Dungeon Annihilation 22

Morning everyone! June is already almost half over! Time sure if flying. 

Regan

I pulled Set away from Greed and we left the mining floor. I would have to limit her power in some way in the future. I couldn’t have her enchanting the others of the dungeon. It also made me worry about when I made the Lust floor. I could tell Greed’s enchanting was more of a side-affect. Lust would be fully on purpose.

“We need to make you immune to enchanting auras,” I said after we reached the dungeon core.

“I’m okay, master. It was only a momentary lapse in control,” Set said though she did look ashamed of her actions. I wasn’t going to scold her given that Greed had done just about exactly what I wanted her to do. 

“I’m talking about in general. If I can do it so can others. I can’t have the one other being that has even a remote amount of access to my core be easily compromised. This is more for my safety than yours.” 

“I understand. How are you going to make it happen? I can’t be change once I’ve been created. I’m much like a boss in that aspect.” 

“We need to work on the production floor. The mine has only been operating for a few days and I’ve already brought in several tons of iron and gold. I need to get some people working on it.”

The problem with that is none of the sins suited, well, hard work. I definitely didn’t want to use sloth. Nothing would get done. If controlled correctly, I could use Envy. It would be a stretch but given my ability to influence the mind as the creatures were being summoned then I should be able to make it work. 

First things first, I moved to the sixteenth floor. I wanted to create the workshops first then base the creatures on it. Quite a bit of the place would be automated. Even with my usage of electronics being nearly zero right now, I could substitute it with magic. 

On the floor I created an industrial city similar to the Gothic city. Warehouses, factories and smelteries took up the nearly hundred kilometers of space I had to work with. I had only managed to fill a small corner of the collective floor given my mana supply. I set the environmental spell that came with me being a dungeon to create the floor as I gained more mana.

“I never realized how much mana it would take to fill a hundred-kilometer radius with stuff,” I mumbled as I looked over the slowly growing floor. I’d barely gotten just over ten kilometers worth of buildings and there were close to a thousand to work with. I got a small headache as I thought about creating creatures that could work and function here.

“It is a large space. But traditional dungeons have even more space to work with if they form their dungeons correctly. I think what you’ve done in the three months we’ve been here is already amazing, master,” Set said. 

I had to agree with her. If I had used adventurers as my only source of mana and only when they came into the dungeon, I would likely still be working on the first couple floors. The trickle of mana from the cultivating I had tried was only worth it if I had no other choices to work with. 

I moved into one of the factories. A small teleport matrix that would transfer material from the mining floor here was set up at the end of a conveyor belt. Robotic arms with a variety of tools would work the material from the ore to the metal then send it to various other factories to be manufactured into whatever was needed.

It was the industrial revolution in a nutshell. I pulled some hematite ore from the storage and feed into the system to make sure there weren’t any kinks I needed to work out. This particular factory was turning a few hundred pounds of ore into a significantly less amount of metal ingots. 

A few minutes later, I had my first batch of molten iron. A mechanical arm scooped off the slag from the top. Once it was dropped next to the basin, the dungeon would reabsorb it. Since it had been transformed, I got a slight amount of mana but nothing that I could write home about.

From what I could understand the law of equivalent exchange, or E=mc2, was slightly bent in this universe. Either mana occupied a higher plane, or there were some more underlying rules I wasn’t sure about without more information. Minor experiment with metallurgy done, the molten iron was poured into some molds.

While they cooled, I created my avatar. I wanted to play with the metal to make sure I had gotten it right. In a few minutes, I possessed my first manufactured iron ingot of the dungeon. I squeezed it to test the strength of both my avatar and the ingot and was surprised that it was almost like putty in my hands.

“That seems rather weak, master,” Set said poking it with her tiny finger.

“A little bit,” I replied with a chuckle. 

I scratched my head then remembered that iron was relatively unimpressive. I needed steel. Making some alterations to the factory, I added the extra chemical to the mix by bringing some coal from the mining floors. Those Rakshasas were interesting. They could ignite parts of their body to have the fire element for a few minutes.

We worked, well, I worked while Set watched in the factories for a few hours. I was working on gold when I got fed up. Metallurgy was not completed in a day and certainly not by one person. I needed an army of worker on this floor experimenting and testing with this stuff. 

I mentally pulled up my list of creatures I could summon. The basic monsters were still there but all the modified ones were on the list now as well. I was glad the dungeon memorized their patterns without me having to actively do anything. I still made sure to copy their mana structure and the spell patterns into my book for safe keeping.

That Rakshasa were a relatively good choice for working this floor. They were intelligent and given what I did with Greed, were able to be manipulated quite a bit. The automata would be a decent choice as well. I was confident in my own ability to make sure they were loyal this time. Still, something about using them felt like I would be cheating. I was on new game plus. It was boring to do things the same way as last time.

There were the Hunters. They were quite intelligent as well. I felt I could push them more towards being mechanics and smiths. I just worried about the force I felt affecting their aura during their creation. If something suddenly managed to take control of them it would be a disaster.

I decided to put a pause on the decision for now. I looked around and found Raven sparring with some Hunter on the Gothic City floor. Moving over to her, I watched to see how good she actually was. She had been a slave after all. I doubted she had any true combat training before she was thrown into the dungeon to die as disposal goods. 

Raven faced down a Hunter with both blades out. The Hunter she faced wielded a large two-handed poleax. At some sort of signal only the two could perceive, they charged at each other. The Hunter struck first bringing his poleax around in a horizontal sweep.

Raven reacted by leaping forward into the air over the attack. She brought her foot down on the Hunter’s hand. The Hunter didn’t react with pain and brought up his fist into Raven’s stomach. Raven was thrown into the air, with a spray of spit.

