Thomas was just as eager as Elias to start digging through the loot, but sadly, he knew better than to follow through on that.

  Instead, he turned his focus to repopulating the dungeon, replacing everything he’d used up so far and additionally relocating the various aquatic critters from the panacea challenge to the entrance room, where he also muddied up the normally crystal-clear water to make them harder to spot.

  Even if the next wave came immediately and had twice the numbers of the first one, he’d likely still win.

  But he doubted that would happen. Because someone having access to enough D-Rankers to effectively throw eight of them away had already been astronomically unlikely. The chances of anyone being able to repeat, let alone top, the whole affair? That was functionally impossible.

  But that wasn’t where his obligations ended. The British soldier who’d survived the initial ambush had recovered thanks to a healing potion Thomas had provided and was getting a little testy. Being unranked and surrounded by creatures with explicit orders not to hurt him, there wasn’t much danger of things going badly, but leaving the man to rage “alone” just seemed cruel.

  Using a monkey for an avatar, Thomas announced his presence in what used to be the Natural History Museum’s cafe.

  “The invasion is over, they’re all dead. The last one killed himself, but I think it was an attempt at a last stand, not a suicide.”

  “What about my men?” the soldier rasped. The potion had to have fixed him entirely, but there was likely some blood inside his lungs, making him sound like that, or it was a purely psychological issue.

  Either way, he sounded rough.

  “I’m sorry,” Thomas answered. There was likely some better way to reply, something less blunt to say, but he couldn’t think of it. Hell, he’d barely managed to reply with a flat “they’re all dead.” He’d barely known them, he’d never actually interacted with them, and … and the distance he was feeling to “unknown” humans was larger than ever.

  Or perhaps, he was only now truly realizing it, his act of “almost-cruelty” clashing horrifically with how he’d been raised, with the social mores whose hold on him was only intellectual, something he no longer felt, only remembering that he had cared, once.

  “I’ve also sent for help, reinforcements should be here soon and they’ll take you home, Mr. …”

  “Lieutenant,” the soldier corrected with a tired sigh. “Lieutenant James Alexander.”

  Right. Thomas should probably put some time into learning to read rank insignia. The fact that the nametag had been rendered unreadable by the man’s blood wasn’t his fault, but failing to consider the rank was a mistake.

  “Well, Lieutenant Alexander, please wait in this room, I’ve got some cleanup to do and I can’t do that with someone who isn’t a part of the dungeon marching around.”

  Thomas paused for a second, then added “I’ll make sure someone’s there for you as soon as possible.”

  And with that, he withdrew his attention from the cafe and the entire area that surrounded it, which he couldn’t directly affect due to Alexander’s presence, instead focussing on the things currently littering the bottom of the entrance hall’s pool. Namely, all the stuff his spider monkeys had stolen.

  It was mostly random stuff, bandages, spare magazines and the bullets within, a few more handguns, stuff like that. Unranked, non-magical gear that he could have likely bought from the Brits if he’d been so inclined.

  Not useless per se, but considering what else he had, chances were he’d simply wind up using these as decoration.

  Soon enough, he was mostly just paying attention to the removed stuff pro forma, out of a likely unfounded fear that he’d miss something.

  … what happened next would almost certainly result in an obsession with double- and triple-checking every single scrap of loot he gathered from now until the heat death of the universe.

  “Elias, what are elemental crystals?” Thomas asked, using the designation offered by the System.

  “The key to figuring out which particular crystal system they were using,” the fairy smugly replied, earning himself a “glare” from Thomas.

  “Okay, okay, I’m kidding. I mean, I did figure it out, but what matters right now is how useful those are going to be. Basically, they’re crystals with some kind of elemental energy sealed inside them. Some are naturally occurring, but I’m guessing the ones you found match the elements of our invading elementalists?”

  “They were supposed to be healing packs?” Thomas suggested.

  “Exactly,” Elias replied. “But do you remember what I told you when I explained how to rank up your creatures?”

  “You told me to let them fight and grow in power until they reach the threshold for an upgrade, then make a power for … I can use those to make elemental monsters, can’t I?”

  “Yep,” Elias nodded vigorously, the motion slightly unbalancing his flight. “If you just make one power of ‘whatever-kinesis,’ something that combines creation and control, it won’t be as strong, but it’ll only take up one slot. I’d say make a combination power for anything that needs to be generated, but earth, air, anything that you can assume will be present on all battlefields, you only really need the control part for that.”

  “Now the only question is: how do I coerce whoever sent these assholes to make me crystals for all elements,” Thomas replied with a grin.

