The Crafter's Dominion: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 5) Jonathan Brooks (books that read to you txt) 📖

You can now purchase Advancement Level 2 Dungeon Monsters from the Advancement Options Menu.

Why did I do that?  What was I thinking?  Her mind was relatively clear as she closed the notification.  As she pulled up her new Constructs and Advancement Creation Option menus to see what had changed, she was extremely worried, since the last time she had increased her Classification, she had ended up with nearly half of her available constructs being too expensive.

Constructs Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost: (60% Reduction)

Powered Arachnid

20

Animated Iron Shears

40

Mega Automaton

80

Weighted Rolling Force

100

Iron-mandible Segmented Millipede

400

Steel-banded Articulated Powered Golem

600

Sonic Blademaster

1200

Large Steel-armored Sentinel

1600

Powered Jaguar Empress

3200

Powered Sabre Wolf

4000

Champion Totem

6400

Rapid Steel-bladed Digger

8000

Unobtrusive Multi-access Repair Drone

12800

Titanium Ape Savage

19200

Platinum-banded Wyrm

25600

Titanium-plated Behemoth

32000

Expanded Mobile Fortification

40000

Steel Colossus

60000

Gravitational Devastation Sphere*

15000

Advancement Creation Options

Name:

Mana Cost: (60% Reduction)

Goblin Crafter

64

Shadow Wyvine

6400

Radiant Giant Pegasus

8000

Explosive Phoenix

12000

Stabilized Shapeshifter

12800

Enhanced Celestial Authority

14400

Hardened Animated Slab

20000

High Peak Roc

28000

Well, it’s not quite as bad as I feared, but— 

“Sandra!  Are you okay?”

Winxa’s voice was like a soothing balm on an open wound.  Sandra hadn’t realized how much she had missed hearing the Dungeon Fairy when she was caught up in her blinding rage.  I think so; how long was I out?

“Oh, thank the Creator!  Your Core suddenly went dark about an hour ago, and I feared the worst—”

An hour?  Oh, no….

Suddenly, viewpoints from the four different tunnels leading to the other dungeons suffused Sandra’s mind.  In each of them, the Golems, Goblins, Slimes, and Beasts were initiating a counterattack at precisely the same time, pushing back her constructs which had been literally sitting in place waiting for additional orders.  Luckily, they were more in a “ready” mode than frozen in place, so as soon as they were attacked they defended themselves.  In the Golem tunnel, her Steelclad Ape Warriors used their dwindling stock of Titanium warhammers to smash the large animated hunks of stone and iron to pieces; they made fairly easy work of the Monsters, though the impacts against such heavily defended Golems took a toll on their weapons after a while.  When first one warhammer and then another were bent and basically unusable, her constructs had begun to run into trouble as they were pushed back even further.

Against the Goblins, Hobgoblin Mages backed up the horde of smaller Goblins that swarmed over her Jaguar Queens and Dire Wolves, which were typically the best choice against the agile nuisances.  With their overwhelming numbers, however, Sandra’s constructs were fighting a losing battle, especially when the Hobgoblin Mages started slinging spells around that tended to encapsulate the feet of her constructs in ice, leaving them trapped and at the mercy of the crude weapons wielded by the Goblin horde.  Even a measly Goblin Scout could carve up and dismember a large Mechanical Wolf if given enough time and opportunity – aided by dozens of its brethren, of course.

Over in the Beast tunnel, Steel-plated Behemoths, Titanium Anacondas, and Roaring Blademasters squared off against strong, quick, and deadly creatures streaming out of the Beast-Classification dungeon.  Those too fast for the Behemoths to smash apart were picked off by the equally fast Anaconda, or sliced apart by the Blademaster; when a procession of Crocatiles (or Agorphiers, according to the Elves) appeared, the 6-legged cat/crocodile monstrosities shrugged off most of the attacks by the Anacondas and Blademasters.  Their tough, furry hides were certainly injured from their slicing and piercing attacks, but it took a pair of Behemoths working together to smash their heads in – though there were starting to be mounting casualties on her side.

The Slimes were another problem entirely; not only did smaller ovoid-shaped Slimes swarm out in greater numbers than Sandra had seen before, but they also brought along larger forms that somewhat mimicked the Beasts she was having trouble with in a different tunnel.  Fortunately, their exterior wasn’t as formidable and could be pierced by the jaws of an Anaconda or sliced apart by a Mechanical Jaguar Queen or Dire Wolf, but the sheer quantity of acidic bodies coating her constructs was quickly eating away the metal in which they were constructed.

Seeing all of her forces being pressed at the same time, with the other Dungeon Cores ganging up on her with a single-minded purpose to destroy her, Sandra’s red rage came back full-force.  Gone was the clear thinking she had enjoyed for a brief time, as she could only concentrate on killing every foreign Dungeon Monster she could see.

I will destroy you all!

Chapter 3

The difference in the cost of each of Sandra’s Classification Advancement Level 2 constructs wasn’t significantly more than it had been before, especially for the lesser-expensive ones.  From some quick calculations that she did while starting her counterattack to push the other Cores’ Monsters back into their own dungeons, she determined that instead of their previous cost being multiplied by 4 or 5 like before, they only doubled in cost for this Level – though that was still quite significant.  For a construct like her Clockwork Spider, which originally cost 5 Mana before any Advancement Levels, then increased to 25 Mana at Level 1, and finally 50 Mana at Level 2 – that was a 1000% increase of in cost; for all of that, with her reduction in Mana Cost for her Dungeon Monsters, it only cost 20 Mana instead of 50 – so that wasn’t horrible.

For something like her Steel Python, which originally cost 8,000 Mana, then 32,000 at Level 1, and now 64,000 at Level 2, the 25,600 Mana it cost with her reductions was quite a significant jump.

The worst part of everything was she could no