Jacob watched the timer till the next wave slowly ticked down. He realized that he would have had much more time if he didn’t wait around like a moron for that stupid bear to weaken. He sighed again, this time the burn from the damage to the dungeon core flared in his soul to remind him of the consequences.
The first wave only had basic animals in its roster, trying to overcome his dungeon with numbers. The next wave will have a much more powerful beast, powerful enough for him to need a different strategy. Spike pits of stone didn’t do much to a monster with earth magic after all.
In the third and fourth waves the true magic beasts would appear and wreak havoc, then on the fifth attack he would only have to deal with a single entity: the boss that commanded these creatures to attack.
That was for him to think about later. From his experience, the biggest problem that the second wave can bring are creatures with earth magic that allows for them to tunnel through his obstacles. These sorts of threats were the reason why he needed to get his bear quickly, though a normal animal like that would struggle against any form of magic.
The layout of his dungeon was still the most important. Instead of relying on spikes though, this time he needed to rely on gravity to deal damage as spikes were too easy to damage. Before the first wave he didn’t have enough time to create multiple floors, now he didn’t have a choice.
In Dungeon Realm there was a difference between floors and layers. A layer was akin to a district in a dungeon, while floors were the different layers within a layer. For example, one layer could be a lava level while the next one could be based around ice, but two floors within a lava layer would only be about lava.
In the game, creating multiple floors was a hassle due to its UI. When he created the cliff, he discovered that creating different elevations here was still hard, though because of different reasons. Instead of having to try and connect the different maps of the floors together, the geometry of the 3D projections on the map required him to keep moving everything around.
Ultimately though, there was no other way for him to gain an edge. He had only enough time left to create two floors and try to create a complex three-dimensional maze to confuse and break any intruders. Having to jump down a cliff, evade spike traps, climb up a shaft, fall down another, all just to get to the dungeon core; there was little chance for any animals to persevere without strategy.
He created a few outlines to try and imagine what the dungeon could be. This required a modified thought process from the game. He decided to create the path to the dungeon core first, then add all the branching paths and traps after.
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
To be safe, he created four drops that he hoped would be enough to shatter bones of even defensive magic beasts. At the bottom of each drop he placed spike traps that he hoped would kill a few before they get destroyed.
An important part of his strategy were claustrophobic tunnels. Magic beasts tended to be large creatures, meaning that small birds wouldn’t be as big of a problem as before. He wondered if causing the tunnels to become smaller would be beneficial. Cramped tunnels could cause the magic beasts to attack each other, similar to how animals were trampled in the previous wave.
He finished with the outline of the path from the entrance to the dungeon core, and then he created outlines for all the deviant paths. He made sure to make all the other paths as attractive as possible, so that the creatures would choose in the incorrect spacious tunnel instead of the correct small, twisting one.
The dungeon was still ugly, and it pained him. When he was bored waiting for the bear to weaken, he imagined how he wanted this top layer to become. It was cliche, but he really liked caves as a starting layer. However, caves weren’t the best.
While it wasn’t important now, adventurers would become the very core of the game. Making his dungeon as ‘attractive’ as possible was necessary. A cave typically didn’t attract attention in the same way a carved stone staircase did or stone bricks. He decided to compromise, this layer would be an abandoned mine shaft, have some cave features and the little human touches.
He shook his head and returned his thoughts back to the present. He had finished the main outlines for the dungeon and the fairy was busy transforming everything. With the new influx of soul points, he needed to mutate the bear now.
He looked at the 68 soul points in his account and decided it was better to heal the bear. He said, “[Heal],” and spent 15 soul points to heal a quarter of the bear's health. That gave back its ability to walk and move without too much pain.
“[Mutate].” Through mutation, he could change any aspect of a creature, such as increasing the length of their limbs to giving them magic properties, and these changes would be passed onto their descendants. The bigger or more powerful the change though, the bigger the cost.
Now that he had enthralled the bear, there was more information on it. His eyes fell on the characteristic [Reinforced Skeleton], which was revealed to only be minor. There was a type of magic called [Reinforcement] that improved defense and attack, which paired well with its stronger bones.
That magic was cheaper than most and had among the best utility-per-price. That didn’t make it cheap though, it cost 36 soul points to mutate into the bear. Money was meant to be spent though. He also spent another 15 soul points to give it the characteristic [Thick Skin: Minor], leaving him only 2 soul points left.
The bear fell to the ground as its bodily structure was slowly altered to gain these new abilities. Jacob left it and floated to the entrance to the dungeon. He could monitor and change the dungeon from anywhere, but there was something that he wanted to look at.
He reached the entrance to the dungeon and looked out. In between the dungeon and the Overworld was a distorting membrane like the film of a water bubble. Through it he saw the world outside.
There were animals, but none of them acted like animals. They all just sat there and watched the dungeon. He almost believed that they were watching him.
