NOVEL WEB Chapter 20 - Climbing the Waterspout
Dungeon Day 29 - Continues
Mana didn’t take long to come in as his beasts began fighting the last few groups of wood-like beasts in his current area. All of them were effectively coming from the west, where the fog was, but Dan imagined they would eventually start appearing from all sides as they roamed in from other areas in the shattered zone.
He only got another 500 mana from the various groups, as none were as strong as the wolves. Out of the five or so additional groups, the strongest one was a group of elks, with the rest being bunnies, foxes, and such. The fights hadn’t been proper fights because he had decided to forbid his beasts from hunting regular beasts, so everyone just ganged up on the enemy groups.
The hunt ended late into the afternoon, and soon enough, his beasts were heading back to the fort. Having nothing else better to do, Dan got back to monster creation. He planned to make another five teams, equip the baboons, and start making his new bosses and their minions.
Each new full team he made cost 363 mana, so it would be a slow burn until he had his ten teams. However, he had enough mana to make an entire team, and he did so. The monsters appeared around his core like always, and he would give them a few hours to get the hang of their new existence.
Afterward, Dan only had 132 mana left, and he spent it creating 11 more spears for his baboons, which would be enough to equip all his current monkeys.
Eventually, all his monsters reunited back at the base as they met the new members of the dungeon. The night passed just fine, and a new day soon came about.
Dungeon Day 30
A new day came with some more mana as his 12 daily mana was added to his pool, bringing it to an impressive 17. However, Dan wasn’t worried as he had marked some more creatures during the night, and it was once again hunting time.
As the day passed, Dan quickly made it back to 363 mana and quickly spent it as he created yet another team, bringing his new total to seven. Sadly, he didn’t have enough spears or the mana to make more, so these new baboons would be weaponless for the foreseeable future.
It had been nearly noon when he got enough mana for the new team, and that excitement had been followed by the return of the hawk that had gone to speak with the druid. The hawk had returned with a new detailed update.
First, the area the druid controlled was much less flat than his own. The forest was filled with cliffs, though from what Dan saw in the hawk's thoughts, there was still a decent amount of flat ground. Outside of that and the insane amount of rocks found in the area, the rest of the place was a forest with a few small lakes and streams here and there. Of course, there was also the giant rock and the big tree at its base.
Something that was not previously seen in the hawk's last scouting mission was a medium-sized shack that was home to a few druids. A piece of information Dan was happy to have, and that also made him glad he hadn’t just gone full conqueror on the area.
However, more important than the information about the new druids was that the druids did, in fact, control or had an alliance with an insane number of beasts. Honestly, Dan was convinced that most beasts in the zone had some connection to the druids.
The druid faction had enough beasts to make Dan worried about fighting them. The beasts were, of course, just normal creatures, but still, at his current power level, quality didn’t matter as much as quantity. And knowing that his beasts would face something like a 100 to 1 ratio was worrying. Thankfully, the druids were good, something that was confirmed further when his hawk hadn’t gotten mentally attacked and instead was treated like a proper envoy.
The final critical piece of information was something Dan couldn’t let the druids know it was his fault. Apparently, the druids reported new creatures that were battling their beasts and causing more injuries than they wanted. Where before, the druids were looking for an alliance whenever possible, now they were being pressured to find a strong ally, which they believed Dan was.
Dan was a bit annoyed that the monsters were killing his future beasts outside of his claimed area and didn’t understand why there was a switch in aggression. His only guess was that it had something to do with the different areas this shattered zone was divided into. Dan could feel the three different areas he was surrounded by, and from the map of the entire shattered area he had made a while back, the non-magical map that is, he knew the nearest zones to him were the lake, kobold, and gnoll areas. So, he was curious if the animals in the other zones were also being attacked or if the druid's beasts were singled out since they were technically a faction.
Either way, Dan was happy about the turn of events and told the hawk to fly back after resting for a bit. Dan wanted to let the druid know he was happy to make an alliance, that they just needed to give him some more time, to hang in there, and maybe see if they could give him more information on the rest of the zone.
With that out of the way, Dan needed to change the tempo of his current monster production rate. Dan currently had seven teams, and he knew that by the end of the night, he would have eight, maybe nine. He knew this because instead of letting everyone rest through the night, it was time that he put the fact that his monsters couldn’t really get tired to use. He would allow them to come back and heal up when they got hurt and a team’s doe was out of mana, but otherwise, it was time for them to be put into overdrive. Something he quickly communicated to George.
