Choose 1 Dungeon Monster from another available Classification (Repeatable)
5
Give your Dungeon Monsters the option of having a chosen accessible elemental attribute in addition to their base element – Cost increases with each purchase (only works on Monsters capable of using/applying their element) (Repeatable)
10
Reduce the Mana cost of Monster Seeds by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 2/4)
60
Reduce the Mana cost of Dungeon Monsters by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 3/4)
120
Reduce the Raw Material cost of Monster Seeds by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/4)
15
Reduce the Mana cost of Dungeon Traps by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/4)
15
Extend your Area of Influence by 10% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/10)
50
Advance a current Classification 1 level to acquire access to stronger and larger Dungeon Monsters – this also includes any “Advancement Unlocked” Monsters – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 1/3)
150
Select a second available Classification to hybridize your Core (This option is only available once)
150
Monster Seed Origination
Name:
Raw Material Cost (15% Reduction):
Mana Cost (30% Reduction):
Min. Mana:
Max. Mana:
Tiny Faceted Sapphire Sphere
10200
2450
3500
8500
Small Faceted Sapphire Sphere
20400
4900
3500
17000
Average Faceted Sapphire Sphere
81600
19600
3500
68000
Large Faceted Sapphire Sphere
163200
39200
3500
136000
With the purchase of the Raw Material cost reduction for her Monster Seeds, she could afford to create the Average Faceted Sapphire Sphere, which would require 81,600 of her maximum 86,279 RM she could hold at one time, in addition to it costing nearly 20,000 Mana to create. All told, to create a single Mobile Fortification from scratch, she had to spend 47,100 Mana and 81,600 Raw Materials – which was starting to become a slight problem since she had finally consumed the rest of her condensed Devastation Sphere. She still had thousands of bars of pure metal that she had stacked in her treasury, however, from which she could absorb and gain some RM to use, but she had to watch what she was doing or else she’d have to do more digging to accumulate more.
Fortunately, the thousands of Monster Seeds taken from the battle outside the Elven village paid for nearly all of what was required to build their defenses back up – including the new Fortification construct. Except that she couldn’t, of course, replace the lives of those that had died; even as unique and special as Sandra was, with her constructs that could heal nearly any wound or cure any poison, she couldn’t bring back the dead.
Later that day, the two Dungeon Cores facing against the Dwarves attempted a breakout, but were – for the most part – successfully repelled, as Sandra had expected. Again, the two Cores seemed to work together to attack simultaneously, with swarms of Dungeon Monsters streaming forth from their secondary entrances to attempt to overwhelm the Shieldmen and their constructs. The Goblin horde that emerged was so numerous that it managed to squeeze hundreds of their number past the Dwarven defensive line that didn’t even attempt to attack, and instead ran free until the waves of Goblins stopped and the constructs were able to hunt them down.
The Golems, on the other hand, weren’t as fast as the Goblins and couldn’t necessarily swarm, so it was easy enough for the Shieldmen to keep up with them emerging. The only problem occurred when a trio of Iron Golems emerged from the dungeon, 15-foot-tall blocks of animated metal essentially. Sandra couldn’t help but be a little envious of the Golem-Classification Core because the Iron Golems seemed like something that she should have access to, but she supposed that not everything made of metal should be limited to just her.
Her Steelclad Ape Warriors were practically useless against the Iron Golems, as the Air-based Knockback enchantment that was on their Titanium Warhammers didn’t do much other than dent the hard metal. It took the combined efforts of the three Shieldmen guarding the entrance and their axes enhanced with their elemental energy to take them down. Shearing through solid Iron required them to pour a lot of energy into their weapon, however, and Delarthe and the others were exhausted by the time they were done.
“That was close, Sandra,” the Shieldmen’s leader said afterwards, panting a little bit as he recovered. “If they send much more next time, I’m not sure if we can hold them. Have you heard from Gerold yet? We’re going to need help here soon if this keeps up.”
* No, I haven’t – sorry. I’ve been wondering where he is as well, and hopefully he’ll be back soon. *
The same sorrow and anger filled Sandra at the thought of her friends abandoning and forgetting about her, but she pushed them down when she identified them. When she really thought about it, she realized that it was strange that all of them hadn’t come back yet; while 1 or 2 of them might have been delayed, for all four of them to not be back yet must mean something. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was, and dwelling on it just increased her stress. Therefore, she pushed it to the back of her mind and concentrated on replenishing the defenses of the Dwarves; despite being successful in beating back the two breakouts, the intense fighting had taken over two-thirds of their constructs.
Again, the Monster Seeds taken from the fights were enough to replenish them once they were gathered up, as well as allowing Sandra to increase them by half again as many as there were before. She briefly thought about giving them Mobile Fortifications as well, but realized that they probably wouldn’t do much good in the middle of the forest. That, and the impressive construct probably wouldn’t be very effective against Golems, and the Goblins were so quick that they could probably dance around the deadly weapons of the Fortification without too much trouble.
