This was simply the best—watching everyone scramble to adjust to the new achievements and goals. Overall, I was disappointed. Way too many went chasing the new and shiny things. But I guess we will see how they do in the long run.

  This time, the challenges were more in line with how you can change the environment around you instead of what you and your people could produce.

  Watching everything happen while continuing to expand my next floor, building, and doing everything else felt like the old days. Finally, after the war, I started to feel like myself again. I really didn’t like having to wage war. It truly takes so much away, but now, hopefully, the future will be like this for as long as I can manage it.

  Time, as it always did, continued to march forward. With the next breakthrough, I increased my dampening skill to A-rank. Now it was time to start working on the 82nd floor.

  While I was in my advancement, a lot of things happened. Fortunately, a lot of people started to figure out the trap they were falling into, and some managed to miss-step it entirely.

  The ants fell for it the hardest. They started great projects, transforming their surroundings into something that would fit their needs better. Unfortunately, most of the time, they went overboard, spending way too many resources and too much time on grand projects that barely helped.

  Some were smarter than others, and some projects truly had grandeur and function. Unfortunately for them, the legacy portion of the challenges was going to come a bit later on.

  Others were doing better. The Runner Guild figured things out pretty fast, and I was pretty certain there was no way they were going to lose their first place.

  It's kind of funny to me that they only realized this now, but if they had wanted to, they could have taken part in the civilization leaderboard, and they would have been near the top. Unfortunately, they didn't think big enough this time.

  I remember that meeting fondly—the way one of my creatures, who was a part of the Runner Guild, arbitrarily asked me during a meeting while they were discussing this very topic. I decided to answer him directly. When the others understood what had happened and what I had said, it was perfect. They were utterly perfect.

  Now, I’m thinking I need to make some special coins to celebrate this competition because using those expressions on regular coins that go into circulation would be a crime.

  Speaking of coins, overall, my economists are worried about too many coins entering circulation and then losing a lot of their value. Unfortunately, that seems to be very true. Some of it was helped by the taxes in the five trade hubs, but that was just for land—I didn’t take a percentage of anything sold or exchanged there.

  Many ideas were floated about, and some of them I implemented immediately. While the upper floors' coin drops remained roughly the same, the deeper you went, the fewer coins you would get. The value lost during a kill was made up by increasing the overall value of the other drops.

  The other big change that is going to take a bit of time to properly work out is going to be a shop. Unfortunately, selling anything useful was going to ruin the economy, but what I could sell were things that would make equipment look amazing.

  It seems that every creature and adventurers have the need to look awesome, although function mostly comes before that. So one of my advisors had this idea, and it would not be too hard to implement it.

  Mana crystals with specific enchantments could be made to give many visual effects to any equipment. It could range from different types of glows to even lightning bolts that seemed to be inside the equipment.

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  Now, I wasn’t entirely sure if this would work, but what other options did I have? And of course, I priced them extremely high—so much so that if people bought them, it would get a lot of coins out of circulation. There might even come a time in the future when I won’t have to make new coins.

  That kinda made me feel a bit sad. Well, screw that—I can still make them, I just won’t put them into circulation. I could even make an awesome vault. It would be really big and filled with coins. I believe adventurers really like those types of places, and I think their desires are starting to rub off on me a bit because that kind of room does sound awesome.

  Eventually, it was time, so I released the new leaderboard. Many fell into the trap of expecting to need to do everything in the month, but there were exceptions—some that surprised me completely.

  The Runners' Guild was still in first place. The Knights and Rafe switched positions; otherwise, things remained quite the same, as basically everyone made the same mistakes. Although some did fall quite a lot more, but they already weren’t in the top 10. Overall, it was a good showing, and more importantly, I saw many learning from their lessons.

  The ants fell from their first place, dropping all the way down to third. The kobolds were now in first place. They did it kind of by accident, but they were still one of the first to actually figure out how to do things.

