Dungeon Day 72

  Dan had been relaxing, minding his own business, and focusing on respawning his monsters when the notification hit him.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  Warning! A Crystal Shard has been consumed!

  Claiming Goal updated.

  ??

  Dan didn't even flinch and opened up his claiming goals.

  Claiming Goals.

  — Factions Under Control 7/9.

  — Shards Collected 5/6.

  — All Creatures in Area Under Control 0/1.

  Sure enough, there was one more shard to go, consisting of three shards combined to make another D rank shard. Dan had been paying attention to the hills for the last day since the army fight ended and hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary.

  However, something had been happening as now there was a final winner in the competition. And yes, Dan was sure that the shards had been in that area. During the last day or two, he had directed his worms to scour the land of the gnolls for signs of shards and they had come back blank.

  So, it meant that the last threat would be located in the hills. Dan imagined it would work something much like the Green Camp had worked. There were three shards there. They were fighting for control over the area, and then one of them would eventually win, turning themselves into a D rank monster aberration thing. After all, this whole thing was a tutorial, and Dan figured he had learned most of the lessons needed.

  These lessons taught him that he could do whatever he wanted unless Mother Infinity intervened, and apparently, she intervened a lot. Honestly, Dan didn't care and just wanted the tutorial to be over so he could get to the actual dungeon building. During the last few days, he had been planning for his future dungeon. Now, all he needed was to finish beating up whatever the D rank shard had to throw at him so he could then begin his true passion.

  Dan figured that he would have at least a few more days before whatever events happened, and he would use those days to finish respawning all his monsters. In the meantime, he would also have his hawks traveling through the hills to try to figure out exactly where the threat was.

  Dungeon Day 74

  It turns out the threat was a giant, like an actual giant. The damn thing stood at twice the height of the green monstrosity, which put it at least 20 feet tall. He also wore nothing but a brown loincloth and was surprisingly chubby.

  The giant was strolling around the hills with a crystal club the size of a freaking refrigerator. Of course, what the crystal club was-was obvious. And it made Dan question a couple of things, mainly whether the shard or the giant was in control.

  Surely, if the shard were in control, it wouldn't let the giant haul it about. However, the fact that the giant had a small army of trolls and ogres, all of which were too calm, could mean the shard was in control. There could be a chance that both of them were somewhat in control and were sharing minds, but Dan wouldn't be sure until he consumed the shard or until the battle broke out.

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  The one good thing about the situation was that the giant was not marching directly towards Dan. Instead, the giant and its army walked around the hills, seemingly doing nothing. Dan was certainly not going to complain, as that meant he could finish spawning his monsters and set up a good army to engage the enemy.

  Thankfully, it seemed like the Chaos Mother wouldn't have any annoying restrictions this time, and Dan would be able to throw his monsters at the problem. In a way, that could be the restriction since he wouldn't fight in his own territory, and he needed to send his army to the enemy. If that was the case, it would cost him more mana, which Dan was fine with.

  Dungeon Day 80

  Dan spent days spending a lot of mana, 23,450 mana to be precise. All of which went to creating new teams. In total, he created 12 of the old beast teams and 16 of the new centipede teams for a total of 372 new monsters. With them, Dan was confident of stomping the giant's butt. Not only was he going to send the new monsters, but he was going to send the burning cardinals and all of his bosses, except Dena and Drax. Drax, because the dragonkin was still shocked from having been killed, only to have respawned a day later just fine, and Dena, because she didn’t bring much to the table. The moment Dan’s monsters became Low D Rank, her usefulness ended, and Dan felt like letting her enjoy life until he ended up altering her mind later on.

  Dan watched as his army of monsters made their way out of the edge of the bandit ruins area and headed straight into the hills. He had spawned them there for that exact reason since he didn’t want to wait forever for a battle to start. The day had just begun, and he guessed a battle would begin around midday.

  The giant and its army were on a relatively flat plateau. A spot he knew of because the enemy forces traveled around their lands repeatedly, and he had spotted them stopping there a few times. So, Dan determined it was the best place to fight. The area was somewhat uneven and filled with large rocky outcroppings. It was an excellent spot for his beasts to use for cover against their much larger opponents.

  His beasts marched in formation towards the plateau. At the very front were the bears, gorillas, and centibulkers. All of them looked tough and daunting. The bears and gorillas had their earthen armors, while the centibulkers had their thick carapaces. Behind them were the jaguars, baboons, and centiblades. The jaguars looked fierce and matched the blades of the centiblades with their newly changed metallic colors. Of course, the baboons looked incredible riding the jaguars while they wore their wooden armor, though having yet to summon any weapons.

  Next up were the casters of the group, meaning the doe’s, stags, and centimentalists. The casters hadn’t changed much and were mostly the same. The doe’s and stags look more majestic with fine coats, and the centimentalists with their colorful spots on their otherwise blackish carapace. Following the casters were the range artillery consisting of the spiders, squirrels, and porcupines. The artillery hadn’t been changed either since their last outing, but Dan might do something for them in the future.

  Above the entire group were the eagle, bats, and, as a final addition, a chunk of the hawks. Dan didn’t need them for scouting and figured it was best to use them here for unquestionable air superiority.

  Below ground were the worms and moles, who were going to be the hidden strike force of Dan’s small army. Finally, there were the cheetahs and panthers. The cheetahs would be in skirmish mode, running in, blasting something with lightning, and then running out. Hopefully, Dan wouldn’t need them to come into the melee, but he would keep them around regardless. On the other hand, the panthers would be doing a big circle around the enemy and coming in from behind.

  Naturally, all of Dan’s plans were up in the air since he didn’t know what nonsense the giant and shard would be able to pull. And that wasn’t even mentioning the fact that the entire army was D rank. It consisted of 37 Ogres, 54 Trolls, and the giant.

  The ogres all wore metal armor, though it was patched up in the best of cases, which didn’t offer as much protection. They also had large metal swords, axes, and hammers, with some wielding shields as well. As for the trolls, well, they only wore loincloths and wielded large wooden clubs, probably believing their regeneration was more than enough to deal with anything.

  On the surprising end, Dan did spot three shaman casters on the troll’s side, and they might have a few tricks up their sleeves.

  Either way, it didn’t matter. Even in the worst scenario where Dan lost the battle, he wouldn't lose the war. The one thing that he truly needed to ensure was that some ogres and trolls, along with the giant, were caught alive so that he could spawn them later.