-Ester Von Holtzem-

Sitting back, I observed a group of Glyirian sweet tooths and military officers fight the new raid monster of Capita Sweets, the Great Wedding Dragon, a female dragon that was tier 2.7 like her counterpart, the Great Chiffon Drake. Like Lechiff, this dragon, Laglyire, was based off of a cake and in this case was from a ceremonial glyirian wedding cake filled with aged and preserved fruits in soft cream icing. I couldn’t help but be impressed with my nephew’s handiwork in creating this adversary: following the trend this raid monster possessed the same mana manipulating as the upper tower women that graced this Subdungeon, but instead of focusing on a single element for powerful dragon breaths, Laglyire possess fundamental understanding of the base elements sans mind, body, and soul for simplistic draconic spells. Combining applicable knowledge of elemental positive, negative, air, earth, fire, and water with its already existing ability, truly this raid monster is the bane of most elementalists and plant mages, I noted to myself, thinking about how Mr. Fayn originally created the Great Chiffon Dragon to fend off users of the Esarathon’s Space Locket of Sweets.

“To think that Mr. Fayn would apply the original restriction of tier 3.0 and lower we applied to him over a year ago to his entire Enigma, barring Mr. Orono’s eagles & warriors enjoying setsubun, and flourish,” I commented to myself with a smile: with the trust that Historie Pastoria Sweets had garnered with the Glyirian government over the months with the mana generators, mining deposits, the military outpost, and the resorts, it would be a mere formality for my nephew to send in a report saying they would be doing otherwise. The paperwork had been handled on that front for a while now, especially now that the Glyirian government is using the Enigma as a crossroad to not one but two different artificial world clusters. Then it is again, it is only a matter of time before stronger monsters are required, the amount of delvers in the tier 3-to-5 range exploring the Enigma has been steadily increasing.

“Well isn’t that where all our Interconnections and raid and legion monsters come in?” pointed out my nephew’s system assistant, Pattissoria, as the group of Glyirians were slowly pushed back by a flurry of elemental spells. 

“True, the raid and legion monsters naturally are more dangerous than their tier would entail and the Interconnections provide honest delvers and mages with avenues to areas with higher hazard levels,” I astutely returned before continuing, “But it is only a matter of time before an enemy force arrives that your defenses won’t be able to sustain before reinforces arrive.”

“Uncle Ras, glad to see you again so soon,” commented my nephew, Ras, skirting around the battle with the Great Wedding Dragon with a few well placed moon walking jumps.

“It’s good to see you too, I was just starting to talk with your system assistant before you arrived.”

“Oh, what was Pattissoria asking about this time?”

“We were simply talking about your defenses and lack of monsters above tier 3.0.”

“That huh?... Well we are actually planning on rolling out improved versions of the generals that are tier 3.5, I actually sent the paperwork yesterday. We are just waiting for the okay at this point.” 

“I see, then I should probably expedite that process as I’m interested in what is planned,” I suggested, already taking out my phone to send the necessary messages, it would only be a matter of minutes to clear any authorizations with my involvement. Glad to have my assistance, my nephew went to explain these new improved versions would be called the five star generals and be tier 3.5 and due to wanting to avoid Sea of Phenomena cramps all the blackzone managers would be taking turns adding them to the monster general protocols. 

“The biggest difference outside of the increase in tier and some cosmetic differences is that they’ll summon and control eight cheesecake knights instead of six while also improving their tier by two,” continued my nephew as he worked on formatting the new raid monster with the Monster Creation Menu. Doing the relatively simple math in my head, I nodded in approval: my nephew created a very well-rounded and much needed upgraded template. I could feel our shared spirit of the Tower, Editon, stir with enthusiasm as I followed my nephew to the ground floor to get a first hand demonstration of the new boss monster. 

The Five Star Tri-Coloured Treat General appeared similar enough to its tier 3 Tri-Coloured Treat General, a tall general in modernized hunter-ranger attire with a greatbow and three mindless spirits of the Obscurus with similar weapons; the only difference was this boss monster was a head taller and possessed more expensive sturdier armour. Even without acute manalogical senses, the average delver would be able to tell the difference between the two variations when you also accounted for the difference in number of underlings. I could see delvers and mages from all worlds connected to Historie Pastoria Sweets rejoicing at having higher tier enemies to fight, even if their loot was only marginally better, being reflective of the higher tier and nothing else. 

“How long will it take before each variant has a five star general version of itself?” I questioned my nephew as I watched some of the Glyirian soldiers exit Capita Sweet’s lobby to inspect the new raid monster.

“A week most likely if we stick to two a day. Of course we’ll have to make the new variant of cheesecake knight for Sweet Progressive. It will be nice to have another variant that doesn’t raise questions.” 

“Your Enigma does have a lot of hints toward it’s otherwise info-karma-guarded areas doesn’t it?” The barbaric battle-axe wielding dark chocolate cheesecakes from Sweets Depression, the tribal-styled bone wand & shield carrying seaside delights from Sweets Romanticism, the agile school uniform wearing lavender cheesecake knights with their rapiers from Sweets Futurism, the burly cannon-hammer using brandy cheesecake knights from Old Fashioned New Imports, and then the peculiar looking molecular cheesecake knights with their metal & bone limbs from System Assistant’s Caketopia. To think despite only being a year old this Enigma would have routes to a stabilized lesser world, a secret Hidden City, a Back Continent, and two different artificial world clusters.

