{The dungeon Core}

  ---10 days later---

  Finally 5 people have stayed for 2 weeks inside of me. Now when I create a new floor I will get the option to upgrade one of the traits. And the other reward, getting a strong pattern similar to the ones I already have.

  Looking at the moss plateau a small outpost is being build. Why they chose to build a outpost in the dungeon vexes me. Literally a outpost is outside the entrance not even 500 meter away. Do they like staying in warm rain and hostile air? Although the air did become less toxic less oxygen. The cause of that was my little raptor experiment.

  In the outpost that surrounds a part of my huge statue, the acquisition guild sells items and tools needed to survive the dungeon. The guild also grades and buys ores, metals and crystals the adventurers bring.

  In the ten days a few have tried going down the cliff. At first a few rich tier 0 used slow-fall potions that would let them reach the bottom of the cliff. They got roasted by my flying fire beetles. The corpses slowly falling down until they reached the bottom.

  After which the next group tried climbing down the steep cliff. They were well prepared, bringing climbing tools digging metal holds into the cliff. They reached 1 km down before one of fell. Her only metal pin holding her up broke off.

  Luckily for her she fell in the bubbling pool breaking her fall. Unlucky for her the leeches and amphibians were hungry. She got paralyzed by the leeches before she could reach the roots. She was eaten alive while drowning.

  After which more groups came with more experienced mountain climbers. Creating more pathways downwards the cliff. Currently they are 3 kilometers down. One brave climber even found the little pathway to the crystal geode behind the waterfall. Bringing him many riches.

  Most parties at tier 0 can survive well in the moss plateau. With some trouble if they don’t have fire resistant armor or clothes, if the fight the firebeetles.

  Most of the fire-red kelp in the river harvested, leaving only a few to repopulate it. The kelp at the boiling lake is mostly unharvested because of the firebeetles and the boiling water.

  The root-grove around the quartz source crystals are entirely removed. The wood being used to create a wall for protecting the workers in the area. The workers made as much space around the source crystals, for maximum quartz production. I found it funny to mess with them, so I made the effects of the source crystal better. Letting the quartz crystals grow upwards of 10 meters.

  I watched them carefully breaking the bottom of the crystals catching it, and with a very long cart carry it either to the entrance or the little outpost next to my statue.

  In the little outpost a decently big medical building had been made. Fully made of the misty quartz. Why they made it of quartz I have no idea. Above the entrance of the building there was a symbol. The symbol looked like a circle where one part destroyed the other and the other repaired the other. The part that destroyed was black, and the part that repaired was a golden color.

  This must be a medical temple of Virethys goddess of destruction and renewal. Useful because the lumps created by radiation can’t be magically be restored. It would only grow the lump faster. Those lumps must be destroyed.

  The outpost outside my dungeon also changed. The town or the guilds paid a high tier earth wizard, because one day there was an entire road build form the town to the outpost. They even build a staircase to my dungeon, and a sort of slide to bring down the quartz crystals.

  Some opportunistic traders are already making stalls around the entrance and the outpost. Unfortunately for them being this high up the mountain means that it snows a lot. So most stay near the outpost. Some even daring to go to the outpost in my dungeon.

  Now after checking the adventurers lets get the second floor. I started digging to create the second floor.

  Congratulations on finishing your first floor!

  You have a second floor now!

  You are LvL 2!

  Choose your rewards for fulfilling optional quest.

  1x trait upgrade (non-dungeon trait)

  I chose obviously [gigantism] getting [greater gigantism]

  [greater gigantism]

  +200% size, +200% mana, +200% mana regen, +200% health, +300% metabolism usage, -25%

  movement

  1 dangerous creature pattern from these three:

  Lvl 1

  Fangstalker

  Mana: 5/5 Regen: 2 mana per/h

  Species traits [greater ambush], [lesser stealth], [lesser mana boost]

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  Lvl 1

  Dreadscarab

  Mana: 9/9 Regen: 8 mana per/h

  Species traits [Dread aura], [lesser arcane skin], [minor petrifying gaze]

  Lvl 1

  Gloomlurker Toad

  Mana: 23/23 Regen: 4 mana per/h

  Species traits [stealth] (darkness), [elastic tounge), [minor darkness core]

  I think I can choose this later I think. I will choose this one when I have created the beginning of the 2nd floor. I only have to choose my species and class traits now.

  For your species trait you can choose between these three:

  [improved dungeon core]: (upgrade)

  Never ages, more knowledge on how to run a dungeon, +100% biome creation, +100% bioengineering, +50% space warp.

  [magical dungeon core](tier 1) : (upgrade)

  Never ages, knowledge on how to run a dungeon, The ability to create tier 1 magical resources +100% biome creation, +75% bioengineering, +50% space warp, +25% magical recources.

