Unlike the miners, the two shroom gnomes took an entire night to grow to their adult forms. They were humanoid monsters that stood half a meter tall, with greenish-grey skin and a mushroom like growth on their head.
They had powerful arms and hands for manipulating objects, but they were strangely dumb. Whilst they had hands to work with, they were too dumb to use them for complicated tasks.
The dungeon held some faith that levelling them up would mitigate this issue, but that was just speculation at this point.
He finished digging the large stone room behind his current dungeon layout and carved four intricate pillars in the corner, a task that took several hours due to low level mana control.
He made a basic stone storage crate, which was a standard 90 centimeter cuboid box. This would have had a storage space of 0.73m3, but mana was used to create an expanded space inside of it. Some form of fractal mana engraving was inscribed on the inner walls of the crate, which he had zero understanding of. More mana, meant more of this engraving inside the crate, but the cost increased exponentially.
The standard 10 mana created a storage area of 5m3, while 50 mana was 15m3, 100 mana was 18m3, and his maximum 200 mana was 21.7m3. Even worse was the fact that the size couldn't be changed after the storage crate was made. It could be destroyed, reabsorbed, and recreated, but there was no pouring mana in over a long time to keep increasing each crate's storage size.
There were some benefits and cons to the crate. Benefits were such as how crates could be stacked on top of one another, as he didn't need to physically open them to access their stored content or to store materials.
Meanwhile, the expanded space inside them was chaotic and destructive, so he could only store base materials in them, any created product would be destroyed and returned to their base materials. An exception to this was corpses, and by extension, living things.
He had his elf take a rabbit corpse from the pitfall trap at the entrance and throw it inside a crate, as it was a creature not a part of him, and as such he couldn't simply transport it inside.
The young elf woman carried a candle while complaining the room was too dark as she threw the rabbit corpse into the stone storage crate. She watched with an aghast face as the rabbit was torn up, shredded, it bones ground to power, blood spilling everywhere, as it turned into a disintegrated pile of flesh and blood.
It was living matter, but it definitely wasn't biomass. Biomass converters were still required.
Over the next day, he created several more storage crate out of stone, even carving intricate Aztec designs on them and improving the basic structure of them by adding legs and a frame around the faces. It was a waste of mana, but it made him feel much more comfortable about their basic structures.
While waiting for his mana to recover, he continued learning the elf's language, even going back to learning the characters in the language and their pronunciation.
He used a portion of the wall in her room to write out the elvish word with the English pronunciation above it, and English meaning next to it. The wall was perfectly smoothed out, and all the writing was tiny, so one had to get very close to it to read it.
He had the processing power of a dungeon core, which was basically a super computer, so he was learning the language extremely fast.
His monsters didn't take any mana, only food, which he had plenty of biomass to make.
He expanded his mineral collection from mining, to also harvesting some wood in the nearby forest, but he kept that to a minimal. The thought of his dungeon surrounded by tree stumps and a forest that was no more was appalling. His OCD for his dungeon looking beautiful and stylish refused to allow it to happen.
He also reworked the entrance corridor, smoothing out the floor and then carving an intersecting diagonal stone bricks pathway into the floor. He built several bluish-grey pillars into the wall out of ardonite at even spacings, covering them in intricate Aztec carvings.
The path didn't extend from wall to wall though, as there was also running gardens along the wall full of dirt, but the he-dungeon currently had nothing to grow in them, nor could he with the heavy lack of sunlight.
He hadn't discovered any useful aspects of the stone other than the nice colour it had. He also built a landscape banner along the wall about a meter tall. It ran along the center of the wall, and had fancy patterns cut into it, and carvings of demons, more ardonite inlaid in the pictures for some color contrast.
This design was then extended to the two rooms out back, the original further back middle room now turned into the giant room that was now 20 x 40 x 10 meters and also held all the storage crates.
The elf's room however did not get the floor turned into the nicer design and none of the carvings on the wall banner contained demons, instead flowers and trees due to an unusually adamant refusal by the elf.
She had said the floor was uncomfortable to walk on without shoes, and the beautiful carvings of demons he made were described in something he hadn't learned yet, but was highly unpleasant if her face was any indication.
