New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 138 Changes

Soon, the small party arrived at the crashing site. The once dense and lush forest completely disappeared, replaced by a large burnt clearing. At the center of the open space was a large fuming crater.

Five curiously took a step toward the crater. He could see the debris of the meteor scattered around the clearing. They were dark and shiny shards and emitted a faint aura. Intrigued, Five grabbed the small piece at his feet and immediately, an information window appeared.

[Helyum]

Crafting Material

'An unknown crafting material... I suppose my knowledge of crafting is too shallow to find a use.'

Similarly, the Shamans picked up the black shards and inspected them. They all wore confused expressions. Five smiled to himself. At least, he was not the only one clueless about the use of Helyum.

'Anyway. The meteor should have attracted the attention of enough people. That was my main goal.'

"Five. I think you should stay away from the Meteor itself. I feel an energy coming from it. It should be harmful to your body as you are too weak right now," said Harriet.

"My level is too low? Then can you go there to have a look then?" asked Five. As he took a few steps forward, he indeed noticed his HP decrease by 1 and retreated back to safety.

At his side, the Shamans were unaffected by the radiations of the meteor. However, after just a few steps, Lovin came to a halt as he felt the harmful energy. Similarly, after covering a few more meters, the elders were also unwilling to continue forward.

Five could not see the elders' level but he knew from Harriet's behavior that she was the strongest of the group by far. The Harpy Queen opened her wings and flew above the crater at a reasonable distance. She then gently flew down and disappeared in the crater.

A few moments later, Harriet flew out, carrying a plain white egg. She swiftly landed next to Five and handed him the egg. "The meteor was split in two. There was this egg in the middle. I think it would be useful to the dungeon."

Under the stares of the Shamans, Five hesitantly took the egg. It looked like a regular chicken egg but oversized.

[Nerubian Egg]

Hatching condition: Unknown

'What a pleasant surprise. It looks like the system placed a small safety net to deal with the randomness of the Cube of Resourcefulness. Even if the meteor crashed onto my dungeon, I would have received some form of compensation in the form this egg. Well, it is definitely worth the 350000 DP paid by that guy.'

...

In the distance, Dreidus was riding a Bonemare, leading the undead army and the beasts back to the dungeon. They were in high spirits. They have won the battle. They lost a few undead monsters and beasts but the majority of the losses were the skeletons. Most of the high-level monsters were still alive; their swarm tactics had been very effective.

Aside from the undead and the beasts, seven gnomes were also riding the Bonemares. They were the prisoners of war but a few hours earlier, Dreidus felt the connection being built between them and the dungeon core.

They were all only level 10 and their profession was still Grade 0. It was clear that they had just been summoned which is the reason why they were not completely loyal to their previous dungeon master. When they were in danger, they defected to the winning side to survive.

Dreidus was constantly monitoring the surroundings. He had long detected the presence of several scouts in the distance thanks to the Wraiths. He was not worried that they would be traced back. On the contrary, this is what Five wanted. As long as they were not attacked, there was no need to take any actions.

At the pace they were going, it would take two more hours before they reach the dungeon. Although he was eager to go back to see Lyra, Dreidus did not press the Undead monsters. They could not get tired but the beasts could and were already showing signs of fatigue.

As Dreidus was peeking through the eyes of the Wraiths with [Dead Mind], the sky suddenly got brighter. He stared at the giant ball of fire in the sky. He was not alarmed at first and only considered it to be a beautiful scene but as the Meteor got closer to the ground, Dreidus soon realized that its crashing site would be very close to the dungeon!

"Beast Kings. It's time to pick up the pace!"

...

At the Tolden Encampment, Iron Shark and his friends were checking their inventory one last time before going to sleep. On the next day, they would leave the town and go for a round of trades with the different barbarian tribes.

Having done several successful transactions, Iron Shark's status soared in Blue Lagoon and now, a total of 100 elite players were allocated to his team. The weakest one was level 22.

"Check the new Caravans well. Bring in as many varieties as you can. We don't know what those barbarians will want this time." Iron commanded his men to load the caravans. Not only did his team grow bigger, but he also used part of his profit to purchase five caravans that had 300 inventory slots each. One caravan could carry as much as ten players. The most important part was that he could bring a wider range of products.