Instead, she tried to figure out another enchantment that might help with the fight against more Iron Golems or even something equally as hard, but she was coming up empty. She thought about what would be most effective against her own constructs, and all she came up with involved cutting them up with something harder – like how Porthel had used his Titanium sword enhanced with his elemental spells, or the Dwarves used their own energy to enhance their axes. The problem was that the Apes preferred to wield blunt weapons like their warhammers, and tended to drop all the bladed weapons she created for them rather than use them in battle.
In the end, all she could do was supply them with more Apes and hope that the Shieldmen had enough energy to see them through anything that came their way. Besides, even an Iron Golem would eventually break apart when there were 50 or more Titanium warhammers beating on them.
The recovery of the Monster Seeds and the subsequent replacement of all the destroyed constructs (and then some) took most of the next night, mainly because Sandra had to craft more warhammers for the Apes. Other than that, the Dungeon Core spent most of her time either continuing to fill her Roc tunnel with more Monsters or crafting more with glass. The crafting calmed her mind quite a bit, which was still a little bit in turmoil over the deaths of the 3 Elves, as well as the continuing absence of Violet, Felbar, Echo, and Gerold.
There was a short break just after dawn in that routine as she finished up with supplying constructs to both the Elves and the Dwarves, and completed stocking her new dungeon rooms with Monsters. It happened when she was finishing up some delicate work that she was attempting to create with glass, which involved trying to craft a small replica of a War machine using only the clear material.
It required a delicate touch and she had to use one of her Unstable Shapeshifters to carefully shape each glass piece once the Ape assistant fetched it from the furnace, until she connected each component together by heating them up just enough so that she could fuse them together. The whole process was made more difficult because she didn’t need the glass to melt but just to get hot enough to merge with each other slightly, and sometimes by the time it was put inside the furnace and then brought out when it was hot enough, it would cool too much before she could complete the process. She was trying to think of a solution to heat up only small parts of the sculpture she was trying to replicate instead of the entire thing when something called her attention away.
“…and now it’s done! This first batch isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it’ll do well enough. I think if I adjust the temperature a little more and let it ferment for a shorter time, it will taste a bit smoother.” Glencha was talking to Teving next to her first Distillery, which had apparently just finished.
* Was it successful? *
After a tiny jump at the sound of her voice, Glencha responded. “Yes, but now I need something to put it all in so that I can start another batch. I have the other batches finishing up later today, as well – and nowhere to store this Whiskey. And then we have to age it inside an oak barrel for at least 3 years before it’s really ready to drink – though I would suggest 5 years for good measure.”
* Wait, what? It needs to age for 3 years? You didn’t tell me that. *
“I didn’t? Oh, sorry, I thought I had mentioned it,” the female Dwarf said, with a look of confusion on her face. “I guess we were so focused on how to create it in the first place that the aging part just sounded like it would be relatively easy afterwards. I mean, all we have to do is wait, right? Plus, once I get this recipe perfected, I think 5 years at the minimum would be appropriate.”
Now that just wouldn’t do. Sandra was hoping that the Whiskey would be ready to act as an incentive to gain the help of the rest of the Dwarven people.
* Teving, does the Ale need to be aged, as well? *
He seemed surprised at the question. “Well, of course. I mean, you could drink it fresh, but only the unsophisticated palette would gain any pleasure from drinking it. Someone could drink the Whiskey Glencha has been distilling fresh as well, but the taste of that is much too harsh if you do that. We don’t drink it for the alcohol content, but because we enjoy the taste of it; you might as well drink water than drink it fresh.” He snorted derisively.
This aging thing was something Sandra hadn’t counted on. She was used to the crafting she did being done in a few days, perhaps a week or more depending on what was required…but years? That just seemed like a waste of time.
Time…time…huh…I wonder…
“What are you thinking of, Sandra?” Winxa asked, after hearing her unfocused thoughts.
Well, it’s like this…. The Dungeon Core explained the problem and her thoughts on a potential solution.
“It sounds plausible, but enchantments are your thing, not mine.” Sandra considered the possibilities of success while she started to make a few dozen small barrels made of Oak Wood for Glencha and then helped her char them to her specifications, and then a few dozen larger barrels for Teving. The Brewer didn’t really need them yet, but he approved of the size, which was small enough that he could move them himself, while still large enough to hold what he needed.
She found that she could make the barrels using her Mundane Object Creation skill, which ended up being one solid piece with a hole on top. The hole was plugged up by a simple ridged wedge of wood that was hammered inside, stopping any liquid from coming out. The charring was done in a separate room that had basic Fire and Water traps inside, where Glencha could activate a hot flame for the length of time she needed and then quench it with the water. The smoke produced by the process she absorbed automatically, so that it didn’t suffocate everyone inside her dungeon. She briefly thought about taking the time to actually craft the barrels herself – and she certainly would attempt to later if she had time – but for now she wanted to test out her other idea.
