Chapter 39 - Another serious discussion

Day 54

Neo's POV:

"Ok Luna, what's on your mind."

"We finished the first phase of our dungeon development. Luna felt a little bad and useless in it. Normally, it takes a dungeon a long time to learn things and develop some basic intelligence. In addition, almost all dungeon start somewhere far away from civilization. You rushed through this first stage that takes most dungeons more than a hundred years, in less than fifty days. While you were always busy and at work, Luna got bored, so I focused on Mr. Floppy a little bit too much."

"Oh, I'm sorry I made you feel that way. But you did very important stuff for our development, every time I had a problem, you were able to help me with it. Without you, I would still be trapped in my tower. So, you don't really have a reason to feel down."

"Yes, I guess. Whatever, that is not the topic I wanted to talk about. Our first phase is complete, we will get visitors regularly now, so I think it's time to talk about dungeon creatures. I think you already noticed that our current main problem is the too small and too weak collection of creatures."

"Sure, that's why I build the arena."

"Yes, but there is a better way to develop. Tell me, what do you know about beasts?"

"Mmmh, beast are animals that managed to create a core. With this, they are able to use mana. All dungeons I've been to, have a mana affinity and most of their beast share this affinity. This is their weakness most of the time, so I went to great length to make my dungeon core of neutral affinity."

"That explains a lot. Dungeons cores develop near high concentrations of natural mana. For example near a vulcano, a windy mountaintop, a waterfall - I think you get my point. They take over this affinity and then the nearest creature with the same affinity will become it's inhabitant. That is why humans and other people never become a dungeon core. Even if a human is focusing solely on fire magic, his water magic affinity will go in the negative. That is why his affinity can never align with the requirements of a dungeon core. For elves, dwarfs and orcs it's a little bit different, but they too never have an affinity in just one element. You circumvented that restriction by building a core without any affinity. To your good or bad luck, you were the nearest creature without an affinity, so you became the new dungeon core."

"Ok, that's interesting to know, but what is the point you're getting at."

"Good, so dungeons have an affinity and it's beast follow that affinity. You see the focus on a single element as a weakness and want to have your creatures be able to use all elements, am I right?"

"I didn't make much plans for that yet, but it is about what came to my mind."

"I'm sorry to give you the bad news, but that wouldn't work. A beast core can only have one elemental attribute or have you ever seen a beast with multiple focuses?"

"Let me think about it for a moment - You're right, almost all beast I met were focused on a single element. I always thought it had to do with the conditions they were in when developing the core. As far as I know, an animal needs to find a strong mana concentration to develop a beast core outside a dungeon. My plan was so provide this strong mana concentration with a balanced out affinity."

"That won't work. Beasts can only have one element!"

"I'm not sure, dragons are beasts too and I've seen them use multiple elements."

"Dragons are special, they are not pure beasts, instead they are in between a beast and a sentient race, but even dragons have a main element that is defined by their beast core. You can normally see their main element when they use their breath."

"So how do I create beast cores for our creatures?"

"I'm not sure. That is a topic every dungeon knows, after all they were beasts themselves before. If I were you, I would check your research topics."

"Good idea, one moment."

"Wait, we aren't finished, yet. You need to know that beast won't give you live energy from living in your dungeon."

"What, so why not just create more animals?"

"You can do that, as a matter of fact, you should do that. However, animals will never break through to the D rank without a beast core. So you need a mixture of creatures to develop a successful dungeon. Do you know that beasts become more powerful with age?"

"Sure, I think almost every adventurer knows that."

"That is the reason they don't give you live energy. Instead of emitting it, it is gathering in their core. You can speed up your beasts growths by giving them life energy. Another way is to infuse mana with their attribute, but you are limited by your skills and affinities. The last thing that speeds up their growth is the mana concentration in their environment."

"Then I should probably begin to decrease the absorption rate of the mana gathering formation."

"Wait, before you leave, we have another topic to talk about. In addition to beasts, you can have another type of powerful inhabitants. Your goblins are a good example for that. In addition there are kobolds, lizard people, trolls and some other. These are special races, because they can evolve and at a certain level they have to decide which path they want to take. For your goblins, this decision takes place at the D rank your hobgoblins currently have. They can form a beast core and continue evolving until they'll become a titan, or they can stay a hobgoblin and train their abilities like humans or elves do. The core path is much easier, because goblins aren't nearly as good as other races when training their skills. The advantage of this harder path is that they won't be locked into one elemental path and in addition, without a beast core they would still give you life energy."

"I have to think about that. However, first I need to find out how to create beast cores. Hmm Luna, I don't know how to say it, but aren't you talking much more like a grown up than before?"

"Of course, a dungeon fairy develops with her dungeon. You getting to level 15 and the arriving of the first visitors, completed my first phase of development, too. I even got a lot of new knowledge. For example, you were always complaining about the slow research speed of your stupid goblins. Did you try to help with the research yourself? I mean you could use Wolfgang's body if you need to be there in person, but I think it should be worth it."

"What, damn, didn't think about that. I'm off, researching."

With that Neo took over Wolfgang's body and went to the research facility. Before he did anything, he had a look at the current progress.

Current Research Topic: Research facility Tier 3

Current research point generation: 31.25 / day

Research points 156.4/500

After starting to help with the research, he had another look at his point generation.

