Second Realm
Page 52
***
Rugrat was finally released from Tan Xue’s hold sometime later. His understanding of metal compression had deepened. He was looking to make items and them compress them when he should have compressed the metal and then worked with it.
The metal was harder to work with once it was compressed, but its strength and attributes were higher, even if its weight remained the same from before the compression.
Rugrat went toward the Alchemy lab. There were people talking to one another and examining each other’s concoctions as he entered.
“Erik?” Rugrat asked as they all went silent upon seeing him.
“Third door on the right,” one of the alchemists said.
Rugrat nodded in thanks and headed to the secluded room.
There were alchemists in the different rooms. Smells came out but Rugrat couldn’t hear anything within. He made it to the door and knocked on it.
“Come in,” Erik said.
Rugrat opened the door and closed it.
“You saw it, right?” Erik sat at the cauldron in the middle of the room. His hands moved around the cauldron, allowing him greater control over the flames inside.
Rugrat leaned against the wall next to the door. “Yeah, the Trial and Tribulation quest. I was talking to Tan Xue. Dungeons are places where people can find fortune or misfortune. A place with great riches but one must have to pass through many tests and push themselves to get those rewards. Dungeons, for the most part, are randomly generated and run by the Ten Realms. I guess this is the Ten Realms trying to reclaim the dungeon to create a place where it can motivate people to gain greater strength and harvest those who don’t have that strength.” Rugrat shook his head, not in sadness, but the simplistic way of the system.
The Ten Realms was simple: you had to be strong, to force yourself harder or have better abilities and gear to advance.
“Fortune favors the strong,” Erik said simply as he continued to grill different ingredients, the flames lighting up his face.
Rugrat looked up to him. “What’s the plan, West?”
“We use the system ourselves.” Erik looked to Rugrat.
“What?”
“Take over other dungeons. Take control of them, turn them into outposts for Alva Dungeon. When one completes the first dungeon, they can leave with their loot, or they can challenge the path. We give them a trial to test their personality, to see whether they have what it takes to be someone of Alva Dungeon. If they pass, then they swear an oath and they enter a training camp run by our people and are checked before being allowed into Alva Dungeon proper. We not only make trials for fighters, but crafters and others. With each of these paths, people can come and conquer the dungeon.”
“Most groups try to monopolize the dungeons for resources, though.”
“Well, they might not be able to find the dungeon core. We can just yank it out and destroy the dungeon. As long as we have the materials, the people, and the blueprints, we can make any kind of dungeon in just a few weeks, or we can take the dungeon core, combine it with Alva Dungeon. We will need to conquer a number of dungeons, but with us able to pass on the Dungeon Hunter title, we can give it to the leaders of the special teams and they can conquer dungeons as well.”
“So what’s step one?” Rugrat asked.
“We take those teleportation formation plates we got in the spiritas dungeon and place them in hidden places near to cities. That way, our people can move through different cities. A few strong travelers occasionally coming by aren’t that strange. Also allows us to cover more ground. You’ve seen it—our numbers are less. People are leaving for different reasons. We need to grow and let them grow or else we will only hold them back and they will look for other ways to get stronger.” Erik waved his hand as the flames went out of the cauldron and Erik tipped the cauldron into waiting containers.
“You know that sounds totally insane, right?”
Erik looked over to Rugrat with one eyebrow raised. “When has anything been sane since we got the Two-Week Curse?”
“Fair point.” Rugrat fell into silence for some time.
“We’ve been fighting everything, looking to climb the Ten Realms. What do you want to do?” His question was simple but there was no hidden joke to it, cutting past all of Erik’s defenses as Rugrat truly asked him his opinion.
Erik stood and stretched as he was thinking. “Honestly, we could just sit back and live our lives out comfortably, if not in the best way. Just watch the world go by. We had maybe what, five good years left in us before we needed to retire from the business back on Earth? I don’t know what I would’ve done, but sitting back, unable to do anything, knowing what I had once been, a warrior who meant something, whose very words and actions could take and save lives. We both have it, battlefield high—we live for the fight; then, when we’re off it, we’re craving it harder than any.” Erik looked to Rugrat, who had a similar heat in his eyes as he nodded. Erik’s eyes moved to the cauldron at his feet.
“This isn’t just a new place; it’s a new way of life, a new challenge. Biggest challenge I’ve run into so far.” Although there were complicated emotions in his chest, a grin appeared on his face. “It ain’t easy—hardest thing I’ve done so far—but fuck it, I want to do it, because I wanted to, to see where we can go, lead these people to see if we can’t carve out a place for ourselves. Look out there.” Erik gestured to the window in the Alchemy lab and the dungeon beyond. “We gave them a place to grow, some information and buildings, but they took to it like diesel to a fire.” Erik let out a snort of air. “I’m going to reach for the top, because I want to.”
