Doyle shakes his core and sighs to himself as he tries to figure out what design to go for on the tenth floor. The fifth floor was one giant space with a town in the center. Did he want his boss floors to follow a pattern, or did he want to mix it up? A tough choice, so he pulls up a list of all his available monsters and their cost.

{Kobold 50, Assassin Vine 300, Elder Assassin Vine (lv8) 750, Goat 4, Wooden Goat (lv3) 14, Grassen Goat (lv3) 25, Axebeak (lv2) 60, Windcutter Axebeak (lv14) 900, Dungeon Wolf 50, Wind Wolf (lv4) 75, Stone Wolf (lv4) 75, Lesser Shadow Wolf (lv9) 500, Myconid Sprout Swarm (lv3) 100, Lesser Myconid (lv6) 150, Lesser Myconid Troop Guard (lv9) 600, Cattle 8, Dungeon Cattle (lv2) 10, Mad Cattle (lv2) 12, Longhorn Cattle (lv2) 11, Earthen Cattle (lv3) 18, Ashen Cattle (lv4) 18, Sea Cattle (lv4) 17, Herb Cattle (lv5) 26, Udoroot (lv15) 500, Shrieker 10, Violet Fungus (lv10) 300, [Unnamed] (lv20) 50}

Upon seeing the list, something jumps out at him. While he has used them, the myconids haven’t really had a chance to shine. Plus, the sprout started at level 3 and the lesser started at level 6. Of course, levels can grow to crazy levels, but Doyle has a suspicion and so goes to ask Ally.

So after knocking on her door and being let in, Doyle asks, ‘So how does leveling work for kids? Like, not just human kids, but monsters and things with multiple life stages? Oh, and things with stuff like lesser and what not in their names?’

Ally is about to answer, but pauses and frowns. ‘There isn’t a clean answer, even under the system. About the clearest will be with creatures like a butterfly where they go through extreme physical changes, but that still doesn’t have a clear answer? Because sure, it is clear when the insect reaches maturity, but with all the mystical nonsense we have to deal with that doesn’t mean as much.

‘If there is one thing the mystical powers like to do, it is messing with what people would consider natural. A caterpillar might find itself unable to turn into a butterfly, but also with a lifespan measured in centuries instead of the usual months. That, in turn, will affect how quickly they level.

‘And so we get back to the original question, how does the various stages of life affect leveling? And honestly? What is leveling? It isn’t like some sort of innate advancement, after all, a level doesn’t innately gain you anything. Then there is the fact that some monsters can only exist at a certain level and things get even more confusing.’

Doyle nods, ‘Now that you mention it, that is odd. Of course, as a dungeon, I can understand the minimum level thing as a limit for me, but there would be other ways to represent that. There could be any number of alternate ways of handling things.’

Ally, ‘However, there is one innate thing with levels, or rather that the system enforces based on levels. You even ran afoul of it, the limit on paths based on your level. Though you’ve also experienced the fact that the limit isn’t lock step with the level, but rather that the limit grows as you grow and the system just freezes the perceived limit at where it was when you last leveled.

‘This limit is connected directly to how the system judges levels and why some beings start at a higher level. The way it works is a soul can only handle so much and that includes things like the body. That requires a sturdier soul, which is part of why powerful sapient entities like a dragon have a hard time having children of their species. After all, you’ve seen the souls out in the void, even the ones that maintain fragments from their last life aren’t much different from all the other souls.

‘Some of the sturdiness is made up for by the parent, which is why some of the mythical sapients have periods of weakness after giving birth. They’ve literally ripped out part of their soul shell to infuse their child’s soul with enough of a shell to survive. The other main method is an extended period of pregnancy. Some special cases even involve a sapient being pregnant for hundreds of years. You even see this with some humans if they have figured out ways to enhance their kids’ innate abilities at birth.

‘Of course, the system doesn’t just give this away for free. As I’m sure you’ve realized by now, levels are the key to greater power and making sure your paths are properly built up is more important than the number going up.’

Doyle tilts to the side, ‘Very interesting and I’m not exactly sad about learning how this new reality works, but in all of that info dump you still haven’t told me how this relates to a child gaining levels. We have way over done this.’

Ally, ‘Ah, right, the young and how they level.’

Doyle nods, ‘Plus, while learning about sapients is fun, I don’t exactly have all that many kicking around right now. Does this all count for non-sapient creatures as well?’

Ally coughs, ‘A good question. Which I have the answer to. Just give me a second.

‘Alright, I’ve got it, the answer is yes. While non-sapient beings, by definition, do not have a soul. Those that use mystical power including just to support their body will need something to process that power. Since they don’t have a soul, they will need to develop some replacement. This is basically that classic stereotype from your world’s light novel genre of a monster having a gem or stone in them full of magic power.

