Pov Dungeon Core

  Reconnecting with my dungeon after a breakthrough was always exciting. This time, however, there was a bit of bad news. Over the course of a few months, the Big Four have started to properly mobilize, and while we're only getting snippets of information, the situation has been clear from the beginning. They will soon march. Yet now, it’s confirmed—they’re on the move.

  As most of the soldiers coming over are platinum- and diamond-ranked, even the Delvers don’t have a problem showing up with a massive army on land. In fact, they’re one of the closest, as our scouts have confirmed that they are currently preparing a beachhead to handle logistics for them.

  Currently, there are discussions on whether we should start operations outside my territory to delay any approach, but I left them to it for now as I decided to look over all my skills and how much I have managed to improve them.

  Currently, the focus has been on reaching as deep as possible. I’m amazed that I managed to get to floor 72 so fast. But I guess if you’re really pushing yourself in one direction and not doing anything else, progress comes quickly.

  Unfortunately, I haven’t thought of any new skills I could make, and while I would still want the skill that allows me to take talents from beings not created by me, I can feel that even if I tried to make something like that, it wouldn’t work—at least not until I make it to diamond.

  Pattern Strengthening: Rank S

  Creature Making: Rank S

  Creature Quantity: Rank S

  Dungeon Modification: Rank S

  Space Expansion: Rank S+

  Dungeon Rules’: Rank S

  Sub Dungeons’: Rank S

  Outer Vision: Rank S

  Creature Advancement: Rank S

  Ever-expanding mind matrix: Rank S

  Planned Evolution: Rank S

  Dungeon Gateway: Rank F

  Extreme Environment: Rank B+ --> S

  Aura Crystal: Rank E+

  My World: Rank S

  Ever-expanding quantity: Rank S

  Enhancement: Rank S

  Hold Location: Rank E --> A

  Extended Sight: Rank E --> B

  I have been able to improve quite a few of my skills and even got one to S rank, but some skills just aren’t as important, like aura crystals. While eventually, they will become important—at least, I hope so—because I really don’t want to become the will of the world. I like my current self and will try to do anything I can to not become something else.

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  Floor 72 was impressively big. It is almost 481,000 kilometers in length, close to 362,000 kilometers in width, and, of course, the height I pushed to be 48 kilometers. It’s weird how much height feels different than distances, but that 48 kilometers feels so much.

  Most likely, when I reach diamond rank, it will be time to readjust the height once again to keep down the width and length so I won’t have to make so much land in the future.

  We were still working on improving our defenses, and the second layer was close to being finished—it was already completed at both poles. Those were the two most likely places to be attacked, so they were the priority.

  Of course, our enemy will have strong mages who could manipulate vast swathes of earth, but we had countermeasures for that in the form of our own mages. And, of course, my dungeon rules would help make the difference in that fight.

  As the days passed, we were getting more and more information. The armies raised against us were incredibly impressive. The Masters and the Beasts seemed to have been able to make armies estimated to be between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 platinum ranks, with about 1,000 to 1,200 diamonds. Of course, those diamonds were early-ranked, basically diamond ranks that had just broken through, but there were still quite a lot.

  It didn’t surprise me that they had them, but it was still impressive to achieve such a level of strength in what amounted to a decade and a half. The Delvers were on another level. They had fewer diamond ranks—we were estimating about 600 to 800—but their platinum ranks were estimated at around 7 million, which surprised everyone. It was the largest number among all of the four great powers.

  We weren’t worried about the platinum ranks, even if those numbers were incredibly high. The problem was the Pixies. They had around 2 to 3 million platinum ranks, but what was concerning was that we were estimating close to 4,000 diamond ranks.

  Now that number impressed me. Of course, I could see what focused training could do, as we had close to that number of diamond ranks. So, if we were to take on the Pixies alone, even though they would have some trump cards, I was sure we could succeed.

  The problem was the other three great powers. Their numbers, added to the Pixies, meant that we were going to have a difficult battle ahead of us, and we would need to use everything we had.

  But we had the defensive advantage, which counted for quite a lot, thanks to our fortifications being built to counter such strength. We would get more accurate numbers as the armies converged on this location, but I was pretty sure that they were accurate enough already.

  The reason the Pixies were able to get so many diamond ranks so fast was simply because they had the most number of diamond-rank dungeons. While before I broke the siege, there were about 15 diamond-rank dungeons in the world, now there were close to 200. Of course, almost all of them were basically just 76 floors deep, as all of them had been kept at the very end of platinum for who knows what reason.

  Still, the fact that I alone could compete with the output of about half of those diamond-rank dungeons in producing diamond-ranked combatants was... well, it made me feel really good.

  Of course, I could make more farm floors to make up the difference, but the ramp-up time for one and the time to build one were simply no longer viable. That’s why I have put so much time into advancing as my best chance for survival was to make it to diamond rank.

  I could also speed up my advancement a little by making the floors smaller, but it was already hard to fight my instincts to just leave those floors so empty. I think if I were to try to make those floors smaller, I would actually start to struggle to control myself. So I was pushing as hard as possible against the limits of the floor, pushing its spatial expansion as much as I could so I could reach the limits of it.

  With the armies against us, especially considering how many diamond ranks they had, the only way to actually win this was for me to reach diamond rank. Everything else was just a delaying action, and hopefully, our defenses were capable enough to keep those bastards out for as long as possible.

  Fortunately, they still had to make it here, which gave me more time. So I interrupted the meeting everyone was having and ordered them to do as much as possible to delay any army from reaching here, as even a few days could make the difference between victory and loss.

  I also needed to prepare armies. A part of me was constantly making monsters. While most of them were meant for the fortifications, a small portion was to refill the dungeon rooms. Everything else went into making roaming armies, so I could send millions of platinum-ranked monsters against the approaching armies and, of course, fight against the inevitable flood of monsters from other dungeons that would come from below.

  It was a delicate act of how much of myself should I dedicate to each needed task. If I put too much into making monsters, I would be delaying my advancement too much, but if I put too much into advancing, our defenses could crumble too fast, leaving me without enough time to reach diamond.

  I wonder if I have gone a bit crazy because I was actually finding this all a bit exciting. I guess the time for building up was over, and it was time to go to war again.