The first floor of the tower was relative unchanged. However just at the entrance of the tower, before you went through the hallway that led to center of the tower, there was a sort of alcove where stairs appeared. The stairs were spiral and they led both upwards to the newly created second floor, and downwards to the newly expanded basement and sub basements/dungeons down below, that's probably where all my monsters disappeared to.
A quick look into the apartments showed me that the place that had previously been set aside for bathrooms and kitchens now had bath tubs, toilets, shower heads and sinks. A fully functional plumbing system was online, and it brought a wicked smile to my face.
I made my way up to the second floor, after a grueling five minutes of climbing only god knows how many stairs, we got to the second floor. But it was rather anticlimactic as all we saw was an open hall, just like how it was when I first constructed the first floor. After that I made my way to the basement, still being followed by the other vampires.
When we got to the basement I had to take a look multiple times to be sure of what I was seeing. The plots I had previously set aside could only be called a garden compared to what I was seeing right now. Square patches of black soft earth was spread out as far as my eyes could see. The patches were square in shape and were placed in a circular formation.
The patches were each four meters wide and long, and evenly spaced between each other at two meters. Though there was nothing planted on them right now, they were already prepared. The previous simple garden vegetables and fruits that I had planted here previously were already gone, probably somewhere in Asare, Nisi, And Dwayne's stomach, considering they were the ones who ate it when it was ripened.
The basement was now big enough to handle an extensive farming operation, and while it was completely useless to vampires, it was still something that I really wanted to do. After all, vampires were not the only race I wanted to follow me.
The stairs that led me down to the basement had still twisted downwards into the ground, this probably led to the sub basements or to simplify it, the dungeon. There was a sense of excitement in the air as I made my downwards, I had no idea why but the I was really anticipating getting a look at the completed Dungeon. And it was honestly weird because I was not even a little bit excited when I commissioned the task to the tower in the first place.
But that excitement rapidly disappeared when I kept on going downwards into the earth, to be honest I think I stopped counting after the 800 steps. The dungeons were deep, very deep below the earth and I really had no idea why the tower would make it so. I think it was after two thousand steps that the steps came to an abrupt end and in front of us was a thirty meter long and ten meter wide hallway.
The hallway was made out of well chiseled white rocks that gave it an aesthetic feeling of a temple of some sort. There were statues on each side, however the statues were placed right at the beginning of the hall, and there were only two of them. It was as if the subsequent space leading up to the massive stone doors that I could see in the distance was meant for more statues.
The two six meter statues that I could see was actually a rat and a bat, Reminiscent of the two first monsters I had created. I turned to look at my weary group of followers expecting someone to say something since the silence was gradually becoming unbearable. It was Nisi who broke the awkward staring contest as she said.
"Well what are you waiting for, get a move on! The leader has to be in front you know, just in case there's any danger waiting ahead."
I couldn't help smiling, Nisi seemed incredibly shameless with her cowardly attitude, but it was enough to bring back the light atmosphere we all had when we were not forced to come down two THOUSAND STEPS!. But so far everything looked and seemed to be amazing, so being forced to come this far down into the earth for something really nice does not seem to be a bad idea.
I made my way towards the massive stone gates, even from a distance they looked really majestic, and it was not until I got close enough that I realized that the gates were actually just as long and as wide as the hallway we just walked through.
There were carvings on the surface of the gates, but that was just simple additions to the massive lion head that was emblazoned right in the middle of the gate. Much like the Cor family crest from the main gate of the tower, the lion was extremely life like, and this time it was even more portrayed than the tower gates.
When you looked at the tower gates, it would seem as if it's life like attribute were more like an illusion and you would try to focus and look deeper at it so that you could make sense of what you saw, however the lion head on this thirty meter tall gate was made of metal and stone, but was completely alive.
It's mane moved and twirled in on the gate as if it was being blown by some sort of wind even though there was no hint of a draft down here. His eyes were a sharp blue that struck a chord deep within my soul, I couldn't pull my eyes away, and with every second I looked at his eye, those dark blue feline eyes began to drag me deeper and deeper into a trance that left me feeling empty. Then the lion blinked, and it all came to an end.
"Master, welcome to the Beastiary." The lion spoke up.
His voice was a rumble that left me weak in the knees and short for breath. But I realized something though, this dungeon was actually detached from the tower itself! The way I felt Asha and Xaseah through our bond, is the same way I felt the tower through a special bond of ours, and now in that particular channel another inhabitant has been added.
"The Beastiary? Is this not the dungeon?" I asked confused at the sudden turn of events.
