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

know.  Your Constructs Classification is a new one for me, and I have no idea if your monsters will be able to do the crafting you want.  By nature, constructs are artificial recreations of things in the natural world; they are stronger in some respects, and weaker in others.  For instance, your Golem…where is it, by the way?”

It got melted by the heat of the forge.

“Uh, ok…anyway, your former Golem was probably ten times physically stronger and tougher than most creatures of the same size, but it also couldn’t move very fast and had the finger dexterity of a rock.  There is always a trade-off when it comes to Dungeon Monsters, and even though you have a unique assortment of constructs, they have their weaknesses like any other Classification.

“For your last question, I cannot answer that, as it would likely be considered as giving advice.  Only you can choose whether you’d like to switch your Classification or not; however, I can tell you that, based upon what it requires from you to sacrifice to affect a change, if you do decide to do it, the earlier you do it, the better.  If you decide to change later, you’ll end up being vulnerable for longer.”

It was some good information, but Sandra didn’t think it really helped her to make a final decision.  She knew that crafting was the way she wanted to go in the future, but whether her Classification would ever become suited for it was a worry.  Thinking about it for the next few hours while her third room was nearing completion – which progressed faster when she devoted all of her attention to it – she decided to wait until she had increased her Core Size one more time.

Sandra wasn’t sure if seeing what she unlocked would help, but she wasn’t in a huge hurry; if it didn’t look like it would work out, she would switch to something else.  She just hoped it didn’t cost her too much.

When the third room finally finished up, she completely sealed it off with stone and informed Winxa that she was going to upgrade again.  With another set of her constructs inside the newest room, she was accumulating even more Mana – though it wasn’t quite as much as she expected it to increase.

The Dungeon Fairy had an easy answer for that.  “As your Dungeon Monsters range farther from your Core, the ambient Mana they transfer is lessened by distance.  It’s not a large amount while it’s inside your dungeon, but once your monsters start roaming aboveground, you’ll see it decrease even further.  That’s why Cores tend to protect their dungeons with deadly traps and monsters, because it’s their main source of the abundant resource.  However, there will eventually be a finite amount of ambient Mana that an entire dungeon can provide, which is why roaming ‘ambient Mana collectors’ in the form of monsters are so important.  Though they don’t accumulate the same amount of concentrated Mana like your dungeon, they can reach much farther and can make up for the decrease by an extended range.”

Ok, that makes sense.  Alright, are you ready to keep me company?

“Sure, go ahead.”

Sandra’s Mana was already full again by that time, so she activated the upgrade to her Core Size.  Her awareness shrunk down until it only encompassed a small section of her Home room, and Winxa plopped herself down on the top of her Core like the last time.

For the next 24 hours, the Dungeon Fairy regaled her with even more stories about her fellow Fairies.  Sandra ended up ignoring most of it, though, because she was more interested in thinking about her plans for the future.

Chapter 17

Your Core has grown!

Current Size: 7

Mana Capacity increased!

Ambient Mana Absorption increased!

Raw Material Capacity increased!

New Constructs options!

Finally!  Sandra eagerly opened her Core Selection Menu to see what new constructs she had access to.

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost:

Clockwork Spider

5

Small Animated Shears

10

Tiny Automaton

20

Rolling Force

25

Segmented Centipede

100

Articulated Clockwork Golem

150

Singing Blademaster

300

Small Armored Sentinel

400

She already had a single Small Bronze Orb from unlocking it earlier and she didn’t want to wait until her Mana filled up again from her roaming constructs; instead, Sandra absorbed a dozen of the nearly 100 Copper Orbs she still had around her Core.  The Mana and Raw Materials they provided were more than enough to fill up her new capacities of 640 and 3,200, respectively.  She then used those resources to produce another Small Bronze Orb monster seed and created both of her new Dungeon Monsters.

The Singing Blademaster turned out to be a confusing name.  When it was done forming, a two-foot-long metal pole floated a foot off of the ground.  Attached to the pole were twelve sharp, horizontal, curved blades separated along its length by 2 inches and staggered so that they weren’t all on the same side.  The result was something that looked like a deadly, tarnished silver-colored, metal tree hovering in the air.  It appeared fairly dangerous if it were to run into someone, but she thought it would’ve been scarier if the blades had been straight so that it could stab into enemies.  As it was, the effectiveness of the blade “tree” seemed limited and she couldn’t detect any singing—

But then it started spinning.  Really fast.

A high-pitched whine screeched through her Home; the Singing Blademaster was spinning so fast it almost appeared to be all one solid piece, with a pole that had a dozen metal circles attached to it.  Sandra directed it to move around her Home at a very slow pace, and as it tilted its upper section heading away from her Core, she could hear the tone of the whine alter slightly.  Ah…that’s why it’s a “Singing” Blademaster.

“That’s quite impressive.  I would not want to be on the receiving