Chapter 36 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

I was tired of thinking and constantly discussing with my ant advisors, so I turned my attention to the bug floor. Altogether, it took about five years since I introduced the bugs for things to start to stabilize in an interesting way.

They stopped growing bigger, and the largest specimens didn't grow past the size of a large wolf. Instead, from being completely instinctual creatures, they started to form a more intelligent mind. Only time will tell how much that will continue to grow, but I don’t think they will reach anywhere near how far ants have progressed.

Things, however, are now a lot more peaceful as different species of bugs now have more distinct areas where they live, and while there are still battles for territory, they are a lot more rare. What I find most interesting is how the problem of water and food was solved.

They solved the water problem all on their own. And while I didn’t know what they would call this space, I named it the ‘neutral zone’. A multitude of pathways and water areas are now places where no bug attacks another bug. It was so interesting to see how bugs that would constantly fight whenever they saw each other now behave civilly.

A centipede could be walking just a few metres away from a horned beetle and it wouldn't attack it. However, it would continually monitor that centipede, ready to attack if even a single leg touched its own territory.

There have been cases where that has happened and, if an unfortunate bug accidentally steps out of the neutral zone, they usually don't survive. This kind of behaviour gave me an interesting idea for dungeon rooms, but I’m still thinking it over as to how I want to implement it and where.

The food problem I started to address myself, as the number of bugs that lived on the floor continued to drop because there weren’t enough new bugs being born to feed the last generation. So, I created quite a few spawning locations for a few different bug patterns that weren’t too strong but were excellent at reproducing and growing quickly.

This helped replenish the amount of food available on the floor and, most importantly, these bugs didn’t mind eating their own kind. To my surprise, the existing bugs didn’t hunt them to extinction. Instead, they left them vast areas where they could continue to live and reproduce, and only hunted enough to sustain themselves.

Every time I looked more closely into the ant floors, I was constantly dumbfounded by how they continued to innovate. Just a few months ago, because huge portions of the 11th floor had been colonised, I announced the start of a new era: the age of skills.

I originally believed that the skills would be focused solely on the military side of things, and while everything they have done could be considered helpful for the military, it certainly wasn't the only thing they improved, as almost every aspect of their lives was now changing.

It all started with a mad ant who created the first skill engine. It was a device that used a skill called ‘air blast’ to channel that power through this skill engine to create movement that spun something the ant called a propeller.

It was basic, but he continued to refine it until it actually worked better for the flying machine than the previous method of just using the skill to make it fly. To the absolute horror of the nation he was from, he published everything into the Academy I made, where everyone got access to the same information, and the skill revolution truly started.

Now, there were hundreds of different kinds of skill engines and even more variations for every kind. At the start, the focus was on the military, where air forces started to gain more importance in the eyes of the military generals. But everyone was still quite focused on improving individual soldiers with specific skills.

It didn’t take long until ships were being modified to use skill engines. While before, ships were used to transport a lot of resources downriver, they really didn't have a good way of going upriver. The skill engines changed that, and ship transport became even bigger than it was.

To me, at least, the biggest innovation after the skill engine was working with iron. Previously, only incredibly strong champions with fire skills were able to purify and shape iron. But skill engines have changed that, so the ants have started to use more and more minerals, most of all iron, for certain constructions, armour, weaponry, and to improve the skill engines even further.

For the huge ant nations, there was always a need to transport large amounts of resources and ants. While the gates helped with that, they were incredibly expensive to run and were mostly used to connect different floors rather than spots on the same floor. Some mad ants took inspiration from ships and slowly developed a new kind of transport to connect the different ant colonies. What they came up with were huge monstrosities of iron and wood.

A massive skill engine would be in the front, operated by at least a dozen skilled ants. It moved on iron tracks and pulled many, many carts that could be loaded with all kinds of resources or ants. It revolutionized resource movement that was usually done by ants moving in a line over huge distances. This was so much faster and required so much less ant power that every nation on the 10th and 11th floor needed to develop and start to use a similar kind of transport method.

So many changes were happening, but I could also see how things were getting tenser. Slowly, the politicians who were alive during the Fountain War started to get too old, and the younger ants taking their places didn't have the same fear and concerns about not going to war as the older generation. If things didn't change, there was going to be a devastating war of epic proportions, and I was kind of getting worried about what would happen if it actually did occur.

I don’t know how long I was thinking about that when I felt the annoying person once again come back into my dungeon. He had been quite persistent this time, trying to get me to breakthrough sooner without offering me anything. It took about a year for him to crack, but he only promised a few animals or plants. But as time went on, he continued to promise more, up until a month ago.

He explained a bit more about what was going on outside and why it would be hard for them to constantly get new things for every floor. So he told me that he now wanted to make a long-term deal: they would, whenever they could, try to bring in new plants and animals, but I should also try to breakthrough faster.

Their reasoning made sense, especially after he explained needing to hide their actions, but I told him I needed a month to think. I then conveyed all of our conversations to my ant advisors, who have been working quite hard to figure out the best course of action.

"Have you come to a decision, dungeon?" He asked when he reached the spot where he liked to talk to me. "Yes," was the only answer he got from me verbally, but the next moment through our link, I sent him a full contract for our deal.

"What is this? How did you... never mind that," he spoke while at the same time reading what was in that contract. The fancy language that was used and the many points kind of went over my head, but what this contract basically did was ensure that I would continue to advance without purposely slowing down for a new deal. In exchange, they would need to work to establish an exotic animal and plant market above so they can constantly supply me with new creatures and plants.

"I need time to go over this contract," he said, and I communicated back, "Understandable." He waited a while longer, probably hoping for me to speak more, but I didn’t. He looked quite frazzled as he continued to read, but soon he was out of my dungeon, so I couldn’t track him anymore.

I was quite nervous, and so were the ant advisors. To ease my nerves, I looked at the adventurers. Over the past two years, a new kind of adventurer had appeared; many called them soldiers, but they looked more like adventurers to me. Their only goal seemed to be to become stronger, so most of the drops they left behind, but they still picked up the better loot.

What was more interesting was that they sometimes clashed with other adventurers, especially at the start when they tried to hunt on claimed territory. However, it didn't take long for them to lower their guards and start to act in a similar way. Even amongst these adventurers, there were different factions who actually did fight with each other a few times.

With so many new adventurers, things have started to become crowded, so I really hoped that he will sign the contract soon because then I would open up the rest of the 13th floor and watch the madness that followed.

But speaking of dungeon rooms, I’m starting to feel like I’m running out of ideas to keep them interesting. I still have a few new ideas, but those couldn’t be used constantly. So, the solution I came up with was to recruit more ants who would help design more dungeon rooms.