Dungeon of Niflheim

“Well like Dark God-sama said it’s a high rank earth flame but it was personally created by the primordial ice king making it quite valuable. Studying it will certainly bring a boost to your mana and ice control, you may even be able to eventually summon your own cold flame given your elemental disposition.” Maya shrugged her shoulders as she gave her explanation. For Frost to truly understand the flame he’d have to test it himself, seeing is believing after all.

“I see, it certainly is the most valuable reward and should be treated as such.” He nodded his head in appreciation “Wait can you not make cold flames such as this one given your strength and elemental talents?” He knew the basics of oddities such as this flame thanks to the vast collection of books he purchased in Furano and knew how rare they were, especially ones of this rank. Something like a cold flame would more than help with his strength progression so he wondered why Maya never brought it up.

“Haaaaaaaaa, you really underestimate the world and or severally overestimate my capabilities plus it’s the second most valuable reward, don’t you forget that.” Maya looked back at him with an unveiled threat, making sure he didn’t forget about the wine. She’d get her hands on that precious alcohol one way or another.

“?” Frost’s lips twitched in response, knowing her meaning but was confused about her insinuation. Maya was S-rank and a Fenrir, a monster very closely aligned to the ice element, yet such a task was beyond her.

“Haaaaaaaa creation of magical oddities such as flames and others that represent an element, require Godhood or a special body such as elemental spirits. Other than that, they can be created by nature but even someone of my capabilities can’t infringe upon that domain otherwise I would have shown it to you already. Since thanks to your demi-God like status and your pure ice disposition you should be able to create your own magical oddities once you reach a sufficient level.”

“Then why were you so curious about it that you literally stole it from me?” He spoke with accusation, remembering her claiming that she should handle it and that it shouldn’t be placed in his spatial ring.

“Cough cough” she coughed out of guilt before explaining. “Just because I can’t create magical oddities doesn’t mean I can’t use them. Things such as this cold flame can be absorbed into the body of someone with sufficient strength and elemental affinity, greatly improving their physical strength as well as granting resistance to the given element. In fact, in most cases oddities such as magic flames are either desired by creatures that like to eat them in order to absorb their strengths and or by those involved in the blacksmithing trade or artificing.”

“By using a magical oddity flame instead of regular flames, you can manipulate materials far easier and at the same time infuse them with some of the magical properties. High ranking weapons such as those at 6 star and above usually require something like this to be created, that’s why the sapient races struggle to make weapons any higher than that.” Maya spoke with envy, though she was one of the most talented Fenrirs of the tribe she didn’t get the chance to fuse with a magical oddity such as a cold flame. Her tribe couldn’t create such items, so they needed to trade for it, but the price was always very high, and they had very little need for any other flames given the heaven ranked one placed in the main city. Their bodies were already strong enough and they already naturally had strong resistance to ice. If they wished to gain a magical oddity, they’d have to find one or buy one themselves and given Maya’s fondness for alcohol she never had enough money for such an item. But seeing Frost granted one in front of her eyes she couldn’t help but be curious. Though it wasn’t as though she didn’t get anything from her tribe, she was in possession of a set of ancestral hammers that were 8 star weapons.

.....

“I see, interesting,” Frost’s fondness for the flame grew more and more. Shame he was unable to fuse with the thing given the seal, so it’d never truly be his. A temptation placed in front of him, yet he couldn’t truly have it, his father truly was quite petty. Frost felt the more he analysed the thing the greater the temptation would be, eventually it could consume him, playing right into his father’s hands.

“Tsk mean old man” he clicked his tongue and complained aloud. Maya couldn’t help but nod her head in agreement. Dark was quite stern with the fact Frost would only be able to hold onto the flame temporarily.

“Haaaaaa let’s allow the kids to have their fill of it before putting it away, I’ll deal with the flame later, first however lets spend some more DP, you interested?”

“Can it be over some wine?”

