New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 4 The first lesson

He made a short pause, caressing his white beard and then continued : "You can stop me at anytime if you have questions, but first listen to what I have to say."

"The task of correctly managing dungeons and surviving in this world can be really hard sometimes, this is why alliances were created, we..."

'Crap, another speech about alliances again... Please stop...' thought Five, avoiding the look of Kroff. Having been betrayed in his past, the last thing Five wanted was to join any associations, besides, he felt like he just could not completely trust Kroff.

...

"And so I would like to formally extend an invitation to you for joining the Cyclone Alliance. Of course you don't need to accept it right now, you first need to create your dungeon to be able to join, but just keep that in mind."

"Now for the actual lesson, look ! This is my dungeon, of course, I cannot show you all my secrets, but I am revealing to you the first 10 floors. Have a look " said Kroff, he agitated his hand and the sphere in his hand flashed before projecting an hologram in front of him.

'Since you really seem to have something against alliances, then don't blame me ! Let me see how much you can learn without proper guidance.' said Kroff in his heart as he continued to observe Five. Kroff clearly saw that Five once again got nervous and avoided him when he mentioned the Cyclone Alliance.

Five was surprised to see that scene, he did not expect an hologram to suddenly appear in front of him, but quickly got himself together. The hologram in front of him was transparent, just like the one he could see in real life. Just by moving his hands, the hologram zoomed at the particular floor he pointed at.

All the floors had the same geography, they were basically caves, with tunnels linking large rooms. The different floors were connected via stairs, there were typically 2 stairs going up and 2 going down on each floor. The only difference between the floors, was the creatures and the rewards. Of course, some NPC adventurers were also present on the floors and were highlighted in red.

As for the dungeon's monsters, they were labelled in blue. On the lowest floor, the only creatures present were slimes; Five could see that there were different colours of slimes and their levels varied from 1 to 6.

On the next two floors, Five saw Mine Rats, ranging from level 6 to level 8. The differences between the 2 floors were the levels of the Mine Rats and their population density, there were about twice as many Mine Rats on the third floor.

On the 4th and 5th floor were Giant Ants, both floors had high population but the 5th floor also housed a boss, the Giant Ant Queen which was level 9.

...

...

And finally, on the tenth floor were goblins who were all level 15-16. The floor actually housed a goblin village, but it was unreachable for the adventurers, there was a sort of layer surrounding the village, such that adventurers would not be able to see through it or pass through it.

Five took some time to analyse all the floors, he was very meticulous, looking at the stats of each monster, their positioning and taking note of every detail. The dungeon did not consist only of monsters, there were also some secret tunnels and rooms containing treasures or monsters, but in general, it was a generic dungeon.

After 10 minutes of silence, Kroff coughed to attract his attention. "So what do you think ? These are just the first 10 floors but they follow the same principle than the higher ones."

"It is very interesting, I have several questions though ! Why is it that only one species of monster is found on each floor ?"

Kroff nodded and dully answered, "That is not an absolute necessity, some dungeons do accommodate 2 or 3 species per floor, it is my own decision to only have one per floor."

"About these secret rooms and treasures, how frequent do adventurers found them ?" asked Five

"Again, it is at your own discretion, I vary the frequency, they are there just to attract more adventurers, you can add other things too," replied Kroff

"Then how much DP does the adventurers provide ?"

"It depends on their levels, the stronger they are, the more DP they generate."

"Then what about the cost of these floors ? How much did it cost to make them ?"

"It will not be helpful for you to compare with me since you will be starting from scratch, but my floors did take at least more than 5000 DP each to make ."

Five just mentally took note of the answers but was inwardly annoyed, 'What is it with these answers ? They are all so vague... Can't he give me more details ? It looks like he is avoiding the answers.' thought Five in his heart.

But he did not show it, he continued to ask questions that he wanted to clarify but only received vague answers every time.

"Alright... I think that I have a pretty good idea of the arrangements of floors." finally said Five.

"That's good, but just looking at the dungeon via the core is not always good. The best way to understand is to actually see by yourself, Harriet !"

"Yes ! " Harriet who disappeared as soon as she brought Five to Kroff, suddenly reappeared out of nowhere.

"You will be his guide for today, please show him around the dungeon a bit, but only for the lower ten floors," said Kroff, before agitating his hand, changing the view of the dungeon core.

"Yes, master !" answered Harriet before smiling at Five and telling him to follow her.

Five immediately felt relieved, he had a bad feeling whenever Kroff looked at him, he felt as if he was completely seen through. Harriet however was more approachable, she constantly smiled and made him feel at ease.

"So, did you learn anything interesting ?" asked Harriet.

"I did learn some stuff, could have obtained more information but it's still good as it is." answered Five.

He was not actually lying, just by looking at the dungeon, he could already think of his own dungeon. Through the questions, Five learned that the monsters usually had a low cost, the real expenses came from the food they consumed. These needed to be bought with DP, and though they were also cheap, large amounts were required for that number of monsters.

The other thing he noticed was that the monsters did not respawn, when they died, they would never come back, another monster needed to be purchased to replace the dead one.

From what he could observe, these were the 2 biggest expenses Five could found and he already started thinking of ways to avoid them. This was the basics of good management : Planning.

...

"So, which floor do you want to visit first ? Or are you hungry ? Do you want to the kitchen ?" asked Harriet, somehow, Five felt that he was a kid being taken care of by his mother.

"I am fine, let's check out the 1st floor for now, I will visit them in order, but what about the adventurers ? Won't they be alarmed to see us ?" replied Five.

"Don't worry about that, we look just like humans right now, they won't suspect our identity" replied Harriet while smiling.

She then guided Five through a series of tunnels and stairs. Along the way, they met several monsters of various species, some of which, Five did not even recognise.

They were all very respectful towards Harriet, it was clear that she held a very high position in this dungeon. Towards Five, they just made a simple greeting but he did not mind it.

Eventually, the two reached something that looked like a platform. Harriet did not say anything and hopped onto it.

Five hesitantly approached the platform, "What is that ? An elevator ?" asked him

"Huh ? What is an elevator ? This is a teleportation platform, there are more than 50 floors in the dungeon, unless you want to go down all the stairs, this is the fastest way to travel in the dungeon." answered Harriet while moving her hand, opening an interface.

Five looked at her and stepped onto the platform.

"Good, be careful since it is your first time, you might feel some unease but I am sure you'll be fine," said Harriet as she pressed the interface.

Immediately, the two vanished from the platform.

Chapter end