However, his success did not only bring him good things. Two new members who joined his team were actually the son and daughter of an elder of the guild. While the daughter was fine, the elder's son was full of himself and would often order people around, causing a lot of discord.

"We brought in a lot of exotic fruits, herbs, metal ores, and dyes. Is that really what the barbarians want?" asked one of the players.

"Yes. They already obtained enough food from our previous trades. The Black Iron Tribe asked for more crafting material this time. Don't worry. Even if the trade fails, those materials are precious and should be easily sold to the player base here."

Suddenly, two players barged into the warehouse. "Iron Shark. We have just witnessed a meteor crashing right in the middle of the barbarians territory."

"What? A meteor? What is it? Could it be an event? Explain properly," asked Iron Shark with a puzzled expression.

"We don't know but we did not receive any notifications and there is no announcement. We were on the city wall when it happened and the guards made quite a commotion. If I am not wrong, the Baron should try making an expedition to inquire about the meteor but due to their treaty with the barbarians, they are not allowed to go on their territory. Maybe it is an opportunity for a quest. What do you think?"

...

While several parties were alarmed by the sudden appearance of the meteor, Five lived carefreely in his dungeon. Two days have passed since he activated the Cube of Resourcefulness and a lot of changes took place in his dungeon.

With the sudden increase in visitors, his profits skyrocketed from about 70000 DP to 300000 DP daily. With the massive expansion of the dungeon, 300 barbarians were barely enough to fully exploit the resources of the first 6 floors.

As he received a large influx of DP, Five immediately put his plan in action. He started by shaping the existing floors of his dungeon into a hexagonal shape. In the large room at the end of the first floor, there were now four staircases instead of one. The original one still led to the labyrinth but the new ones led to completely new areas.

There were six monster attributes, namely: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, and Darkness. And there were six sides to the hexagon. Five started by building other hexagonal rooms attached to the existing hexagonal dungeon. There were now seven separate hexagonal rooms. Since he already started with a dungeon dedicated to Undead Monsters, Five decided that the central hexagon would exclusively house the dark attribute monsters. Similarly, each hexagon would house monsters of specific attributes.

As for the last hexagon, Five would not allow adventurers to access it. It would serve as a back room, for the transport of food and resources.

Developing all the different attributes at the same time would be extremely costly. As a result, Five was now focusing on using the resources he already had in hand.

The 2nd-floor level where the labyrinth was located now had three additional rooms which could be accessed from the labyrinth or from the previous large room on the first floor.

One room consisted of a giant 5m deep pond. Aside from the algae, several low-level aquatic animals could be seen swimming in the clear water. There were level 1 Gold Fishes, Level 2 Anchovies, Level 2 Sardines, and level 3 Salmons. They were all extremely cheap monsters as they had no fighting power.

The barbarians had already discovered this area and quite a few started to learn to fish. The Salmons were a great source of food that the barbarians previously did not have access to. They were quite fond of the fish.

The second room was an underground forest. Aside from trees, a few cheaps plants could be seen everywhere such as mushrooms and berries. The animals roaming through the forest were mostly herbivores: Level 2 rabbits, Level 1 Squirrels, and level 3 raccoons with the exception of the level 3 Fox.

This room was very similar to the forest outside the dungeon. However, it had the advantage of not being affected by the weather. Even as winter was coming close, the number of animals in the forest would not decrease. The room was very attractive to the children who just started to learn to hunt.

The third and final room was a mountainous area. There were a few bushes, trees and shrubs but the area was mostly full of rocks. The animals living there included the Level 2 Lizards, Level 3 Alpine Snakes and the level 4 Mountain Goats.

When the barbarians discovered this room, they did not immediately attack the fat Mountain Goats. Instead, the barbarians took care of them and even started to feed them wheat and look after them. The reason was simple, they were a great source of milk!

Five had several discussions with the Shamans and in the end, they expressed the desire to start rearing a few animals. They wanted him to summon the animals for them but Five had a better idea. Why did they not rear the animals in the dungeon itself? It would mean more barbarians in the dungeon!

Five did not know what kind of rubbish the Shamans told the barbarians but it seemed that they were really considering the dungeon as a safe place to gather resource; they were even starting to raise cattle.

Chapter end