Doyle nods in understanding and then turns back to his status and after confirming Awakened Dungeon Core II was an option, put the full nine points into it.

{9 points applied to the Awakened Dungeon Core II path...

5/10 - +10 Luck and +3 Luck/Level, Trap Designer unlocked, Companion dungeon fae already present, Instead adding +5 Boss slots and 1 random Monster with sapience potential

10/10 - Path Complete, You have earned +1,000 World Energy/Hour and +10,000 to World Energy capacity, You have earned hidden perk etiquette and access to tutorial database}

Doyle’s core shakes for a second as knowledge is crammed into his mind. If the polyglot perk was like a stream of information, this was a raging river and the more he learns the more cringe he feels about some of his past interactions with the various godly beings. He certainly didn’t handle things all that well. On the other hand, all that info felt a little pointless as Doyle wasn’t particularly excited to interact with others in the first place.

Though getting access to the damn tutorial database tickled Doyle. Then he pulled up the entry on hidden perks since he had just gotten a couple.

{Hidden Perk: A Perk not shown on the status}

So of course he looked up Perk.

{Perk: A Bonus not based on Levels, Skills, or other advanceable system features}

Then Doyle tried to ask how knowing a language wasn’t a skill or at least advanceable.

{Language: There technically is no wrong way to use a language and so not applicable as a skill}

Doyle stays still for a minute or so as he processes the near uselessness of the tutorial database. Though he can’t be too down on it. The thing was clearly designed to be used by an assistant. Especially after he pulled up some of the early tutorial pop ups that Ally had read for him.

They were terse nearly to the point of being useless. The fact Ally was able to expound upon it so much just showed that the text was more like the flashcards a teacher would let you use when having to do a speech or some such. Still, as Doyle picked up the various bits of lingo and phrases, it will become more and more helpful. If anything, it would mean Doyle could listen to one of Ally’s overviews and then later on dig into the specifics.

Doyle shakes his core and turns back to his Available paths.

{Points: 177

Class: Dungeon Core III 100/100, Awakened Dungeon Core II 10/10

Location: Kobold Community II 30/30

Completed: Goat Supremacy 20/20, Energy Well I 3/3, Commanding Subordinates 12/12, Ageless Queens 15/15, Earth’s First Home of the Limit Breakers I 1/1, Biomes Aplenty 5/5, Potion Dispensary 10/10, Elemental Animals 5/5, Cows for Milk 12/12, Vegetation Variety 20/20, Divine Border 1/1, Know Your Enemies 10/10, Pathfinder, [UNIQUE] 1/1, Community Driven 10/10

Started [1/3]: [TRINITY] 5/1000

Available: Awakened Dungeon Core III 10/100, Awakened Spatial Dungeon Core I 0/1, Vine Warper 0/15, Kin Slayer 0/100, Voidborn 0/250, Axe Sharpener 0/5, Energy Well II 0/6, Expansionist 0/30, Fire’s Flying 0/7, Deal Broker 0/10, All the Potions 0/60, Community Builder 0/30, Boss Builder 0/50, Engraver 0/5, Godly Negotiator 0/500, Heavenly Gate 0/350, Clan Head 0/25, Five Cornered Square Initiate 0/100, Raising The Floor 0/100, Into The Infinite 0/60, Floors Within Floors 0/10, Monster Rancher 0/50, Phrenic Friend 0/120, PsiBane I 0/200, PsiBoon I 0/200, Deep Rules 0/500, Extra Accommodations 0/75, Time Will Wait 0/500}

Doyle shakes his core again. He was starting to build up the higher cost paths and there must be something to them. Though now that he has room for five more skills, he should probably figure out what counts as a class skill as the general slots are worth more in the long run, especially as a dungeon. After all, the class skills are likely quite focused on being a dungeon so the general skills would be the only way he could branch out.

‘Meh’, Doyle looks past the paths that had been there for a while and focuses in on a handful of the new ones. Some sounded interesting, like Into The Infinite, and others were interesting like Phrenic Friend. In the end, though, the first path he was going to buy had to be Monster Rancher.

{50 points applied to the Monster Rancher path...

10/50 - Monsters in a farm zone more quickly develop the ability to have children, +2 All Stats/Level to all monsters

25/50 - Farm zones now maintain their time differential at a reduced ratio, +2 All Body Stats/Level to all monsters

50/50 - Path Complete, Focused development of non-monster things has a greater chance of said things becoming a monster, Monster skills develop faster, +100 Monster Pattern Adjustment Points}

After seeing the results, Doyle quickly goes to show Ally the result. ‘Hey Ally! Got a path with a generic stat per a level bonus and it was even to all stats.’

Ally takes a look at the path and nods, ‘That’s a good one. You could probably find a more specific path that would give a better bonus, but for dungeon monsters this is perfect. Not like you can have one kobold have all the strength while another has all the mental stats. Well, not easily anyway.’