"To any other person apart from you master, this place would be a dungeon where they would be attacked by every creature, beast, plant and even random rocks that they come across. For you however this is just a glorified pet cage or barn where you keep your monsters." The lion explained.
It was a rather simple explanation, it was just like how a man who owns a dozen dogs would leave for work, and before he leaving he would play a little bit with his canine best friends. But during the course of his absence a thief breaks into his house, and ends up as a chew toy for the man's dogs. There was nothing to hard about it, but this guy, this lion was a new entity, completely different from the tower itself.
"You're not a part of the tower but an independent existence, how is that possible. What exactly are you?" I asked with a guarded voice.
Even though I felt a connection to this lion, I had to be careful since anything that had to do with it was completely unknown to me or any body else with me. There could be a hidden danger to him.
"Indeed I am a separate entity from the tower, but I'm not any different from the tower either. The dungeon sub routine was implemented too early for the tower to properly incorporate it's management and functions into it's matrix. Unfortunately it discovered this a little too late and construction of the dungeon could not be halted, so a new matrix was required to completely take control of the dungeon and monsters sub routine. As such I was born from the combination of the remnants of the tower's spirit crystal, and parts of your unique soul energy that were lingering in the tower's soul matrix. I am a dungeon core master, and the one in charge of all managerial duties of the Beastiary, but I still answer to you master." The lion explained.
"But you seem smarter than the tower, why is that?" I asked confuse since this lion was showing more emotion than I have ever seen from the tower.
"That's because the tower had sacrificed much of it's allocated awakening energy to facilitate an evolution in my mental capacity to properly manage and herd the monsters in the dungeon and take independent actions in the construction and planning of further dungeon expansions. But there is still room for growth."
I nodded my head in acceptance as I paced a bit to digest everything I had just learnt. While it seems like everything was all good and rosy, this dungeon core was capable of independent thoughts. Who's to say it wouldn't try to rebel against me in the future, we were connected true, but how deep was that connection.
[Very Deep Master] I heard the dungeon voice in my head. I was surprised, but in the end I hid it well. Seems there's nothing to worry about, but it might be wise to be more precautious in the future, who knows what might happen. I moved forward and placed my hand on the gate, as soon as I did, everything disappeared and I appeared in a huge white space with a floating golden screen with red warning letters on it.
[WARNING YOU ARE ABOUT TO BE BESTWOED THE CLASS DUNGEON OWNER, HOWEVER YOU CAN'T HAVE MORE THAN THREE CLASSES. DELETE ONE OF YOUR CLASSES TO MAKE ROOM FOR YOUR NEW CLASS, OR GIVE UP 20 PECERNT OF YOUR SOUL AND LOOSE A RANDOM MEMORY TO CREATE SLOT FOR A NEW CLASS.]
I knew what this was, I think this was the way everyone on Shearath truly interacted with the way in special occasions. There was nothing but an endless expanse of white and the golden screen with red words on it. I wanted to take the time to ask Earth a few questions, but I knew the others were waiting for me, so I had to make a choice.
With every terrible shit I've had to go through because of my soul energy and my memories, there was no way I was going to give up any percentage of them. Besides who was to say the memory taken would not be a really important one, and end up leaving me really messed up. I rather give up a class, and it's definitely not going to be my weaver class, or the swordsman class, though I've not had much use for it yet.
The farmer class on the other hand would have to go, while I had really great plans and ideas about what I could achieve with my farming class, I had to let go of it for now. Besides finding a farmer that would willingly serve me should not be too hard, or I could just let the tower take care of it itself, it seemed really capable. I had made my choice.
[FARMER CLASS AND ALL RELATED SKILLS DELETED. DUNGEON OWNER CLASS HAS BEEN BESTOWED. CLASS SKILLS BEAST TONGUE, DUNGEON BUILDER, SUMMON MONSTER HAS BEEN GIVEN. FOR GETTING UNIQUE BASE CLASS DUNGEON OWNER, YOU'VE BEEN GIVEN 400 ESSENCE POINTS....GOOD JOB KAEL]
And then I was pushed out of the white world and back out to the entrance of the dungeon where my body began to glow white and gold, and a massive rune circle me almost ten meters in diameter appears beneath my feet. The rune circle spun and pulsed as the words and symbols on it began to crawl out from the rune circle and onto my body, going straight to my head where they disappeared into my unruly mop of hair. In mere moments all of the runes had gone into my head and the rune circle began to shrink rapidly until it completely disappeared. There was a tremor and a boom within my body as knowledge and awareness filled my mind. I had just gained a new class, and it was awesome.