Author's note:-

Ah! sorry, i got to tired while writing this chapter so i didn't add any reactions to their conversation. I know if did do it then this chapter would come in three parts over three days and their is nothing much special going in it to make it so long.

Also, I have started editing old chapters. Read them if you would like to tell me what you think about minie's character, otherwise their is no need.

Their is nothing new added, or emitted, nothing has been changed and nothing will be changed. I just decreased Minie's screen time by a little and removed some really annoying and useless parts.

Edited chapters will have {RE} written behind their name.

.

Enjoy.

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Rocky's P.O.V:-

She has been looking at me from the start and though she can only see a crystal staring back at her, I am sure she must have some kind of image of mine to help her imagine and talk to me. I don’t know what kind of person she sees me as. No, not emotionally, I mean, what kind of a shape she imagine me to have or am I just a rock to her?

Hey! Minie, I know you are hearing me so, won't you tell me what kind of an image do I have in your mind? No, so you are not going to tell me.

Ah! Here, she again goes to continue with her lecture on risk of kidnapping people. I mean, who in their right mind would not kidnap such juicy appetizers anyways.

“Moreover, the adventurer's guild provides a gold pass to every one of their members and each such pass has the ability to tell whether the adventurer is dead or not. Now, what would happen if someone enters our dungeon and they didn’t return for a week or two?”

She said while taking apart her fingers to give me an idea about the size of the pass that she is talking about, but I was too busy to figure out what would happen if they didn’t return, then I remembered the fight. The assassins plot also included to make it impossible for others to return! When that thought hit me my mind went… Skadoosh!

“Damm, then they would then send adventurers in to investigate and if out of some curse or bad luck they find the human that we have captured, then there will only be one way out of a tortured death and that is sudden death.”

“Yeah, you haven’t forgotten what I taught you about the world, huh.”

Heck, like I could forget about something that had just happened yesterday, but I don’t remember anything that she told me about the danger of ‘housing’ a human as a guest.

“But if they do find it out, then can’t we just simply say we are taking guests and keep the new ones here too?”

“Ha-ha, yeah right, guests. Haaha.”

“I am great. But now that I think about it, we only have to keep them here for a longer period of time, right. It’ll be okay if we don’t actually kidnap them, but keep them here, right.”

“What are you saying? What do you have in mind? Share it with me or should I just check it?”

Ah! This girl is the bane of righteousness and humanity.

“No, no, I am telling, I am telling! When did I ever say that I won’t tell you? Why won’t I keep you out of my genius plan? You are my partner after all.”

“Then please, let me in.”

Huh, A vampire are you?!

“Hehe, I don’t know if it will work or not, but I think it will be okay. We only just need to delay them after all. So, the plan is to delay them by increasing the distance that they need to traverse by making traps or winding roads, which would end up again at the start.”

Her eyes opened wide, her lips parted and formed a beautiful smile.

“It’s a very good idea actually, though we can’t use the trap idea right now, but the winding, unwinding road one can be used. Heck, we even have a whole floor to settle it on.”

“But why can’t we use the traps, we have enough credits to buy one or are the trap upgrades are so costly that our current saving can’t handle them?”

“No, the reason is much simpler than that.”

“What?”

“They are locked?” she said.

“Whaa…”

She clearly and slowly spoke, while forming an X with her arms.

“We need to unlock ten floors before we could get the locked store options to unlock.”

My mind went black and I angrily yelled.

“Isn’t this going overboard? Hey god, aren’t you making my dungeon progress a little too slow and impossible?”

“I think you are right this time.”

“Huh, about what?”

‘What is she talking about?’ I thought.

But she replied without giving any thought to my confused voice.

“About, yelling at god for making our progress so slow and difficult.”

“Huh, what do you mean? What has God got to do with our dungeon progress?”

“I’ll tell you, but don’t lose hope, okay. Maybe this is for the best of us, that we progress slowly.”

“What? Why did you say lose hope? What kind of a heavy hand was dealt to me that you are talking about losing hope and stuff?”

“The thing ~is~!”

“The thing is?”

“It was taught in our organization that in a normal dungeon, all the prices are very low...”

“What does that mean very low? Ahem, how low are you talking about?”

“About…”

“Yes?”

“About one tenth low…”

“Huh, what? Say that again? Please.”

Please say you are joking! Please say you are joking! Because if you are not, then I don’t think that I can take this kind of shock with a straight face that is.

“Actually a normal wild core or a master, only need to pay 100Dc for every floor and it’s fixed. Even other sentience cores also only needs to pay a price of 100Dc. Though their rate also increases with the floor that they are buying, but clearly it is not as extravagant as yours.”

