“So we do it faster,” Dale affirmed gravely. “He never had the resources we do. A dungeon with no affinity? Seriously, why don’t we stay down there for a few days or weeks at a time?”
“Some of us have a social life?” Hans chuckled when Dale rolled his eyes and head so hard that he almost fell over. “Hey, it isn’t my fault you always ran off and had meetings to get to. Also, I haven’t found a single decent ale or mead down in the dungeon.”
“…You know what?” Adam tapped his stave while deeply considering the situation. “Neither have I. Because… who drinks in a dungeon, right?”
“Right?” Tom played right into Adam’s trap with this single word.
“So do you think that the dungeon has recipes for alcohol down there? If not, we may be able to get a reward for items it has never taken before.” Adam smiled, as did the other people around him.
“Finally! A reason to go to the tavern!” Hans cheered and turned to face the bar like a compass needle pointed to the north.
“You never needed one before, did you?” Rose acidly sniped at him.
Hans ignored her, a situation that was becoming more and more commonplace. They went to the tavern and - through a heroic haggling effort - managed to get a small cask of every type of booze and drink they made. If they had told the bartender the eventual destination of the drinks, he would have assuredly stopped them. So far, the dungeon hadn’t been making anything like these, so it was assumed that it didn’t have the recipes. The staff at the bar would certainly want to keep it that way.
As they rolled the small barrels into the dungeon proper, Dale heard a sigh in his mind as the dungeon took notice of them. The mental voice was the most lackluster Dale had ever heard. <Alright, what’s this now?>
“Booze for the dungeon!” Hans called out loudly. “Come get your booze, bo~o~oze here!”
“What are you doing?” Adam asked the overly loud Assassin.
“Enticing the dungeon.”
<No he isn’t.>
“No you aren’t.” Dale shook his head, though he smiled while doing so. Hans had a way of breaking tension, and it was actually really nice of him to do so since they were all pretty tense currently.
<I have a totally empty floor right now, Dale.> Dale went still; he wasn’t used to this kind of serious tone. <That S-ranker tore the entire level, everything, and everyone on it out of my depths. It was completely desolated; there wasn’t even Essence left in the area, and I’m needing to reclaim that space with influence! Unless I shut the dungeon down for a few days, it may be weeks before that level is back to its previous functionality. He also threatened to kill everyone here and knock me out of the sky if I don’t meet his demands. I messed up, Dale. I messed up bad. Even the hot springs bath is gone!>
Dale was now placed in the uncomfortable position of needing to comfort a dungeon, which was also somehow himself, while others looked on curiously. “Um. There, there, big guy.”
<Did I give you all my idiocy when I put your soul back in your body or something?> Dale flushed even further. <‘There, there’? Really?>
<It… yeah, it kind of does, now that I think about it.> Dale waited for a few moments, and just as he gave up and was going to do something else, the conversation continued, <Interesting. I may actually have something that I can do about it. Not for a while and not for certain, but… maybe. What do you want for this information? The booze too, I suppose.>
Dale looked around, and sure enough, the small barrels were gone. “Sneaky. We want safe areas on each level. We want to stay down here cultivating for days on end without needing to worry about being attacked all the time.”
<Safe areas? That might have been a better idea than making an entire town down there…>
“I’m sorry, what?” Dale wasn’t sure that he had heard Cal correctly.
“Don't worry your mutated little head about it. So you just want areas where you can cultivate. Who wants to sit in a room doing nothing but breathing all day? That sounds dreadfully boring.>
“If you’d rather just offer us Essence directly…” Dale trailed off, getting a more verbose response than he expected.
<Go fight a Cat. Do your own work, or fight and steal Essence like you were designed to do. Seriously! So needy. I hope you took all that personality trait with you when we split last time. Also, yes, I altered your meridians a bit, making them larger and more durable; drain Essence to your heart’s content. You can get that stupid look off your face now.>
Dale tried to get his facial expressions under control, but the negative surprises of the day had made it hard for him to ignore even this small positive one. “Thanks for the information. I’ll look for those safe areas.” All he got in return was a disgruntled noise.
“I take it from your half of the conversation that things went well?” Rose smiled at Dale, bringing him back to the present.
“They did. We have a lot of work to do.” Dale had fire in his eyes and a wide smile on his face. His regained confidence and his enthusiasm inspired the others, so they gripped their weapons and descended deep into the dungeon. “We are going to stop on each level and cultivate until we feel that we have gained all we can from that floor. We are going to hunt any creature with a Core, and eventually, we are going to become powerful.”
“More than we already are!” Tom raised a fist into the air, punctuating his misplaced enthusiasm.
After roughly twenty minutes of exploring, Rose chuckled as she punched a wall and revealed a small silver chest. “I’ve missed these. Do you guys remember when fighting standard Bashers was a challenging endeavor?”
“Wasn’t that about two months ago for you, Rose?” Hans laughed as she flushed. “Nothing to be ashamed about, it just shows how far you’ve come.”
