Peter woke up with a start. He had been exhausted when he got back. He had not timed it but the congregation had likely lasted 30 hours or so. There was some inhibition put on them while they were there, but being awake for that long was mentally draining. He had given Boris the go ahead to use most of their essence on dungeon expansion. It was enough to increase his daily ambient essence collection by nearly 400. Might as well get things started and the plans for the eight floor had been completed for a while.
Peter summoned himself a coffee while he moved over to his favorite armchair, reclining back. His personal space was offset from the headquarters by a big double door. Even Boris would have to knock, and only if something urgent in nature came up. So far there had been nothing of the sort. This was his sanctuary. He spent a minute checking up on things, as he did every morning, but there was nothing really all that different. Adventurers were already in the dungeon and his essence was already accumulating.
Peter then let the morning happen naturally rather than push the thought process. Sure enough his thoughts soon drifted. Now it was time to think of his next steps and make more tangible plans for his future. He had seen a handful of intermediate dungeon battles, and could still remember how overwhelming they had been. His fantasy of taking down dungeons two or three times his age with ease was certainly facing a reality shock. Not that he would give up on his goals of surviving even when the millennials stepped forward to cull him. He just had a lot of work to do.
Last night he had nearly maxxed out the ambient collection for the eight floor. Within a matter of weeks he would finish the job and have the ninth and tenth floors maxed out as well. increasing his ambient essence collection to the maximum until after his tenth congregation where he could expand with an additional 40 floors. By the end of today tomorrow, he should have the 50,000 essence required to take the first step, unlocking the ninth floor.
However his plans for the tenth floor would have to change like the older dungeons had recommended. It may seem like a waste of essence having to change things up later, dropping his tenth to a lower level. Peter still did not understand everything, but he would listen to the advice of the older cores.
After that he would actually spend a few more weeks getting the eighth floor up and running so that adventurers could actually delve into it. He would even add another boss room on the eighth. The ninth floor would start the beginning of the advanced adventurer floors. He would start it with his 4 weak C tiers and his 4 free spawners. Then fill the rest with lower tiers packs.. Of course it would be the only advanced floor for now until the next 40 floors were unlocked in nine years.
All of his plans could likely be completed in 6 or 7 weeks, with his current essence collection. The next big money pit would be unlocking the A tier units. The price tag was 5 million essence. A year ago it would have seemed like a ridiculous amount, but it would only take him just a bit over half a year to collect that much at 20,000 essence a day. It would be even less as his daily collection increased.
After that he would have to save up his resources. Not only would he have to be prepared in case someone challenged him. Peter would also need a lot of essence to trade. B tier design cards already cost 10,000 per card. How much would an A tier cost?
For long term plans, Peter would want to participate in another battle or two before his first decade was up, but he also needed to start accumulating A tier cards. As the highest tier that he could trade for, they would be infinitely useful all the way even when he became a millennial himself. Peter needed to collect them often and early building his collection. Who could say when the millennials might decide to blacklist him, shutting off his ability to collect. He would have to build up his power before then.
The millennials were the top of the hierarchy and had set a culture that all the lower dungeon cores found themselves in. They bullied the weak by their very existence, forming their own factions, resulting in other factions, creating more barriers for young dungeons to build strength. Then they would blacklist dungeons that did not play by the rules, or who were potentially getting a bit ahead of themselves. Peter could not change any of it, but there was no reason that he could not take advantage of the opportunities the millennials created.
The blacklisted dungeons were one such opportunity. If he could get them out of the watchful eyes of all the other dungeons, there was no reason that he could not make some killer deals. He just could not get caught. He could not be seen during the interaction, or be seen using a large amount of units that obviously belonged to their core types. One or two could be mistaken as a coincidence after all even if he used only his design cards he could get nearly anything, but it was better not to draw attention when he could.
Peter thought about it ad nauseum and then some more. Unlocking and quickly maxing out the ambient essence collection for the ninth floor was completed in two weeks. In two more days he was ready to build the tenth floor. He unhesitantly dropped 50,000 essence to unlock the last floor available to him for the next 9 years. However this time, he mentally clicked to make the floor an auxiliary floor.
There were a few differences between regular floors and auxiliary floors, but the chief one was that he could only collect the 500 ambient essence for the floor once he had expanded it to that point. If an adventurer made it on the floor, he would not collect essence, he would actually be severely penalized since they would potentially see behind the curtain a bit.
God forbid they learn that there is a lot more to dungeons than just luring in adventurers. However, there would be no chance of an adventurer getting down there. After all, he had plenty of surviving C tiers that should be able to ward off people from going down the one entrance down to the tenth floor.
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For the floor, Peter chose a dark light open floor setting. The dark light was basically the natural environment for the dark elves. The floor became just an ever present darkness that in the dark elf world would technically be made by a forrest of trees thousands of feet tall. Not to say there was no light, it was equivalent to what could be produced from a moonless starry sky.
As the dark elves' home environment, this should be the most suitable for them to help him develop. Trees and other vegetation would grow normally, well the darklight versions should. When he got access to more humanoid races and more floors he would build more auxiliary floors with different settings.