  Loot done, he moved on to the next part of his post-fight “checklist.” Namely, playing mad scientist, creating new monstrosities to “entertain” his delvers. Or rather, entertain himself as he watched those who dared enter his domain struggle against his beasts.

  The first creature type to be upgraded was his spider monkeys, which was sadly boring.

  Their first power was the ability to “steal via teleportation,” which they’d used to great effect here.

  The second was their point-blank telekinesis which they could use both defensively and offensively, deflecting attacks as long as they were weak enough and accelerating thrown projectiles.

  And now, their third one would be a variant of the kinetic energy manipulation he’d gained from the elemental gems. He called it “Kinetic Boost” and as for what it let the little critters do, it was simple. Anything they threw, they could tac extra momentum onto at any point before they came to a rest, either tripling in speed at the drop of a hat if the boost was applied along the vector of motion, or … or it could easily redirect a projectile by applying it slightly off to the side.

  Projectiles that could suddenly hit much harder at the drop of a hat, throw off a defender’s timing by suddenly increasing in speed, and even adjust to any movements a target might make.

  These things were almost too strong, certainly beyond what he could reasonably use in the challenge run for the B-ranked healing potion, which was why he’d be sticking with the E-Rank monkey variant for a bit longer.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Give the delvers a couple more chances at the normal difficulty, let them appreciate the sheer power of what he was offering, then put it behind defenses that matched its value, instead of now.

  And then, well, it’d either act as a huge draw for new delvers, or he’d be able to trade a lot of stuff for it.

  The second monster to be upgraded was the camarasaurus, which had earned Thomas his first invader kill almost entirely by accident.

  Once again, the power would be boring, but powerful. Very powerful. They were large enough to be strong and durable without any powers related to that, and those aspects would only grow as they rose through the ranks.

  What their base form had lacked, on the other hand, was an effective offensive tool. Their tails had been powerful, but using them would have required them to face a foe ass-forward and blindly flail.

  Ergo, the first power he’d given them had been an elastic limb power for their tail that allowed them to attack virtually anywhere in the same room as them, and the second power had simply stacked on top of that. He’d called that one Muscular Chain and it allowed them to effectively use their strength even when the tail was twisted into a pretzel or an even more absurd shape.

  And now, the third one would, in essence, give the tail a mind of its own, “turning it into a serpent,” based on Thomas’ boa constrictor pattern, allowing the dinosaur to better control it while it was in motion, and squeeze the life out of anything wrapped up in it.

  Basic, boring, and utterly lethal.

  In combination, all three powers would allow the dino to strike, coil around, and squash anything within a good fifty meters of its body, or haul a target out of formation to feed to its smaller companions.

  Smaller companions like the velociraptors who were up next, and for them, he had something interesting.

  The combination of draconic physiology and the power to selectively ignore gravity as they leaped made the raptors fast, durable, living flamethrowers capable of devastation that made piranhas look like tame lapdogs by comparison.

  Topping that off was a power that massively enhanced their ability to work together, with every bite weakening an enemy’s defenses against an attack from a creature that had the same power, allowing them to rapidly erode even a tank’s defenses and tear them to pieces, resulting in exactly what the power’s name announced its purpose was.

  A bloodbath.

  Which just left him with one final upgrade. His beloved tigers of the saber-toothed persuasion.

  Not Cheshire, sadly, she was already at D-Rank and wouldn’t be able to move up for a while yet, but her lesser cousins were still deserving of some love.

  While his boss-tiger was focused on swift and decisive strikes that made use of her lethal claws, the small ones were entirely based around their fangs.

  His original plan for them had been some kind of speed power, perhaps a copy of Cheshire’s Blur, or maybe camouflage, but a new option had opened up for him.

  Magic.

  Not magic in the sense of all the supernatural crap he did on a daily, hourly … every-damn-second-of-his-existence basis, but in the way mages warped the very fabric of reality to suit their whims.

  It wasn’t entirely clear as to why the invaders had brought along air-enchanted crystals, it wasn’t like there wasn’t plenty of air around for their air elementalist to absorb to heal himself (assuming he didn’t panic and blow himself up), but he was glad they had.

  Because he was going to abuse the hell out of how flexible powers could be made.

  Thomas didn’t just give the cats completely open-ended air elementalism, they would hardly have been able to get full use out of that. No, he gave them a version that could only do two things, yet do them at a level no aerokinetic at their rank could match.

  The first application was a simple movement buff, instead of being able to use superspeed in bursts like Cheshire, the tigers would have a constant wind at their back that would constantly accelerate them in a straight line, making their ambushes take massively less time.

