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Chapter 460

After cleaning up business in the small derelict village, I naturally brought all of the people there over to my city, Chalm. Their number didn’t even exceed 50, but they, fortunately, had a good opinion when it came to me. Furthermore, given the lack of support Lord Reign had given them in the past, it didn’t take a lot to convince them to abandon a couple of shacks.

As for the buildings, I had the dungeon consume them. I wanted it so when Lord Reign investigated, there would be absolutely nothing he could use. They became food for the dungeon and were digested into miasma. The miasma we had taken from the Widow’s Dungeon was volatile and it quickly dissipated once the dungeon’s barrier was brought down. The miasma that was produced by my own dungeon seemed to be different, though.

Of course, I didn’t get any rewards for dismantling my own dungeon, but at least I could keep the miasma. I was able to collect it freely, even once the dungeon was gone. I felt like I had some kind of affinity for this miasma. Rather than feeling like it had a corrosive, destructive effect, it actually felt calm and eager to be molded.

That’s when I came to the realization that I had finally found my third source of concentrated mana. At the moment, there were three things, which were best described as a concentrated mana, which could be applied to skills to create new skills. Any individual could only select one skill per mana source to modify into a particularly powerful spell.

We had created a unique Resurrection spell, the God Eye identification, a spirit fire enchantment, a shadow imbued disguise and a powerful shadow attack, to name of a few of the combination skills my girls have gained using mana as a reagent. These mana sources came from the natural talents of Celeste and Miki. Miki could create spirit fire using her nine-tails. Meanwhile, Celeste could create fairy dust.

Now, a third source had arrived, miasma. I could create miasma by creating a temporary dungeon and dissolving items with it to extract their latent mana. However, upon realizing I could do this, I found that Shao’s Shadow Knight already had a similar ability. Dark Destruction was a recently unlocked skill that could target an object and break it down into miasma. It worked best with magical items and wasn’t as efficient as turning things into a dungeon and dissolving them that way. However, what it lacked in efficiency it made up for in ease of use.

I did eventually test out elemental stones, but they are so common, that had they worked, the world would have assuredly known about them. The stones do work as reagents. They can enhance similar elemental skills to make them stronger. For example, a firestone could increase the power of a fireball. An Intermediate Mage might be able to produce the spell at the strength of an Advanced Mage. If you have the Combination skill, these items can also be combined with neutral skills to give them an elemental effect.

For example, my Divine Aura spell combined with a fire stone could give a sword both a fire and a holy effect for the duration of the spell. Considering undead are weak against both fire and holy, this would have made those attacks more powerful.

Although, I had some desires to keep studying this system, and perhaps have each of the girls develop a new skill with their miasma combination, I had other more important things to worry about. Chalm was preparing for war.

Chapter 461

“A wall?” I asked as plans were put in front of me.

“We’re in the wilderness,” the Mayor sighed. “And the larger our city is, the more we’re going to attract various high-level beasts. More than that, if we’re going to defend Aberis from external threats, we need to start worrying about this level of security.”

“Terra, would you be able to do it?” I asked.

“Ah, yes, Master, I can have it done today.”

“Today!” The Mayor let out a noise of shock. “The entire city? I was expecting this job to take months!”

“It’s fine.” I patted his back. “Just don’t worry about it too much. My girls will do what they can today. Tomorrow, we’re going to be leaving.”

“What should we do?” Miki asked.

“Lydia… work with the new army recruits. Teach anyone you can the sword. If they can gain the Swordsman job, that would be best. However, I’ll take any decent fighting job.”

“Yes, Master!”

“Miki, I want you to work on morale. Check people’s moods and try to improve them. I want the residents in a good state of mind. That way, they can be productive. When you’re done with that, work with the alchemist to build up our stocks of bombs and potions.”

“I will, Master.”

Celeste, check on your mother. If there is any fairy dust or waters of life, please store it. Don’t take any if it will affect the growth of the fairy spring.”

“Y-yes!”

“Shao, Raissa, I need the two of you with me.”

“M-me?”

“Hehe, Master, even now? It’s still light out…”

I rolled my eyes, ignoring her flirting. “We’re going to be doing the most important job. I want to gather up a large number of magic stones and magic items we can’t use. I’m going to create and implant a dungeon near town.”

“Y-you’re creating a dungeon?” the Mayor asked with fear painted on his face. “Near the town?”

