Doyle turns back to the choice between infinite or accommodation and flips a coin. Quite literally. He summons a silver coin and gives it a clip. Of course, the first flip was a bit of a whoopsie. Not the flip itself, but rather he had forgotten to assign which path went to which side. So with that fixed and another flip Doyle ends up with Extra Accommodations. So before he can have a second thought on the subject, he slams the 75 points into the path.

{75 points applied to Extra Accommodations path...

5 - You have earned +1 Karma/Level, Adjusted floor growth exponent by +0.01

10 - You have earned +1 Karma/Level, +1 to Monster Level Cap, Increase the factor of future floor spending limit by +10, Adjusted floor growth exponent by +0.01

20 - You have earned +2 Karma/Level, Safe Zones can now be set to adjust themselves to better fit the delvers currently in them, Increasing effect Agility has on ability to fine tune environments, Adjusted floor growth exponent by +0.01

45 - You have earned +2 Karma/Level and +1 Agility/Level, Communities based in your territory find the land more easily adjusting to their whims, Adjusted floor growth exponent by +0.01

75 - Path Complete, You have earned +3 Karma/Level and +1 Agility/Level, Increase the factor of future floor spending limit by +10, Concepts based upon hospitality can more easily modify the dungeon, Adjusted floor growth exponent by +0.01}

As the path finishes, Doyle can feel every floor after the first expanding in size. He can’t tell exactly what the floor growth bit did. Though the fact even the addition of five percent could cause such a change and the use of the word exponent meant it involved something being raised to the power of some number. A number that now had an additional 0.05 added to it.

Besides, there was a less obvious, but arguably more important, change. One which also included actual numbers and yet Doyle still wasn’t quite sure what it meant. After all, while it was a simple increase of +10, it was to the factor of his future floor spending limits. 

The difference with this one, was that despite not having a visible change yet, Doyle actually knew what the equation for it was. It was even a relatively simple one of the previous limit plus product of his intelligence and 100. Since a factor was a number being multiplied and intelligence likely wasn’t being changed, that meant the plus twenty had gone to the 100.

Some simple math said that with his current Int, he would be up to 33,480 points. An increase of 1,080 above from what it would have been. This was probably the most useful of the basic bonuses from the path as it would only grow with time.

That left the more esoteric bonuses. Something all three of the later checkpoints gave. Of which there was only one that he could actually feel a difference with. That of an increased effect from agility when messing with environments. For that, while it wasn’t literally these numbers, it felt like before he had an air conditioner that only went up or down by five degrees and suddenly he could change it by three. Still not as nice as it would be to have to the degree control, but much better than before.

Though this wasn’t the end of his points spending. There was still 22 path points left to play with and with how things had changed, he had the perfect addition. That of the second step of Energy Well.

{6 points applied to Energy Well II path...

2/6 - You have earned +50 passive World Energy recharge rate

4/6 - You have earned +50 passive World Energy recharge rate

6/6 - Path Complete, You have earned +100 passive World Energy recharge rate, Sapients near an entrance portal but outside of your dungeon gain a buff to the recharge rate of any energy pools they have}

Doyle looks at the results and feels quite neutral about it. After all, if he remembers correctly, the path was exactly the same as the first time, except the results were ten times greater for only half the cost. A wonderful result, especially after he confirms that Energy Well III was waiting for him. Though it cost 18 points instead of the expected 9 or 12 meaning instead of doubled, the cost tripled. Interesting, but well within expectations.

There wasn’t even a problem with how the higher tiers would affect the outside area as Doyle could feel that each tier of Energy well could be controlled separately. The only caveat being that a little of each had to exist at all times as long as his territory extended beyond his dungeon borders. They could even overlap, though he could feel that later interactions might not be able to be fully effective if placed in the middle of nowhere.

With what Doyle knows now and the fact that he has gotten better with his territory control means he can feel what is actually happening. The name “Energy Well” is a bit deceptive of a path name, even if it describes what it feels like to both sides. Instead, it would more properly be called “Energy Exchange”, because what it does is exchanges some of the energy in his dungeon for some of the energy outside of his dungeon.

The whole “sapients outside of your dungeon” bit is just a side effect of what is happening. By being within the area of effect, Doyle is literally trading his loose energy for the loose cruft that the sapient has. That is the entire reason it is limited to sapients instead of working for anything with mana or what have you. Only sapients generate cruft, a non-sapient animal isn’t putting any special kind of spin on their energy for Doyle to snuffle up.

As for what might be the later limitations on the path’s bonuses? Doyle’s best guess is that it will be based on two things: how many sapients are within the field and how much space the field takes up. A simple enough assumption. After all, the path needs to be taking the power from somewhere.