Sure enough, as the day passed into the afternoon, his mana reached the threshold for a new team, and he quickly spent it. From there, the night quickly came, and two teams returned as they had been heavily wounded when they decided to engage a second group of creatures after already being out of mana. Thankfully, none of them died. As the night passed and around midnight, at least to Dan’s guess, his mana reached the threshold again, and he pumped out another team, team nine. It was then that things slowed down.
They had been fighting for the whole day, and everyone, including all his bosses, looked rather rough. Thankfully, Fir quickly got to work along with the fresh doe’s that had been created or had been resting.
Dungeon Day 31
A new day soon came, and Dan got his usual 12 mana. Then, as soon as everyone was ready to head back out, they all left simultaneously. There were around 12 different teams of invaders that had come from the mist during the night and Dan needed mana badly as he was at 29. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before he hit 600 as his monsters took out five of the different teams, with the rest still on the way to intercept the rest. With the mana, he quickly brought forth team number ten, almost completing that particular goal. Moving to complete the goal fully, he spent 86 mana creating eight more spears for a total of 20.
With the spears done, Dan could finally dust off his non-existent hands from that task and was looking forward to creating some new beasts. However, before he got to that, he wanted to see the different beast-elemental things he had added to his roster of available creations.
Create or Edit Creature.
— Edit Creature
- - Current Creature List.
- - - Howling Wood Wolf.
- - - Bark Skin Boar.
- - - Leaf Snake.
- - - Wood Elk.
- - - Oak Bunny.
- - - Grass Fox.
- - - Nature Doe.
- - - Nature Stag.
- - - Wing Leaf Bird.
- - - Grasshopper Branch.
- - - Bark Blade Wolf.
- - - Vine Serpent.
Of course, Dan also had his current beasts on the list, but he had changed it so that only new stuff he had yet to make would show up. Looking at the list, Dan did note that the blade wolves were the reason why so many of his creatures had been hurt. The damn things could hurl blades of wood at them, which were rather sharp and deadly.
With that inspection out of the way, Dan turned to look at his remaining mana and sighed inwardly, seeing he only had 170. Well, he sighed until he checked how much it would take to make one of his new bosses. Then, if he had had a face, he would have had a manic grin.
The spider was going to stay tiny. However, he would need it to be deadly and specialize in defense, as it would be a mostly stay-at-home boss like Fir and now George. Except, unlike his other bosses, the spider was legitimately going to be a proper defense force. To make sure the spider succeeded at its task, Dan started by giving it three different affinities. Metal, Illusion, and Wood. Then he made sure it could enhance itself properly along with its venom and finally gave it some decent aerial attacks and something to help it stay unseen within the tree canopy.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷 Monster Statblock 🔷
Rank: Common.
Name: Itsy Bitsy the Spider.
Type: Beast.
Size: Tiny.
Hierarchy: Boss.
Mind: Intelligent, Sapient.
Arcane Mana: 100/100.
Arcane Mana Regen: +3 (0 Outside of Dungeon)
Pure Arcane Mana: Locked.
Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: Locked.
Order Mana: Locked.
Abilities: 12.
Metal Affinity. Illusion Affinity. Wood Affinity. Metal Enhancement. Wood Control. Body Enhancement - Agility and Speed. Enhanced Venom Gland. Venom Infusion. Metal Needles. Web Blast. Camouflage.
Innate Abilities: 10.
Spider Climb. Web Sense. Web Walker. Stealth. Keen Vision. Night Vision. Venomous. Mental Resistance. Regeneration. Share Sense.
Respawn Timer: 5 Hours (10 Hours if Death is Outside Dungeon.)
Respawn Cost: 65 Mana (130 if Death is Outside Dungeon.)
Original Creation Cost: 130 Mana.
🔷
Itsy manifested a top of his crystal. The tiny spider had a somewhat clear crystal appearance for the most part. However, its six eyes glowed a bright pink in color, and her crystal body had specks of tiny black dots, with her tiny crystal fangs being completely black. Finally, her eight crystal legs changed from the dotted crystal her body was to a more greenish tint until the very tips were a deep dark green.
It took the spider a bit to grasp reality, but when she did, she quickly spoke to him telepathically, her voice a high-pitched yet cute thing that matched her tiny size. As she spoke, she also gave a small wave with her frontmost leg.
“Heya Boss!”