The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (literature books to read TXT) 📕

was now 20, she could hold up to 200 units of Raw Material, and her Ambient Mana Absorption was now .02/hour – which still wasn’t very impressive, but she had other means of gathering Mana at least.

Not only that, but her Constructs and Seeds options looked…odd.  The notification screen earlier said something about new constructs and seeds available, but it wasn’t exactly reflected in the totals.  Pulling up her Constructs menu first, she discovered what the issue was.

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost:

Clockwork Spider

5

Small Animated Shears

10

Tiny Automaton

20 (Seed Unavailable)

So, while she had the ability to theoretically create another dungeon monster – a Tiny Automaton this time – she didn’t have the seed available for it.  Which made sense, because if she remembered correctly, the Tiny Copper Orb could only hold a maximum of 10 Mana, whereas her new construct needed twice that.

Monster Seed Origination

Name:

Raw Material Cost:

Mana Cost:

Min. Mana:

Max. Mana:

Tiny Copper Orb

50

5

5

10

Locked Seeds:

Unlock Requirements:

Mana Cost to Unlock:

Min. Mana:

Max. Mana:

Small Copper Orb

2 Tiny Copper Orbs

10

5

25

She was glad that she hadn’t made another Clockwork Spider earlier from the Tiny Copper Orb that Winxa had helped her with, because it appeared as though she was going to need not only that one, but a second one in order to “unlock” the ability to make a Small Copper Orb.  She assumed that, since “small” was probably larger than “tiny”, that the new monster seed was going to be large enough to make her Tiny Automaton.

The Dungeon Fairy had been absolutely right – digging and expansion was rather boring.  Sandra didn’t care overly much, however, because at least she had something to do rather than floating as an unbodied mind in a vast void of nothingness.  Almost anything beat that.

She ate away at the cave walls and even expanded the ceiling upwards, which was a unique experience.  When she absorbed the material from above, Sandra could feel her vision shift slightly as her Core adjusted itself so that she was constantly in the vertical center of her cavern.  Fortunately, it was automatic, so she didn’t have to do it herself; nevertheless, the shock of suddenly moving made her pause in her “meal”.

Once she knew what had happened – with a quick look from her Spider monster – she calmed down and continued expanding her cozy little home.  Eventually, after expanding her cave to nearly twice its size after her Core upgrade, her construct was able roam farther and funnel the ambient Mana that it hadn’t been able to reach before.  That Mana, combined with her natural nearby absorption and the Mana she was gaining from her conversion of Raw Material, allowed her to gain enough not only to make a second Tiny Copper Orb, but enough to unlock the Small one as well.  She had already made the other Tiny seed and it had appeared right next to the one she had created before, so without further ado, she activated the unlock process by selecting it from the Monster Seed Origination screen.

New Monster Seed unlocked!

Small Copper Orb

Origination Raw Material Cost: 100

Origination Mana Cost: 10

Monster Min. Mana: 5

Monster Max. Mana: 25

Invisible Mana flowed out from her Core just like it had when creating the previous orbs, but this time when it touched the two Tiny Orbs on the floor of her cave, she could see the energy turn the same copper color as the seeds.  That same copper-colored Mana grabbed onto both orbs and forced them together in a minor explosion of blinding light; when the light (and her vision) cleared, Sandra could see only one orb remaining – a much larger Small Copper Orb.

Now that she had “unlocked” it, she smiled inwardly to see that it was now available on her Monster Seed Origination menu – for 100 RM and 10 Mana like the notification screen had said earlier. Thankfully, the unlocking process left the new orb behind to be used, since she wanted to test it out.  When she checked her Constructs Creation Options menu again, she saw that the Tiny Automaton now had the necessary seed available to create it.

Which is exactly what she ended up doing.  While she had to accumulate enough mana that she hit her capacity and could theoretically upgrade her Core Size again, Sandra wasn’t eager to be shoved back into a void of nothingness again.  She figured she had plenty of time to do that later and that spreading out those experiences was a good way to maintain her sanity.

Therefore, after her Spider funneled more ambient Mana to her and she ate away at her expanding cave to convert the Raw Materials into even more Mana, she finally had enough to bring forth a Tiny Automaton.  The Mana shot out of her Core like before, though it was certainly more than she was used to, and the same foggy cloud coalesced around the Small Copper Orb on the ground.  Within seconds, it had condensed into a tall pillar that matched the size of Winxa; a few moments after that, the cloud contracted even further, forming the shape of a…human?

On a second look, once the process was complete, she re-evaluated her first impression.  While it had the general shape of a human – with a head, two arms, and two legs – it was a completely featureless amalgamation of mechanical metal parts that could’ve been a representation of any race.  There was a metal skin-like shell covering its head, upper torso, and lower waist, but that was about the extent of coverage; everything else was open and she could see an array of different metal parts that comprised its extremities.

Unlike the Clockwork Spider, however, it wasn’t operated by gears and the like; in fact, she couldn’t see any obvious way it was powered