The first floor was a circular cavern that for lack of a better description could only be called a park or zoo. The next floor had to be different, and it had to cater to the needs of the particular species of monsters I want to roam within it. So first of all I needed to think of what I want the next floor to look like, and I already have an idea for it.
Since I want the rats to be the one taking control of the next floor, I intended to make the next floor look like an abandoned temple. The temple on its own would be about a hundred meters wide and two hundred meters long.
I wanted it to look like a giant version of a Victorian mansion. I divided the temple into three different parts, and added a huge basement with a network of tunnels that led to a huge underground cavern that would serve as the permanent home of the rats.
The three parts of the temple, starts from the entrance which was about twenty meters wide and long, and giving for the size of the temple, it was like a narrow hallway. Then after that, the second part was a wide open hall with massive pillars that stretched a hundred and fifty meters in height and almost twenty five meters in circumference.
This part of the temple had a plethora of empty rooms at both its left and right wings, however those rooms all had access to the tunnels beneath the temple, with an even bigger tunnel hidden right at the center of the hall.
Then I made the final part of the temple, it was a rather simple chamber with broken statues of rats, unlike the other parts of the temple, only this room seemed like it was in ruin. It gave it an aesthetic and fantastical feeling.
This dungeons may serve as a training ground for the vampires who may come to serve me later, at least for now, I can have some of them train here, and while this wasn't an exactly safe environment, it was better than the black district.
Of course I'm still going to be heading or sending others to the black district to hunt, as a form of training, and a way to replenish the biological energy the dungeon requires to create more monsters.
The entrance to the second floor of the dungeon would be placed right at the center of the first floor, if I was not so stupid, the last time I was here, I would have realized that the teleportation array for the tower could be activated, but it cost 10 units of energy per use, so it was quite expensive.
But regardless, it would be the only way to the next floor, and that was going to be my insurance in case my enemies ever caught wind of this place and came down looking for me or my monsters.
I could completely cut off the function of the teleportation array and leave them all stranded on the first floor. The entire temple was the second floor, and while it was not as big as the first floor, it would serve it's purpose without problem.
Next I wanted to make a third floor for the bats, and this time I had to go big. Unlike the stone rats who were land based animals, and did not really need a lot of room for maneuvering, the bats were avaians, which meant they were flyers. They needed space, a lot of it. The design for the third floor, mirrored the first floor.
It was a massive cavern, it's ceiling was filled with massive mound like stalactites that were dozens of meter in circumference, and almost two hundred meters long, and yet it was still hanging a hundred meters in the air, making the entire height of the third floor almost three to four hundred meters in height, since some of those mounds were longer and shorter than the next.
On those mounds, I made ledges of various sizes, some of them were even caves, and they would serve as the abode for the bats. Then next I had to decide what to make the ground look like.
Bats were really fast flyers, however as a training scenario I wanted this place to have a difficult terrain that was advantageous to the bats only.
If anybody would survive their onslaught, they have to know how to move fast, think fast, and be very aware of their surroundings. For my next trick, I had to connect both the tower and dungeon together, and that was just because I wanted to create a sort of ecological system in place.
I made the ground almost a thousand meters long, and five hundred meters wide, that distance would mean nothing to a vampire who was moving at top speed, but I was not going to make it easy.
I connected the tower's matrix with the dungeons, having the water crystal in the matrix provide what could only be considered a massive body of water. I dug the entire cavern in irregular places, making some part of the ground a hundred feet deep, some six, other twenty etc.
Then I carved out little islands about twenty meters in circumference and made narrow meter wide land bridges to connect them, of course some of those land bridges were thinner than a meter, and their length depended solely on the distance between the islands I had made. And then I flooded the entire cavern.
The water was crystal clear, but that was not what I was aiming for. The Dungeon was actually capable of creating an ecological system on its own, creating plant life out of nothing. So I had I designed weeds that glowed a dark green right at the bottom of my flooded cavern.
But I did not stop there, those weeds made it almost impossible to be able to see into this giant lake of mine, so I filled the lake bed with earth spikes of varying sizes, some of them were hiding just beneath the surface of the water, others stretched so high they were practically touching the bat nests on the ceiling of the cavern.
At this point I realized that It was quite possible for me to add another species of monsters into this floor to make a fully functional eco system, they would prey on each other, training each other, getting stronger and living just like any other animal that's out there in the world. I needed fishes, lots of them, and I also needed bugs to serve as food for the fishes, preferably mosquitoes as those tiny vampires could also be problematic on their own.
The bats would prey on the fish, the fish would prey on the bugs and even eat the weeds at the bottom of the lake, and in turn, all of them would prey on the people who visited the dungeon.
After that, I just had to put on some finishing touches, the entrance to the third floor would be found at the end of the second floor, particularly in that dilapidated chamber. And it would probably expose itself after the boss has been defeated, just like a game.
But there was no boss in there yet, so it was basically unguarded until I figure out how to make a boss. Also I had to make it possible for vegetation of various types to grow in the temple, so I had to scrap most of my previous plans for it.