Doyle nods and is about to ask something else when he remembers something from the class path. ‘Oh yeah, in my class path I got access to the trap designer, what’s up with that? Couldn’t I have already made traps?’

Ally, ‘Eh, yes and no. Nothing was stopping you from making a hole in the ground and covering it in a thin sheet of stone so people fall in. And it isn’t like traps are purely the realm of sapient beings or anything. What the designer opens up however is trap patterns.

‘This hasn’t really come up since you’ve had complete access to all the patterns you needed, but it isn’t like some random fighter could bang out a nail and gain the pattern for it. You need the correct database skill to store the patterns. The designer makes it so your dungeon database skill can now store trap patterns.

‘Though the designer itself is also quite useful as it allows for some flexibility. A good example of this is the above pit trap example. After all, if you just copy and paste that, what happens if you put it somewhere with a different type of stone floor? The answer is that it uses the floor’s stone to cover the pit. The designer allows you to specify how situations like that work instead so you can just spam the pattern around.’

Doyle nods, ‘I can see how that would be useful. After all, a stone floor isn’t going to cause much trouble with the pit, but what if the floor was instead made of dirt or sand?’

Ally smiles, ‘Exactly! You’d have a pretty lame pit trap if the floor was sand. It would just be an open pit with a dusting of sand on the bottom. Plus, I know how you don’t exactly want to throw everything at the delvers and a pit trap that perfectly blends into the floor is a little bit of a cheat.’

Doyle bobs his core before going off to spend more path points. At the moment, he still has 127 points burning a hole in his pocket. A quick check of the list shows a new entry, Monster Rancher II for 100 points, had shown up. A tempting path, but Doyle wanted to play around with the benefits he got from the first path in the series.

Though thinking about it does make him a bit disappointed that his location path didn’t have any advancements yet. He would have bought a Kobold Community III path in a heartbeat, not that he had a heart to beat anymore. What this did however do is pull his eyes towards an older path and it was cheap enough he didn’t put too much thought into it before buying it.

{30 points applied to the Community Builder path...

30/30 - Path Complete, For buying the path all at once you have earned +5 Wisdom, Members of any community you have built gain +1/Level bonus to the primary stat used in their job while they belong to said community, Members born or created in any community you have built gain +1 to all Stats, Members of any community you have built more readily follow your orders as long as you belong to that community, As long as you belong to a community you have built the community spirit will exist as long as you do}

Doyle takes a moment to read the text a few times and isn’t quite certain how he feels about it. Though after firing off a quick question to Ally, he knows at least one bit is going to be amazing, specifically the one about the bonus to members born into one of his communities. Once he gets his ant queen online, that will make it so that every single ant in his dungeon will start with 2 in every stat they have. And knowing what he does about the variability in having only 1 point in a stat makes the bonus highly incredibly useful.

Though by spending 30 points on the path did mean he had dipped below 100 points. This wasn’t a problem, but it did cut off a couple interesting paths. Not that he couldn’t start on them, but for the moment he wanted to focus on paths he can complete and then throw whatever was left over into trinity.

So with those 97 points in mind, Doyle goes over the list for the third or fourth time. Two in particular stand out with his current situation, “Into the Infinite” and “Extra Accommodations”. The first had a theme that matched with his spatial nonsense, likely coming from his attempts of mimicking infinite spaces.

On the other hand, Extra Accommodations sounds quite plain. However, being a dungeon the path’s name has different connotations. It could mean having extra points to spend on a floor, bigger floors, or anything in that same vein. The reason these interpretations matter is because of how personal paths are. Even if two people had paths with the same name, they could provide completely different outcomes.

So the fact that reading the name brought these kinds of things to mind meant something. Since the path was new, that meant it should be connected to what he had been doing or had happened. Stuff like how he just recently noticed that the floors had all gotten bigger because of reaching a checkpoint and the fact that he kept making large herds and packs.

It could also be related to how he was making monster towns or strange environments. So Doyle could only turn towards the other path. So much of his existence currently seemed to be based on delving further into the infinite. His dungeon continued to expand within the void and his floors kept touching on the concept.

Doyle kept going around in circles over which to choose until Ally stepped in and knocked him out of the spiral. He hadn’t meant to spend a bunch of time on the matter, but since nothing else was happening, his dungeon nature caused him to get too invested.

Ally shrugged at this, ‘Wait until literal years end up passing while you try to decide between carving a spiral going clockwise or counter clockwise. Dungeons tend to be known for their impressive attention to detail in their deeper floors. The only reason early floors tend to be rough is because outside influences force development. Once dungeons get a few untrodden floors between themselves and the outside world, they tend to end up spiraling. Just look at yourself, you’ve had the ability to build many more floors than you have. Instead, you’ve focused on perfecting the most recent one.’