  [gravitational source crystal creation]:

  Through this trait you can create gravitational source crystals.

  You can create crystals and source crystal better. Source crystal slowly generate a set resource or gravity (water, ores, dirt, etc). you can change the speed by which it generates resources by giving it mana. The more magical the slower the resource is generated.

  +75% crystal creation +25% source crystal creation +50%% source crystal generation

  For your class trait you can choose between these three:

  [Chaos affinity]: upgrade

  This trait gives chaos affinity.

  +100% chaos affinity

  [controlled mutation]: (new)

  This trait lets you control more of mutations

  +75% mutation control, +50% mutation

  [Genomic grafting]: (new)

  This trait gives the ability to merge different flora and fauna. (E.G. half Leech half plant)

  +50% genome grafting, +50% bioengineering.

  That are a lot of options. Compared with when I was just a kobold where you just got a class trait every 5 levels and only species traits every 20 levels. Being a dungeon sure has a lot of benefits.

  Now the traits from the species level. There are no upgrade for the [core bioengineering] and [titanic]. I got one upgrade that was the same as last time [improved dungeon core]. The other two are different. The first one [magical dungeon core](tier 1) will let me create up to tier 1 magical items. Currently I could make them via the source crystals, but that would take ages or a lot mana. This will simplify the creation of those resources and maybe let me use them in creatures, without the use of traits.

  Then we have [gravitational source crystal creation]. It has a small increase in crystal creation and a huge buff in source crystal generation. Causing the crystal to produce more. Now the gravity part. Would this let me create high and low gravity regions? I could also make it so that the wall would be the floor. Or even flip gravity. I could make a cylindrical floor where every part is the floor. Or a three dimensional maze. The possibilities to create more interesting biomes intrigues me.

  Done looking at the species trait I looked at the class traits. They seem more lack luster than the species traits. The first one is just a upgrade to my [lesser chaos affinity]. Just a flat bonus to everything chaos related. More mutations, more random events and more. Can be useful can be bad. Chaos is a strange primordial effect.

  The next two traits are new ones and more interesting than the chaos affinity upgrade. [controlled mutation] this will let me control more of the mutations, as is written in the trait description. In short this will reduce the time and cost of mutating creatures and plants. I would be less dependent on external effects to help direct mutations. Like when I mutated the raptors, I set certain conditions if the base pattern get reused. Whit this trait I could just set a parameter and it will come up faster and more specific. No more random plant gaining predatory traits. Well less, chaos is still very random.

  [Genomic grafting] the ability to create chimeric monsters. With this trait I could change the base pattern of a creature. Normally I could only modify existing patterns and if they are very similar I could move some base pattern to the other. But with this, I can merge shift every part of a pattern onto another. Do I want to give my leeches feathers, I can do it. Trees with fur, badgers with ironwood bark as skin and much more.

  What shall I choose, there are many good options. Even the boring ones give good benefits.

  Thinking of choosing what for floor shall I make. This first floor has is a good introduction, but I want something better. I liked the cliff a lot. The boiling lake is also interesting, but scaling that up to an entire floor would be a bit much. Creating a acid ocean would be more interesting, although those are more biome ideas.

  Floor ideas. I could scale up the cliff. Creating a very deep cliff, where I could create layers with each a biome. How deep shall it be then 20 kilometers? No, the first floor was only around 50 kilometers long. Double that then? 100 kilometers? 100 kilometers would maybe be a bit much. I think 80 would be a good one. Each layer will probably have a more walkable region in the biome. I don’t think anyone will survive just climbing down 80 kilometers. Flying creatures will be created to combat flying adventurers again, this time more aggressive. And I will probably make a layer solid to prevent it even more. Forcing them to move through the biome if they wanted to go downwards.

  What other options do I have. Creating a giant floor maybe? I could just create any normal biome in it. Can create oceans, forests, mountains. But I could also just scale up the normal biomes, giant trees and everything. The giant ironwood trees could be used as normal trees still forcing a lot of verticality. I could make it so that people need to find certain things to unlock the boss fight. Put a key in every biome and then they go find the boss arena in a mountain ore something.

  Or I could create a cave system. Massive cave connected by tunnels and crevasses. A lot of exploration potential for adventurers. For me the potential to create a lot of isolated mini biomes. Although there would still be a large passage to my core. For the passages need to be big enough that my core would be able to fit through it. The caves I could make can be flooded like the caves near my old village.

  I can also replicate what other smaller dungeons do. Creating a maze with traps and treasure chests. The tunnels will be 18 by 18 meters, I can just play it off that the adventurers are just small. That they entered a giants dungeon. The traps would be comically oversized. Imagine meter wide spikes that reach up 9 meters, Or a giant boulder. I find that sort of thing boring, I will probably add some deprecated parts of tunnel where it has fallen into a cave with a biome.