The Crafter's Dilemma: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 3) by Jonathan Brooks (english readers txt) 📗

her dungeon at a run.  A few times some of the legs got ripped off in the process and the Automatons had to grab another, but within about 10 minutes the first of the corpses were dropped off inside her entrance and she immediately started to absorb them.

New Monster Seed Origination Material found!

Paralyzing Spider Venom

While the Paralyzing Venom cannot be directly used as a Monster Seed, it can be combined with specific other materials to create a whole new Monster Seed.

What?  That is…interesting.

She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but the informational notification looked very similar to when she obtained the Territory Ant Eggs from the colony near her Core.

Winxa, is this starting to make any sense now?  I can’t even imagine how I could use Paralyzing Spider Venom or a Territory Ant Egg to create a whole new Monster Seed.

The Dungeon Fairy had been relatively silent and unobtrusive lately, and Sandra was beginning to worry about her guide.  Upon reflection, however, it was obvious that Winxa was feeling a little lost because her Dungeon Core was figuring out things all by herself – and didn’t necessarily need her help.  The question perked her up a little bit, even if she didn’t really have an answer that satisfied Sandra.

“Like I said before, I have no idea; you could always try combining it with some of your other materials, but as you said, I can’t imagine what you could create.  It could be that it’s for something that you can do but haven’t figured out yet.”

That definitely didn’t help.  If it was true that it was for something she didn’t even know she could do, then that just meant a whole lot more experimenting – which she didn’t currently have time for.  Pushing that to the back of her mind – and to the bottom of her list of things to work on/experiment with after things calmed down a little – she continued to absorb the Spider corpses that were delivered, as well as gathering up the Monster Seeds from her destroyed constructs.  She was starting to rebuild her treasury near her Home up again, and they were welcome additions to the growing stacks of Orbs and Cubes.

She also converted a lot of the Raw Materials she was receiving from the battle’s aftermath into crafting materials, including stacks of Iron, Steel, and Titanium bars; creating wood or cloth and storing it away wasn’t always the best for those kinds of materials, so she stuck with things that could exist for years and years without deteriorating.  She knew that as soon as she got to the point where her treasury was at an “acceptable” level – it was never going to be at a perfect amount, because she could always use more – she was going to start unlocking more materials via her Organic/Inorganic Material Elemental Transmutation Menu.

There’s almost always more to do!

Speaking of more to do, Sandra had already started her extermination force towards their next target; since they didn’t need to rest – and the Repair Drone only needed a few minutes to repair some damage to a few constructs from the battle with the Desolate Spiders – they were well-equipped to keep going.  Next on the list was a Bearling lair that was located just off the pathway the Gnomes had taken to leave a few weeks ago; they fortunately hadn’t been attacked at the time because most of the Bearlings had been gone – off hunting somewhere, Sandra assumed.  Now, however, they were a threat to future travel.

There were two dozen of the Bearlings in their cave, and they somehow detected her constructs before they got within 100 feet of their entrance; they poured out of their lair, and immediately went on the attack – only to get pelted by heavy metal pieces as Sandra’s Dividing Rolling Forces split and launched themselves at the larger beasts.  Unlike the damage they did to the Spiders, the results were less than spectacular; a few of the large fur-covered creatures seemed dazed as they were hit on the head by multiple slices of her constructs, but for the most part they shrugged off the attack.

Their counterattack, though, did some horrendous damage to the Rolling Forces; with ultra-sharp claws that could cut through stone, hundreds of her constructs’ pieces were swiped at with large paws that gouged out large chunks of them – if not sliced completely in half.  She lost half of her Rolling Forces in the first few seconds of battle as they lost many of their components, causing them to be destroyed and dissolve into the ground.

Luckily, Sandra wasn’t counting on them to make much of an impact; just like they were against the Spiders, they were primarily there as a distraction.  As another few dozen were sliced apart, her other constructs fell upon the Bearlings and systematically tore them apart while bashing in their heads.  The Ape Warriors leapt and slammed their heavy Steelclad bodies on the backs or necks of the dangerous beasts, snapping bones and causing heavy damage with their fists.  The dozen Mechanical Dire Wolves acted almost like pack hunters, picking off those Bearlings at the edge of the melee; they would surge forward essentially as one and latch onto different parts of the beast with their powerful jaws, and then literally rip them apart.

It was – Sandra had to admit – quite disgusting.

The Jaguar Queens weren’t much better, though they pounced and sliced open vulnerable spots on the Bearlings’ bodies – using their claws that were probably sharper than the beasts’ own claws – letting them bleed out and weaken before they went in for the actual kill.  It was an effective strategy, mainly because they were so quick and could avoid being caught…most of the time.  One of the Jaguar Queens didn’t scurry away fast enough and lost a leg from a sudden paw swipe from