Dungeon Day 81 to 89

  Dan awoke to a new day. He was still where he had absorbed the shard, and all around him were piles of his monsters who had protected him while he was under. After rousing, thanking them, and sending them back to work, Dan checked his notifications.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  Congratulations! You have absorbed a Merged Shard. With its adsorption, you have gained control of a new area while also completing one of your Claiming Goals.

  ??

  The notification was rather straightforward, and he checked his goals.

  Claiming Goals.

  — Factions Under Control 8/9.

  — Shards Collected 8/8.

  — All Creatures in Area Under Control 0/1.

  This particular menu would stay like it was for quite a while since he wouldn't move on to finish taking over the gnolls until his dungeon was complete. So, Dan went on to check the final thing he needed to check on.

  ?? Crystal Notice ??

  ??Dungeon Menu ??

  Name: Dan.

  Rank: Low to Mid D Rank.

  Shards Collected: 8/100.

  Points till Next Rank: 300/700.

  Mana: 1800/1800 to 2700/2700.

  Mana Regen: 44 to 72 Mana a Day.

  Chaos Mana Regen: 22 to 36 Chaos Mana a Day.

  Monster Telepathy Range: 600ft to 900 ft.

  Total Area Claimed: 1066 to 1332 Square Miles.

  Abilities. 15.

  Claim or Edit Area.

  Create or Edit Creature.

  Create or Edit Item.

  Claiming Goals.

  ??

  Starting from the top of the menu, he saw he had moved up the ladder of power. It was rather nice and would help ensure his monsters put up an even better fight against the adventurers.

  Moving away from his rank, Dan was happy to see the numbers of shards had stopped fluctuating back and forth as they had absorbed each other or he absorbed them.

  Inspecting his mana regeneration, he was glad it had increased, even if it didn’t do anything for him. Those particular numbers were mainly there to look nice since he gained more mana from the invading monsters in much less time. The last thing to note was that his telepathic range and claimed area had grown. Both were nice additions, and he figured he would have around 1500 square miles under his control after he took over the gnoll's territory.

  Happy with his progress, Dan finally started to work on his dungeon.

  The first thing he did was take another look at his lands. Dan had many plans, but starting in the right spot was important. As he inspected the lands, it was hard not to be amazed at what he had accomplished in almost three months. He had come in and snowballed the entire region. It had felt like an eternity to him, but looking back now, barely any time had passed.

  After passing his gaze through his conquered lands and with all his monsters having respawned, well, except for the common ranked ones at the lake. Those he would keep dead until it was time to dungeonfy the lake. Noticing he was looking to spiral, Dan forced himself to focus; there were so many things to do, and he just wanted to make it all happen. Sadly, he could only store so much mana, and good chunks of it were going to waste. He needed to start building, so he focused on the village. That was going to be his first target.

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  The village was going to be the official starting zone for adventurers. Every single one of them, at least for their first visit, would start in Typic Town. That’s right, Dan was renaming it and rebuilding it into a proper town. After all, it wouldn’t do for the adventurer's first impression of Dan to be some backwater village.

  To start, Dan spent some mana remaking the villagers. Each villager took less than ten mana to be remade and were finally and firmly under Dan’s control. Dan had taken a look at their stat sheet, but since they were all standard humanoids, there wasn’t much to see. He had been informed by the World Crystal that when he actually made more humanoids, there would be a process to give them proficiencies.

  From what Dan understood, since the current villagers and other humanoids in his dungeon were born normally, they didn’t need such things. However, if he wanted to give them extra skills in certain things like smithing or cooking that they didn’t already have, Dan would have to spend more mana by giving them proficiencies in the chosen skills. Thankfully, after looking into the whole thing, Dan was relieved to find that breathing, walking, eating, and other basics didn’t need proficiencies. If they did, that would be a pain in his non-existent ass.

  With the villagers now entirely under his control, Dan removed them from existence. Remove was quite a strong word. They still existed in principle, and he could spawn them back in, but it was better that they didn’t exist for some time. He didn’t want to spend time moving them to a safe out of the way spot while he rebuilt the town. And honestly, it is not like they were going to remember not existing.