The room was currently only a cube. A couple hundred feet in each direction, and a few hundred feet up to the roof. The lone standout feature was the floor exit leading back up to the ninth floor. Peter expanded it as much as he could, just expanding its features in all directions maintaining a 200 foot ceiling. He saved just enough essence to buy one B tier design card.
A moment later he mentally clicked on a doublification support card and he chose the B tier original dark elf card as the other. It was time he created a leader for this floor.
“Dammit,” Peter swore as he saw his three options. They were all dudes. Humanoid types would come out as either sex when they were summoned. He just got the chance to look between 3 options. There went the fantasy he had played out for the last few weeks of having a sexy dark elf leader.
After another moment and one long sigh he looked at his options more carefully. He by no means intended to wait a whole other day to spend 20,000 essence to buy both a design and one of the 4 resulting dark elf stock cards to try again. Not right now at least. Probably very soon he would be using more of his C tier originals to summon dark elves to serve as his soon to be leaders subordinates. Surely he would have some luck then.
For now, Peter looked through his three options.
Dark war caster B: Att: B, DEF: B(-), SPE: B (+)
Aged Ranger B (-): Att: B(-), DEF: C, SPE: B
Reverse Spearmen B: ATT: B, DEF: B, SPE: B (-)
At best two of them could be considered mid tier, but Peter could immediately disregard the reverse spearmen. Perhaps the guy could work in something unrelated to his class, but Peter wasn’t looking for this unit to be a warrior anyways. “What do you think?” he asked Borris who had been standing quietly behind him.
“The dark war caster would be the logical choice if you were looking to increase combat power. A powerful back liner is far better than a powerful frontliner. You can always build a bunch of cheaper units to act as a meat shield for the caster.”
“What if I don’t intend for this unit to ever fight. The way I see it. The wizard could help advance my study on magic, spells, enchantments. As far as the ranger, perhaps he would know a lot about plants. I was planning for this floor to be a dark wood after all: trees, herbs… other useful plants that could be developed.”
“Then the ranger would be the logical choice,” Borris said unhesitantly. Peter just looked at the clockwork. Finally understanding his master wanted an explanation Borris expounded. “The ranger is a good choice for all the reasons that you said, but then there is more indicated by the unit's title Ranger. Then when looking at the picture, I see the ranger appears to be much older than the war caster. According to my data banks for humanoids the older one is the more experienced and settled they will be. They will not be as impetuous as some.”
Borris looked at Peter pointedly for that last part. What, was this robot seriously judging him? How was he impetuous? He was carefully planning and making moves all the time. That being said, Borris did have a point. The thumbnail picture of the ranger showed what looked like a 50 year old aged man with mahogany skin and long white hair. The others looked near the same, but the ranger clearly had wrinkles looking decades older. Of course that was by human standards. The difference between the ranger and the others in age could be hundreds or thousands of years since elves had longer lifespans.
“Okay, say I pick the ranger. What aspect of them should I increase? Intelligence.”
“Well if you are wanting him to be a master at something it would be better to break it down further. Herbology would be the best fit, or you could consider chemistry, biology, or even ecology. A ranger should also be pretty good at understanding how the ecosystem works as a whole. Right now I am doing the best I can to ensure your units are suitably fed, but someone who understands it better might do so more efficiently.”
“Hmmm…” Peter thought. The robot had a point there. Going forward he would be building a vast standing army and not just carrying a bunch of essence to build it all during the preparation right before the battle. Already he could see how much of a financial drain keeping a bunch of high tier units could be. The D tier units he had no further need for he had already started to work into the intermediate levels as special monsters to be hunted. No sense spending resources to keep something around that would not serve much purpose.
Even the clockworks required some upkeep. They had to have oil to even function. It lasted a long time, years but it was still a bit of upkeep. He could only assume that undead or golems had some sort of upkeep as well, or there would be other downsides like they would not be as strong as units of a similar tier.
Peter finally chose the aged ranger giving the unit a boost to herbology knowledge. The guy and his subordinates could start looking into all the various aspects for Peter. He only slightly felt bad about giving up the opportunity to obtain a badass caster, but then he would have A tier units by the end of the year. An A tier equivalent would be better in battle and perhaps even in magic study. The old elf appeared in front of him, standing in a relaxed manner waiting for orders.
Peter thought about it for a moment. “Your name will be Khan. You will be in charge of this floor and all matters regarding it. You will make recommendations on changes. Your main task is to use your knowledge to help me improve my battle capability or dungeon efficiency.”
Peter went on for several more minutes using a lot of ‘you know’ and likes. The old dark elf listened intently as he rambled his needs as he understood them. Peter still was a bit unclear of all the auxiliary aspects he needed to push forward with. The easy ones were stuff like forging and enchanting weapons. With his herbology increased, hopefully this guy would be better at making medicines and poisons. His ability to accumulate essence was just as limited as everyone else in his year group. He could not really beat out the other dungeons in that aspect. He could however potentially heal and keep units in the fight longer.
Then began an hours-long session as Khan, his new floor manager, asked questions about the interface, dungeon capabilities, and what battles would look like. Peter answered where he could but Borris stepped in when Peter failed to adequately explain a concept. After five hours, Peter excused himself, after giving Khan access to headquarters inside of the core space. His regret over not having picked the caster had grown slightly in dealing with his new subordinate.