She gritted her teeth through the pain and brought down her left sword stabbing the forearm of the Hunter while airborne. With a strangely flexible motion, the Hunter brought up his foot in a swift action and kicked Raven back several meters. She rolled on her side several times before she got up to her feet as the last of her momentum was expended.

The Hunter pulled the sword from his arm and tossed it to the side. He grabbed his poleax with a roar and charged at Raven. She was on her feet but was still reeling from the kick she received. She barely managed to bring her sword up to meet the poleax. The weapons dug into her arm and she was thrown several meters again. This time she didn’t get back up.

“Hunter stand down,” I said as I saw the Hunter was moving to finish the job. The Hunter saluted and moved to stand to the side.

I walked over to Raven to see how bad off she was. She’d just about taken the full blade of the poleax, but the back of her own blade. Kneeling next to her, I found her wounds leaked shadow rather than blood. 

“Master… I apologize… you had to… see that,” Raven gasped out in between bouts of pain.

“It was a learning experience. Tell me, why aren’t you using your mana and shadow magic?” I asked. 

When she’d first joined the dungeon, I thought her mana had changed to shadow due to the magic but Set told me that wasn’t possible. It was incredible hard to change mana types and only the really powerful individuals in the world had even a remote idea how to do that. Raven naturally had shadow mana and should have some basic control over the element.

Raven continued to lay prone on the ground. The blow must have been heavier than I thought. She seemed to recover a bit as she sat up. “I was never… taught how to use… my natural given gifts.” 

“That is a shame. A bit more and you’d be in tier two. I believe it is hard to break through on physical prowess alone,” I replied shaking my head. I would need to create an area that allowed my minions to train more completely. It wouldn’t do to waste mana on creating them just for them to fall to such simple tactics.

“I will endeavor to… better myself.” She forced her, what I imagine was very bruised body into a bow. I nodded and transferred some mana to her. I found it helped my dungeon creatures heal faster. Only five or ten seconds passed before she hopped to her feet. “Thank you, master. Did you need me for something?”

“Yes. I wanted to head into town for a few hours. Just see how things are going. It is always a good idea to keep an eye on your neighbors after all.”

Raven dusted herself off. There was still a relatively large gash in the leather covering her arm, but a quick wave of my hand fixed that. I was really growing to love being a dungeon core. I could literally bend reality at my fingertips. 

“Master, do you intend to go out like that?” Set asked drawing me from my thoughts.

I looked down and found myself in my shadow form. With a chuckle, I quickly shifted my outward form until it was that of the ebony dragonkin. I supposed as an elemental type as Set informed me that my main form took. I could take a wide range of outward appearances without changing the insides. If someone were to stab me right now my body would just phase around the blade.

“Thanks. Wouldn’t want to scare the children… or the church for that matter.”

“Yes. The church is very strongly engraved in my inherited memories. Lelune despises the dark mana and even more so the unholy mana.”

“Yes. I saw her the other day. I got curious and absorbed a few priests’ mana.”

The party had suffered quite a few injuries but decided to heal in the tower. As stated, I got curious investigated them more closely when I thought about the fact gods and goddess could be real here. I found a link or tube that fed off past my perception. When I attempted to absorb some of it, I got pulled along for a ride.

When it finally stopped there was a woman wreathed in white light sitting on a throne. My first thought was that she was bitch. I don’t know where it came from considering she was a beauty that had likely tempted men to betray their country in the past. NOWHERE near Destruction’s level of course. 

It looked like I wasn’t the first to visit her in the way that I did. She looked directly at me and gave me one of those ‘I’m better than you’ grins. I added her directly to my must fuck over list right then. After that I was thrown from her little domain or realm that she ruled from. Had a terrible headache for several hours afterward.

“That is dangerous. It is not wise to upset the goddess,” Set said with a shake of her head after I finished explaining what took place.

“Well… She started it,” I said with a shrug.

“You saw the Goddess?” Raven chimed in having collected her sword. I saw the one that took the poleax had a nasty crack running through it.

“Yes. Nothing much to write home about. Hand me your swords,” I said holding my hand out. She did so without hesitation. I melted them just out of spite then pulled two Damascus steel blades that I hadn’t deemed a failure from the factory. It was a popular choice for some shows about forging back in the day. 

By adding some plant matter to the forging process, you can get natural nanotubes to form. Of course, just watching the show didn’t make me an expert. These would probably fail if a proper blacksmith took a look at them. But compared to most of the weapons coming through my doors. This would fetch a pretty penny.

“Thank you master!” Raven exclaimed giving the two swords a quick workout. I noticed something interesting then. Whether it was due to being made in a dungeon or due to something else, I didn’t know but Raven’s mana started to flow through the structure of the blade. 

“Try to cut this.” I created an iron breastplate and set it in front of us. “Don’t worry if the blade breaks,” I added.

Raven nodded then took a stance. With a rapid motion, the blade tore through the breastplate like it wasn’t even there. To add onto that, as she completed her swing, a wave of shadows erupted from her blade and washed over the nearby wall of the street. A nice gash also formed in that.

“It feels amazing!” She gazed at the edge with sparkling eyes. I could her running Ivan through with the weapon running through her mind. She realized what she was doing and quickly put the weapon into the sheaths on her back before clearing her throat. “Master.”

“I’m glad you like it. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it sees plenty of action in the future.”

With Raven rearmed and Set dressed in her fake body, we made our way out onto town. It was late in the day, but the sun hadn’t set quite yet. There appeared to be a festival or something going on in the town. Ale was flowing freely.

“Well. This looks like fun!”