Chapter 17 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

It took me quite a while to get the floor looking the way I wanted. In fact, it took so long that I was over 10 rooms into my 8th floor. The most challenging part was figuring out the mountain overhangs, as they kept crumbling and falling down when they got too large.

To solve this, I needed to examine natural rock a bit more and found that the way it's formed matters a lot for their directional strength. Because of this discovery, I realized that almost all the mountain area I had done on this floor was wrong, so I started again.

Now, on one side of the floor, there was a large singular mountain with many caves inside it, and at the center deep in was a large green area with sunlight. To achieve that, I just had to make a dungeon rule, but upkeep for it was quite low.

If you move towards the other side of the floor, there was a low area with a small lake that was fed by smaller streams that came from the big singular mountain. The lake was surrounded by a forest which occupied about a quarter of the floor's entire space.

On the other side of the floor, there was a mountain range with multiple peaks, and in the middle of those was a large valley with also a lake fed by small streams. There were some trees here, but mostly it was grass.

The cave network here was even more extensive, and there were multiple green areas inside with water and grass, some even had a few trees. I was quite pleased with how everything turned out. It was the most complex environment I had made, but now it was time to start making creatures for it.

I started with all different kinds of bugs and even some ants, but those were the original ants, not the current intelligent ones that I have. For them, I have a different idea for the future. Then I started to make the few bird species that I have patterns for. The entire place already felt more lively, but I didn’t stop there. I added a few beehives and that made me add some special flowers that have evolved in the bees and apple trees floor.

Before I could add some more creatures, a disturbance caught my attention and I started to focus more on that. One of the high goblin chieftains who had conquered four other tribes wanted to be declared the high Chieftain, the ruler of goblins, but the rest of the tribes weren't having it. The main problem it seems was that they didn't think that the Chieftain had completed a hard enough challenge to be able to claim such a high position.

On that part, I had to agree. While the Chieftain had done some great deeds, there wasn’t anything that dangerous on this floor. I continued to listen as they argued and at the same time, tried to think of a way I might be able to solve this issue for them.

Introducing another stronger creature species here wouldn't be a good idea as the ecosystem was quite good at the moment. But perhaps not a species, but a singular creature. Immediately, I started to work on the edge of the floor.

Before I was done, I needed to announce to the goblins that I was doing something to fix their problem. They were ready to start a war which would decimate their population. While that might not be a bad idea to make their pattern stronger, other creatures on this floor would use this opportunity to wipe out the goblins if they got too weak. When I was done, I had a decent-sized cave where I spawned a bear. Then I announced that any goblin could challenge the bear if they wanted to prove themselves worthy.

When the Chieftain who wanted to become the ruler saw the bear, he cursed out loud and announced to everyone that he would best the beast, but he would need to prepare first. I had kind of hoped that a goblin would go and fight the bear immediately, but I guess it was smarter than I gave it credit for.

It was time to go back and make some more creatures. I continued by making a few lizard patterns that I had gotten, but then I started to make evolved horned rabbits, making sure there were a lot of them as there were going to be a lot of predators on this floor.

The fox pattern was still not where I wanted it to be, but it was certainly better than when I started, so that went into this floor as well. I added deer, a lot of mountain lions, and some bears. I also contemplated adding some wolves here, but the floor already seemed crowded and the environment wasn’t that good for wolves. After adjusting the temperature to be a bit colder, I was done and it was time to sit back and enjoy the show once again.

As time went by, the creatures started to find their favorite spots where to live and hunt. The population continued to grow and more conflicts happened even between the same species, which helped them evolve faster.

Still, it took a long time and I was now trying to be better at staying aware of time passing. Time flew by fast and everywhere in my dungeon there was innovation. On average, the evolved creatures were more intelligent, so over time they improved their surroundings and even their homes.

A few more intriguing delvers had shown up, and they were the ones who challenged my hardest paths. It was fascinating to see their improvements, and it also made me want to improve myself. However, I still held myself back and didn't break through when I reached my mana threshold.

The ants were still the most interesting to watch, even though they didn't fight as much as they used to. They were getting better and better at farming and ranching for food. They were finally starting to increase their numbers once again after having been stagnant for so long.

I kind of wanted to make the next floor where they can expand too. Unfortunately, I still wanted to make a floor where wolves can thrive, so they will need to wait until floor 10 until I can make more space for them.

The dungeon rooms were going smoothly, and I was glad that I didn’t forget to add traps in between the rooms. However, I didn’t add them every time as I didn’t want to be too predictable. Currently, there were 32 rooms made for a single path, so double that, making it over 60 rooms for this floor. But I wasn’t going to stop here. I was going to make 50 rooms for a single path.

This will be the first time that the single path will have more rooms than the minimum, but nowadays, I actually enjoy watching the delvers. So having more rooms for them to fight just makes watching them more interesting.

I also need that extra time so I could get some upgrade patterns to use for the next floor. I could, of course, use skills, but I didn’t think it was the right time for it. It felt too soon. I was quite happy to continue to just sit back, absorb mana, use it to expand my dungeon, and enjoy how my creatures lived and fought.

It took me close to two years to finish the 8th floor, and I was quite pleased with how it turned out. The dungeon rooms were finally the way I liked them. The delvers seemed to enjoy them quite a lot as well, although they do seem to favor the goblins instead of the horned rabbits. I guess it has something to do with the last few rooms having a bit more than 100 of them. But now came the real question: which one of the two creature types was I going to use for the floor guardian?

I have been pushing this decision to the last minute, and fortunately, I cannot push it back anymore. I kind of want to use them both, but they don't fight well together. It would be kind of cool if I could do it like they would have to fight horned rabbits at the start and then fight the goblins, but I don’t know how that would work. The floor guardian room is kind of special. For one, it is made almost instantly as soon as I break through, and designing it is a lot simpler than when I have to do it slowly.

Perhaps when I make my desire clear, it would actually make it happen, but the breakthrough happens quite fast, so I would need to think of it ahead of time to have a clear picture of what I want to have to get the best chance of this happening.

It would be nice if I could have a scenario where the horned rabbits are eating grass and there's a lot of them. When the delvers attack, the rabbits will swarm, but they will have a leader, a stronger one. Then when the rabbits are killed, the goblins will appear like they were planning to hunt the rabbits but instead find the delvers which they will then engage.

Even better, the goblins who would be hunting rabbits wouldn’t just rush in. If they were hunting, it could be more of an ambush against the delvers who had just finished killing off the rabbits. This would provide a valuable lesson of never letting your guard down and never trying to finish off an opponent by going all out, as the next opponent might take advantage of this. Yes, this sounds interesting. Now comes the question if I can actually make this work somehow.