“What can you tell me about the Dungeon?”
“Well, some go up instead of down. Oh, and older Dungeons have treasure chests in them, but I heard that the one here is only 12 days old; so it is probably too young.” Roxanne answered me, pausing to think, “There are rumours that Dungeons might also be a living creature; while others say that Gods form them directly, for some unknown reason.”
Ohh?
So, the Dungeon lures in Humans, and the Demons living inside it consume the Humans who die inside it--maybe they also absorb Mana from any visitors, even if they are alive.
Then the Demons multiply, which would explain how they spawn instead of breed.
Apparently, even if you dig into the ground near the Dungeon’s entrance, you won’t find anything.
Maybe they’re in a different dimension, or in folded space?
When I asked Roxanne, she just looked at me with a tilted head and a blank expression--I don’t think she would understand if I tried to explain space, dimensions, and things like that.
I wonder if that’s why the floor numbers go up instead of down?
If you make it all the way to the top floor of the Dungeon and defeat the boss--which is either made from crystal, or has a crystal in or on its body for some reason--the Dungeon will be killed.
Exterminating a Dungeon near where their people live, is the lord’s responsibility.
“Also, if you defeat a Dungeon in an unclaimed area--you can become the Lord of that region, master.” Roxanne’s explains enthusiastically.
“Alright, thank you for the explanations.”
“You’re most welcome, master.”
Still embracing Roxanne with one arm, I sit up, leaning back against the wall. She shifts her position, still snuggling against me.
Ever since we had sex in the Dungeon--she has been really affectionate; I’m not complaining though.
I pull a leaf out of my Ring, “Do you happen to know if the only thing you can use a leaf for is making Antidotes?”
“Sorry, master--that’s what I have heard as well, after you sell the leaf to the Adventurer’s Guild, they will distribute them to Alchemists to make into Antidotes.”
I switch out Adventurer with Alchemist, and use Create Potion (Minor). The Leaf floats into the air, surrounded by a green light, before turning into a ball of white liquid. This liquid then flows through the air and into bottles which I had also pulled out of my Ring, in preparation.
“That was impressive, Master.” Roxanne looks up at me with respect.
Yes, I do like to show off my surprises one by one--I find Roxanne’s respect and admiration…feels surprisingly good.
I used the rest of the leaves, and since I already had 20 in my Ring, I put the 60 newly created Antidote Potions into Roxanne’s rucksack.
“Do you know if there are a lot of Demons that use Poisons?”
“From what I have heard, there are quite a few.”
“By the way, where did you hear all of this?”
“Hehehe, well--being a High Priestess, my mother would heal Adventurers; so I would hear a lot of information from them, and from her…” The end of her sentence tapered off, and her lower lip quivered slightly.
It seems that talking about her Mother upset her, at least a little.
She cheered up quickly when I lifted her chin with my free hand, and kissed her; her lips were soft, and she tasted really good.
After a few seconds, I released the kiss, reluctantly.
We got up, and left the Inn, and to the Explorer’s Guild.
After selling the Antidotes, we brought the Magic Crystal told me about.
“Uhh, if it’s alright, Master, can we make it two Magic Crystals?” Roxanne looked at me, and when I nodded--she went back to talking to the receptionist. Apparently, the empty Magic Crystals were black.
It was 20 copper for both Magic Crystals.
The Magic Crystals are small ovaloid Crystals that change colour depending on the amount of Mana contained within them. According to Appraisal, these empty Magic Crystals are called Black Magic Crystals.
When I asked Roxanne, she explained.
“Magic Crystals change colour according to the amount of Mana they contain: when you defeat 10 Demons, it will become red; 100 Demons will turn it purple; blue after 1000; green after 10,000; yellow after 100,000; and white after 1,000,000.” She paused, remembering, “The price changes according to the colour, and there aren’t many people who make it all the way to white, most sell them off when they are yellow or green.”
“I understand, shall we go to the Dungeon?”
At her nod, we left the Explorer’s Guild.
Even though we spoke a lot at the inn--and spent several hours…having fun--it was only around noon.
As soon as we enter the Dungeon, Roxanne checks out the surrounding area, sniffing cutely, “The first floor seems to be rather crowded.”
“Well, let’s go to the second floor. I have made it as far as the third, but I need to level up my Monk Class, so we should go somewhere we can hunt quickly and efficiently.”
“Yes, master.” Roxanne bowed at my words.
We head back into the black wall and come out on the second floor.
Again Roxanne adorably screws up her nose, sniffing a few times, “This floor doesn’t seem crowded, and there’s a Demon to our right.”
“Do we just need to keep the Magic Crystal in our pockets?”
“Yep, well, we can keep them in our rucksack; they don’t gather Mana if they are in the Item Box.”
At her words, I take the Magic Crystals out of my Ring and give them to Roxanne, who happily places them into the rucksack over her shoulders.
She had tightened the straps, so that combat wouldn’t make it shift--so it dug in quite a bit, and her large breasts were accentuated; especially with her skin-tight leather fetishist gear…I mean, leather armour.
Our equipment prepared, we entered the right corridor.
“You will be vanguard, I will support you from behind with Magic, and healing if you need it. If your Mana gets low, please tell me--I will lend you Excalibur, which can regenerate your Mana.”
“Yes, master.” Roxanne nodded with an excited smile.
Soon, a Demon appears in front of us.
Needle Wood - Lv15
Roxanne darted forwards, she danced around the Demon’s attacks, and swung her Scimitar at it.