He looked over to Rugrat, who smirked and let out a laugh. “All right, I’ve always been interested in seeing what the gods look like. Who knows? We might be able to become some!”
“Great—Rugrat, the great overlord of Twinkies,” Erik said sarcastically.
Rugrat’s face dropped.
“What’s wrong?” Erik asked.
“I asked Jia Feng if she could…if she could make Twinkies.” Rugrat’s eyes were actually wet as he sniffed and looked up at the ceiling. “She said yes,” he said, filled with overwhelming longing for a Twinkie.
“Christ, what am I going to do with you?” Erik sighed and went back to working as Rugrat got his emotions under control.
“Well, dinner is ready to be served,” Rugrat suggested.
“All right.” Erik cleared away his different items and indicated Rugrat to lead the way.
***
Sure enough, works every time. Elise looked up from the table as Erik and Rugrat grabbed food from the cookhouse and moved to the seating area outside close to the market.
Well, they didn’t technically go to the cookhouse but one of the stalls that was close to it, selling the food that different people had made. With different people, different kinds of foods and flavors were bound to come out of their efforts.
Although everyone had their homes, people still came down to the eating area to drink and see the other members of the town, talk about the day’s events and release their tensions. The fact that the cookhouse served food that allowed them to rapidly restore their fatigue and drinks to take the day’s edge off was a bonus. Many people would laughingly say that as long as they ate from the cookhouse, they could work a week straight before needing sleep.
Elise knew that this wasn’t just a saying. With the Stamina recovery effects, the meals would allow people to work all day and night if they desired.
The people of Alva Village were used to working as much as possible in order to increase their profits and be ready for the next year. When they turned into Alva Dungeon, this same work ethic had not disappeared. If anything, it became stronger.
The academy even had night classes for those who worked in the day but still wanted to learn a new skill.
There might only be around two hundred people, but they did the work of six hundred people easily. For them, it was
a point of pride.
Erik and Rugrat caught sight of Elise and Jasper, who were sitting at the table. With awkward smiles, they moved over to join them.
“Have a good tour of the dungeon?” she asked.
“Seems that you’ve all been rather busy,” Erik said as they sat down.
“Yeah, there’s always something that needs to be done.” Elise sighed.
“So what happened while we were gone?” Erik asked.
Elise took a deep breath as Jasper drank from his cup. Erik and Rugrat started eating from their plates, their eyes focused on Elise.
She recalled the different events, from the information network they had created in the different trading cities, to the issues with Vermire Trading Outpost. The expansion of the parties that went out into the Beast Mountain Range. The people who had decided to leave and go farther than just the edges of the Beast Mountain Range and those who had headed to the Second Realm.
Trade routes that had been established, the iron mines, the academy’s successes and the areas it was lacking. How the barracks had turned into a training ground for combat maniacs and a reserve militia had been created from the members of Alva Dungeon.
Erik and Rugrat took everything in, clearing their plates by the time she was finished.
“We’ll need to pay this Lord Aditya a visit, see what he’s made of and we need to expand the dungeon.” Erik took out a piece of paper that showed the dungeon and expanded areas he had added.
“I want to double the size of the academy and triple the size of the growing areas. The farmers can continue their projects but I want them to grow more crops. We’ve got an advantage over the other villages and cities in the Ten Realms. We can grow crops all season long. I want to create a secondary market and warehouse district with nearby housing, creating a trader and military quarter, between the teleport pad and the exit past the barracks. I want you to install the trading interface in the market there. Everyone will be allowed to access it. We will charge the five percent tax, as we do in this market.
“The secondary market will be meant for trading outside of the dungeon, while this primary market will be meant for trading within the dungeon. The beast stables are to be doubled in size as well—it’s getting cramped in there. Also, if the traders want to have beasts, they can board them in the beast stables, but they will have to pay extra for it. From now on, the beast stables will be under the control of the military. If they want, the traders can build stables attached to their new living quarters.” Erik finished as Jasper and Elise looked over the different plans and the new map in front of her. The changes were not simple.
“Looks like Shi Wanshu and the architects are going to have their work cut out for them.” She sat back as she felt that Erik wasn’t finished.
“We gained a number of teleportation formations that we can place in different locations, near population centers with Ten Realms totems. With these, we can spread out our people so they’re not all using Chonglu, as that would raise some eyebrows. One can teleport there for a cost. To use it to return to the dungeon, they will need to use a special amulet and pay a price in Mana stones, or monster cores to activate the formations.” Rugrat then looked to Erik.
“Rugrat and I will spend as much time trying to pass on what we’ve learned. We want to make at least one more special team that can head up to the Second Realm and mixed parties of Alva military and people from the dungeon to go in search of new resources and information.”
“You make it sound like you’re leaving already,” Jasper said.
