Dungeon of Niflheim

During the family gathering only Yami and Aqua were capable of summoning C-rank monsters given their individual strengths with many of the older dungeon cores following close behind. However not all the dungeon cores were born equal, Gobuske for example had relatively low individual power as the majority of his potential was focused on empowering his goblins. Everyone had their own focus and the current system of relying on individual power to control monsters was unfair.

Thus, this was Dark’s solution to the problem. As long as the dungeon cores expanded their dungeons they would be empowered while within them. A great solution that not only made the situation fair for all but promoted the expansion that Dark wanted to see.

Five floors was also a grade ceiling, not just by Dark but by everyone in Nova. Monster lairs that exceeded 5 floors were of a higher classification regardless of the monsters they spawned. This was due to their longevity, bigger monster lairs tended to last longer than smaller ones therefore making them more popular. Steady Long term business is much more promising than large, short term gains.

“We can leave the last floor bare for now, but the third and fourth floor needs to be completed, environments and room expansions.” Frost tapped the nearby table as though internally calculating the costs.

“After that I’d like to purchase more fixed assets such as the iron mine since the sooner we do the faster we’ll profit. The same holds true for monster spawners, I’d rather buy one of them than mass individual monsters.” Frost currently had three spawners in play, two that summoned frost goblins while the other summoned frost dwarves. After the 100th monster the spawners would effectively summon for free, indefinitely unless destroyed, far more cost effective that purchasing individually.

Though they were unable to evolve, grow in level and were naturally weaker than their individually summoned counterparts they served much better in terms of volume. The frost lizards would make for a perfect spawner monster given their main use being lucrative lures.

“The leftover DP can be used for generic improvements, summoning of individual monsters to be levelled, traps as well as miscellaneous items. I want to spend the entire 97,000 before the monster stampede, do you have any problems with that?” Frost asked his trusted military commander after speaking of his plans. He wasn’t even planning on putting aside time to appreciate the mass levels of DP before spending it. His outlook since visiting the camps and Kranor had changed, he was thinking much bigger now.

Findlay was initially blown away by the amount of DP about to be spent but quickly analysed Frost’s plan. “No master, I’ve got no problems with your suggestions. You are correct the sooner we do this the sooner we’ll benefit, you’ve got to spend money to make money.” Findlay nodded his head in agreement, more than willing to enact such a plan post haste.

.....

“Good, I’ll get started then. If you could head back and deal with all the new arrivals, I’ll summon you again later for your reward.” Frost downed another cup of hot sake before sending off Findlay, there was a lot of work to do.

“Understood master, and welcome home.”

“It’s good to be home Findlay.” Findlay bowed his head to Frost before teleporting back to first floor.

Once he was gone Frost decided to first take a look over the many minute changes Dark had made to the dungeon system.

· Environments are now separated into different star grades like weapons and armour. Higher starred environments are more expansive, contain better features, more complicated layouts and rarer flora and fauna than lower starred ones. Frost’s current environments can all be considered 1 star.

* Weapons, magic, spells etc.... can now also be unlocked through dungeon expansion, instead of just individual power and knowledge. Of which Frost now had access to 3 star equipment and spells.

· Non-battle oriented monsters such as goblin engineers can gain experience through their creations though at a slow rate.

· The gacha system was now in place, allowing dungeons to try their luck at random draws for monsters and items. Pricing ranges from 1000DP per draw.

· As requested by Void and Chronos newly developed spells can now be sold to Dark for DP. He also allowed for any item created by the dungeon core themselves to be sold for DP, promoting many trade skill enthusiasts such a Damascus.

· The monster design feature had already been unlocked after the gathering but Dark made the feature more streamlined and even offered some basic templates to help encourage his children. Yami and Aqua had apparently already got to work with their own ideas and reported some issues they found to Dark.

· Due to that there was now a sort of customer service system that would allow the dungeon cores to sent messages directly to Dark asking for his advice or to let him know of any issues. Previously only Yami and Aqua could contact Dark but now everyone could, though it was a lot less personal.

· The dungeon cores can now set their monsters as proxies, allowing them to use the dungeon menu including DP to a set amount. A feature that makes it easier for dungeon cores to leave their dungeons for prolonged periods of time. If Frost could have registered, Nanna, Loki, or Findlay as a proxy they could have spent DP on new monsters and not have fallen to such a weakened state. Though it had its benefits, Frost had examined Findlay’s status and found that his ice troll commander was now level 30 out of 50, past the half way point to evolution.

Other than that, there were a few minor price changes and design alterations to how the dungeon menu appeared. It took Frost around 40 minutes to check out the newly restructured menu and features. He definitely wanted to try the gacha a couple times just to test how lucky he was but that could come later. Now however he needed to start his expansion plan.

“OK, two new floors will cost 20,000DP. Expanding all rooms to medium size on the 3rd and 4th floors will cost 9000DP.” Frost quickly added these to his shopping cart, keeping track of the prices.

“For the environment I’ll just make it the same for all three sections. The 3rd floor will be another winter forest since that’s been working out so well, 1500DP per section. While the 4th floor will be Glacial steppe for 3000DP a section (pretty close to the environment found in the [beginner’s ice magic] monster lair), 13,500 making the total 42,500DP.” It was more common in monster lairs for the entire floor to be of the same environment, only changing between floors or sometimes not at all. Frost’s current set up was an oddity brought on by the desire to try different approaches while having minimal amounts of DP. Now however he had vast reserves and a solid future building scheme.

His first goal was to generate 5 fully outfitted floors that would make for the ideal hunting grounds for adventuring parties below C-rank since they make up for the vast majority of his food source. It wasn’t practical to outfit his dungeon for anything stronger at the moment. When the dungeon and territory becomes more populated and can attract a worthy amount of higher ranked adventurers he’d move to outfit more perilous floors. Arming them not only with C-rank monsters but also 2 star or even 3 star environments.

“Alright that leaves me with 54,500DP, time for some fixed assets. Another iron mine room for the 4th floor will do nicely, can never have too much iron. Let’s also make a glacial mine 2 star level, should provide some diversity in our future smithing.” Of course, with such materials it’d be near impossible to make anything higher that 2 star quality but that’s exactly what the majority of adventurers under C-rank use. Making it the ideal choice in terms of profit gains. Besides even if he splurged to purchase a duram or frigid iron mine he’d have no way to forge the stuff with his current monsters.

“3000 for two small rooms, 8500 for a 50kg iron mine and 12,500 for a 50kg 2 star glacial mine, another 24,000 into the pot.” Frost’s lips couldn’t help but twitch as he added the mines to his cart, leaving him with less than a third of his original 100k. Thinking logically about doing something wasn’t quite the same as actually doing the thing, his heart bled a little with each addition and it wasn’t over yet.