My first dungeon

System is nervously checking over his dungeon. He is ready to place it, but he's gotta be sure that he got everything right. It's not the dungeon he really wanted. There were some compromises. In fact, it is littered with compromises. He had no choice. He doesn't have any DXP. The massive mana cost is also an issue. The first floor is fine. He has a variety of monsters to choose from. Most of the first tier is unlocked by default. The second and third floor are makeshift. System feels his anger flaring up, when he thinks about how the criteria to get the DXP he really needs for this dungeon, is that he has to create the dungeon first.

{ Who designed these mechanics!?! They're broken as shit! }

The first floor is absolutely massive. It is intended to provide jobs for all copper rank adventurers in the country. Making the floor larger, means more monsters until overflow. He hopes the dungeon won't be discovered until it is fairly populated. Best make it a big one. So System claimed almost all of the available space. He has placed 20 mana accumulators and 20 tier-1 spawn points. A dungeon of this size can support 64 of both on the first floor. Though systems rarely max out their spawn points and accumulators. Less spawn points and accumulators, means a reduced spawn rate and more time until a dungeon break happens. More is better for System's purposes, but he hasn't assigned any new classes for weeks now. Something's gotta give.

System chose the nature biome for the first floor and placed spawn points for horned rabbits, wild boars and mad chickens. All creatures that are loved by adventurers, because the bodies can be sold or if all else fails, they make a decent meal. Since System doesn't want the dungeon to be cleared, the path to the second floor is hard to find and contains nothing but monsters that are repulsive and generate little income. System hopes that the adventurers will naturally avoid the path.

He also placed eight treasure chests. Four of them are easy to find and communicate to adventurers that it's worth coming here. The other four are "secrets", two of which are silver. Hopefully System can guide the adventurers of his choice towards the silver chests somehow.

He wants this to be a long lasting MM generator with a great ROI. Clearing a dungeon gives adventurers a great boost, so any adventurer that can clear it, will surely do so. For System, losing the dungeon would be a great loss, since it is one of the few sources of mana he has. The first floor is enticing to copper ranks, with all sorts of rewards. The second floor is intended to discourage adventurers from pressing further. The third floor is intended to deal with anyone that does.

System kept the second floor as minimal as possible. There are only 8 spawn points and 8 accumulators. Four of the spawn points are tier-1. Since he can pick only one tier-2 spawn point, he wasn't feeling very inspired. The lack of spawn points on the second (and third) floor are intended to slow down the overflow rate of those floors.

The second floor is of the life biome. The monsters aren't valuable bounty and the have self healing skills, making them hard to kill. The floor is shaped like a spiral. Adventurers will have to pass or kill every monster on the floor to get to the boss. There is only one chest on the second floor. All these factors combined, make the floor a really annoying floor for adventurers to traverse. All floors have a chest directly visible from the entrance. For the second and third floor, these are the only chests.

For the third floor, System appropriately chose the death biome. System made the floor as large as possible. Since the maximum size of the third floor and the minimum size of the second floor are about the same. Both floors are roughly equal in size. Both are located in a circle with a radius of a KM. The third floor has 4 spawn points. Two spawn points are tier-1, the others are tier-3. There is only one accumulator. A third tier overflow would be tragic for the area. Hopefully by the time it happens, the country is ready for it.

He added a boss to every floor. The boss rooms all have the same door motif, stolen from "The Legend of Zelda". It is an eyeball with horns on it. He couldn't get it to look quite as close as he wanted, not that anyone in this world would know the reference. The first floor has an average strength boss. The second floor has a weak boss and the third floor has a powerful boss. The idea is that by going from weak to powerful, the adventurers are overwhelmed and die if they try to clear the third floor.

{ *nods* Perfect! Or, well, as close as it will get. Here goes nothing *click* }

System smiles when he sees his DXP tick up to 1110. Then he feels a flair of anger, thinking about how he really needed the DXP he just got beforehand. The dungeon would be so much better with it. Also, none of the other systems told him that simply placing a tier 3 dungeon would harvest him all this DXP.

Their whole perspective on dungeons is odd to begin with. They treat it as some kind of status symbol. As a privilege for elite systems, but something about that doesn't feel quite right to System. If the main purpose of systems is to assign classes and dungeons are nothing more than a reward, then why are the dungeon mechanics so expansive? System feels like creating dungeons is the core purpose of systems and that class assignments are the supporting task to balance the nation with its dungeons. Then again, the purpose to whom? Is there a god? Are these the natural laws of this world? There's no point talking about this with the other systems though. They wouldn't understand his thoughts.

System is closely watching his dungeon as he is mulling over the deeper philosophical questions regarding dungeons. He sees the spawn points activating and the first monsters populate the dungeon. Apart from some very specific spawns, he chose not to pre-fill his dungeon with monsters in order to save mana. System could choose to wait for the first dungeon break to occur naturally, but since the dungeon is placed right next to Farsille, that would most likely cause Farsille to be wiped off the map. So System is pondering on ways to send a limited group of adventurers into the dungeon. This would enable him to figure out when the dungeon reaches 100% occupancy. Thereby answering one of the questions in his dungeon notes.

After watching over his dungeon for a bit, the initial curiosity fades and System moves his attention to his DXP and what he can do with it. He isn't going to spend his DXP right now, but now that he has DXP to spend, he can check his spending options. There are biomes he can buy, but also monsters, dungeon props and upgrades for mana accumulators, spawn points and chests. Now that he has enough DXP to buy the forest biome, he can select it and inspect the details. He scrolls through the list of monsters suitable for the biome when...

{ *dramatically* Elf! }

{ A staple for any isekai, but why are they classified as monsters? Does that mean...? }

{ *less dramatically* Dwarf! }

Dwarves could be found under the underground biome. Apparently fantasy creatures such as elves, dwarves, gnomes and faeries exist on Gaia as monsters in dungeons. System starts frantically scribbling in his dungeon notes. All of these fantasy creatures are at least tier-4, but surprisingly that is no where near the end of it. For example, high elves can be found at tier-6. Seeing intelligent creatures, at least in System's presumptions, raises all sorts of new questions to add to the notes. Is it possible for adventurers to befriend them? Do they communicate verbally? If so, what language do they speak? Do they use tools? Do elves create powerful bows? Do dwarves create weapons and armor? How do they behave once they leave a dungeon? Do they reproduce? Quickly a new paragraph starts forming in System's notes. The paragraph predominantly contains questions.

{ Maybe I should create some bullet points on questions to answer and experiments to perform. }

System lets go of an imaginary breath. He is finally done with this project. Well, not quite, but he won't have to spend any attention on it for a while. The dungeon needs to populate. In the mean time, he no longer needs to store up mana and he can start assigning classes again.

{ Now what was that incredibly cheap class I discovered again? }

* * *

Adelina: Emergency sire!

Kargaroth: Can things get any worse?

Adelina: The system has starting assigning classes again!

Kargaroth: That is supposed to be good news?

Adelina: Yes it would be. If it weren't for the class that is being assigned...