“Right-”

“Are you okay?”

No, actually I am not. I’m tripping. This whole thing feels like a severe case of discrimination to me. Now, why would there be such a high obstacle put in front of me and my journey to get stronger? I don’t know. No need thinking about it, let's hear what she has to say.

“Yeah, I think so. But what did you say; other masters with memory like me only pay 100Dc for a floor?”

“Yeah, oh also they only have to reserve 10 mana every floor, but…”

“I understand. Please, don’t say anything else.”

“Actually, there should be a table about it somewhere in the interface?”

“Really, there are also such things in there?”

“Who knows, what kind of information it can really provide us! Every now and then other fairies find new stuff on it to do.”

“So, go on try to find that catalogue. Let’s see how or what kind of prices it offers?”

She fiddled with her interface and even after some time nothing came in sight. But just when I was going to tell her to stop, that there was no need to find it anyways, a black glowing information box came into my view.

[table=Black]Cost of buying a FloorElemental AffinityWild coresSentience cores0100Dc100Dc * Floor number + 10Mana1200300Dc * Floor number + 25Mana2400600Dc * Floor number + 50Mana38001000Dc * Floor number + 100ManaAll(6)100Dc * Floor number + 10Mana10000Dc * Floor number + 1000Mana---------Evolved ElementsSentience Cores (Fixed)1 pair4000Dc2 pairs2000DcHarmony0Dc[/table]

The box was black. I don’t know there was a black box, but I didn’t care about that at the moment. My whole attention was eaten by the information written on it.

I don’t know if I should be happy or sad about it. Whether I should be happy that I don’t have all six affinities or I should be sad that I have at least three of them.

I think I would have been much happier if I had no affinity with any element, but does anyone even have affinity with 6 elements? Here even I am considered as a genius, if I had affinities with 6 elements then I would have been considered a monster.

Well, a monster that couldn’t expand his territory that is.

“Don’t say that.”

“What”

What is she talking about?

“Don’t say that you would have been better with no affinities!”

“Why can’t you see how easy it would have been for me, for us to get stronger then?”

“No you are wrong here!”

“What am I wrong with? If I was just a simple core with a sentience then with the amount of credits that we had we could have already bought permission to dig ten floors and would have opened our restricted options, Wouldn’t we?”

“Yes, we would have been able to do that, but...”

“What but! Don’t tell me, otherwise.”

“No, you do not understand the things correctly! The strength of a dungeon is not how many floors it has!” she screamed at me.

“Huh… what?” and I felt confused.

I don’t understand? How could I not understand when everything was open and right on my face!

“Dungeons strength lies with the amount and strength of its monsters.”

“….” Yes, it’s me.

“Tell me, why do you think your queen is so powerful and even our normal born ants are so strong? Why is that?”

“…..”

“Why are you easily able to use skills as easy as breathing? Do you think these skills and spells are easy to learn?”

No, actually I don’t, but, “….”

“Tell me don’t you feel your meditation skill rising every time that you use it. Don’t you feel like you will get the notification informing you that you have learned the mediation skill, one of these days?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know, it is impossible for a normal person to learn the meditation skill under a year? It requires around three to four years to simply learning it and that is the fastest record made by a fire mage. Who learned it in two years? Did you know that?”

“Umm… Actually…

No.”

“Huh. And here you are talking about it being unfair. What do you know about unfair. You, some who were born a genius, a genius with three different colored spoons in his mouth. What the hell do you know about fair and unfair?”

“So- Sorry…”

“You better be.”

“You are right. I shouldn’t lose my heart over such small things. So, what if our strength comes at a price! We’ll take care of it.”

“Humph”

“Ahem, could you tell me why there is such diversity over the prices between a wild core and a sentinel one?”

I mean, I understand if there is a reason for it to be so, but what if it was done at random? What if it was made so just to make fun of me? Am I right… God!?

She heard me, but she didn’t answer. That temper of hers is really bad, but I guess this time it was my mistake for losing my heart over some superficial comparison.

“Please~” I requested.

“Promise me, you are not going to turn into a loser every time something gets a little tough or you find someone having greater benefits than you! Promise me!”

“Yes, yes I promise. So, now, tell me.”

“Ah! It’s…”

“Hai, Hai!”

“It is mostly likely related to having control over the elements I think. Who do you think will turn out more powerful between single element affinity wild core and a normal but intelligent one?”

“The intelligent one obviously!” I said without thinking even for a moment.

“Yeah, no matter how easy is for a wild master to buy floors, but he’ll never be able to compete with someone intelligent; unless the difference between their powers is humongous, there is no chance for a wild core to win over the other one.”