“Once we’ve recovered our supplies, consolidated our gains, and created new weapons and armor and made sure that the dungeon is running as it should be, we will head off to the Third Realm,” Rugrat said, not hiding anything. “We’re just two dudes, though. We can get some items and gear, but we need more people to stimulate the dungeon and the people’s growth. In three months, we’ve only added five more members to the dungeon. This is partly because we’ve got very strict guidelines for people we allow into the dungeon and the second is that we don’t have enough ways and places to recruit people from.”
“Which is the next part we need to talk about: the expansion and future of Alva Dungeon,” Erik said. “It is possible for us to both elect one Dungeon Hunter, someone who can locate dungeons and take command or destroy them in our name. We want to turn these into proving grounds. Places where crafters and fighters can enter and test their skills. If they prove their skills, or their tenacity of character, we will need to review their character and see if they would be a good fit for Alva Dungeon.”
“Use the dungeons as testing grounds?” Jasper asked.
“Correctamundo, buddy.” Rugrat winked and clicked out the side of his mouth as he pointed a finger gun at Jasper.
“Even if we don’t recruit many people, we can use Mana gathering formations to collect and store Mana to be used in Alva Dungeon and we will see how they carry out different tasks, allowing the people in different departments to learn from them.”
The table went silent as Jasper and Elise thought over Erik’s plan. With control over so many dungeons, it was an incredible plan.
“Well, I think that the architect school will be getting bigger in the coming months. That’s a lot to plan out, and they’ll probably be constantly updating the plans they have. I know that they’ve already come out with three more upgraded versions for the houses and are working on upgrade plans for the other buildings,” Elise said.
“Well, if people want to upgrade, they can. If they use more power from the dungeon core, then they will have to pay a fee accordingly, based on monster cores,” Erik replied. If they use the pure power from the dungeon core and then feed it monster cores with all manner of impurities, it will help the dungeon core grow and supply more power.
“To the future and more building.” Elise smiled and held up a cup. The others tapped glasses with hers and took a deep drink.
“Why do I feel like we all just got a lot more work to do?” Jasper asked, grinning to the others.
“’Cause we did,” Rugrat replied, drinking everything remaining in his cup. “At least the beer is good!”
Chapter: Turning a Profit
“Twenty-five stat points,” Erik said aloud as he sat in the mansion that he and Rugrat were staying in.
He still couldn’t believe the Experience that they had gained from the quest. All quests came with Experience. Although some came with a fixed amount, others were calculated. These quests’ Experience could be nearly nothing or they could be a massive amount depending on the difficulty that the Ten Realms judged the users had gone through or based on criteria it had created.
“Now I just need to know what to do with them.” Erik was drinking a tea that was supposed to make it easier to sleep. It was working but his mind started to drift.
It might be easier to increase my stats overall than it is to increase my Body Cultivation. I need to go to Egbert and ask him whether he knows anything about Body Cultivation when I wake up.
He had gained Poison Body, but he didn’t want that to be the end of his Body Cultivation path. If he wasn’t able to progress more, then he would need to change his fighting style or rely heavily on just the armors that Rugrat made.
Erik’s eyes finally closed as he was met with a familiar sight.
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You have 25 attribute points to use.
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Seven into Strength, seven into Agility, takes me to fourteen with eleven left over. Split five and five for Stamina and Mana Regeneration, put the final one into Mana pool? Erik glanced at his Stamina pool; he laughed to himself and placed the last attribute point into his Mana pool, finalizing it all as a new sheet appeared in front of him.
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Character Sheet
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Name: Erik West
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Level: 23
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Titles:
From the Grave
Mana Lord
Dungeon Master
Reverse Alchemist
Poison Body
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Strength: (Base 26) +28
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540
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Agility: (Base 19) +29
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240
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Stamina: (Base 29) +9
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570
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Mana: (Base 6) +13
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190
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Mana Regeneration (Base 10) +36
14.80/s
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Stamina Regeneration: (Base 27) +31
12.60/s
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***
It had been two days since Erik and Rugrat had come back. The academy libraries had undergone a transformation; the dungeon was stabilized and instead of making plans to evacuate, people were finally settling in.
There were more materials than ever for sale at the different markets, from items gathered by the parties in the Beast Mountain Range, the traders who went to the trading outposts, or the goods made by the people from the academy.
Most of the items that Erik and Rugrat brought weren’t tradeable and were added to the academy’s warehouse or the growing fields and barracks to increase the strength of the people and allow them to progress faster.
The two could be seen in the academy going from place to place, giving lessons, tutoring people and aiding as they could.
The people in Alva were busy as Erik and Rugrat had deposited tens of storage rings filled with the remains of the dungeon they had destroyed.
The architects had been sent into a creative buzz. They were creating all kinds of different drawings; with that inspiration, it seemed to have lit a fire underneath them and opened up their mind to more ideas than before.