It didn’t die after three attacks, but six.
Not even a single branch brushed the edges of Roxanne’s clothing--she was incredible. But, I didn’t get the chance to do anything, which meant that everything was going well.
For the sake of making money, I purchase a Bonus Skill that increases the amount of Mana absorbed by Magic Crystals; I got the cheapest one, which was 10x. I could spend more Bonus Points, and the Skill went up to x1,000 --but it was almost 300BP.
Roxanne defeated another Needle Wood while I was fiddling around with the Bonus Skills.
“Roxanne, please bring out one of the Magic Crystals?”
“Yes, master.”
She brought out one of the Magic Crystals, which had changed colour from black to reddish colour--her mouth fell open in shock.
“W-What?” Roxanne gaped for a few seconds, before a look of understanding appeared in her eyes, “One of master’s special Skills?”
This girl learned rather quickly.
“Yep, it increases Mana collected by 10x; I may improve it later, but this is the best I could get for now.”
“I see. I shouldn’t question things too much, it’s master.” Roxanne’s eyes swam and she giggled.
Ahh, she back to her excited mood; her cheeks were flushed, and she was rubbing against me with her tail wagging madly.
“Do you know how much Magic Crystals usually sell for?”
“Hmm, Green is 10 gold, and Yellow is 100 gold. Sorry Master, I don’t know what lower ones go for, but I would expect that blue is 1 gold, while purple 10 silver, and red 1 silver…but, that’s just my guess, master.”
I removed her helmet and fluffed her ears a few times, before putting it back on her head.
“Let’s go back to hunting.”
“Yes master!” Roxanne sniffed and darted around, she made sure to stay close--and didn’t attack the Demons until I gave the signal.
From what i remember most people sell the crystals after becoming between purple, blue and green. Not many sell yellow as it takes a long time. How long it will taoe you to kill 100.000 monsters lol. You may lose the stone for some reason or have it stolen. Thats why most sell them at purple or blue to get fast cash. It takes less time making 10 purple stones than 1 blue stone if they get filled at the same time.
I always felt the Crystal's didnt make much sense so a mob no matter the level or type only counts as 1 that means for him he could just kill 1000 lvl 1 guys and get a stupid amount of gold compared to any of their items
Yeah.
But, there needs to be some good way to make money, and I don't want to write a boring crafter lol.
Far from the only thing that this was the case, but yeah I agree. They only serve a minor purpose in the story as a way for mc to make more money rapidly by hunting.
@Tek there's a lot of solutions to this aside from the system that makes little sense though. Their party is efficient due to Roxanne being able to find viable targets rapidly along with the mcs rapid killing speed and low downtime. Theres that chef job that increases rare drops in the original story as well. The logic of drops not being worth much on higher floors never made much sense, as it should follow a risk vs reward type system. Well, adding them all together(including the crystals) is fine too.
@bilinear I forgot about that later part--Yeah, drops on higher floors being worth more is logical (I will use that as well; the crystals are mainly for if they suddenly need money. (and getting new slave girls) lol)
@Tek that or add scaling to the Crystal's gain 1 point per floor the mobs on so a floor 10 mob is worth 10 floor 1 mobs ect. Decrease the value slightly of each crystal to compensate for how much more common higher strength crystals are
@Bladedante Maybe I could have it so the higher the colour the crystal, the higher the level has to be?
Like a black (empty crystal) can accept mana from any level enemy, but say a green crystal can only accept mana from second-stage enemies? (over level 40, or enemies of floors 10 and higher.)
That may work.
@Tek that would work I mean consider how a decent party would farm group of 5-6 and even low level mobs would be insta killed so anyone like Roxanne who can quickly find enemies farming a few 100 per day would be pretty easy just cycling for breaks since just based on drops the 2 of them farmed almost 60 in a few hours so a 10,000 kill crystal a month would be doable every month for even a normal adventure team at the same point would that even be worthwhile for a normal team an extra 2 gold per adventurer when he made in his own 15gold in less than 10 days
@Tek I dunno, feels like it's a small thing that doesn't warrant giving it much thought. With him always having x10 and them fighting 5-6 enemies at once on higher floors, he's already going to be farming the crystal charge rapidly even without any additional math and spending wordcount (during the chapters) discussing this mechanic is barely worth it. Maybe just keep it as is and just account it for them gaining some extra pocket change from it from time to time. Farming these crystals shouldn't be the focus but probably rare loot and other things like that from the bosses, as that will always be something more interesting/exciting than something that increases at a flat rate.
If you must, a good mechanic could be every 5 or 10 floors you increase the demon value by 1. This way at floor 20 you are gaining 3-5 charges per demon killed, and you are killing 3-4 demons at once already at this point right? So a single fight would net you the same as 10+ demons on the first floor and up to 20 depending on the choice there, with our MC gaining 200. I think 1 value per floor would just be too much to where the crystal value would be lowered by high level parties gaining 500 charge in a single fight and stuff like that.
The way the mechanic was in the original story, each charge pretty much had a value that was equivalent to their actual charge amount with none being better bang for buck to be sold. Whether he sold his crystal daily or not did not matter in the end, as long as he sold it after it changed color to not have excess charge "wasted"
@bilinear Either way, you are correct, it isn't vital to the story (Except if they need to get money quickly).
Thanks Bladedante, and Bilinear for your input.
@Tek If you want an explanation you could say that the amount of mana absorbed has a cap defined by the crystal and that even the weakest mob has that amount of mana.