The Crafter's Darkness: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 4) by Jonathan Brooks (e book reading free txt) 📕

the Golem, Goblin, Beast, and Slime-Classification Cores nearby, which was a great relief.  She would have to investigate them aboveground with some Shears later to see if there were any surprises, but for the moment she was happy enough to see that she extended that far.

Another quick look around the forests and the dungeons showed nothing out of the ordinary, and she found the Shieldmen camped inside of their village with a few Steelclad Ape Warriors and Mechanical Dire Wolves standing sentry.  The rest of the constructs were still hunting additional dungeon monsters, though from what Sandra could see, the number of them was rapidly decreasing.  That told her that the two Cores had accumulated enough Mana to upgrade again, as nothing else seemed to be coming out of their dungeon entrances.

What’s worrying you, Winxa?  Everything looks fine here on my part.

“What’s worrying me?  Oh, only that instead of taking a little bit over a day to upgrade, you finished in 10 hours!”

What?  I thought it seemed short, but I thought it was due to all the thinking I was doing.  10 hours?  Are you sure?

“Yes, I’m sure – or at least near there, anyway.  How did you do that?”

I…have no idea.  I wish I knew, honestly.

It was a mystery, and if the Dungeon Fairy – the one being in the entire world that might have those kinds of answers – didn’t know, then there wasn’t really anything else she could do.  Well, other than to thank the Creator for shortening her upgrade, for whatever reason it might have been done.  As her father had been fond of saying, “Don’t try to pay for something freely given,” which was exactly what she was going to do.

 Regardless of the actual reason, the fact of the matter was that she was done much faster than she had planned, so she knew she had to let all of the Dwarves know she was back from her isolation – as soon as they woke up, of course.  In the meantime, she had noticed that not only had her Maximum Mana and Raw Materials increased – which was something she had been needing for a while – but she had also acquired another construct option.

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost: (45% Reduction)

Clockwork Tarantula

14

Reinforced Animated Shears

28

Hyper Automaton

55

Dividing Rolling Force

69

Lengthy Segmented Millipede

275

Iron-banded Articulated Clockwork Golem

413

Roaring Blademaster

825

Large Armored Sentinel

1100

Mechanical Jaguar Queen

2200

Mechanical Dire Wolf

2750

Martial Totem

4400

Automated Sharp-bladed Digger

5500

Multi-access Repair Drone

8800

Steelclad Ape Warrior

13200

Titanium Anaconda

17600

Steel-plated Behemoth

22000

Mobile Fortification

27500

Gravitational Devastation Sphere*

15000

Advancement Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost: (45% Reduction)

Goblin Foreman

44

Radiant Pegasus

5500

Rising Phoenix

8250

Unstable Shapeshifter

8800

Celestial Authority

9900

Animated Slab

13750

Aerie Roc

19250

Sandra saw the addition of something called a Mobile Fortification, though it was too expensive in terms of Mana to check it out quite yet.  She wondered what it would’ve been before she advanced her Classification via the Advancement Options; the only thing she could think of was that it might have been a Stationary Fortification instead of a Mobile one.  It didn’t really explain what it was, but for the original 50,000 Mana price tag (which was significantly reduced down to 27,500 due to her Advancements) she was sure it was impressive.  If she were doing her calculations right based on the historical increases in her Maximum Mana after every upgrade, she was confident she would be able to afford it soon.

There was always the possibility that she could purchase another Advancement that would reduce the cost even more, but after checking on her available Advancement Points, she found that – even after bonding 43 more Elves – she was only at a total of 65 AP.  Not that she thought that was the best idea anyway, as there were much better things that she might spend those points on; the 120 AP that would be required to up the Mana Cost reduction to 60% would be better utilized elsewhere.

She held off on using any of her Advancement Points until she needed something, as that had worked fairly well for her in the past in an emergency.  Instead, she concentrated on starting some of the things she had planned while she had been isolated during her upgrade.  First and foremost, she checked on the progress of her Hyper Automatons looting the collapsed Undead-Classification dungeon; thankfully, despite a lot more for them to search through compared to the Reptile-Classification, her little constructs were just minutes from finishing up with the tasks she had given them.

In some of the upper rooms of the collapsed dungeon were some scattered Monster Seeds of various lower-grade metals, which she ignored for the moment; it would cost more in terms of Mana to acquire them than she would gain in benefit, and the new Core that was quickly expanding far enough to plunder the Undead Core’s former location would only get a small benefit from searching through and absorbing them all.  Therefore, as soon as they finished, she tasked a few of the Automatons with carrying back the more valuable Seeds to her treasury – including the shards of the destroyed black-colored Core – while she started on a tiny tunnel towards the northwest.  She was planning on hitting the destroyed Avian-Classification dungeon first, and then the Unicorn one based on the Seeds she saw inside.

However, it was when she was absently observing the placement of Monster Seeds and the Undead Core shards in her treasury that she discovered something she couldn’t explain.

Winxa, did anyone come in and take some of the Reptile-Classification Dungeon Core shards while I was undergoing the upgrade?  I’d say that about half of them are missing.

“Uh, no – no one even approached the entrance of your Home room and I