The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (best books to read for students TXT) 📗

“It’s because – just like you can’t absorb material in your Area of Influence that are not directly connected to your dungeon – when you shut off that next room, it is effectively no longer part of your dungeon.  This is the main reason why you need to have an open passageway throughout your entire dungeon, as any of your Dungeon Monsters left outside are instantly destroyed and no Mana can be funneled to you.  In addition, the opening needs to be a certain size – which you have done instinctively with your normal tunnels – in order for Mana to be passed through to you,” the Dungeon Fairy answered when Sandra asked her about the strange occurrence.

All that meant was that she was free to excavate, build rooms, and expand her dungeon – as long as that was the only things she was doing through those narrow tunnels.  As soon as a room was complete, she widened the tunnel to normal levels, eliminated the trap, and sent in her constructs to gather more ambient Mana – which was still decreasing in the amount per room as she went on.

Again, that was alright, because Sandra was having the time of her life crafting weapons and building even more workshops.  In the fourth room, she created a display area where she could keep her completed crafts – or at least the ones that she was most proud of.  She also had plans to store anything she thought she might need larger quantities of, though she wasn’t exactly sure what that was going to be yet.

In the fifth room, she created a Woodworking/Bowyer/Fletcher workshop, which contain a giant, low, flat table with a trap that contained three Steel saw blades connected to a central pole, which would aid in cutting wood planks and sheets for different projects.  There was also a small lathe on the extended pole end that would help shape the wood for poles and other cylindrical products.

In the sixth room, she constructed another worktable and a furnace/kiln that used a connected flame trap, though it was on a much smaller scale than the forge.  Sandra planned that room for use in alchemical crafting, as well as a Pottery, which would utilize her trapped furnace/kiln to finish off her creations.

In the seventh room, she created a Textile shop, complete with spinning wheels, thread winders, looms, and other assorted tools used in making cloth material and clothing.  Most of the tools that required motion were lined up next to each other, along with a trap trigger which would move all the moving parts in the room; it was too hard and too expensive to make them with separate triggers, so it was the best she could do.

In the eighth room, Sandra created a large vat that contained a boiling water trap.  In that room, she designed a Leatherworking station, which would utilize the vats to clean and boil away all of the organic material on the hides.  It also contained a few smaller vats that were connected to the larger one, which would aid in the cloth making process from the room before.

In the ninth room, she extended the theme from the previous room and built a worktable that contained various tools – and even some of her crafted Steel knives – that were used in Leatherworking, as well as racks with a separate always-on trap that contained heated air that would help to dry the wet hides in the normally cool air of the dungeon.

In the tenth room, she created another small forge, though this was even smaller than the first.  Here, she planned to make a gold/silversmithing station in which she could make jewelry, complete with another low worktable that contained very tiny tools frequently used in the process.  Fortunately, her Mundane Object Creation skill was able to make the intricate tools, otherwise they probably would’ve been beyond her current crafting capabilities.

In the eleventh room, she created more grinding wheels, but again, these were smaller than the first ones she made.  They also contained grinding stones that were even finer, as she intended them for use in Gem-cutting and for much finer work than the relatively crude finishing process used in blacksmithing.

The last room she left empty for the moment, as she needed to make sure that she could place “deadly” traps inside them in case she saw an incoming threat.  Well, not only that, but there wasn’t much else that needed to be built as far as crafting stations, because the majority of crafting professions that she had learned while still alive were covered.  The only thing she was missing were the materials she would need to actually do anything other than blacksmithing.

Everything except Enchanting, of course – but that would hopefully come later.

Chapter 20

Through those three weeks of constant expansion, creating new workshops, and crafting, Sandra wasn’t idle in upgrading her Core Size.  It didn’t take long for her to realize that the more Mana she had access to, and the larger her capacity to hold the dirt and stone that she “ate”, the faster she would progress.  It was the downtime and relative “nothingness” that prevented her from doing it one right after another.

Despite her degree of awareness during those times enlarging to the point where she was able to see more of her Home – and the constructs therein collecting ambient Mana – it was still extremely stressful.  Even Winxa talking to her while she was captive inside her Core wasn’t enough to beat back the encroaching depression she fell into when she increased her Size – the lengthier times it took to upgrade didn’t help, either.

Spacing the upgrades out by five or six days helped, though.  She would’ve rather waited a year or more, but some innate nature inside of her Core drove her to expand as