  And the second gave them a breath attack of sorts. It let them generate air in their lungs and blast them out through their mouth, carrying with it all the endlessly regenerating teeth that turned into envenomated shrapnel the moment they left the cat’s body.

  Obviously, the attack would hardly compare to the lethality of biting down on an enemy and striking the inside of their body, being carried directly into the heart and lungs, but it would still be a nasty ranged attack. Now even if they didn’t manage to reach their target, they’d still be able to hose them down with toxic shrapnel.

  Thomas grinned. Or, at the very least, felt like he’d have grinned, had he still had his body. A nasty surprise for the next person to dive this deep.

  With those things done, he returned his attention to the monkey currently making his way through the jungle outside.

  Jan was almost out, and looking presentable despite how long he’d been heading through such a dangerous area. His fur was clean, his pouch was intact, and his hat was still on his head.

  As for all the summoning tokens he’d had to use to get this far … they didn’t talk about the tokens.

  Sadly, temporary summoning tokens were utterly useless inside the dungeon that generated them, as when summoned by a dungeon monster, they’d be subject to the same restrictions as the regular monsters, and would count against his command limit to boot.

  But for ripping apart the jungle’s critters? For that, they were perfect, if a little time-intensive. After Alaxia’s death, it was as though most monsters had lost all fear of the outside and been roaming all over the place. Nothing a D-Rank without combat power could handle alone, but also nothing that could kill the monkey before he could react and throw one of Thomas’ most powerful monsters at them.

  Nothing lasted long, but the sheer number of monsters that felt like they could take Thomas’ ambassador did plenty to delay him nevertheless.

  He sighed.

  At least it gave him some more time to prepare the “evidence,” re-creating the corpses of the invaders from the patterns he’d gained via the cleanup routine, laying them out one by one inside black plastic bags, then piling up exact replicas of their gear at the bottom of their feet, hoping that would be enough to track their origins in the right hands.

  He’d have taken advantage of Jan’s Item Transfer power to send pictures outside the jungle, but sadly, he still didn’t have a camera. Today, he’d insist.

  Then, he went through the same process with the soldiers who’d been murdered by the invaders and been absorbed by the automatic cleanup of the dungeon, though they were laid out respectfully, in their uniforms, which had been repaired as needed, under white sheets.

  And perhaps he’d do something for the families too. Nothing that had happened here was his fault, and he was unlikely to catch the blame, but he still felt like it was appropriate, especially considering how cheap many of the “miracles” he could make were to him.

  Potions for their family, should they be needed, delivered at that time so they weren’t stolen? That sounded right.

  And then, only then, he decided to put on his detective hat and look into the invaders.

  “So, what did you figure out about the crystal system?” Thomas asked Elias, startling the fairy in the process.

  “Ahem … right. Basically, if it weren’t for the merge, I’d have assumed they were natives of Kristalia. It’s a pretty open-ended system, they can choose a power at the start of every rank, everyone has access to the same pool no matter what they picked before or what they achieved since. And there’s a separate pool for every rank.

  “It’s cool because you can mix and match without having to travel between universes to access other systems. But you also don’t have any way to stand out from the masses, and you’re always going to be average compared even to other systems, let alone wizards or cultivators.”

  “And I’m guessing Kristalia looks like a world where everything’s made of crystal?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes?” Elias answered, sounding slightly confused as to why the question was being asked.

  “I need to check something …” Thomas trailed off.

  He had a full list of known transformed zones, including descriptions, locations, and known powers. But it didn’t make sense, it didn’t square with the other information he was privy to.

  Either of the two nations whom these people had gotten their powers from had an infamous reputation for doing shady shit, yes. But only one of them was likely to attack an “asset” of the United Kingdom without first leaning on the existing relationship and alliances that had stood for centuries, the likes of which the United States had.

  Because those elemental powers definitely came from the perpetual winter wonderland that had taken over the American midwest, but why on God’s green Earth would they have not just asked? Hell, Thomas’ contract with the Brits had clauses that required them to give foreigners access to the dungeon too, as well as trade, with very few restrictions.

  The US had nothing to gain from this, unless something had gone very wrong behind the scenes.

  But what really cut through the simmering rage at the attack that still burned at the center of his core was the confusion.

  Because yes, he knew exactly where the part of Kristalia had merged with the Earth, and why its current owners would want to come after him.

  Yet in what bloody world would the United States be willing to work together with Russia of all places?

  It made zero sense, none of it.

  Someone had sent these people, but the usual suspects either didn’t have easy access to the right magic, or, you know, there was no way they’d do things the way they’d actually played out.