Chapter 8 - Unintended consequences

Day 6

Looking at his status for a moment, he saw that he could only make one more wolf, before his maximum mana was too small for creating more. He would be able to create 200 more rabbits, but they were not very useful. His dungeon was at the max size. Right now, he was just waiting for more life energy. Deciding to keep some of his max mana freed up, he had a look at the amount of metals he absorbed.

Iron: 2312 kg

Steel: 832 kg

High Steel: 113 kg

Orichalcum: 14 kg

Copper: 37 kg

Silver: 10 kg

Gold: 4 kg

Mithril: 1.2 kg

The iron and steel came mostly from tools and the storage drawers he brought with him through the portal. High steel and orichalcum were from higher quality tools. The copper was from his trusted old distil. What surprised him, was the decent amount of silver and gold and that he had some mithril. Normally all of his more valuable items were stored in his treasury, which he wasn't able to access before leaving the tower. Then he remembered the tableware and flatware from his kitchen and the knife set he bought for one of his apprentices who always complained about his poor quality kitchen tools. Additionally metals were sorted by alloy and not by element. Orichalcum, high steel and steel contained mostly iron with some additional elements like carbon, manganese, nickel, cobalt, chrome and vanadium. But he didn't have a stock of these. It seemed like to access these elements, he needed to absorb them in elemental form, but this would be an issue for later.

Thinking about Luna's explanation about the costs of creating materials from mana he decided to give it a try. His high mana regeneration was going to waste at the moment, while he was waiting for a predator or a goblin from the nearby tribe to come to his burrow to hunt some rabbits. After concentrating on it, he saw a new popup with the mana costs.

Iron: 10 mana /g

Steel: 50 mana/g

High Steel: not possible

Orichalcum: not possible

Copper: 100 mana/g

Silver: 500 mana/g

Gold: not possible

Mithril: not possible

Going through his options, he saw that most more valuable metals were locked. He probably needed a higher level, a skill or some research to unlock them. Then he saw the big cost difference between iron and steel, it seemed cheaper to just make the steel from iron himself, instead of directly creating it. He had enough iron for now, so he looked at copper and silver. He would need them later to drop some coins from his creatures. The chance to find them as ores by extending his dungeon were very slim for the near future. First of all he'd only just reached the granite in the ground and second of all, the occurrence of ore veins was limited. He had no tools for prospection and he could only absorb a few thousands m³ of material on his next dungeon expansions.

A copper coin weighted normally about 10g and a silver coin about 20g. The exchange rate was a hundred to one, but the mana cost difference that it was costing him to create each coin, was only one to ten. With this in mind and that only a poor dungeon would drop copper coins, he went for the silver.

A quick calculation, showed that his 83.33 mana/s would yield him almost 600g silver per hour. With this tought in his mind he went to work.

A while later a scream distracted him from his task.

"Ahhhh, what happed to all the rabbits."

"What?"

"Look around, only Mr. Floppy and one of other rabbits are still alive. What did you do, why did you kill the rabbits again? Explain yourself villain, otherwise the mighty Luna will not forgive you this time!"

"Wait, wait! I didn't do anything. I just created some silver, it's not my fault!"

"How much?"

"How much what?"

"How much silver did you create?"

"I don't know, let me check, one moment - Oh, wow - a little more than 43 kg."

"What are you crazy? Do you know how much mana that is?"

"Around 21 million, why is that important?"

"You dumped 21 million mana in this small dungeon! Feel the mana concentration, no wonder the rabbits died. It's higher than on the 20. level of most dungeons. You poisoned them with all this mana!"

Neo decided to have a feel for the mana in his dungeon. Luna was right, the concentration was through the roof. It seemed like his abnormal mana regeneration could create problems. He let his senses wander over the rest of the dungeon and he found only one wolf still alive.

"Sorry, this was an accident. For the most time of my life I was a human. When I spent my mana, it would just get back into the environment and while regenerating, it would come back to me. Regenerating and spending mana at the same place did not change the mana density. This dungeon stuff is all new for me, I am sorry I will try to be more careful in the future. How about I absorb the corpses and create some new rabbits?"

"NO! Only absorb them for now, the new rabbits would just die again!"

"Upps, sorry, didn't think about that. But let me check if the surviving ones are ok."

Mr Floppy

Created from a normal grey rabbit, this version is larger and more powerful and less stupid. Later mutated while being exposed to a very high mana concentration

Rank: G2

Traits: prolific breeder (rank 1); curious (rank 2); mana altered (rank 1); mana mutated (rank 1)

Costs: 30 mana ; 2kg animal material

Mutated Black forest wolf

A normal forest wolf, common in most temperate forests. Later mutated while being exposed to a very high mana concentration

Rank: F2

Traits: frenzy (rank 1); mana mutated (rank 1)

Costs: 300 mana ; 40 kg animal material

Mutated Gray Rabbit

A small animal that feeds on plants. Grey rabbits are especially curious and often too stupid to understand dangers. Later heavily mutated while being exposed to a very high mana concentration, becoming even more stupid and started to glow in a green light

Rank: G1

Traits: prolific breeder (rank 1); curious (rank 2); stupid (rank 3); mana mutated (rank 3); luminous(rank 1)

Costs: 20 mana ; 1,5kg animal material

The good news was, that not much happened to Mr Floppy and that the wolf even became more powerful. The bad news was the rabbit, it would probably be better to not tell Luna about all the details. He shivered by the thought what would happen to a wolf after eating this rabbit. Maybe he could do some experiments later? The light green glow of the rabit reminded him that he would sooner or later need some lighting for his dungeon. His core room was fine, he himself was glowing in a white light, the entrance was getting its light from outside, but the rest was of the dungeon was dark. At the moment he had no monsters who were able to see in the dark and a big black hole in the ground would not be very enticing for adventures to enter. A look at his status showed that he didn't get much life energy, most of the creatures probably died during the first day. For now he could just wait for the mana to slowly dissipate out of the dungeon while pondering over a solution for the future. A new dungeon with a very high mana density would create a lot more attention than he was comfortable with for now and holding back on mana spending, only using a small part of his regeneration would deprive him of his biggest advantage.