  At first, it was their stubbornness—they refused to stop doing the things they were already doing and liked doing. But then they realized that even though the points kept coming in at a slightly slower rate, the tasks they were already performing helped accomplish this new phase. And well, they were simply brilliant.

  Second place now belonged to the orcs. They had quite a similar journey to the kobolds, figuring things out fast enough to matter a lot. Dropping to fourth were the Five Spires. It took them a while longer to figure it out, but they managed.

  In this leaderboard, there was a lot more shuffling, and right now, none of the adventurer civilizations were in the top 10—not even the dwarves. It seems like this has been a wake-up call for them, and I hope they figure it out.

  Now it was time to start the new phase. Once again, there was no mention of a time frame, but this time there was only one task: to make something to defend against a threat greater than them.

  Let’s see how they will do. And the best thing? This phase would only last for a week. After that, the point gain would drop off by 70%. The second phase will only give 30% less once we are in the third.

  Sometimes, you didn’t need to rush things too much. Other times—well, you really did.

  Some were taking more time than others after a day had passed in the new phase, while others understood the nature of this challenge. My attention, however, was taken away from here to my entrance when I sensed someone I hadn’t seen for quite a while.

  It was the Assassin Guild Master, but to my knowledge, he had disbanded his guild. It took me a moment, but I found the people who were with him. They had tried to blend in as best as they could into the small town inside the entrance, but some were better at it than others.

  What was curious was that he seemed to have people with him who were diamond rank, but a lot of them were lower-ranked, with some who hadn’t awakened at all. They were still quite young, so that made sense.

  "I see I have your attention. Could I please have a meeting?" he said under his breath, and then he touched his bag, and I saw what was in it.

  One of the gateways opened up without anyone doing anything, and this master was good enough to understand what that meant. He gave some hand signals before he walked in, finding himself in one of the rooms of the prison.

  This would make it impossible for him to escape. I kinda felt bad for the wardens, as I had let go of some of the diamond ranks we caught, and now they only had a few prisoners. Although some new ones had been caught causing trouble inside the dungeon, they weren’t as strong, so the wardens weren’t as happy.

  "Prison? Did not expect that."

  I opened up the portal again and made a communication crystal drop. He caught it before it fell to the ground.

  "I will open up the gateway once again. Please throw that canister into it. Know that you are not a prisoner, but I would rather not have this small pattern released into the world."

  He seemed to think about it but eventually acquiesced and threw it in. The gateway took it to a lava river, and I watched it be completely consumed.

  "I thank you for this service, and I assume you have some request of me, former master of the Assassin’s Guild."

  Before he could speak, I asked him a question. "You do know that they already made a new Assassin’s Guild?"

  That put him off his game for a moment.

  “Yes, I am aware they can do with it whatever they want. I assume you know that I came here with others?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was wondering if I have received enough goodwill to be able to get a hideout for my people. I believe that’s what you call places no one else can enter, though we could still enter the dungeon from there and delve it?”

  “I do not much approve of assassins. They have their place, but in my opinion, they end the potential of too many people too soon. Why would I want an assassin guild of your caliber inside my dungeon?”

  “Because I’m done with that business. I think I would much prefer to be called, in the future, a clan—like many others here. And from what I understand, spycraft is more appreciated as a service here. That’s where I truly got started, after my stint as a thief in my younger days.”

  “You will not get a big hideout, but I’m sure you will manage to figure things out fast enough and get yourself better accommodations soon enough. As for the competition, I’m afraid you cannot enter, as it’s too late. But if spycraft is what you’re after, you might be able to set yourself up for a great future. Good luck.”

  And with that, I made a gateway open up underneath him, dropping him into his new hideout. It was one of the worst ones—no nature, just grey stone—but it would be big enough for what he wanted.

  I’m sure with the resources he’s going to get during this competition, he’ll get himself a nice hideout soon enough. It was troubling that he had the small pattern, but I was glad that he seemed to be the reasonable kind of powerful.