“Oh.” Obviously she had been prepared for an insult. “Thank you, Hans, that’s true.”
“No Cores or really anything of value for us on this floor.” Adam was leaning on his staff, looking bored. Unless someone was injured or he was directly under attack, his main job was staying out of the way.
“If you all don’t mind, I now have ‘quotas’ of materials, components, and Mob kills that I need to turn in if I want to remain at the Academy.” Dale was stuffing the Bashers into his dimensional bag, but no one had said anything about that oddity yet. “If any of you want to join the Academy, I’d recommend making a stockpile as well.”
“Hey!” Dale’s eyes went wide. “I built that school!”
Hans shook his head. “Really, really, people. I know you don’t see it, but the Guild is awesome to be in. This particular situation isn’t super wonderful, but usually, the members start out just like us and work their way into recognition based on good stuff. This guy… Barry… I mentioned it before, but things must be even worse than we thought for him to be out and about. Knowing he is a High Elf - nice statue by the way - makes it even more concerning. They must think that the entire world is at serious risk if the upper echelons are starting to show up, or they just wouldn’t care.”
Tom considered his words. “So you are saying that we should try to work with him and just hope for the best?”
Hans shrugged and nodded. “I’m saying that there is likely a lot we aren’t aware of, and we can’t afford to be short-sighted or to actively work against Barry. If we do, there is a good chance that we will die. All of us. Worldwide.”
Chapter Nineteen
<Hey there, humans!> I cheerfully greeted my cultists-turned-s
ervants. A few looked around with excitement, but the reactions were far more mixed than I preferred. <Tiny update: I have decided to stop calling you ‘cultists’ and have determined that you will be called my ‘Attendants’ from now on.>
Oops, I guess I had only been calling them ‘cultists’ in my head. There was an awkward silence as I waited for their reaction, and I sighed when only the two known fanatics reacted positively. Ah, well. If this group had been the cream of the crop, they wouldn’t be here doing what they were doing. It was never the strong and confident people who gave up everything for more personal power, right? I needed to get their training started if I wanted to see any changes, and I had really wanted to leave everything to Etiquette Bob, but his creation was on hold while I slowly regrew the Goblin’s floor.
It took a vast amount of Essence to bring the floor back from its current state of nothing, the kind I had been able to throw around before. Unfortunately, the ongoing maintenance of flying, ley line growth, and automated respawning on other floors was impeding my progress. <Okay, well, first off, we are going to work on fixing any issues that your bodies have. For most of you, that is going to need to wait until we get some of that corruption out of you.>
I could have made it really easy on them and directly placed Cores around their Center, but that was an exacting, time-consuming, and expensive way to fix something as simple as an overabundant taint. I decided to give them an option and made a pendant similar to the ones I had given Dale’s group so long ago. Of course, I had never explained what the pendants did, and since I had never seen them again, they had likely sold them off as unidentified Inscribed items. <Alright, Attendants. You have two options.>
A clatter came from the stone table they were all gathered around, and all eyes were drawn to the two objects that had appeared there. <You can either wear a pendant and slowly purify your Centers - forgoing agonizing pain and a medium risk of death - or you can swallow a Core and get purified now.>
Several of the people reached for the pendant right away, but my resounding mental voice halted them. <There is a catch. At this level of the dungeon, the ambient Essence is very thick, as is the ambient Mana coming from my Core. Those of you who take the easy way out will be stuck on this level for a very long time as you are thoroughly purified over the course of… a year maybe? Those of you who take the risk will be able to begin cultivating right away - today even - during your free time and will likely advance very quickly. This will be in your favor, as influential people will have more options in my service.>
A line was drawn on the table, and I told everyone to choose a side to stand on. One half held the pendant, the other, a Core. Unsurprisingly, the fanatics went over to stand by the Core right away. The others slowly situated themselves, the vast majority waiting sheepishly by the pendant. There were only five willing to take the risk, and I silently snarled at Minya yet again. If you are going to create devoted minions, at least make sure they are high quality devoted minions! Each of those with weak willpower got a new necklace and were sent off to relax until I could get back to them. You would think that people that had left their lives behind them would be willing to take a few risks! Then I turned my attention to the people that would be the actual powers among my new Attendants.
<Excellent. Even by making just this step, you have raised yourselves in my estimation.> They seemed to perk up at that, and even more so at the next bit of information I fed them. <This is actually a standard recruitment task for the Adventurers’ Guild. Most of their members need to go through something similar, so don’t be too afraid. A couple of you are going to need to wait on this, although I’ll give you all a cultivation technique right now. Don’t use it until I tell you to, but study all the details. Even though it will be added directly to your mind, work at actively understanding it.>
I had two of the humans step into a side room, the ones with severe issues that had prevented them from advancing themselves. They laid down, and I put pressure on their minds through my Mana until they passed out. They wouldn’t want to be awake for this part, and I didn’t want to wait until they had taken medicine and fell asleep in a semi-natural manner. The first was easy; she merely had multi-organ failure. Hardly a problem for me to fix but likely nearly unbearable for her. Easy-peasy. Done.