Although she did get her chair, table and bed forcefully redesigned, as were her shelves in the wall.
One of the greatest benefits of the designs he made however, was that it perfectly hid the holes of his spear traps. He had to make some manual adjustments for them, but now, all the spears shot out of cracks and holes in the designs. They were impossible to see without placing oneself in mortal danger.
Due to using Scan, Blueprint Creations, and Blueprint Manufacturing on nearly all the new designs, it cost more mana, but the creation process was more symmetrical and automated, it also made his Basic Blueprint Construction increase to <Lv. 2>, although he didn't learn another subskill. He just assumed the maximum number of blueprints got increased, not that he was willing to test that out.
Trap Construction also finally levelled up, earning him a new trap called "Arrow Trap".
His monsters took over the role of killing animals and monsters which regularly entered the dungeon and fell into his pitfall traps, and he planned on training his elf eventually too.
A pleasant surprise was that the killer would get 90 percent of the experience from the kill, while the dungeon received the remaining 10 percent.
He was correct in that higher levels would improve the monsters' abilities. The miners dug a little faster, and the shroom gnomes were a little better with their hands.
Deeming he had gained enough experience with skills for a large amount of bonus experience, he finally chose to use 260 exp to level up.
[
exp used to level up.
Lv. 2 -> Lv. 3
Accumulated skill experience bonus:
Mana Control <Lv. 2> -> <Lv. 5>
+ New Subskill: Mana Infusion
Dungeon Control <Lv. 1> -> <Lv. 3>
Dungeon Facility Construction <Lv. 2> -> <Lv. 3>
+ New Facility: Storage Tank
+ New Facility: Rotary Device
Basic Dungeon Construction <Lv. 2> -> <Lv. 3>
Trap Construction <Lv. 2> -> <Lv. 3>
+ New Trap: Weak Poison Gas
Internal Resource Storage <Lv. 3> -> <Lv. 4>
Mining <Lv. 4> -> <Lv. 5>
+ New Subskill: Auto-mine+ New Title: Level Suppressor
]
[
Species: Dungeon Core (Dungeon Master: None)
Name: unnamed
Mana: 330/330
Exp: 612(+)
Level: 3
Abilities:
Dungeon Creation <Lv. MAX>
Mana Control <Lv. 5>
• Mana Infusion
Dungeon Control <Lv. 3>
Dungeon Facility Construction <Lv. 3>
• Biomass Converter – 100 mana
• Breeder – 50 mana, 20 biomass
• Storage Crate – 10+ mana, 10 physical material
• Blast Furnace – 100 mana, 20 stone
• Storage Tank – 20+ mana, 20 physical material
• Rotary Mana Engine – 40 mana, 10 stone, 1 iron
Basic Dungeon Construction <Lv. 3>
• Scan – 10 mana/m3
• Blueprint Creation – 5 blueprints
• Blueprint Manufacturing – 5 blueprints
Trap Construction <Lv. 3>
• Bait – 5 mana, 5 biomass
• Spike Trap – 20 mana, 10 stone
• Pitfall Trap – 10 mana, none
• Arrow Trap – 20 mana, 10 stone (5 on reload)
• Weak Poison Gas – 50 mana, 1 stone, 1 biomass (expendable)
Internal Resource Storage <Lv. 4> (200/400)
• Physical Material – Stone (29.000), Biomass (62.541), Ardonite (24.435)
• Liquid Material – Water (84.024)
Mining <Lv. 5>
• Basic Material Identification
• Mineral Detection
• Auto-mine
Resources:
Biomass – 162.541
Stone – 81,450
Ardonite – 9,125
Dirt – 27,449
Clay – 12,942
Wood – 42.884
Water – 84.024
Monsters:
• 3x Miners (<Lv. 3> <Lv. 2> <Lv. 2>)
• 2x Shroom Gnomes (<Lv. 2> <Lv. 1>)Titles:
Level Suppressor
]
The dungeon celebrated the large immediate growth of his skills. He felt that all the waiting was more than worth it in the end. All his skills improved by leaps and bounds, and he even earned a title in the process
[
Level Suppressor: One who restrains themselves and trains their skills in order to increase their foundation.
