Chapter 56: Dungeon Souls
I looked at the description again to see if I was misinterpreting something but there's honestly not much to get confused about.
Dungeons are technically living creatures, at least they have souls anyway. I just assumed that they died when they were taken away from the actual dungeon.
"Maybe Pilfer knows."
"You mean your patron stalker? Who cares whether they're alive or dead. At the end of the day, most of those cores are responsible for devouring the corpses of anything that falls in them. They're abominable creatures."
I guess he's right. For now I want to get back to reading the descriptions on these cores.
[MINOR CORE OF RABBITS.
THIS DUNGEON CORE IS A RABBIT DOMINANT CORE.
ATTENTION! THIS CORE DEMANDS TO BE FREE! THIS CORE IS THREATENING THAT IF IT IS NOT FREED WITHIN THE NEXT HOUR IT WILL DEVOUR ALL OF YOUR SOULS!]
What the? After showing Makoto the text we just laughed it off and I moved on to the next one.
[MEDIUM CORE OF SUCCUBUS
THIS DUNGEON CORE IS A SUCCUBUS DOMINANT CORE
ATTENTION! THIS CORE IS OFFERING YOU A GOOD TIME IN EXCHANGE FOR FREEDOM!]
Me and Makoto just gulped at that one until what's her face slapped us in the back of the head. I forgot she was here.
[BRAIN CORE OF THE EMI RACE.
THE EMI RACE WERE A SPACE FARING HIVE MIND RACE FOUND IN AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE SEXTILLION YEARS AGO. THIS RACE WAS KNOWN FOR ITS SUPERIOR PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITIES. ITS BRAINS WERE CRYSTALLINE IN NATURE AND PREDOMINANTLY USED TO MAKE BETTER AI' BY OTHER RACES.]
"Whoa. How did Gramps get his hands on something so exotic?"
I pulled it out of storage space and I noticed right away that it was nothing like the dungeon cores. This was bumpy in texture and had a white misty look like an ice cube.
"I might have an idea."
"What do you know, old man?"
Makoto just smirked before turning his head before saying, "Nothing."
I swear he's like a teenager sometimes. Whatever, I'll just get back to looking at the cores.
After going through a majority of the cores I finally stumbled upon an interesting one.
[THE WITCHES DEN.
THIS CORE IS A HIGH RANKING NAMED DUNGEON CORE.
ATTENTION! THIS CORE SENSES YOUR AFFINITY TO THE CURSED ARTS AND WOULD LIKE TO MAKE YOU THE DUNGEON MASTER!
WILL YOU ACCEPT? YES/NO]
After reading that my mind was in shambles!
"Holy crap! This could really help me with a lot of things!"
I was about to click YES until Alora smacked me in the head again!
"Jes don't be rude, that core belongs to his Majesty. He needs it to grow stronger. Don't deny him that."
I just glared at her for a second before sighing.
"Fine, but this is too big to turn away… How about I use this new trick I've been thinking about."
"What trick? Jes?"
I got up from my seat, picked up a spare piece of paper that said 'CLASSIFIED YOUR HANDS ONLY,' and started writing on it. I swear I could hear screaming behind me but before anything happened I put it in my storage space and made a trade request.
"Seriously Jes, I haven't even gotten around to reading that yet!"
As I ignored him I finally got a message back from the old man.
I took the file back out of my storage and all it said was.
You owe me.
"So that's a yes."
I immediately clicked YES and the first thing I felt was nausea. After that passed I felt something click with my brain and all of a sudden I got several notifications.
{THE FOLLOWING SKILLS HAVE LEVELED UP.
FEAR LVL 5
REGENERATION LVL 7
PLEASURE BESTOWEL LVL 5
SLEEP LVL 8
CHARM LVL 5
PARALYSIS LVL 5
YOU HAVE ALSO GAINED THE SKILLS:
DUNGEON BUILDER LVL MAX
DUNGEON WHISPERER LVL MAX
DUNGEON MANAGEMENT LVL MAX
PAIN LVL 1
POISON LVL 1
SOUL SAP LVL 1
ATTENTION! A FOREIGN POWER IS TAKING CONTROL!
DUNGEON MANAGEMENT HAS BEEN COMBINED WITH VILLAGE MANAGEMENT!
YOU HAVE JUST LEARNED:
VILLAGE BUILDER LVL 1
VILLAGE WHISPERER LVL 1
VILLAGE MANAGEMENT LVL 1}
What the hell?! I clicked on the description to read what VILLAGE MANAGEMENT was only to be left even more confused.
