Dungeon Day 71

  Dan slowly came to as if waking up from a dream. This time, the shards had held much more of his past, and he had experienced the sequences of events in different ways. Sometimes, he was fully immersed, while in others, he was more aware of his current situation and could think about things with a more outside-of-the-box perspective. It had been an odd experience but one he cherished. He was glad he had more of his memories back and that they were being presented in an orderly fashion.

  He knew he had already spent quite some time in slumber, considering it was the morning of a new day, but the entire thing still felt so fresh. Dan had spent a century or more on that planet, which seemed like a lot, but it was barely anything compared to the possible hundreds of years he spent traveling through space to find the planet in the first place. However, as he thought about it, the entire thing had passed in a flash. It was like he had been in a movie, and only the important points were highlighted, while the rest were fast-forwarded.

  Dan still remembered his whole journey and could recall it without issue, but the majority of it had been more of him watching his old self as he did a bunch of day-to-day crap. Thankfully, that stuff had been fast-forwarded, and he was glad. Watching himself travel from place to place or do an otherworldly number of tasks was not appealing. Instead, he spent time watching the other, more interesting parts, which allowed Dan to look at what he was becoming both then and now. It was odd to look at the differences, and Dan began to question how his human memories interacted with his new existence, even more so as he absorbed the shards.

  Sometimes, he was emotional and, even though he knew his monsters were no more than tools. Something from his human side had seen them as pets, so he had named them, and maybe that had even been the cause that manifested their personalities. Sure, the World Crystal brought them into creation, but it was by Dan’s will that the monsters were created, and Dan was sure the Crystal was happy to accommodate.

  On the other hand, opposing his mortal sensitives were the times when he just saw the entire dungeon as his plaything. Maybe it was a way to protect his old human psyche, but it was a fact that Dan was sending hundreds of beasts to their deaths, and the number would increase when the adventurers started coming in. However, even with that knowledge, he didn’t seem to care half of the time.

  To Dan, it felt like there was a war always going on between his old mortal memories and his new existence. A war that his mortal mind was sure to lose with the addition of his Eldritch memories. Dan’s transformation to an aberration had clearly changed him. A human couldn’t go for centuries in space without going mad, yet he had. He had traveled through the solar system, out of it, and continued on as if time was of no consequence, which it wasn’t. Not really.

  He only had been worried about the clock that Earth was on, but with so much time to question things. Dan had questioned if going back to Earth was the right move. He didn’t know how time worked. What if he killed the Eldritch God that had threatened Earth and that stopped him from becoming one? Time was such a mind-bending paradox that Dan had slowly convinced himself not to return to Earth. Those thoughts actually reminded him that he had access to an entity that could answer such a question about the aspect of time, and he resolved to ask Mother Infinity the next time they met.

  Aside from the clear alteration to his social ability, Dan also questioned how his sense of morality had shifted. Whereas before, something like mind controlling someone else had been abhorred, clearly that had changed, and he had messed with people's minds as he wished. The whole thing getting worse and worse as Dan watched. Sure, he had given himself some rules to avoid crossing some lines, but Dan couldn’t deny the power and convenience of mind-altering magic. In fact, he was glad that aberrations didn’t have a sex drive. Otherwise, he was worried about the many depravities his past self could have caused in the future.

  Speaking of the future, Dan had forever altered that world's future. Not only had his teleportation magic been revolutionary, but the cult and guild were powers that could completely change the outcome of the planet's history. The cult would provide a group of individuals loyal to protecting the planet, at least from an invasion.

  Dan knew from back on Earth that all planets suffered some form of Realm invasion at some point or another. Sometimes, planets fell to these invasions while others managed to push back the invasion. However, there was never truly a way to stop the Realms from interfering, at least a way that Dan currently knew of. Either way, the cult would always be on the lookout for such things, and the guild provided them with the perfect force to find an incursion. Of course, Dan could also be a little too optimistic, and everything would fall apart in a matter of centuries.

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  Alas, whatever happened to the planet was not Dan’s concern. What was Dan’s concern was what would come next for his old self. In the end when he had gone into the Astral, Dan had found some sort of current that moved through space. It had been sheer unluckiness that he hadn’t felt it back on Earth, as he had gone in the wrong direction. However, now that Dan had learned of it, he knew his future memories would consist of following this current of mana.

  In the present, was Dan very tempted to tap into the knowledge from the World Crystal and learn what it was? Yes, yes, he was. However, Dan didn’t want any spoilers. He wanted to slowly uncover some of the mysteries of the universe, much as he had already done. It’s not like whatever the damn thing was truly mattered right now.

  Right now, Dan was stuck in a newly refurbished space he had created by cracking a world open like an egg. He wasn’t sure how he did it, but at this point, everything pointed at him.

  Having assimilated his old memories and with worries about how they might change his psyche, Dan looked to his notifications and the damages from the battle.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  Attention! Event: Green Aberration has come to an end.

  Congratulations! With the conclusion of the event, you have absorbed a Merged Shard and gained control of the Green Camp Area.

  ??

  So, that was nice. However, what wasn’t nice was the following notification.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  ?? Boss Death ??

  Notice!—Boss: Sir Draxis Kron has been killed by the Green Aberration.

  As death was outside of the dungeon area, penalties are applied.

  Respawn time is 12 Hours, and Respawn cost is 178 Mana.

  ??

  Since the aberration had killed Drax while the area was still out of his control, it counted as Drax dying outside his dungeon, meaning Dan had to pay extra and wait longer to respawn the knight. Of course, that also meant that all of his monsters that died inside the area counted as dying outside his dungeon, and they would cost even more to respawn.

  In total, and Dan hurt while looking at the number, it would take 18,818 mana to respawn all the monsters that had died during the battle, which was pretty much all of his new teams except for the spiders and squirrels.

  At the very least, it had been an epic battle, and Dan imagined it would make for an epic movie. He could imagine a 6000-strong green army with its giant monster leader coming to destroy a beautiful city, only for a force of 400 D ranked monsters led by a brave dragon knight to go into battle and die valiantly in an epic battle that would be told for centuries.

  Looking at the battle, the green skins had put up quite a good fight. If Dan had done the math correctly, after the initial bombardment that took out a quarter of their army, it should have been around a 1 vs 8 ratio—one of his monsters taking out eight of the enemy. However, with the buffs, spells, and other stuff the green skins pulled, they managed to deal quite a good amount of damage.

  Still, the battle had been won, and it was time for Dan to look at the rest of his menu to see how much he had grown.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  ??Dungeon Menu ??

  Name: Dan.

  Rank: Low D Rank.

  Shards Collected: 5/99.

  Points till Next Rank: 150/700.

  Mana: 900/900 to 1800/1800.

  Mana Regen: 32 to 44 Mana a Day.

  Chaos Mana Regen: 16 to 22 Chaos Mana a Day.

  Monster Telepathy Range: 300 to 600 ft.

  Total Area Claimed: 877 to 1066 Square Miles.

  Abilities. 15.

  Claim or Edit Area.

  Create or Edit Creature.

  Create or Edit Item.

  Claiming Goals.

  ??

  The most interesting thing to point out was that his maximum number of collected shards had gone back up, and now he was just missing two. From there, everything was normal. His points to the next rank had gone up a bit, and his mana tank had increased along with his mana regen. The rest was obvious stuff: the increase in telepathy along with the new addition of the size of his newly controlled land, around 200 new square miles.