New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 46 The first floor

He looked around him and sighed, "I really need to make myself a decent room." Five could not help but compare himself to Kroff; he knew that the latter slowly built his dungeon over time but reaching that level seemed almost impossible.

Five sat down on the bed but immediately, "Crackk"

A loud crack was heard as the bed's legs gave up under the weight.

"Boom!", "F*ck!"

Five loudly coughed as a cloud of dust covered the room.

Lumen and Dreidus could only look at each other while keeping quiet. They both found the scene quite funny as Five was now sitting on the floor in the middle of the remains of the bed, covered with dust.

"Cough cough! Never mind, let's focus on the dungeon for now!"

Five ignored the previous incident and opened the dungeon interface. Now that his dungeon was found, he could control anything happening in it. Like Kroff, he now had an interface on which several options were available.

For now, his dungeon only consisted of the cave which was essentially a long corridor getting wider and wider, and the room he was actually in.

Five was currently at level 9 which meant that his dungeon could have a maximum of 9 floors. The first floor was unlocked for free but each subsequent floor would cost more and more DP. Unlocking the second floor would cost Five 2000 DP which he could afford.

However, Five wanted to take things gradually and focused on what to do with the first floor. He did not want to change the entrance since the children already came there. According to what Five heard, the children found the entrance but did not explore the inside yet. But if the entrance suddenly changed, the children might be suspicious and decide to not take any risk.

As a result, Five chose to leave the entrance untouched. He looked at the map of the floor which was mainly his room and a long tube linking it to the entrance.

"I should first earn some DP from the children. The Barbarians are too strong... Although I can buy harpies, they are quite expensive."

Harpies were the safety net that Five had. According to his interface, Five could summon a normal harpy for 10000 DP. It was expensive but the harpies were level 20 monsters that had the potential to grow! Simply by staying in the dungeon and killing people, their level would increase.

"Let's turn the first floor into something that can attract the Barbarians... As long as the children stay there, it would be fine!"

Five thought for a moment before starting to play with the interface. He first added some branches in the corridor and linking them together. He spent 1000 DP on removing most of the material there, making tunnels big enough for people to walk through. Large persons like the barbarians would probably not be able to walk through at ease but they could crawl through.

Five was not planning on making the first floor a hostile one. What he planned was to make the dungeon look like a mine! This way, the barbarians would have some incentives to spend some time there without killing monsters.

His finger quickly moved, placing a few ores here and there. He allowed a few to appear on the surface but most of them were hidden behind a layer of soil and rock. However, ores were expensive; Five only placed cheap ones like iron which cost 20 DP per units but considering the size of the dungeon, he had to spend about 3000 DP to put enough iron ores to make the dungeon look resourceful.

But that was not all, in addition to the iron ores, Five also put a lot of coal on the first floor! It was just a way to make the place look rich in minerals. Naturally, coal was cheaper than iron and only cost 3 DP per units.

Soon, Five found the first floor to be in a decent state. Right now, it simply looked like a randomly abandoned mine which still contained a decent amount of ores and minerals. Five did not know much about the Barbarians but he knew that they would definitely not be stupid to the point of ignoring resources that close to them.

They might be a tribe relying on hunting to live but they could use the iron to make their weapons and coal to warm their home. It would be a complete waste if they ignored what was readily available to them and instead purchased everything.

"I hope that they are not that stupid. Achi does not look too bad but his brother is definitely a muscle-head!"

Only the room Five was in was left untouched but that was intentional. Five wanted to use it later as a hidden room. For now, Five simply swept through the interface and looked for the option to purchase some monsters.

He purchased 100 fireflies and released them in the dungeon. "Lumen, you are in charge of the fireflies. Let them roam around for now but later, they will have a mission!"

Lumen buzzed and flapped its winged in front of Five as a sign of acknowledgment. Now that the first floor looked acceptable, Five moved through his interface and purchased the second floor.

Kroff's dungeon was a tower type dungeon which meant that the 1st floor was on the ground floor and the second floor was on a higher level; essentially, the floors were growing upwards. But Five went for the other option which meant that his second floor would actually be found deeper into the cave below the first floor.

The reason was simply to keep the dungeon out of sight. If he chose to build a floor upwards, he would without a doubt breach the surface and become visible by all. It was definitely an option to consider in the future, but for now; it was better to be discreet.

2000 DP disappeared as a new floor appeared on Five's interface. The stairs linking the 2 floors together were found right next to the room he was in. Without hesitation, Five walked out of the room with the dungeon core, followed by Lumen and Dreidus.

He quickly walked down the stairs perfectly carved by the system and arrived in a 5X5 room. It was the only room on the second floor which was automatically provided by the system. He now needed to shape the floor.

"Dreidus! You are my strongest monster at the moment. Since you are a necromancer, do you think you have the skills to lead some undeads for me?" asked Five.

"The strongest monster? I can clearly feel that another monster who is even stronger than me is also linked to your dungeon core?" answered Dreidus with a curious expression.

"Ah!" Five was stunned for a moment. "The boss monsters can feel each other?" said Five to himself. For a moment, he thought about Harriet and wondered what happened to her and the other harpies. "Were they safe?"

"Yes, but I gave that monster its freedom! For now, I can only rely on you!" answered Five.

"Then no problem, I have used several undead monsters in the past and even ghost-type monsters. But here, they will clearly be weaker. This environment is not optimal for the undead but they will still be powerful indeed."

"That's good! I was thinking of turning my second floor in a labyrinth. One with skeletons roaming around and possibly some other undeads," explained Five.

Dreidus nodded, "Be at ease, this should be very easy for me to manage. This is a very common defensive measure used at Necro Valley."

"That's perfect then!" Five quickly opened his interface and looked at the map. The children did not arrive yet but the first floor was already ready.

Five quickly used 8000 DP just to remove all the rocks and soil in front of him. A huge cavern similar to the Avian Cavern appeared before him; the only difference was that the height of this one was merely 5m while the Avian Cavern was at least 100m high.

Following that, Five used more DP just to cover the surface of the cavern with a hard material. This was to prevent the barbarians from digging through the walls; in the case of the first floor, this was not relevant since Five precisely wanted the Barbarians to waste time mining but on the second floor, he could not allow them to use shortcuts.

Furthermore, the same material had to be used to make the walls of the labyrinth. Designing the labyrinth was fairly simple. Five simply picked a correct route first and then simply added bogus ones and added branches to the correct one that would only lead to dead ends.

Five quickly drew lines on his interface which indicated the positions of the walls of the labyrinth. As soon as he would finish, the labyrinth would immediately take place. The rule was that as long as no players or NPCs were on the particular floor or at a higher one, the changes would take place instantaneously. But if some enemies were present on the floor or higher ones, then he would have to wait for the night cycle in order to make changes.

It was that particular rule that discouraged people from going to dungeons at night. In that case, the dungeon masters could simply make abrupt changes which could prove to be deadly to the adventurers.

While Five was making his plan, in the corner of his eyes, he finally noticed some silhouettes appear at the entrance of the dungeon. The dungeon core was projecting the real-time image of what was happening at the entrance while Five was doing his work.

Five calmly smiled, "the children are finally there!"

Chapter end