{DUNGEON MANAGEMENT HAS COMBINED WITH PLOT OF LAND TO CREATE THE VILLAGE MANAGEMENT SKILL.
THIS SKILL ALLOWS YOU TURN YOUR ENTIRE FUTURE KINGDOM INTO A PERFECTLY CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT.
YOU HAVE THE OPTION TO CONTROL THE WEATHER, AS WELL AS THE LAND .MAKING IT MORE BOUNTIFUL AND PURE.
YOUR CITIZENS WILL ALSO HAVE A HIGHER COMPADAPLITY FOR THE CURSED ARTS.}
"Holy crap! No wonder gramps wants a dungeon so badly!"
Makoto just looked at the message wide eyed and in shock before replying.
"Jes, I don't think King knows about this. If my guess is correct then that foreign power your status window was talking about was probably related to his King Progenitor title."
Me and Alora just stared at Makoto in confusion.
"How can he not know about it then? It's his own title."
"Don't ask me how it works. I just know that his title is more than meets the eye. You should think of it more like an ultimate skill than anything."
Damn. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. Even I have titles that grant me certain bonuses but they're not that special.
"So why do you think he doesn't know? Doesn't he have plenty of dungeon cores on Grove Island?"
As soon as I said that I realized that that didn't make much sense.
"No wait, those were created by an old friend of his and they're largely uncontrolled. Technically speaking he's not even a dungeon master either."
So we know something about the old man's skill that he doesn't know himself. Nice, I can't wait to rub this in his face.
I looked at the other village related skills and they were just as op as the last. Village Whisperer will allow me to peer at the entire village through a special screen that I can designate to others. Unfortunately I can only have 1 observer per level and I can't look at people when they're in… Compromised positions.
"Maybe I'll have to level it up first."
With that I felt an elbow to the ribs.
After rubbing my ribcage I looked at Village Builder. It would be super op if it weren't for the one major flaw.
"What the heck? I need to know about architecture?! You want me to build everything from scratch?!"
According to this stupid thing I need to submit a blueprint of everything I want to build before I can actually build anything.
"That kinda makes sense actually."
"How?"
"Well, most dungeons are usually just normal caves. There are instances where they can be other things like cities, castles, floating islands and more, however those are usually made with either higher ranking cores or with dungeon masters governing over them."
From the way things are sounding, if I want the best city then I need the best architects, and once again I can only have one administrator per level.
"Even I know it's not good to put too much power in one person's hands… Unless it's mine. I'll start out small. A few buildings here and there with a minor dungeon below it."
Alora decided to speak up, "I thought you weren't interested in starting up your own village?"
"I never said anything about a small property to invest in. Who says I have to be the village chief after all?"
Mokoto looked like he wanted to say something but ultimately kept quiet.
Anyways it's best I just combine all of these cores together and go back to reading my novel.
I pull out the Ember orb and watch 22 dungeon cores turn to dust and combine together. After they merged I put the emo core or whatever it's called right next to the much bigger dungeon core. I was thinking it would stay the same size but now that I think about it, that's not how… Science works… with the mass… and the particles and… compression and stuff.
Science!
So now I'm stuck with a basketball sized crystal ball on the table.
"Now let's see what you're called now."
After storing this thing in my storage box I looked at the description again.
[UNNAMED DUNGEON CORE.
A TRUE ABOMINATION TO ALL DUNGEON CORES. THIS DUNGEON CORE HAS AN AFFINITY FOR OVER 20+ CREATURES INCLUDING THE LONG EXTINCT RACE OF EMI. USING THIS CORE YOU CAN EVEN SUMMON THIS LONG DEAD RACE TO HELP YOU WITH YOUR MATH HOMEWORK.
REMARK: IS IT A HIGH RANKING CORE? NOT REALLY, BUT IT'S SOMETHING.]
We all gathered around to look at the description only to be disappointed at the information.
"It's a little… Underwhelming."
"I'm sure the king has a plan…"
"It's a fugly lookin thing."
Yeah so this thing is a bit disappointing, but there might be a way we can make something out of this. In time.
"I'll just send it over and wait for the old man's response."
Hopefully he'll be fine with it. If not, well it's not my fault.
"At least I got my own dungeon core."
Speaking of which, that thing is still placed inside of my storage box for safe keeping… Maybe I should think about combining my own core with others.
Obviously it won't be anything like this monstrosity. I'll have to mix my own core with a similar affinity. Demons, sin, witchcraft, that kind of thing.
(You should've kept the succubus core while you were at it. Hehehe.)
I just ignored Pilfer like I always do.
It's best not to indulge him when he tries to tempt me.