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

Despite their ability to kill them quickly and efficiently, there were only 6 of the Ape Warriors against ten times their number; all but 2 of the Apes were destroyed when they were overwhelmed, joining the 21 Jaguars and Wolves that didn’t survive.  Sandra’s Repair Drones were able to save the rest – which were all damaged in some way – so it wasn’t a complete loss; the construct that took the least casualties was her Rolling Forces for a change – because they were completely ignored.

The amount of Mana she received from the Crag Hounds’ deaths was equal or more than the Bearlings, however, and it was more than sufficient to replace every single one that was lost, though there wasn’t much left over.  She had to use some of her treasury of Monster Seeds to do so, but they were easily replaced later when the corpses of the Hounds arrived at her dungeon.  She also received another bonus from absorbing them – and more questions.

New Monster Seed found!

Raw Crag Hound Meat

You now have access to:

Slice of Raw Crag Hound Meat

Origination Raw Material Cost: 400

Origination Mana Cost: 100

Monster Min. Mana: 120

Monster Max. Mana: 720

New Monster Seed Origination Material found!

Crag Hound Stone Carapace

While the Crag Hound Stone Carapace cannot be directly used as a Monster Seed, it can be combined with specific other materials to create a whole new Monster Seed.

The fact that the outer fur, skin, and flesh was called a carapace confused Sandra, because she thought that was for things like turtles or even spiders – which raised the question: was the Crag Hound misnamed?  The fact that it came up described that way in the notification said that it wasn’t, but it was a confusing mystery.  Added to that, it was another origination material she didn’t have any clue how to use in any way, joining the Ant Egg and Spider Venom.  Something tickled the back of her mind when she thought of it all, but the more she tried to drill down into it, the less it made sense.

The Crag Hound Meat was a nice surprise, because it gave her some variety from the Bearling meat.  It was more expensive Raw Material and Mana-wise, which she hoped meant that it was better – but only one of her Gnome visitors would probably be able to tell her that when she cooked one up.

When her extermination force was fully replenished – with even a few extras – she turned towards eliminating the others around the wasteland, not even stopping at night because she could see well enough by the light of the moon above.  While she didn’t control them all directly, she transferred her knowledge from the previous battles to try to cut down on casualties – which worked for the most part.  Everything was easily replaced when her constructs were destroyed, and soon there were only some of the so-called Rock Toads left aboveground.

They were the easiest to kill out of all of the dangerous beasts, it turned out; she had one of her Apes trigger its attack – and then her construct practically ripped it apart from the inside.  The Toad didn’t last long against a Steel-made Dungeon Monster, and apart from hundreds of scratches and a few dented places on its body, her Ape was largely unhurt – and required less than a minute from a Repair Drone to be back to normal.

Just like the other creatures she had brought back, this one had something extra to it – and she was finally able to learn its real name.

New Monster Seed Origination Material found!

Solitary Broat Mass

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

The Territory Ant Colonies took a slightly different approach, because they couldn’t be destroyed without digging down sometimes hundreds of feet below the surface.  Instead, Sandra stored her victorious extermination force inside her Workshop – which was getting a little crowded – and sent in over a hundred Lengthy Segmented Millipedes.  Her newer version of the Segmented Centipedes were ten times the length of the original, but not much different, otherwise.  They were more than enough to wipe out each colony she identified, however, and by the end of the second day of her extermination focus…the wasteland was essentially empty of threat.

Chapter 9

Flushed with success at freeing the wastelands from all visible threats, she was finally able to turn back to her dungeon and focus on more important matters – and Sandra considered crafting to be much more important.  She had accumulated quite a bit of Mana and Raw Materials from the entire venture; not only that, but she had also gained what she was seeking from the beginning: Advancement Points (AP).

It was just after dawn out in the world when Sandra contacted Echo in the village to let her know that travel was now “safe” again in the wastelands; she couldn’t ever be entirely sure because of many of the dangerous beasts’ penchant for camouflage, but her constructs had done a good job scouring the barren lands looking for potential threats.  If there were any more creatures out there, they were very well hidden.

Before she arrived, Sandra took stock of her current situation.  Her creature threat extermination force was currently slowly roaming the area around her dungeon; it had expanded greatly since its first inception, and now it was something she was confident could go up against just about anything it came up against.  There were now a dozen Apes equipped with Steel warhammers, three dozen each of her Jaguar Queens and Dire Wolves, 500 Dividing Rolling Forces, 200 Lengthy Segmented Millipedes, and 4 of her new Repair Drones wandering around basically at random – though staying together as a