Chapter 997: New design (2)

Chapter 997: Chapter 997: New design (2)

"We can start off with weakish monster villages like E-rank or D-rank frost dwarves and frost trolls, having their chieftain and or upper ranks being C-rank or peak Ds, even if they’re weaker individually the sheer number and the defensive position of their villages will deter the slaughtering path thus reducing our replacement costs on these floors." Frost’s vision for his Dungeon was starting to come to fruition.

"They’ll still want to kill something, most of their pay comes from scavenged materials after all." Maya had doused her drunkenness and donned the hat of a Guardian, looking through Frost’s plans with knowledgeable eyes.

"I know, that’s why I’ll have a divide on this floor, pitting intelligent humanoid monsters like my dwarves, trolls, yuki-onnas and ronsos against bestial monsters like the coeurls, drakes and spiders. They’ll be tasked to hunt certain bestial monsters by the villages so as to accrue favour and once enough favour has been gathered they’ll receive a token allowing them to proceed to the next stage. I might even grant these tokens certain powers on lower floors like warning signals and buffs against the environments or certain traps." The monsters were just one part of his Dungeon, the rooms themselves, their layout, environments and traps also played a big part in what made the Dungeon a Dungeon.

"That sounds like a really good idea Frost, but I think it’ll be a while before you’ll get to see the results." The deepest any adventuring party had gone so far was the 12th floor, still 3 monster packed floors from where Frost wanted to start this new development scheme.

"Maybe, maybe not."

"What do you mean maybe not?" None of the current residents had the means to delve much deeper than the current 12th floor.

"We can just move our monsters around, I’ll use a chunk of the money to buy more floors and move everything down a few levels, leaving the first ten floors primarily for beginners, i.e. D-rank monsters at the very worst." Doing so would certainly promote a faster descent but if they didn’t have the development in place in time it could open up the Dungeon core for a possible attack.

Maya couldn’t help but worry about that, the core was Frost’s lifeblood after all, and a regular monster lair of a similar size was alluring enough to those seeking strength let alone something as complex as a Dungeon core.

"We don’t have the DP to facilitate something as big as that in such a short time frame, why don’t you slow down a little. Our DP should increase by a large amount as the civil war looms closer, why not wait until after." Frost seemed a bit rushed but that’s to be expected he did just come up with a great idea after all.

"You’re right, a little north of 200,000 won’t cut it but what if I supplement that with I don’t know another 100 or 200,000." Add on maybe a weeks’ worth of daily income and they could reach the half mil mark.

"Where in Nova are you gonna get that kind of DP?" There was the gold coins sitting in the Dungeon vault but even that wouldn’t be enough to generate 200,000 DP.

An evil smile suddenly donned Frost’s lips causing a shiver to run down Maya’s spine.

"Oh that’s easy, I plan to devour a couple monster lairs while this war lingers in the air, distracting those who’d normally keep a close eye on such things."

".....What? you want to e...eat a monster lair?" The words made sense on their own but as a sentence she couldn’t process the meaning.

"Yep, you know when you suggested I speak with the old man about choosing whether or not to absorb certain DP."

"Yes I do remember mentioning that." It was immediately after she suffered from his uncontrollable beast mode, Frost made sure to take extra gentle care of her when it came to their nightly activities after that incident.

"Well he agreed to add that function to our cores, now my siblings and I can pick and choose what DP to absorb, we can even save some of it for a later period but there’s a limit to that both in the quantity we can hold and the time we can store it....let’s just say it’s not a very efficient system but it should prevent such incidents befalling me in the future." His vision won’t go black anymore and he won’t wake up in agony after attacking his lover.

"That’s good news but what does this have to do with you eating a monster lair?"

"Because the conversation drifted into the topic of life energy and subsequently monster lairs which are like a toned down version of us Dungeon cores at least according to the old man. They use life energy to create monsters and expand just like I do so it stands to reason that they’re chock full of the stuff." Frost’s line of thinking was not without merit, nor did his father seem to dissuade such thinking but the coup de grace was a memory he had way back when he first delved into the Glacial mountains.

"Back when I visited the monster lair [Beginner’s ice magic], where I met Sam and Lola I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the lair’s core and do you know what I felt in that moment?"

"What?" She already had an idea but it’s better to play along than to walk all over someone’s enjoyment.

"Hunger, immense almost irresistible hunger. Every fibre of my being was telling me to eat the core floating before me so I could grow in strength. I couldn’t do it back then because I was afraid of the consequences but now that I’m stronger and in need of DP, eating the core of a monster lair should serve me well." Now with the added feature of turning off his DP absorption he could also stop his gorging if it proved to be too much.

"So you want to head back into the external regions, visit [beginner’s ice magic] and eat its core effectively destroying the monster lair’s active functions." No more monsters would spawn but the open space would remain thus allowing another enclave to develop.

"No, that place has too much traffic, the camp outside nearly rivals Niflheim if you take away our wall no I want to start with something a little smaller and a little less impactful on the nearby economy." Eating [beginner’s ice magic] was sure to bring him a heap of trouble, best save that for a later date when he wasn’t quite so feeble.

"What do you have in mind then?" Maya retained little knowledge towards the small and inconsequential things in the area, the curse of being blessed with almost unrivalled strength. Pretty much everything that wasn’t in the heart of the Glacial mountains’ core regions was too weak to catch her regular interest.

Frost as if expecting this question pulled out a highly detailed map from his storage ring.

"There’s a couple I have my eye on, first is this one in the theta sector referred to as simply the [Polar bear den] a small three floor monster lair with nothing but polar bears ranging from low E-rank cubs to toughened hide peak D-rank variants." The place had a minor following, but nothing compared to [Beginner’s ice magic] that sported a well-established camp.

"And the second." The first option was good, small enough and with weak enough monsters for it to be a breeze to take down the only issue was its placement.

The theta sector was quite the trek and given the problems in the external regions right now it’d be unwise to venture too deep.

"It’s not in the Glacial mountains but roughly 300 kilometres to the east in another part of the Northrend forest. Its size is similar to that of [Polar bear den] but it’s grade is slightly lower, closer to E rank rather than D." There was however a small problem with this monster lair when compared to [Polar bear den].

"It’s quite humorously called the [Pork Abattoir], a monster lair that’s prevalent with pig based monsters and thus a solid source of food for the nearby villages, towns and even some cities further south. Though not to the same degree as [Beginner’s ice magic] there is a solid camp in place there thus making entering and exiting without making noise a little difficult." Frost didn’t know how his devouring of the monster lair’s core would go down but there would certainly be a commotion of some kind. At least with [Polar bear den] he wouldn’t have to worry about being interrupted or having to somehow flee through an enforced barricade, the place just wasn’t popular enough nor was there much demand to hunt inside given the current climate. The [Pork Abattoir] however was a strong source of food for the surrounding area and therefore always active.

"[Pork Abattoir] no question." Maya only had to think over the two options for a couple seconds before giving her two coppers.

"Why that one?"