Checking all the runes for the last time, Raizel sat in the center of the ritual circle. He started chanting in some unknown language. Soon one by one runes started to lit up. Slowly, every rune began to glow.
The hearts started to melt and slowly moved towards the center. The liquid became clearer as it reached the center. Slowly the liquid began to enter inside his body through the pores. Agonizing pain spread through out his body. He felt like millions of ant were crawling under his skin.
As the liquid continued to strengthen his skin, muscles and finally his bones, he had to bit his tongue to not pass out from the amount of pain he was feeling. Thankfully, all his battles had made his will tougher. If he had performed the ritual before, he was sure he would have passed out due to pain.
Once he lose his consciousness, the ritual would have failed. It needed him to endure the pain. The more he endured, the more he would gain. After half an hour of constant suffering, the ritual was completed.
Immediately, he passed out. After sleeping for 12 hours, he woke up. He could feel his physical power has increased. Also his defense has increased. Now he was confident he wouldn't be as miserable as he faced the mutated tiger if he faced it again.
"Show me my status."
[STATUS]
Name: Raizel
Title: Dungeon Lord
Race: Demon Lord
STR(Strength): 340
AGI(Agility): 250
VIT(Vitality): 400
INT(Intelligence): 300
MP(Mana): 29600
HP(Health): 30000
He was happy at the result. With this he would be more confident to face dangerous E ranked beast. There were two such beast in his territory who were on the verge of becoming a D ranked beast. He didn't want to kill any more beast. His next ritual needed him to kill D ranked beast.
So he decided to use this time to complete his next ring. Unlike before he didn't need to wait for another five years to complete it. Unlike refining his hearts for first time, it didn't need more time. But it needed a large amount of mana to successfully form another ring.
This is the reason why mana crystals were so important. These provided every one a large amount of mana in compressed form. Also you have a chance to gain new abilities from some crystals. It is another reason why dungeons were so popular.
They provided opportunity to train and gain more crystals. Also they helped to control dark beast. These mindless beast have an extreme attraction towards dungeons. This helped other races to kill them in a single place rather than searching for them.
Raizel had plans to find a civilization nearby and gather more intelligence from them. He wanted to know, what other dungeons are like. He was a newbie dungeon lord. He wanted to gain some idea from other dungeons and improve his dungeon.
----
Like this another year passed by.
Raizel has successfully formed another ring around his new heart. His strength also improved again. This time he didn't gain much in physical strength except doubling his lifespan. But his mana reserve increased to a new level.
He could now use Tier 2 spells like Tier 1. After much practice his preparation time has decreased significantly. Sometime he would fight against other beasts when he was out there expanding his territory.
By now, he had successfully converted 100km radius of the outer part of the Ishjag mountain range. He didn't dare to increase any longer due to an encounter with a D ranked beast. If he had not wings, he would have been killed by it.
This was not because he was weak, rather that beast was too strong. It was a dark beast. A giant lizard who was corrupted by miasma. Somehow it had awakened dragon bloodline. Though it was still not comparable to even half dragons, just a little bit of dragon bloodline and the miasma and made the giant lizard a terrifying foe.
Raizel was lucky it didn't have wings, otherwise he had to start over again. This made him realize that he was still not strong enough to even become an overlord of outer region. Let's not mention about inner part.
After that encounter, he stopped his expansion towards the inside of Ishjag mountain range. Now he focused on expanding towards outer part. This way he hoped to make contact with any intelligent race.
After all the battle in this year his new strength was
[STATUS]
Name: Raizel
Title: Dungeon Lord
Race: Demon Lord
STR(Strength): 380
AGI(Agility): 260
VIT(Vitality): 500
INT(Intelligence): 500
MP(Mana): 47800
HP(Health): 35000
Not only his strength has increased, but also he had built two new floors for his dungeon. This year due to rapid expansion, he had added more and more E level beast. Now his dungeon's 2nd 3rd and 4th floor was filled with them in increasing order of strength.
Even among E ranked beasts, some were stronger while some weaker. His first guest the fire lions have permanently settled in his dungeon along with the wolf pack.
Due to having enough food and mana crystals, they didn't have any fight. But his poor goblins and kobolds had nightmares. These two groups had attacked them countless times. Even after upgrading some of the elite members to E rank didn't helped them.
The fire lion leader happily killed them and managed to increase his strength. His mate has also stepped in to E rank. With increased strength and intelligence, they slowly made the dungeon there home.
Like their neighbors, the wolf pack also had increased their strength. The three E ranked wolves have even went inside 2nd and 3rd floor. Now they were at the top of E rank. If they manage to get in to the fourth floor, Raizel was sure they would be able to reach D rank within a year.
Raizel had left these two groups alone as they were his first guests. He wanted to use them in the future. He wanted some loyal guards for his dungeon. If he could convince them to swore their loyalty to him and convert them to guardians of dungeon, they all would benefit from it greatly.
But for that he would have to reach at least Tier 4.