Now the temple looked like a place that has been reclaimed by nature as vines, trees and different type of plants edible to the rats were placed there, but not all were edible as I made some poisonous, harmful to any living thing that ingested it.
Also within their burrow, I made a little lake that would serve as a water source and made it so that they shared a channel together, with the water from the second floor lake, flowing towards the third floor, and coming from the tower.
With that said, I was done here. Now the next thing on my agenda would be to prepare for the recruits, the upcoming banquets, and to make sure I got some fishes as soon as possible.
The recruits coming would give me enough soul energy to raise the tower to level ten after I break their seals, and then I would have to see how I can focus on completing the missions earth has given me while also simultaneously preparing for the coven conference. I also needed to train, and train a lot, there's just so much to do.
"Soren how much would it cost to begin construction on the plans I just outlined" I asked as I got back up to my feet, startling Teluna and the others who had been bored silly waiting for me to finish.
[It would have taken at least 680 units of energy to fully implement everything outlined, however since the dungeon is sharing some function with the tower, elemental energy can be borrowed to implement some of the construction. As such it would only cost 350 units of energy, plus the hundred required to keep the breeding pens active, it brings the consumption all down to 450 energy units, out of the 500 the dungeon is capable of holding.]
The energy was abysmally low, I needed to find away to increase the dungeons capacity, but I really had no ideas how to go about doing that.
"Soren how do I increase you energy capacity?" I asked him, as I dusted my trousers which had dust on it from sitting too long on the ground to design the two floors.
[I have to become a tier 1 dungeon to double my energy capacity. And that promotion can only happen when the dungeon has ten floors. Then there would be an automatic advancement for both your dungeon owner class to dungeon master, and I will become a tier 1 dungeon.]
I nodded my head to him, well that's that for today. I'll probably come back later to check up on the dungeon and the construction, but for now I really need to go and get Asha and Xaseah talking to me again. This silent treatment is suffocating, especially when I had gotten used to having both of them in my head."
"Okay guys let's go, we're done here." I said to the others, as we made out way back up to the tower. All in all it seems coming down here has been rather uneventful.....well short of building new dungeon floors anyway.
......
...….
THE COLD MOUNTAINS OF NEVADIER
400 KILOMETERS AWAY FROM THE NOXIS NYX PRISON ENTRANCE
THE COR REVORIAN RECON AIRSHIP: LEGATO
MAXIMUS DIAZ AMON: SQUAD CAPTAIN OF THE IRON GRIFFINS (THE PRIDE)
Maximus hated this cold weather with a passion, and especially since they were flying stealth and had to keep any heated functions in their airship disabled to prevent them from being discovered. It was a very slow journey, they were moving at a snails pace, but it was the only option they had. If they moved faster, they ran the risk of being discovered, and the head butler had emphasized greatly on discretion.
Of course Maximus was not exactly sure that they had not been discovered yet, he had a feeling that they had already been spotted. They were just being watched, and he really didn't like it, which was why he had to take a different approach to this.
"Captain are you sure about this, sending the young miss with only her personal guards into that prison is too dangerous. The lord would not stand for it!"
"I'm well aware of the dangers sergeant Miyagi, but this is the only option. The dancing caves of Noxis Nyx is a prison, a vampire prison no less, but the lord is still a noble of the universal class. It's only a matter of time before he makes his way out of there relying on the reputation of his name alone, but that would take too long and by then he would have lost everything that belongs to him. This is the only way that we can coordinate with him. Lady Rhea needs to speak with her brother."
Maximus said with a tone of finality. But his companion did not seem ready to stop poking holes in his plan.
"She's going to be watched closely, and even though they meet it would be hard if not outright impossible for them to speak freely." Miyagi complained.
Maximus rubbed his hand on his forehead, hoping to stall the headache that was about to spilt his skull in pieces. He was also fighting the urge to kick this petite woman in the ass, for God sake whoever thought it was a good idea to have Miyagi be his second in command for this mission. That person needs to be shot, a thousand times.
"It's because of that very reason that I'm sending her guards with her in the first place. You would find that two of those guards share a very special connection." Maximus explained.
"Wait! Are you talking about the twins?" Miyagi asked with a louder voice than normal.
"Yes." Maximus replied.
"I thought their whole twin connection, mind, power thingy was only a rumor to scare all the recruits at boot camp. It's actually true. Damn! Now I just feel sorry for the poor fool who would stand in the way of lady Rhea and her brother. But seriously Maximus, how do you think the lord is doing, you're one of the few captains that have a close relationship with him." Miyagi asked in worry.
Maximus sighed as he moved his eyes to display board in front of him. For a moment he pretended to check the atmospheric pressure and run a general diagnostics on the airship and it's functions, before he sighed and turned to see Miyagi still staring at him with expectant eyes and waiting for an explanation. Seems he has no choice but to answer.
"If there's one thing I know about that Annoying brat, is that he's the most resourceful person I've ever met. He's strong, and wise beyond his age, and above all he has the best kind of luck I've ever seen, in fact you had to wonder most of the time if his mother was the goddess of luck herself. I'm not worried, Because I know Lord Kael is okay, and above all he's still fighting...at least that's what Asare said in his last report."