The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) by Jonathan Brooks (best english books to read TXT) 📗

it had set her off last time and made her lose the small amount of progress she had made, Sandra looked around her Area of Influence.  Starting with the area above the ground, she saw that everything within view of her floating Shears was calm.  The 4 dungeons that had caused so many problems were essentially bottled up by contingents of Dwarves and constructs or Elves, Orc mercenaries, and Wyvines.  Luckily for them (though not so lucky for their boredom), there were no Dungeon Monsters of any kind roaming about.  After the other Cores went into their upgrades – which turned out to be the truth and not some sort of trick – no other Monsters tried to break out.  Which reminded her—

Winxa, how long was I out this time?

“What?  Why?  Is something wrong?”

Uh, no – everything up top looks good, but I want to know approximately how long I have before the other Cores are up and running again.

“I don’t know the precise time, but I think it was about 10 hours or so.”

Sounds about typical then.  She had suppressed the notifications from her upgrade while she communicated with Winxa and looked around, but she was planning on getting to it in just a moment.  Here we go….

Taking a quick peek at the first of the tunnels connecting her to the Beast-Classification dungeon, she was relieved to see that it was still empty of anything but her own Dungeon Monsters.  The other Dungeon Core was still holding all of their Monsters inside their dungeon, and without being actively attacked, the gibbering from the shard in her mind was at a low simmer.  Sandra could hear it more when she looked at the object of its hatred and revenge, but it wasn’t even close to overwhelming.  Expecting the same as she observed the other 3 tunnels, she wasn’t disappointed to see them equally safe and empty.

We’re good – nothing is attacking us.  If timelines stayed the same for the other Cores during their upgrades, she figured that she might have at least another 14 to 18 hours before another attack.  It was something she knew she had to plan for, too, because as irresponsible as upgrading her Core during a veritable siege by 4 different nearby Cores was, Sandra had to admit that the overall reasoning was sound.  The Core upgrades for her opposition would increase the danger they represented, if only because it allowed them access to larger Mana and Raw Material maximums.

Speaking of that, it was about time to look at what her own had to offer.

Core Size Upgrade Stage complete!

16/16 Completed

Your Core has grown!

Current Size: 24

Mana Capacity increased!

Raw Material Capacity increased!

 

New Constructs option!

 

Through your repeated use of your internal self-actualization module, your acquisition of a binding agent, and your current Advancement Level, you have also learned the Dungeon Monster Creation skill!

Core Selection Menu

Dungeon Classification:

Constructs (Adv. Level 2)

Core Size:

24

Available Mana:

39250/47748

Available Raw Material (RM):

15225/103535

Constructs Creation Options:

20

Advancement Creation Options:

8

Custom Creation Options:

0

As expected, Sandra’s maximum Mana and RM totals increased, giving her enough to create nearly any construct and nearly every Monster Seed available.  The only major thing out of her reach was still the new Steel Colossus at 60,000 Mana, but everything else was available – including the Expanded Mobile Fortification, the newly upgraded Mobile Fortification as a result of her Advancement Level increase.

In addition to that promising information, she also obtained a new construct, bringing her up to a total of 20 constructs available.

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost: (60% Reduction)

-----

-----

Weighted Rolling Force

100

Seed Converter Drake

200

Iron-mandible Segmented Millipede

400

-----

-----

It took Sandra a moment to find the new Construct on her list, because almost every other time she had gained access to another construct, it had always been more expensive Mana-wise.  Not that she could afford it right now, of course, but she had expected something more expensive than the Steel Colossus – but that was far from the fact.

For a total of 200 Mana and sandwiched between the Weighted Rolling Force and Iron-mandible Segmented Millipede in terms of cost, the new Seed Converter Drake didn’t sound very intimidating.  Nor did Sandra figure it was a worthy unlock upon reaching Core Size 24.  At that cost, I should’ve received it back when I was Core Size 6 or 7, if not before.

Regardless, it was something she would check out – after she investigated the last thing her upgrade had imparted to her.  It was a new, unexpected skill, and it appeared as though it was an afterthought; as she was looking at the results of her upgrade, it slowly appeared as if she earned it after the actual upgrade.  Because of the “binding agent” it referenced, Sandra figured that was indeed the case; I guess it’s good that I didn’t even look at these notifications until later.  In fact, it made her curious as to whether she had actually increased her resource maximums before she looked at the notification, or if it waited until she acknowledged their increase.  Her Area of Influence changed immediately, she knew, but as she usually didn’t look at her Core Selection Menu until she had read the messages, it was a bit of a mystery.

Dungeon Monster Creation

(Core-specific Skill)

Dungeon Monster Creation allows the Dungeon Core to use various Monster Seeds and Monster Seed Origination Materials to create new or alter existing Dungeon Monsters.  Likelihood of viable creation is dependent on Seeds and Origination Materials used.  Requirements: Mana, Monster Seeds, Monster Seed Origination Materials, binding agent.  (Skills are permanent and remain even after a Classification change)

Sandra was nearly speechless when she saw her new skill.  Dungeon Monster Creation was a bit confusing at first, because she wasn’t sure what exactly it meant; she could already