, but after speaking to and serving so many tier 3 and 4 soldiers, the brutality had turned him away.

Becoming a Dungeon Master was fun. He loved it, he loved watching the humans grow, it made him imagine gritting his teeth in excitement when he thought about Invims fight with the Abomination, with the Swordsman's first fight with Pulvi, and the one he’d just witnessed with the Novice, he was intensely curious what kind of challenger she would become later on. While he had turned away from the path of a Warrior a long time ago, violence still seemed to set a fire in him.

So yes, he was a little unhappy, because no matter what challenges he threw at the challengers, no matter how many monsters, it would be pointless in the end. The Demons army’s advance was unstoppable, no matter the efforts of the angels or the humans.

These humans would die.

But it would be fun to see how many demons they could take with them as they went.