‘The difference is that very few will ever actually develop a physical manifestation and those that do have locked themselves out of ever being sapient. This is because a soul needs someplace to settle and by making the physical manifestation the soul can no longer do that. After all, a soul isn’t a physical thing.

‘Follow up on that and a return of the tutorial pop ups, let’s talk about your sapience seal. I didn’t know this, but apparently the way that works is forcing your monster to manifest a monster gem. Most dungeons must not use it? That or maybe it is a system specific benefit because I haven’t really heard of this. Though it would explain the widespread use of those things in your world’s recent literature.’

Doyle dims, ‘I should probably make more use of those seals. They’re cheap enough and I have a ton of goats and cattle hanging around. What do the gems do?’

Ally shrugs, ‘I don’t know. They aren’t exactly a standardized sort of thing. After all, while they aren’t souls, they are relatively unique to the individual. Plus, don’t expect your goats to be dropping some sort of fist-sized stone. Think more along the lines of a grain of rice shard. Maybe once you get a goat with a high three digit level you’d get something like that.’

Doyle nods, ‘Something for the town to figure out. They might even miss it for a while with how small they are. Now a question for the tutorial: how likely are the gems to drop? Are they like the meat my goat drops or like coins?’

Ally glances over a screen and frowns, ‘It seems to be outside of the loot system? I guess the best example of this would be if someone had an ability to make a goat’s body not dissolve, they could still get a piece of meat spawning on the side, but the gem would still be within the goat’s body. This, however, does mean that if an attack manages to damage the gem during the fight, the gem will vanish as the power within it is released.’

Doyle, ‘Cool, though I just realized we forgot about my question again. Young leveling? How work?’

Ally blinks, ‘Huh, it seems we can’t help but get side tracked. Long story short, a young creature levels gruellingly slow and a creature that recently stepped into a new stage will level slowly for a while. This basically represents the creature needing to direct more of its energy towards growing their body or adjusting to it. Also, longer lived beings level slower in general, something else you have personally experienced. No chance at all that any of the core members of the town are below level ten right now. Ace and the other founders are likely edging in on level 15.

‘Oh, and you asked specifically about creatures with the lesser keyword? It is possible and in fact quite common that a creature never loses the lesser from their name, they still count as developing. Take your lesser shadow wolf as an example of this. The next step, a normal shadow wolf, is sapient. How does it suddenly become sapient? All the buildup went to developing toward being able to house a soul.

‘Sure, they might never get to the point that they gain a soul. They could for instance develop a monster gem. Even then, much of their power will still go towards it and so they continue to level slowly.’

Doyle laughs, ‘I’m pretty certain that last bit completely answered my question.’

Ally snorts, ‘If you wanted something answered that wasn’t the question you asked, I guess it would take a bit to get the answer.’

Doyle, ‘I think we both got a bit distracted with figuring things out. Now I’ve got a few things to work on.’

Doyle returned to the tenth floor with a lot on his mind. The original goal of the question was to figure out if it was worth even trying to advance his lesser myconids. Now, just from what Ally had said you might have thought not, but that was just because she was talking about the lesser shadow wolf which was developing towards sapience.

The myconids weren’t like that, at least not for the next step. While they could develop sapience, from how Doyle understood it this was a gradual thing that just happened. It wasn’t a development of any specific step in their growth. About the only limitation was that the sprouts couldn’t be sapient.

With that in mind, Doyle summoned in a bunch of the lesser myconids and let the accelerated time effect do the work for him. Though even with this acceleration, it took more than just time for the next step. It took a while before anything happened.

And during that time, things had advanced for Jim. It hadn’t quite gotten to the point where he would have to meet with the council, though. His team had found a hint towards where Ben was hiding out.

This wasn’t the hardest bit of tracking he had ever done, but being a city and the fact that Ben had people assisting him meant Jim had to actually use his pre-system skills. Not impossible, just time-consuming.

So now Jim was standing in front of an abandoned building that compared to the buildings around it looked absolutely trashed. Though if you took any time to look at it, the building was too trashed and too targeted. None of the buildings next to it even showed signs of similar damage on the adjacent walls.

Jim wasn’t certain that he was in the building at the moment, but Ben had stayed here within the last week, which meant he had likely known Jim was in town looking for him. If Ben wanted to talk to him, there would be some way for that to happen within this building. Either Ben himself, someone to represent him, or at the very least a message.

Behind Jim was his entire team, the first time they had all gathered in the same place in days. While the council wasn’t ready to meet him, they weren’t shy about having all kinds of gotchas and messages that needed to be answered right away. Annoying and if Jim was going to be honest with himself, something he should have left someone to take care of. However, even with how little time he had spent in their house, the council had thoroughly tried his patience with how much they were trying to turn the process into a multi-day DMV experience.

Akhier

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