“Indeed it does, and it is attracting a lot more intellectually inclined delvers and mages, not to mention scholars. It’s almost ironic to think that Robert's disinterest in traps is helping with our budget since so many of these people are the least likely to fall for them,” agreed my nephew with a sort of half sigh before asking, “Are you interested in seeing Sweets Progressive? You could perhaps give us input on what sort of cheesecake knight we should make.”

“Of course I would love to, anything for my nephew.” With that, I was led not to Historie Pastoria Sweets proper but rather Embassy-Resorts a la Rainberries to enter the Interconnection. I see, it would be smarter to to have an Interconnection that is is going to house a resort be connected to the expansion that houses the current premier public resort, I noted to myself as we crossed through the faux-World Bridge to an Interconnection with a ceiling of dark grey stone dotted with artificial lights instead of a false sky. Observing my new surroundings, I noted this Interconnection had more solemn appearance to it with the quality of the skyscrapers looking like those from an inner city going through modest renovation: even the oversized museum displays showcased solemn but uplifting pieces of Earth history where society was recovering from a tragedy or disaster.

Before I could voice my interest in this Interconnection, I felt some environmental effect influence my effective tier, forcing it to degrade from tier 7.3 to 5.9: clearly the nuisance of Poor Gambler’s Sinchance was fully in effect here, the same going for Historie Pastoria Sweet’s own nuisance in the form of overly loud trains. I could already imagine how the Glyirian government would employ this newest area to train their military’s troops and government sanctioned trimmer-delvers to rely on their skill and experience instead of their tier. As for the others such as the residents of Sugar Hills, this would likely become a route for them to expedite their travel to the Endless Strip, although that usefulness would likely be limited once a more direct shortcut is made with the expansion that the resort union is providing the Enigma.

“Ras you’re here!” called out Mr. Orono, my nephew’s ex-cultist coworker, as he rode toward us with the asset he shared with my nephew and Mr. Fayn, Rom, in motorcycle form before pausing noticing me. “And you brought your uncle…”

“It’s good to see you in good spirits,” I commented with a smile, suppressing my manalogical aura while increasing my proportional output of radiance mana to be more presentable to the blackzone manager.

“I don’t think how exhausted I am right now can be called good spirits. Just finished connecting the railroad tracks and that was more of a hassle than it should have been.”

“Where are the others? Shouldn’t they be helping out?” my nephew asked as Mr. Orono went to deactivate their asset’s microflation and have their asset dispel its motorcycle.

“Robert is still completely out of it from having the Interconnection be made, Louella is off doing some spellman stuff, Draceld is managing the resorts, and Sous and Umi are working on Harper and Alexander’s wedding and ascension event. So it’s just you and me for getting this Interconnection set up.”

“Surely we shouldn’t be in such a rush to finish the adjustments to Sweet Progressive?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought also, until we started getting a ton of traffic from the other side. Poor Gambler’s Sinchance is a lot similar to our Enigma than we originally thought, not only does it cater to low to mid tier delvers but it also has a lot of Interconnections to blackzones offworld, there even are some other types of dungeon-like distortions in the mix. I swear this is more traffic than we even get from Robby’s place.”

“That seems rather fruitful, especially now that you are dealing with the end of days currently. Shouldn’t this be a boon, not a bane?” I pointed out with a raised brow, letting my Lumiera De Sola unfold partially so that I could passively inspect the mixed nature of this Interconnection.

“It will be once we get everything sorted out, but now it’s just growing pains, really exhausting growing pains. This would be a lot easier if we could get Robert to help out.” 

“We both know that won’t happen, especially with his current state,” sighed my nephew as he went to opening up the Monster Creation Menu, already resigned to working without Mr. Fayn’s aid. It wasn’t surprising given how damaged his state of being, body, mind, soul, outer genomes, and connections were all suffering from various notable problems: it would take a miracle for him to properly recover anytime soon, but Mr. Fayn did seem to attract both miracle and disaster hand in hand. It will be interesting to see what route he takes for recovery and how it affects his portfolio of mandala, I mused to myself as my nephew asked me and Mr. Orono for input on creating the new variant of cheesecake knight for Sweets Progressive.

After some deliberation, it was decided the new variant would be called truffle cheesecake knight, being based off of both the fungal truffle and chocolate truffle. Their affinity would be toward elemental luck, Ward Glyphs, and the Asset System itself with its two weapons being a ball and chain and a buckler, both being using the energy weaponry common to the El’Vega hub’s Asset System. As for its general and five star general versions, they would be left for later along with the living flans, living gelatos, and creme caramels for the Hybrid System of Flowers and El’Vega’s Asset System’s connectivity materials, Idios-Koinos Blossoms and Lost Vegan Gold. Clearly my nephew and the other blackzone managers of Historie Pastoria Sweets would have a busy time in the coming weeks, even without the plagues clouds from Borolio of the Plague Clouds and the wedding of Harper and Alexander. It should be a joyous occasion to see those two get married, it’s not often such occurrences happen, I mused with a soft smile, curious on what the wedding would fully entail for the future of my nephew’s Enigma.