The next guy was a little more interesting to work with, but my experience messing with Dale’s innards had prepared me well for this moment. This man’s affinity channels were stuffed with impurities and entirely blocked. I had no idea how he had survived this long. With no way to absorb Essence, he would be burning through his life force at an extra fast rate. At least this explained why a man who appeared to be in his early sixties was actually in his early twenties. Others might have chalked it up to a life of hard living, but his body had advanced far past that natural explanation. I went through the myriad channels in his body, scooping out the impurities and collecting them into a sealable jar. My Goblins really liked to use this black goo to poison weapons and such; it made for nasty wounds that disrupted Essence and became easily infected.
The rest of this man’s body was in shambles due to having such a weak constitution his whole life. Fixing him up was far more intensive than, say, fixing a few failing organs; I almost didn’t bother, but… if he was going to be wrangling the others, perhaps going from an ‘old man’ to a young one would create an incentive to do well in my service. I worked on him, then took all the impurities off both of their bodies, leaving them sparkling clean. That sparkling may be the glitter I dusted them with, but my point stands. I left clean robes next to them, and let them wake up.
They both examined their bodies with glee, feeling better than they could ever remember feeling. They stood without hunching, without pain. Then they both dropped to their knees and started singing my praises. No… they were actually praising me as if I were… <Enough of that, please; I’m not god. I have no wish to have actual angels dispatched against me or to have the Church attack, so stop it. Treat me like a really generous boss that is going to help you live forever.>
They both were beaming about that and seemed to get even more excited, so I decided to distract them. <Oh, look over here! A memory stone with a decent cultivation technique! Hey, you… the, um, male? What do I call you?>
“Call me Anders, Great Spirit,” he responded as he pulled on the robe he had been given.
How in the…? <Oh, not you, too! Is that a side effect of fixing people?>
“Our spiritual leader, Minya, informed us that this was the preferred method of addressing you,” Anders respectfully informed me.
<What a surprise. Just… fine. Listen, you have almost zero health issues right now. Your body is fixed, your meridians are clean, and your center is basically empty of Essence and corruption. Mainly because nothing could ever get through your clogged meridians, but that’s beside the point. I want you to begin using that cultivation technique as soon as possible. Even now, your body is burning through your life force, since it isn’t using Essence as a substitute. You are visibly aging. Go! Hurry up!> Anders seemed to fall into panic, because he grabbed the stone and nearly clobbered his head with it in his rush to begin. I chuckled at that and turned to the other.
<As for you, your center is not clear, but your body is finally at a place where it should survive the next steps. Go join the others; we are about to have a water drinking competition. Oh, wait, name please!> I caught her just as she was moving toward the exit.
She curtsied, which seemed a little out of place without a dress, but it was nice all the same. “I am known as Jules, Great Spirit.”
<Lovely. Just so you are aware, you two are going to be in charge of the others. Make sure to survive!> She bobbed again, and I smiled. This might actually be fun!
I glanced around my caverns and tried to think of how to deal with the myriad issues popping up. There was already one manor occupied. Madame Chandra had found the open doorway leading downward before I had remembered to close it and was now living
here without the amenities that I had planned for. She didn’t seem to mind and was even unintentionally helping me out by growing plants all over the place as she tried to get a feel for her newfound prowess. This proved another point for me: Mages were wasteful with their Mana. I had suspected it for a while but had never found a proper way to test for long periods of time so I could know for sure. Even so, my theory had been one of the main reasons that I had made this floor.
When I say ‘wasteful’ I don’t mean they litter all over the place, I just mean that they don’t actually use their Mana efficiently. When they cast a spell or use their Mana for any reason, there is some that is just… wasted. No longer! Now, instead of floating free and eventually collecting into storms or mutating things randomly, I can gather the Mana and either use it directly or absorb it into my own power to help my reserves grow.
It’s evident that Mana is more potent than Essence, but by testing it out, I was able to draw accurate conclusions about exactly how much more potent. The ‘runoff’ Mana that Madame Chandra had unknowingly leaked for me over an hour offered almost as much energy as the accumulated Essence I was able to gather on my first floor for a full day. There were now at least a hundred weak cultivators wandering my first floor at any given time, and they were no longer shy about diving in at night.
These Academy students seemed extra motivated to kill and collect my Mobs, and I had increased the amount available because of this. No longer did Bashers move alone, ever. The smallest group was now ten - as the humans had proven that, one-on-one, they could now defeat my Bashers every time. My first floors had gotten more dangerous as a result, but the people on them seemed pleased by this instead of upset and even sneered and laughed when they heard about people failing to survive. What a strange attitude to have! What was I talking about…? Right! Chandra!
This A-rank Mage was all the proof I needed to deem my new floor a success. From here, I would accelerate the training of my Attendants and hope that word got out to the Mages above. They should really hurry up because the benefits of being here would be beneficial to both parties but especially to me. I needed to advance, and it was time to get serious about it.