*sigh*

“Life is difficult isn’t it?”

“Sure it is.”

“Then where were we, before we started talking and discussing about this topic? What were we talking about?” I asked her.

“I was telling you about the credit system.”

“Yes, so let’s continue that again, we might get some clues to solve our little big problems form it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay”

“So I was telling you about…”

“Most of our credits being a gift from Demon-san!” will she laugh?

“Haha. Yeah, right. So unlike humans who only give the same number of credits as their level, demons ~payment~ differs. They pay us with ten times their level.”

“So much… How? Why? Really?”

“Yeah your reaction is justified. But the amount I told you is just for entry level or new demons, not old and strong ones.”

“WHAT? What are you saying, is it not enough? Is ten times not enough?”

“The thing is, you are taking the method of calculations lightly. Do you know what it is based on? Or the principle as to why we get payment when someone dies inside our dungeon.”

“I remember you told me the amount is heavily based on the emotions, negative emotions of the person dying. If he is angry and full of hate and al that then our gains would increase to the amount by the degree of hate he had. I only remember this, but I don’t know anything about its principle or why do we even receive credits in the first place.”

“You remember things, huh. I thought you would forget it after a day or two, but you still remember it. Good, good. But this also half wrong.”

“What” you couldn’t have been feeding me wrong information, are you?

“No, I should have said it’s incomplete not wrong, well; nonetheless, there is more to it than just that.”

“Okay”

“You see negative emotions and someone hates directly correlates to the danger that they hold towards us and our survival. Now, the greater is the danger that they have towards us the greater becomes our payment for getting rid of that danger.”

“What there is such a thing?”

“Yes.”

“Then what happens to those who die without hating us. I mean, there probably are many who would come here for overnight success and die without holding anything against us.”

“No matter whom it is, if he is not considered as an ally by the system then he is an enemy. Now, whether he comes inside our dungeon with good intentions, bad intentions or whatever, he is an enemy. So killing someone like him gives us the payment according to the danger that their level provides.”

“Oh! There is such a thing. Ah! Wait a minute, does that means the archer was a danger to us that are why we received such a high amount from him?”

“Actually, no. you know what happens to a body when it die, well, inside our dungeon that is?”

“Huh…Umm, it dies, its soul flies away and we eat its body??”

“Hehee, Not entirely wrong, but absolutely not right either.”

“Okay, okay. I get it, I don’t know anything. So, tell me miss know it all what happens to someone when it dies?”

“Know it all, huh. I don’t actually know anything at all, but… Well, forget it. What was the question? Ah! Yes…”

“NO, No, No. NO. Tell me what do you mean you don’t know anything? If you don’t know anything, then what am I, Ignorant?”

“Ha-ha. Okay, okay. I’ll tell you about it someday else but for now, let’s talk about death, shall we?”

“Gulp”

“So, when a person dies inside the dungeon their soul and energy leaves their body. The soul enters the great river of life, but what happens to the mana that left its body? We absorb it.”

“All of it.”

“No, there is a limit and the number is strictly limited to their level, but there is a cache.”

“Emotions, are you talking about emotions?”

“You are a genius.”

“Huh…”

“You are right the cache here is their emotions or the state of their heart and condition of their mind when they die. When the soul leaves their body over dungeon absorbs a portion of its energy, while the rest of it helps the soul to cover the distance to the great river of life, but things change a little when their emotions burn. When someone dies with a heavy heart, our dungeon gets to absorb more energy from the soul than the limit and that is why we get more credits from such a person.”

“Well, you talked about the energy leaving body, but what happens to the body? I mean, why do we get the same amount from its dead body too?”

“That is simple, because the mana which has been circulated inside his body has also been strengthening it. Now, people don’t get lv 100 in a day and they get skill points to make their body stronger. They are not like you who only have two or three categories to distribute their points! Most of them have eight of such categories and all of these categories are basically related to their body. Do you remember which category increases your mana?”

“It was knowledge I guess or was it wisdom. Sorry, I haven’t opened my status panel for a lot of days now, so I forgot.”

“It’s the knowledge stat which increases mana and mana attack power, while wisdom improves your reaction speed and you spell speed. Knowledge also increases your mana regeneration, while wisdom lowers the cool down for your skills.”

Wait a minute, am I not forgetting something. She clearly used a word that I didn’t know about. What was it what was it? Ah! Yes,

“Minie, what are Skill points?”

“Ah! You don’t know?” she got surprised when she heard that.

“No, you never told me.”

To my answer she hurriedly said, “Ah! This shitty, forgetful me! Quickly open your status panel and let’s see your improvement.”