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

them were destroyed, fortunately, but half of them had their bodies smashed in so much that they could barely pick themselves off the ground.

The Mechanical Jaguar Queens had even less luck, as they usually relied on their sharp claws to slice up and eviscerate the flesh of their enemies; as the Ogre Skeleton didn’t have any skin or flesh, they were only able to make cosmetic scratches on the hard bones.  They were fast enough to avoid being hit by the Ogre’s stone club, at least, but they fell back anyway when the Steelclad Apes joined the fray.

One of her Apes leapt towards the massive Undead with its warhammer upraised to smash it to bits, but it was knocked out of the air by an unexpected swing of the bone club in the Skeleton’s hand.  A hazy dark cloud had seemed to envelop the Undead Ogre just as the Ape attacked, and it persisted long enough for Sandra to see that the enemy Dungeon Monster had somehow increased its reaction speed.  Her 11 other Apes attacked at the same time, only to have 6 of them knocked away like the first, the sides of their bodies crumpled in so badly that they couldn’t move.  One of them was hit so hard that the internal glowing power source that characterized its vulnerability was punctured and destroyed, leaving behind its Monster Seed – which was immediately picked up by one of the accompanying Hyper Automatons and brought back towards her dungeon for reuse.

Five of her Ape Warriors, however, managed to close in on the Undead Ogre Skeleton and went to work with their warhammers.  Even bones that were thicker and more dense than normal ones couldn’t stand up to the weapons of her constructs; a few impacts from the heavy hammers were enough to start shattering the skeleton, in fact.  As a few vital bones were destroyed in its legs, it collapsed on the ground, the hazy dark cloud enveloping it dissipating at the same time.

With its legs literally cut out from underneath it and its reaction speed back to normal, the Ogre quickly fell to the repeated blows of the Apes.  After approximately 30 seconds, the bones fell apart from each other, dissolving into the ground and leaving behind an unusual-looking black orb as a Monster Seed.  When one of her Hyper Automatons picked it up, Sandra immediately recognized it as Onyx; judging by its size, she thought it was an Average-sized one, which was a bit worrying.

Sandra couldn’t create an Average-sized Precious Gemstone, even with her special Advancements; if the Undead dungeon followed the same rules as she did, then an Average Faceted Onyx Sphere cost 28,000 Mana – not to mention 96,000 Raw Materials.  Her Advancement brought that down to 19,600 Mana, which was 42 more than her maximum, but she also only had about approximately half of the required Raw Materials.  If the Dungeon Core could afford to create one, then it had to be at least a few Core Sizes more than Sandra herself.

“That’s not necessarily true; I’ve heard of some skills for other dungeons granting the ability to use elementally connected Monster Seeds that would normally be out of reach,” a voice from Sandra’s Home startled the Dungeon Core.

Winxa was back and hovering near Sandra’s Core, her face composed and thoughtful – entirely unlike how she appeared earlier.  The Fairy must’ve come back during the middle of that fight with the Ogre and Sandra had missed her arrival.

Welcome back; you seem to have…recovered.  And what do you mean “elementally connected”?  And what skills are you talking about.

“Thank you, I feel much better now,” Winxa said.  “As for what I mean, do you remember the Sapphire you found from those Ancient Saurians?  Sapphires are normally ‘elementally connected’ to Water-based Dungeon Cores, just as Onyx is affiliated with Nether Cores, Emeralds with Natural Cores, and so on.  Some Core-specific skills allow them to take advantage of the elemental connection to produce those Monster Seeds relatively cheaply, though they would still need to be able to pay the Mana cost for the Dungeon Monsters themselves.  It’s quite possible that this Undead Core – as well as perhaps the Reptile Core, based on what it was able to create – has this skill, though it seems strange that two dungeons so near each other have the same – or at least similar – Core-specific skills.”

That’s…not good.  It almost seemed unfair to Sandra that they would have something so useful like that when she didn’t, but then she looked at her own Core-specific skills and abilities – and had to acknowledge that they would probably consider a lot of what she could do as unfair. Regardless of whether their skills were unfair or not, it meant that she had to worry about the other Core sending out some powerful Dungeon Monsters.

Why weren’t there any of these powerful Undead out here before?  Is it just because the Core upgraded its Size?

Winxa seemed to consider that for a moment before answering.  “Normally, dungeons reserve their most powerful Monsters for their dungeon for protection, so you wouldn’t necessarily see many roaming the land around it – mainly because they get culled so often that it would be a waste.  My guess is because there wasn’t any culling going on lately that the Core finally decided to let some of their protection go out to join in the absorption of ambient Mana.  If they didn’t have to worry about being invaded and destroyed, then it makes the most sense to take advantage of that.”

Sandra was inclined to agree with that; if she didn’t have to make sure she was protected, she would’ve sent most of her constructs out into the wastelands, absorbing Mana as they went.  There were only so many that were needed inside her dungeon to get the maximum ambient Mana from it, so it did make “financial”