  Having taken the villagers out of the way, Dan finally got to town building. Thankfully, removing matter was free inside the shattered space, unlike when he had been back in the actual world.

  Dan basically removed the town from existence as well because he wanted a blank canvas. The only places he didn’t delete were the town hall, the inn, the two northern windmills, the two western lumber yards, the market area, and the two wells. He wanted to keep these buildings to use as a reference.

  Once the village was demolished, Dan looked to make a wall. The wall would keep him from turning the town into a city when he couldn’t stop himself from adding more and more.

  Dan pictured the wall in his mind's eye. It was going to be a wooden square wall around the future town area with gates on its four flattened corners that would give adventurers easy access in and out. He had thought of making a stone wall but felt like a town in the middle of a forest was more suited to a wooden one. With what he wanted to do pictured clearly, he began spawning it.

  Dan designated the very northern part of the town as the farming area. Outside of the walls, he grew fields of corn and cabbages, which were just for show since his villagers wouldn’t need to eat.

  Inside the northern part of the town, he made farmhouses for the npcs, who would play at being farmers. Dan called them npcs, but in actuality, he had to keep in mind that they would be able to feel and live semi-realistic lives. It was just that they would be programmed not to care about certain things, like the fact they were stuck in a town, in some random space, with constant strangers coming in and out.

  It was important that villagers acted that way so they could blend in with the idea the adventurers would have of his dungeon. The thing was that the adventurers would know the place was special since, in their world, monsters didn’t just spawn in, and they didn’t have a screen telling them they were in a dungeon.

  So, in that regard, though Dan did want to make a dungeon, he wanted certain places in it to feel realistic. One of the best ways to accomplish that was by having a somewhat realistic town with which the adventurers could interact. To achieve that, Dan wanted his villagers to be believable. They wouldn’t need to eat, but they would anyway, and Dan had to ensure “food” respawned and they never ran out of supplies. Additionally, they would be able to feel, make memories, and enjoy themselves. It was just that they wouldn’t question how the food came about or why they never left the town.

  The villagers would fear death, and their lives would be as real as they could be. They would hand out quests to adventurers and perform various other actions. What they wouldn’t be able to do was remember dying or remember specific interactions. All in all, they would be stuck in a loop of semi-reality.

  With this in mind, Dan continued creating things. He created farmhouses for the farmers. And since he was still going for the medieval theme, all houses were made to look old-school, made of wood and stone, and had a “this was made by hand” look to them.

  Many of the houses would be places the farmers lived in and had bedrooms, living rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. Dan also decorated the houses with the usual furniture and furnishings. It wasn't that hard since all he had to do was think about the stuff and pay the mana cost.

  At first, Dan thought he would have to make things separately, but since none of the items were magical, there wasn't a need. If he had made all the items, magical items, then it would have been a different story and definitely a much more expensive endeavor. Thankfully, even when he eventually made loot for the adventurers, he wouldn't need to always put in so much detail.

  His current creation spree had prompted him to look at the item creation options, and there were options to give general parameters for magical items. Dan would still create some items himself and would have to assign what items dropped where, why, and when, but that was a completely different thing he would eventually get to.

  Focusing back on the farm area, Dan created buildings that were actually used for farming, such as windmills, stables, and granaries. He also made pastures for animals, along with animals for said pastures. The animals consisted of things he was familiar with, like chickens, horses, pigs, and cows.

  After creating the animals, Dan continued by creating tools and other farming decorations—things like hay bales, anvils, sacks of grain, and a bunch of other stuff. Once again, none of it was magical, so it didn't cost too much mana and didn't take long at all. Even better was that, due to dungeon shenanigans, the things that could rot wouldn't.

  Dan wasn't sure why essentially putting things in stasis didn't count as making it magical, and he wasn't going to question it. Especially when the World Crystal didn't interfere to nerf it.

  Eventually, Dan felt the farming area was done and began looking towards the rest of the town.