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

nothing for her physical energy.  Rather than object, they both nodded in acceptance, and Sandra directed them back to their rooms to get some much-needed sleep.  Violet joined Felbar as well, because she had been up for a while waiting for the older Gnome to wake up; when they were all down for the night—day, actually—Sandra was alone with her thoughts…so she began to plan.

Chapter 3

The only thing that Sandra needed – if she was going to keep supplying Energy Orbs – was one important resource: Mana.  While an influx of ambient Mana was still happening inside her dungeon, her Airborne Mana Absorption Net of Shears (AMANS) was looking a little thin at that point.

Only a few days ago, Sandra had sent over 5,000 flying Animated Shears to their destruction in the Reptile-based dungeon that was bent on attacking the Elven village.  They certainly served their purpose in there, but not a single construct she had sent to assault the other Core had managed to survive – including the Shears, which had reduced her AMANS by half.  Directly afterwards, she had definitely felt the reduction in Mana absorption; at that point she was only getting approximately 250,000 per day from everything, and the increased cost of replacing the constructs that had been destroyed by the Elites had taken most of that since then.

Even then, she wasn’t able to replace the constructs in each room with what they were previously; ever since she had advanced her Classification to the next Level, all of her constructs had increased in Mana Cost as well.  Now, instead of Steel Pythons and Ironclad Apes, she was having to make do with alternatives like Martial Totems, Roaring Blademasters, and even some Large Armored Sentinels – and less of each, because of their cost.  While they were all stronger or larger than their predecessors – and likely much deadlier – the higher production expense meant she couldn’t quite fill up each room as much as she wanted.

Over time, she was planning on increasing them bit by bit, especially seeing how relatively ineffective the ones she had defending her dungeon had been against the Elite Elves; she couldn’t help but think that if she had more of these improved constructs at her disposal, even the negation of her traps would still be balanced out by the deadlier abilities of her new Dungeon Monsters. Those advanced Constructs were going to be important, because anything “stronger” than her Multi-access Repair Drone – which she was still curious about, since she hadn’t had the Mana to create one yet – was unavailable with her current Maximum Mana.

Core Selection Menu

Dungeon Classification:

Constructs (Adv. Level 1)

Core Size:

20

Available Mana:

6215/19558

Ambient Mana Absorption:

10/hour

Available Raw Material (RM):

14550/49930

Convert Raw Material to Mana?

14550 RM -- > 582 Mana

Current Dungeon Monsters:

5315

Constructs Creation Options:

17

Advancement Creation Options:

2

Monster Seed Schematics:

182 (8)

Current Traps:

36

Trap Construction Options:

All

Core-specific Skills:

5

Current Visitors:

4

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost:

Clockwork Tarantula

25

Reinforced Animated Shears

50

Hyper Automaton

100

Dividing Rolling Force

125

Lengthy Segmented Millipede

500

Iron-banded Articulated Clockwork Golem

750

Roaring Blademaster

1500

Large Armored Sentinel

2000

Mechanical Jaguar Queen

4000

Mechanical Dire Wolf

5000

Martial Totem

8000

Automated Sharp-bladed Digger

10000

Multi-access Repair Drone

16000

Steelclad Ape Warrior

24000

Titanium Anaconda

32000

Steel-plated Behemoth

40000

Gravitational Devastation Sphere*

15000

Advancement Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost:

Goblin Foreman

80

Unstable Shapeshifter

16000

There were, of course, two ways to go about affording them: upgrading her Core Size (thereby having a larger Maximum Mana) or using the Advancement System to reduce the Mana Cost of her Dungeon Monsters.

Advancement Options

Current Advancement Points

37

Advancement:

Cost:

--------------

-----

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

15

--------------

-----

Upgrading her Core Size was an option that Sandra was reluctant to do at the moment.  While it would help her out with increases in everything, none of the other nearby dungeons within her Area of Influence (AOI) were taking advantage of the loophole that allowed them to access her AOI – which meant that they were a higher Core Size than her.  That could easily change if she were to increase her own Size; and there was every possibility that all of them were just one size away from that.  If that happened, the disaster that would befall the local villages would be something Sandra would have trouble preventing.

Then again, it was also possible none or just one would be able to access her AOI – but she wasn’t willing to gamble on that a risk that was currently unneeded.

Since she didn’t want to risk having another dungeon connect to her, she decided to see about using some of the Advancement Points she had earned from destroying the Reptile-based Dungeon Core; it had been a complete surprise that she had unlocked a new Criteria for Advancement, but it also lined up with what she – and Winxa – suspected the Creator wanted her to do.  The amount she received for such an act was also unexpected: 30 Advancement Points (AP).

When she added the freshly gained AP to the 4 Points she hadn’t spent earlier – as well as an additional 3 AP from bonding more sentients as Visitors – she had a total of 37 AP…which wasn’t all that much in the scheme of things.  The Advancement option that reduced the Mana Cost was only 15 points, but even with the 15% reduction that would provide, she still wouldn’t be able to create the next Construct on her list – the Steelclad Ape Warrior.  The issue she was facing was that she didn’t know how much the next Advancement of that would cost in terms of AP, since the menu said that it would increase in price…but didn’t say by how much.