It did mean that for now Doyle was going to hold off on getting the third tier of the path. Not that he actually could get it yet, he only had 16 path points right now, after all. Still, while Doyle felt the path had some potential to surprise him, he also wasn’t going to throw it all onto Ace in one go. Doyle had been watching Ace for a while and some of that Parasocial relationship stuff had started to crop up and while Doyle wasn’t going to let that get in the way of what was best for himself, he also wasn’t going to go out of his way to cause trouble.

So of course when deciding where to locate the new more effective Energy Well II effect, Doyle makes sure to go and set a rule that replaces the original tier with the second tier in any place that Ace sets as a room for training while under the effect of the Energy Well field. That decided, he goes and dumps the remaining 16 points into [Trinity].

{16 points applied to [TRINITY]

A few more tentative steps, yet the path is still clouded}

Doyle shakes his core at the result and decides to ask Ally about it. Ally, however, doesn’t really have much to add. The Trinity and Unique were well outside of any tutorial text the system was willing to share and she hadn’t found anywhere mentioning them. Though not finding information on such unique paths was the norm so that didn’t mean much.

However, Ally did have something to say about not gaining anything from it yet. She gestured towards the fact that there were messages, ‘Paths don’t gibber mindlessly. The only other time you’ve gotten a message was when it wanted you to decide which way to take your goats. Besides that, the more points a path costs, the more obvious another quality of paths becomes. That of whether the path is devoted to many small rewards or a few big rewards.

‘Some paths will throw small rewards at you every other point put in, while others will wait for you to be halfway in before giving you the first benefit. With that in mind and the fact the path takes 1,000 points to complete, you might see nothing until 100 points in or maybe even 500. When you do get something though, it should be interesting.’

Doyle nods, ‘We’ll just have to wait and see. At the moment I’m only throwing my spare points in and I don’t really see that changing. Though maybe once I get it closer to 100 points in, I might just throw enough at it to check if I get something there.’

Ally laughs, ‘100 just seems like a round number because the total cost is 1,000 and your number system is based on tens. Though I do admit that in this universe most species use a base ten numbering system, if only because most sapient beings follow the human form.’

After that the two joke around a bit more, all the while out in the town a certain someone is developing quite the headache.

Ace sits, elbows on the table as he rubs his temples, “So you’re saying that specifically within the training rooms and only within the training rooms, the rate of Energy recovery has increased by ten times? A full magnitude more?”

Josh nods, “I was training my air magic like usual when suddenly I felt an even greater sense of recovery. After I confirmed that the effect was real and not the result of some new skill or path, me and the other people who were training at the time took a quick look around to discover what exactly was happening. Though I can happily report that the sphere hasn’t expanded!”

Ace leans back into his chair, one of the few pieces of furniture he had that was salvaged from the pre-system ruins as the crafters hadn’t yet gotten to designing for ergonomics like some pre-system companies had, and he sighs before dismissing Josh. Of course, Ace wasn’t worried about this news being leaked to those who shouldn’t know. Heavy oaths had been traded after all.

No, what was rapidly giving Ace a headache was that there wasn’t anything special about the training rooms. Sure, they were reinforced so people could throw around their magic and such, but the entire sphere was reinforced. At this point, they had even turned it into a true sphere by digging out and reinforcing every inch of land covered by the effect.

So for the effect to suddenly increase specifically within the training rooms meant Ace was going to have to discover the exact mechanics behind this change. That and set up a new secure room somewhere else. After all, by this point, they had basically confirmed the effect was specific to the dungeon and not just there by coincidence.

Ace wasn’t willing to just come out and say they ended up with an awakened dungeon somehow, from everything he knew about the subject, including some special documents. Some of which only became available to him after becoming the ruler of a town and some that came from Jim becoming the local head of the Adventurers Guild, all point towards such a thing not being possible in general.

He couldn’t even blame it on his world being new to the system. Uncountable number of solar systems are being added to the system every day, the only limit being on how fast the blast wave of dimension-altering magic was traveling. Among them, not a single awakened dungeon had been found. And while Ace didn’t know when this started, he did know that enough time had passed that great galactic empires had risen and fallen in far-off places.

Still, Ace did have that twinge in his mind that pointed towards the possibility. A twinge that meant he needed to prepare, even if the possibility was simply unimaginable to anyplace that had been within the system for uncountable years. As luck would have it, though, this didn’t mean having to place a secret meeting room outside the influence of the dungeon.

After all, that influence was constantly expanding and would continue to do so until it came into contact with another dungeon’s influence. Instead, all Ace would need to do is set up a meeting room within the town hall. Easy enough as he was the town leader, but it did mean being careful of the receptionists. They had various oaths on them to even serve the system so directly, but Ace wasn’t exactly allowed to let his lawyer Kyle peruse those oaths. So sure, he trusted the system to not spill the beans, but better safe than sorry.