The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (top 10 novels txt) 📗

discovered when she had bonded Kelerim – also gave her 1 AP for every 2 Bonds she made with members of a sentient race, meaning she ended up gaining 5 AP from those.

What made her sad and confused to look at was the 8 AP she had gained from the deaths of people; she only gained 1 AP for every 10 members of sentient races that she “eliminated”, and the numbers didn’t really add up.

Winxa, why does it say I “eliminated”…71 Gnomes!?  And not only that, but it says I also killed 12 Orcs, but I distinctly remember there only being 9 of them that invaded my dungeon – and Razochek was technically killed by Kelerim.

“Hmm…I think that those numbers are tallied by every time you absorb the Mana that is dropped by them upon their deaths.  Even if you didn’t kill them, you absorbed their Mana.”  Winxa shrugged apologetically.

That makes sense with the Orcs, I suppose, but I didn’t absorb anything from the Gnomes—

“Lest you forget, you shared that Mana with the other Core when they absorbed it, so that apparently still counts.”

Sandra didn’t like seeing that number; she was already being crushed by guilt over the deaths of the Gnomes and her involuntary absorption of the Mana they left behind.  But now it appeared as though she was profiting in other ways from their deaths she hadn’t been counting on.  Unfortunately, there was no way to tell the system that it was wrong and that she hadn’t actually “eliminated” them, nor would she want to risk the ire of the Creator.

What’s done is done and I can’t do anything about it; if I can keep that number where it is from now on, I’ll have to consider that a victory.  Now, to see what I can spend those Advancement Points on, even if a few of them are rather ill-begotten.

Advancement Options

Current Advancement Points

89

Advancement:

Cost:

Choose 1 Dungeon Monster from another available Classification (Repeatable)

5

Give your Dungeon Monsters the option of having a chosen accessible elemental attribute in addition to their base element – Cost increases with each purchase (only works on Monsters capable of using/applying their element) (Repeatable)

10

Reduce the Mana cost of Dungeon Seeds by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/4)

15

Reduce the Mana cost of Dungeon Monsters by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/4)

15

Reduce the Raw Material cost of Dungeon Seeds by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/4)

15

Reduce the Mana cost of Dungeon Traps by 15% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/4)

15

Extend your Area of Influence by 10% – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/10)

50

Advance a current Classification 1 level to acquire access to stronger and larger Dungeon Monsters – this also includes any “Advancement Unlocked” Monsters – Cost increases with each purchase (Advancement 0/3)

75

Select a second available Classification to hybridize your Core (This option is only available once)

150

Even if she knew what she wanted, she didn’t have nearly enough AP to select a second Classification, so she was going to have to find something else to spend her points on.  The one thing she had been thinking about, however, was the first, least expensive option: choosing a Dungeon Monster from another classification.  With a mental selection of that option, she focused on it and another menu popped up and overwhelmed her with the choices she could select from.  After about 15 minutes of perusing them and eliminating the ones that she didn’t think would have any hope of achieving what she wanted, she narrowed down the list to a few base options.

Dungeon Monster Selection (Base)

Bipedal (Fire/Natural)

Jumping Springhare

Deranged Quokka

Boxing Kangaroo

Stealthy Chimpanzee

Barking Gnoll*

Silent Kobold*

Armored Troll**

Horrendous Ogre***

Giants (Earth/Fire)

Baby Stone Giant

Juvenile Hill Giant

Young Cinder Giant

Young Ettin

Adult Ember Giant*

Adult Cyclops*

Mature Flame Giant**

Elder Guardian Giant***

Fey (Spirit)

Playful Pixie

Sorrowful Sprite

Fiendish Fairy

Baleful Brownie

Naughty Nymph*

Destructive Dryad*

Spiteful Satyr**

Cruel Faerie Dragon***

Goblinoids (Spirit/Fire)

Goblin Worker

Goblin Archer

Goblin Warrior

Armored Goblin

Shadow Goblin*

Hobgoblin*

Goblin Mage**

Bugbear***

Primordial (All)

Diaphanous Spider

Mutated Sandwalker

Amorphous Ooze

Primal Wurm

Crystal Golem*

Unstable Shapeshifter*

Elemental Hydra**

Chaos Titan***

*Requires Advanced Classification Level 1

** Requires larger Core Size and Advanced Classification Level 2

*** Requires larger Core Size and Advanced Classification Level 3

She had hoped that the Bipedal (Fire/Natural) Dungeon Monsters would be the way to go for something that would be able to both craft and use their inherent elemental energy to enchant; however, looking at the list under that Classification, the only ones that she could select at the moment were apparently creatures that walked on two legs but didn’t really have the manual dexterity she was hoping for.  The Stealthy Chimpanzee was definitely an option, but Sandra didn’t think that it would be too much different than her Ironclad Apes.  While they would be able to use their elemental energy to enchant something, it still didn’t quite have the manual dexterity she was looking for in the crafting process.  If nothing else worked out, she would try it; she had quite a few Advancement Points, so she could get more than one Dungeon Monster if she needed them.

The Giants (Earth/Fire) were also another possibility because they looked generally “person-like”, but they were likely too large to craft successfully; unless she scaled up all of her crafting rooms and workshops to accommodate even the youngest and smallest of them, she doubted they would be effective.  And while they could probably craft larger enchantments, most of the smaller work might be beyond them – not to mention that bigger enchantment runes required a whole lot more elemental energy, which they may or may not even possess.  It was too hard to tell based on what little information she had about