“This dungeon is a little different,” I tried to explain. “Without it being sustained by a curse, it won’t be able to grow or consume mana. We’ll have to feed it for it to produce.”

“Wh-what is the point?”

“Raissa here is the world’s best Dungeon Diver, so she’s going to help me build a dungeon to train people.”

Raissa’s face turned red. “B-best… he says…”

“All of our soldiers are low level,” I explained to the Mayor, “The quickest way to fix that is to have them train in a dungeon. So, I’m going to create the circumstances for them to kill mobs and level. It might end up being expensive to start, but perhaps one day we can use the dungeon to access precious metals and the like.”

“You wish to farm it, like the Great Dungeons?”

“Right now, a training place would be enough.” I turned to Raissa and brought out a token. “Raissa, will you be my Knight?”

“A… Kn-Knight?”

“You will be tasked with training my soldiers. Teach them how to survive. Teach them how to fight to the death. No one in this world fights seriously because they all live with the knowledge that they can just be resurrected when they die. I’m going to change that.”

“H-How so?”

“Easy… I’m going to put the fear of death in them.”

Chapter 462

Like before, I used the Dungeon Creation skill. It was a once-a-day skill, but it had been one day since I had used it last so I could use it again. It was a bit of a frustrating spell. Worth 25 points, I had a restriction where points couldn’t be recovered with reset when they were in cooldown. So, that meant that I lost almost all of my DP for an entire day every time I used this spell.

However, I felt it was very important to have a dungeon for the men to use. In time, I truly did hope that it’d be like Dirage’s Dungeon for us, where it was a source of income. The wilderness was a land ravaged by dungeons. They pulled mana out of the soil, and the result was that farming was in short supply. Other than hunting dangerous game, there were rather few ways Chalm could make money. It had no exports. Even if I eventually got the orichalcum from Widow’s Dungeon, those profits would be temporary and they wouldn’t help Chalm become self-sufficient.

I had many plans to help bring wealth to Chalm. There was the fairy spring, which functioned the exact opposite of dungeons, counteracting the curse. In fact, one day, I hoped to be able to support the dungeon by using the mana from the fairy queen. This would definitely take a delicate balance between the two, and possibly my own support as well.

Some of the miners from the Miner’s town were sent out to survey the land with Adventurer’s as protection, including the Guild Master himself. These were men who had already set up shop in the wilderness up north, so they weren’t afraid of looking for other mineral deposits. If they failed to find anything, I might depend on Terra and her Mineral Appraisal skill. Finally, it was my idea to create our own dungeon for my people to use.

That had been Karr’s greatest mistake. He had tied all of his money to selling water of life. In the end, he sucked the land dry and allowed Karr’s Dungeon to appear. I wouldn’t make the same mistake.

Thus, we used the miasma we had obtained from the houses we deconstructed in the Miner’s town, and then created a new dungeon which I embedded into the ground. A new dungeon would eventually construct ten floors, and then from there, it would steadily grow. I helped this one along, bringing in mana-infused items for the dungeon to digest.

As for the siren, she ended up as the final floor ten boss. This wasn’t a problem, as Raissa would make sure that no one ever attempted to clear out the tenth floor. With the dungeon created by my calm miasma and the boss monster being my own tamed monster, I felt like I had a dungeon that fell in my control.

With the excess mana, I began to build the dungeon. If I tried to build it based on my own expectations, it might be too dangerous, so I instead used Raissa to come up with the floor plans. I didn’t allow the dungeon to grow out as most wild ones did. Most floors had a very particular path or a clearly defined maze. While I shaped it based on Raissa’s expert advice, theming each floor as an educational experience that would teach the soldier’s a necessary skill, Shao brought in more magical items to convert to miasma.

When the Guild Master returned, I also got his opinions on what was necessary. By the end, we had a very simple dungeon. If a normal dungeon was like a wild animal that would bite people and savagely defend itself while eating as much as it could, the dungeon I built was much more like a tamed puppy, eager to please its master.

I gave the siren various orders. For example, if a human did die in the dungeon, then the dungeon wasn’t to eat their soul but expel it. These differences made this dungeon completely safe for people.

After a full day of work, we had each completed our project. It would be months before we could call these jobs done, but time waited for no one. We had to just trust that Chalm would build off the foundations we left. We had a king to save.

{For creating a dungeon, you have unlocked the job: Dungeon Builder.}

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