Current research point generation: 1281.25 / day

Damn, he should've done this way earlier. This would've helped his progress a lot more than mining some ores.

A few hours later, he finished the research. Then he started to extend the research facility and he created more goblin shamans to fill all the slots. Before he looked for information about beast cores, he had a look at the next level for his research facility.

Research facility Tier 4

Bonus to research point generation: 100%

Maximum amount of researchers: 100

Cost reduction 80% from scientific education

Research points 0/5000

The costs increased a lot, so he decided to search for a research topic about beast cores first. Less than an hour later, he found what he'd been looking for.

Lesser beast core development

Allows the dungeon to create a D rank beast core in one of its E rank creature. In addition to the mana costs, the dungeon has to spend the life energy from a D0 rank creature.

Research points 0/500

The life energy costs were bad, but maybe that was only to rank up the first creature and after that he would be able to use blueprints again. He selected the topic and had a look at his new research point generation.

Current research point generation: 1575

When he finished the beast core research, he immediately put in the next level of his research facility, the extra research bonus was too good to ignore and the next level of beast core development was already costing 2500 research points. Then he went back to Luna.

"Ok Luna, I know how to create beast cores now. Should we give it a try?"

"Yes! But first you need to know something. For a dungeon core, affinities don't have drawbacks like for humans. Your affinity and your skill level decides, how much elemental mana you can put into a creature. You have all these funny windows, did you try to get an overview over your mana skill levels?"

"No not yet, let me try."

After a little bit of concentration, Neo was greeted by a new popup.

Skill levels Basis elements Intermediate elements: Higher elements: Fire: 1980 Light: 189 Order: 327 Water: 854 Shadow: 109 Chaos: 578 Earth: 652 Poison: 126 Space: 2357 Air: 498 Mental: 257 Time: 857 Life: 520 Force: 1689 Creation: 0 Death: 241 Power: 583 Destruction: 0

He was surprised, he'd never heard of the elements creation and destruction. His unbalanced skill levels didn't surprise him. Improving them, didn't depend on the mana usage but on the situation and the complexity of the skills involved. He started out as a fire mage, then when he had access to the intermediate elements, he concentrated on force. It was the most useful element for a mage, like it's partner power was for warriors. As soon as he reached the SS rank and gained access to the higher elements, he fell in love with space magic. His worst skill level, shadow magic was only on the level needed to reach the S rank.

"It's probably not a good idea to create space or time beasts in a low level dungeon. When I think about it, it's probably best to go with the basic elements for now."

"Yes, you're right. Will there be a problem with the guild, if you create different types of creatures?"

"No, while a dungeons always has a main type of beast, most of them have other weaker beast types with other elements, too. That's probably from being attacked by other types of beasts or from fighting against other dungeons."

"Yes you're right. If you kill another dungeon, you can absorb its core and gain access to its skills and affinities."

"Wow, that is a pretty groundbreaking information don't you think?"

"Maybe, but dungeons are pretty rare. Your maximum reach is far too short to tunnel into another dungeon. It's pretty risky, too."

"Yes, you're right. Ok, let's go with an earth bear for know."

With that said, Neo started to create his strongest bear.

Extremely large brown bear

Brown bears are the largest bears, living in a temperate climate, that are still animals. They are often found near rivers where they like to hunt for fish. This bear is magically altered by a dungeon. It is a lot bigger than a normal brown bear can get in the wild.

Rank: E3

Traits: loner (rank 2); strong (rank4); lazy(rank1);sturdy(rank3); thick fur(rank 2); mana altered(rank1);

Costs: 4000 mana ; 1000 animal material

After this, he focused on his creature and began to infuse earth magic and life energy into it. He could feel it's core grow. When the core was finished, he stopped with the life energy, but continued to force more earth magic into it. He only stopped when he felt the bears core was close to shatter.

He then looked at his bear, it changed a lot. It didn't look like an animal any longer. It was a beast, its claws looked metallic and the fur had changed and looked kind of like sandstone. He looked at the new status.

Lesser earth dire bear

Lesser Dire bears are beast that developed from large bears. Lesser beasts are the weakest kind of beast.

Rank: D12

Type: Earth beast

Traits: loner (rank 2); strong (rank4); lazy(rank1);sturdy(rank3); thick fur(rank 2); mana altered(rank1);

Costs: 130000 mana ; 1000 animal material

"Wow, we have our first cool monster. I didn't think you could bring it all the way up to D12, but with your high skill levels, it shouldn't surprise me. How much life energy did you need to use?"

After going over his status information, Neo replied.

"I needed 1000 life energy for the D rank core. While it is like you said, I don't get passive life energy from the bear, the good news is that it is only blocking 1300 mana instead of 13000."

"That is good. After it dies and you absorb the corpse, you should be able to create it again without life energy. However, if you want to rank it up further, you'll need to expand the beast core and need life energy again."

"That makes sense, but I don't have the research for C rank cores yet. We don't need them anyway at the moment. D ranks should be enough for floor 11 to 15."

"Good, when you get C ranked cores, you will be able to upgrade our hobgoblins. Thinking about goblins, you should probably let shamans fight in the arena too. Hobgoblin shamans should be much better in research. Oh, and you should give Biff tasks so he can train himself. It's not good for a named creature to be useless. When I think about it, you could create cores for Wolfgang and Mr. Floppy."

With that said, Neo created a group of 80 goblin shamans as arena fighter.