* I think I have an idea of how to age these faster, and since there isn’t any fermentation going on, it shouldn’t explode, right? *
Glencha seemed dubious. “Well, no, but the aging has to be done over time so that it can soak up the flavor of the oak barrel – which should be charred slightly on the inside; this also smooths out the harshness inherent in the liquor. I don’t think you can replicate that.”
* Let me try my idea on a barrel or two, and if it doesn’t work then we can age it naturally. *
She still seemed unconvinced, but Glencha shrugged anyway. “Go ahead and use as many barrels as you need; we wouldn’t even have this without your help, so it’s as much yours as it is ours.”
With her permission, and after she filled up a half-dozen barrels of perfectly clear, amber liquid from the Distillery, Sandra brought in an Unstable Shapeshifter in the form of Violet – though the Gnome copy was clothed this time. The Core had gotten a bit of experience over the last few days creating Stasis Fields, which was exactly what she wanted to do here. Except, instead of freezing time inside the field, she wanted to speed it up.
So, she created the normal Stasis Field enchantment using a trickle of Spirit energy, but instead of it looking normal, she inverted the entire enchantment sequence. She had practice doing it a couple of times before she thought she had it right, but even then it looked…off somehow. The normal sequence wasn’t intended to be inverted, obviously, so no matter what she did it just appeared wrong; after triple-checking that she had it right, she infused it with a bit more Spirit energy to complete the enchantment. Thankfully, it didn’t blow up or anything else horrible, though it likely wouldn’t have done too much damage because there was just enough energy in there to establish the enchantment and not much more.
Then, she took a pair of Spirit Energy Orbs she had brought with her and enchanted them so that they could be used to power the inverted Stasis Field—or she could call it an Aging Field, if it worked—and took an educated guess on how to adjust the Limiter rune connecting the Orbs. She’d had some experience by that time with figuring out how the convenient rune worked, so she was fairly confident that it would be successful as she placed the small barrel of Whiskey inside the Field.
Or…she could be wrong. It had happened before.
The Aging Field worked, alright – just a little too well. Within seconds of being placed inside, the wood started to age rapidly, first with small cracks along the outside as it dried out, turning grey as “time” moved on, before a major leak was sprung and the Whiskey poured out, only to evaporate into nothing as soon as it touched the air. Another few seconds went by and the wood started to crumble apart, turning to a big pile of dust before 30 seconds passed.
* Ok, so that wasn’t calibrated quite right, but the concept is sound. Let me make some adjustments. *
The look of shock and horror on Glencha’s and Teving’s faces made her laugh a little inside her mind, but it was more laughing at herself than anything. She had forgotten that because the enchantment was inverted, she had inadvertently turned the energy transfer up instead of keeping it down low. In fact, the Tiny Spirit Orbs she had used were half the size they started at and were still shrinking by the time she pulled them away with her Violet copy.
It took nearly an hour and a dozen different tests to get it right, but after that time she thought she had calibrated it accurately. The Limiter rune was now set so that for every second that passed with the Orbs connected to the Aging Field, 1 month would pass. All they had to do was place the barrel inside the Field area (she made a larger one for Teving in the Brewery rooms) and then step back, place the Orbs so that they were touching the enchantment (she also carved a circle into the stone to show where it was located) and then count out how long they wanted to age it. She could’ve made it approximately a year instead of a mont
h, but both Glencha and Teving professed they’d rather be able to adjust the aging time in case 4 years and 7 months tasted better than 5 years of aging, or other such examples.
The best part of it all was that, despite their reluctance to rely on an enchantment to speed up the time-honored tradition of aging their liquor for years, they whole-heartedly approved of the taste. Even Teving, who didn’t care for Whiskey as much as Ale, said that it was passable, which got him a friendly-yet-powerful punch in the shoulder by his girlfriend.
The successful solution to their problem wasn’t limited to aging Whiskey and Ale, however. It also gave her an idea for defensive purposes in her dungeon, and for a trap that she could set up manually – without the use of Mana. Even better, since she wasn’t technically using Mana for it, the usual strict rules of not placing traps inside of tunnels didn’t necessarily apply….
Chapter 33
After the excitement of the Whiskey being done and the experiment that resulted in the creation of the Aging Field, the rest of the morning and afternoon was relatively uneventful. The incoming Mana she was absorbing from around her Area of Influence was nearly 43,000 every hour, which came from her 2 Nets that she had stopped expanding, and from the constructs and Dungeon Monsters she created that were helping the Dwarves and Elves protect themselves. Even if they were standing, sitting, or floating still, waiting for a command, they still actively funneled in Mana, even if it were at a smaller rate than if they were roaming around. Because of that, she used at least 20,000 of her Mana to create additional Monsters for both peoples, in the shape of Mechanical Dire Wolves and Jaguar Queens, Roaring Blademasters, Steelclad Ape Warriors, and Titanium Anacondas.
The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) Page 36