“Sure, but not that wine, we’ll have that during a special occasion or would rather drink something so precious without any preparation or class?”

“Geh....fair point, that would be an unforgivable crime, we should save it for something very special, yes.” Maya cringed at Frost’s comment suddenly realising the error in her ways. If she had acted on instinct and stole the wine and drank it the first chance, she got it would certainly be an incorrigible crime. She’d never be able to call herself a wine lover ever again. Such a wine should definitely be saved for a very special occasion such as...... she looked up towards Frost’s handsome face, blushing slightly as he mind raced. Frost didn’t realise her current state, he moved to the floating dungeon core and brought up the menu, preparing to do a little shopping.

At the top right hand corner his current DP was displayed

“23470DP, a lot to play with, but what should I get first?”

“Are you still planning on getting a frost dwarf spawner? That’d be 12000DP.” Maya chimed in from the side, Frost frequently discussed his plans for the dungeon with her, so she knew what he wanted.

“Probably, they are my most efficient monsters (equal to the frost goblins), great fighters appealing to the higher ranked adventurers, rudimentary smiths that can make defences and simple weapons plus they’re really hardy, taking a lot to kill. Having an E-rank spawner would certainly help deal with the new influx of adventurers that we encountered in the past few days, plus the ones that’ll come once father tells the world about us. And the sooner we buy the spawner the faster we’d start making a profit from them. The first frost goblin spawner is already close to breaking even.” It’d take a little longer with an E-rank spawner, given that the summon rate was halved, one every 24 hours instead of every 12 hours.

“True, do you have an idea where to place it?” the spawners could be destroyed and once placed he wouldn’t be able to relocate them. The first goblin spawner was already in a rather precarious position, given how often adventurers reached the third room.

“Hmmm, good point, I’ll have to think about trying to future proof that for when the dungeon expands in size.” He did have one thought, but it could backfire. The other thing he wished to purchase but lacked the funds was a mine of some sort. One that continually produced a small amount of metal or other mineral that could be mined by his monsters and stored in his personal dungeon vault. Prices for such rooms or features to be placed in rooms started at the minimum of 5000DP, given that the mine couldn’t be destroyed like the spawners it was a true fixed asset. The earlier he got such an asset the more profit he’d rake in. 23,000DP would be enough to not only create another room entirely based on a mine but also enough to get a spawner, though he’d be left with very little DP. He’d go from a rich prince to a pauper in an instant, so of course he was hesitant.

“Oh well got to spend money to make money, I’ll get both. I’ll make a new room on the first floor with entrance being hidden behind the fortified glade.” The chances of intruders making it past the glade and all his stalwart defenders was low, they tended to avoid this area. “Within I’ll make the entire environment a mine, a little pricier but well worth it in the long run.” Mines could be features within a room or an environment, the latter obviously costing more given that it could naturally be far more expansive plus unlike the feature it could be upgraded more. “I’ll then place the frost dwarf spawner in the new room, it’ll be hard for intruders to find it plus the spawned dwarves can immediately get to work mining.” Since they couldn’t gain levels, it’d be best to utilise the spawned ones for such unrewarding tasks.

“What do you think?” He turned towards his guardian, asking for her opinion, they were a team after all.

“Sounds good young master, you’ve really got a knack for running a territory, maybe we should try to make your dungeon into a country.” Maya dished out some praises, all genuine, her young master wasn’t just a pretty face.

“In due time Maya, in due time,” he didn’t deny her suggestion. After speaking with Douglas about governance and seeing his monsters and dungeon flourishing, he couldn’t help but view this place as a growing territory and to be honest he had some quite grand ambitions. His dungeon was very close to the Northrend empire and as the saying goes, two tigers couldn’t live on the same mountain. Though he had nothing against Northrend, eventually there may be conflicts of interest and he wasn’t one to back down. But as stated that’s all in the future, for now he’ll just focus on growing.