Conditions: Increase restrained potential in all skills and stats before leveling up; Increase all skills and stats by 30% or more on average on level up.
Effects:
• All stats +10%
• Bonus experience earned +15%
]
He received several other new items as well. After his mana fully recovered, he built a storage tank next to his current storage crates. It was a basic water tank like shape, and came with the space expansion mana fractal design the same as the storage crates.
The design was actually a little different though. The special expansion was less potent than the former, but it was a bit more stable and also included an insulating factor in it which protected the container.
He could theoretically fill up a storage crate with water, but he couldn't fill it up with anything corrosive or damaging to the container itself.
Pouring his maximum of 330 mana into the storage tank, his increased the internal size from it's basic 10m3 to a staggering 140m3, otherwise known as 1,400 units, or 140,000L.
He couldn't make a rotary mana engine until he located iron, but it seemed to be a basic motor which rotated while using mana as fuel. The dungeon was incredibly excited about this, and it sparked a lot of idea in way he could use it.
The weak poison gas was more of the gas itself than an actual trap. It used mana in an odd way to cause the biomass to rapidly degrade and turn into a toxic gas. It was only a weak poison, which infected the blood with biotoxic elements via being inhaled into the lungs, but it would cause damage even if it didn't kill an adventurer.
Auto-mine and mana infusion were the final major new items. Auto-mine enabled him to select an area and automatically mine it. The benefit of this was it would keep mining at the same speed as his mana regeneration, while at the same time he would constantly be out of mana until it finished or he cancelled it.
Mana infusion was exciting but didn't have any specific instructions. It merely allowed him to infuse his mana into objects or materials. He tested it on stone and ardonite first, which seemed to make them a bit stronger, but that was it.
~~~~~
"I want. Leave," The elf demanded the following day after getting the dungeon's attention.
"You what?" The dungeon asked in her mind in anger, its voice threatening.
"…go to. Village," She responded timidly.
"Why?"
"Bury. Dead. Funeral."
The elf was nervous and sad, even the dungeon could tell now. She gripped her long golden hair in a tight grip and bit her lip. She kept eying the open door to her room as if contemplating simply running away.
"Please, help. I. Truly, Yours."
"No."
She shook briefly and just said, "Please."
"Your request is simply impossible, elf."
"I. Do. Anything… Bodies rotting."
"You are misunderstanding elf, you are already mine. Why are you trying to bargain with giving me something I already own?"
"No…"
"Do not enter a rebellious stage, elf, I do not wish to have to kill you."
As if firming her resolve, she bit hard enough to draw blood on her lip as she forced herself to say, "Then. Help or Kill."
The dungeon mentally sighed upon seeing this. It would truly be a shame to have to kill her, but he wasn't without reason. He treated his things kindly, and would normally do what he could to fulfil whatever request she had, but this time was different.
He had sent his shroom gnomes to her old village yesterday evening in hope of looting anything valuable.
The stench of blood and death had attracted a horde of approximately 30 wild goblins, along with some other direwolves patrolling the area for food.
The goblins were mostly armed with stone hammers and blunt axes, but several of them seemed to have iron weapons too. They were better equipped than him, and grossly outnumbered his forces. With the other monsters lurking in the area too, it was simply too dangerous for both the elf and him.
She was forcing his hand though. He still needed her for creating monsters, so killing her was his final and least attraction option.
"You said that you will do anything?"
The elf seemed to think of something and flushed before saying. "No! Can't put. In there. Again! Still hurts…"
"So, you lied, and did not actually mean anything?"
She visibly faltered at this question and finally answered after an uncomfortable silence, "Fine… I agree."
"Good. So, what is your name?"
"aj" She said is surprise, the meaning not something he had learned yet.
"Is it not strange that I do not know what my thing is called?"
"Name. Therina."
"Good, Therina. First, we need to make some monsters."
"So you do want. Put in there…"
"What are you rambling about? Since when do I need to ask my thing how I use it?"