Pov Dungeon Core

  Once again, I re-established control over my dungeon. I was now 77 floors deep and could start working on the 78th. I managed to get my Aura Crystal skill to rank A. Pretty sure it was quite close to S, but unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get it this time. With this, I should be able to start making environments even better suited for higher ranks.

  Speaking of higher ranks, Rafe seems to be finding it incredibly hard to progress. He basically seems to be stuck. I think it’s because I’m fully upkeeping him. He isn't receiving any help from the planet in terms of mana nourishment, and there’s only so much that I can give. He would need to wait until I ranked up.

  There were still things to do to finish up the Diamond World. I opened up the dungeon rooms, but there honestly was no need, as the best of the best had only cleared one floor, and now they even had five extra. It will take them a while to catch up. With that, I started to expand the 78th floor and the new five dungeon room floors.

  I was happy to see that more and more of my creatures were interacting with the dungeon rooms, and I decided to make the change so that everyone could now get access to the first floor and start their adventure journey. Every world also got access to a few special hub stations. There were already trade centers, but I wanted to make something more comprehensive.

  There were now five new hub stations that could be accessed by everyone. No matter what floor you were on or what world you were in, you could come here. There were also stricter rules, which the Quest Necklace made clear.

  There were, of course, a lot more gateways, which meant there could be a lot more traffic here, and many of the gateways were bigger than normal—also designed in a way that allowed wagons to more easily traverse them.

  I could have just made one, but I wanted to make five different kinds with different aesthetics. One of them was even in a desert around an oasis. It seems like I really missed making stuff, as I put way too much time into perfecting these trade hub stations.

  The regular hub stations, the ones that currently work as the centers of trade, were a bit too small and had too few gateways. They were already starting to develop waiting lines as so many were using those gateways.

  In the end, these were designed to be big milestones of your advancement in the dungeon rooms and not a place where everyone should be able to go whenever they wanted to. I couldn’t restrict their movement right now, but a warning did appear on everyone's quest necklaces that the free travel through a lot of hub stations would end in six months—except for those five.

  This would also help eliminate dungeon rooms as a target for empires of the other worlds. Some were trying to be sneaky, but I really wanted the dungeon rooms to be for adventurers and not a place where empires would start throwing their weight around. Of course, that would be impossible and not desirable to stop completely, but they have their own worlds to play in. I really don’t want to see world-on-world conquest.

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  It took another two weeks before we got the news. The Pixies had surrendered as a whole, at least the ones that had survived. So I guess that threat is over.

  We still had many spies, and my advisors recommended not pulling them back from the United Powers. While they couldn't be a threat to us any longer, many expressed their enjoyment of spycraft, so who was I to stop them? It would also give us insight into what the United Powers were planning.

  I was quite happy. Once again, it seemed like I could do things the way I wanted to do them and observe what I wanted to observe. Even if I couldn’t take a break from making new floors, this all still felt so much better than the war.

  What I was also really glad about was that the world didn’t get destroyed. Already, I was getting new and interesting adventurers, and the entrance area was starting to develop into a proper town.

  It had taken me quite a while, but eventually, I deemed the diamond world to be ready. Already the five trade hubs were being built up, with people using the quest system to gain pieces of land where they were allowed to build. It had its own requirements—some areas were for warehouses, some had to be residential, and some were mixed. A few places required a minimum of ten floors, and so on.

  There were a lot of diamond ranks in these trade hubs, so it was good to see them all look at their quest necklaces as I sent them a new notification. In the notification, I explained about the new world—its dangers and opportunities. Those especially excited were underground and aerial creatures, as they would have a lot of new real estate.

  I wouldn’t say there was a rush towards the gateway, but certainly, plenty of them stopped what they were doing immediately and headed towards their nearest gateway. In just a few moments, the first few diamond ranks set their feet in the new world. They took a deep breath, almost all of them taking in the new world smell that was ready to be explored and conquered.

  Most certainly, they were going to have a good time. And of course, I was going to be able to witness the battles and struggles that would follow—battles that would forge them into even better versions of themselves.

  Every diamond rank was urged to take up the call and join the new world. Of course, there were mainly peaceful people who liked to keep to themselves, and I kinda liked the fact that others couldn’t get too comfortable or arrogant—because who knows where a diamond rank was hidden amongst the general population.

  The clans that have diamond ranks were a bit more hesitant in joining, but that’s because they had other things going on. They already had their own outposts in other worlds, and they understood correctly that no one under diamond rank should go there, even if they could. At least not right now

  It was quite hectic for a few days, especially as there were only about 20 gateways into this world, and the areas around them got quite busy. Of course, some immediately rushed as far away as possible, but that wasn’t actually the majority. Plans were made, and talks began about actual towns being started to create safe zones that were truly safe, so some of them could bring their families or their tribes there.

  While there were quite a lot of nasties in this world, they were quite far away from the gateways, and by the time their children grew into proper creatures, there should be a lot more diamond ranks, and their defenses should be quite good.

  I had a feeling this world was going to be excellent to observe, but I already had so many other ideas for worlds that I wanted to test out—and of course, so many patterns waiting to find their niche.

  I suspect that when I get finished with this trouble of getting past diamond rank, I will have quite a lot of fun. That being said, the scientists in the observation satellite have been identifying more and more diamond ranks and above on this planet.

  Apparently, there are worlds that shine like diamond ranks. But there’s also worlds with a greenish shine like Rafe’s, then there’s yellow, purple, blue, red, and they believe even black. If things go as expected, there are quite a few ranks above what Rafe has. That would also mean there are some really dangerous people out there—or at least monsters. I think I will need to modify my future plans a bit.