The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) Jonathan Brooks (large ebook reader TXT) 📖

why she was trying to use it earlier with her Shapeshifter on the flat piece of Steel she had created, but again, that didn’t turn out so well.

It was intriguing in the enchantment around her Core, however, because it was inverted – something she hadn’t ever seen before.  Logically, she thought that would’ve meant the opposite of its intended purpose, like it was trying to “weaken” everything.  Instead, it looked like it was doing something else, something vitally important that had extremely far-reaching implications and potential uses; instead of weakening the enchantment, it was using a portion of the incoming Mana to strengthen the very enchantment it was a part of.

Sandra could see no other purpose for it being there; with the inverted Strengthen rune – along with some other important parts, of course – it was essentially a self-sustaining enchantment that used the Mana it absorbed to recharge and maintain the enchantment…indefinitely.  That made sense, though, because a Dungeon Core could potentially be operating for decades or centuries; very few enchantments Sandra knew of could last even a fraction of that long, especially those that were in constant use like this one seemed to be.

What made the enchantment even more unique, however, was that instead of separate elements for every rune – or even dual or triple combinations – each rune seemed to be made up of every element, which Sandra would’ve said was impossible if she wasn’t seeing it herself.  And since only those who could access a certain element could see enchantments and the runes they were made up of, that explained why no one had ever seen them before.  It also explained why she hadn’t seen it with her constructs; while they were technically creations utilizing all of the elements, they couldn’t access any of them themselves.

That was probably unneedfully confirmed when she tried to analyze her constructs the same way she could the Goblin Worker or her Unstable Shapeshifter – nothing came up.  It was almost like she was looking at a special moving object instead of a Dungeon Monster, for all that whatever granted her the information on the other Classification’s monsters was concerned.  She briefly looked at a foreign Core’s Dungeon Monsters through her Shears aboveground and found that they were hidden from her analyzation as well, so it only seemed to work on her own.

Regardless, after taking another brief glance at her Core and the surrounding enchantment through its vision, Sandra instructed the Shapeshifter to travel up to the Kitchen where Echo and Felbar were still lying unconscious on the floor.  She would’ve put them in a bed somewhere if she thought it would matter, but as they were essentially in comas she didn’t think they particularly cared; besides, the nearby Repair Drone was keeping any type of injury they were sustaining from lying on the relatively cold stone floor healed the entire time.

It’s time to practice and eventually put some of this new knowledge to work.

Chapter 40

Sandra soon discovered the other reason her new Dungeon Monster was considered “unstable”.

The Shapeshifter could move remarkably fast as it flowed forward like some sort of semi-solid slime (when she wasn’t directly controlling it, at least), and it wasn’t long before it was in the kitchen and taking a little sample of Echo’s blood.  It was interesting to know that was all it took for her new Monster to shift into another form; not only that, but she also discovered after analyzing it again afterwards that it still had the capability of shifting to Violet’s double.  It was almost as if the Shapeshifter had a memory of sorts that filed away the forms of those it had taken a sample of, and it could pull those out at any time.  Something also told her that if her new Monster died, any future ones she made wouldn’t remember those samples.

After acquiring Echo’s form, she took control of the Elf form and immediately ran to the VATS so that she could get up to the Assembly and Storage room.  She had decided that she would use the room for enchanting practice since it was far away from her Core – she still remembered the minor explosion caused by the half-complete enchantment made by her Goblin Worker.  She was planning on using a lot more elemental energy in the future, though, so if something went wrong, any resulting explosions would likely be quite a bit more…destructive.

The feeling of controlling a body that was very, very similar to her old Human one was interesting.  There was a bit of a height difference (the Elf being at least a foot taller), but everything else felt refreshingly familiar; it was the first time since she had been made into a Dungeon Core that she felt almost free and like she could live the life she had wanted for so long – a life where she didn’t have deformed hands.  Echo’s hands were delicate-yet-strong, as well as being calloused in places that indicated she was quite adept at using the bow she had carried; in short, they were perfect for her to do some crafting and enchanting.

The Shapeshifter’s form was also naked, but since it was just herself and the cold stone didn’t really affect her like it would normally – some sort of side-effect of being a Shifter, she thought – she stayed naked for the moment.  She hadn’t wanted to spend the time making clothes and the sheet that she created for Violet’s twin was a bit cumbersome and would hinder her movements.

The enchanting practice – on a variety of materials – went much better than the first time with her Goblin, though she still had to practice quite a bit to have even passable enchantment runes.  She only had access to Holy and Air elemental energy through Echo’s form, but there were plenty of enchantments that she could create – and she had 8,000 of