NOVEL WEB Chapter 40 - Defenses and Nerfing
Dungeon Day 45 - Continues
Confidence boosted with his new D-rank bosses. Dan decided to move on to the next step of his “conquer the zone” plans. He hadn't missed the fact that Dena had stated she had seen him summon monsters in addition to watching the fight around the tree. It was something he had been worried about at the time but hadn't bothered to address then due to lack of power and mana. Now, however, he had both, and with the threat of more D rankers, including a possible D rank shard, Dan needed to step up his defenses.
So, his plans began with creating a proper defensive position that he could feel safe in and hold in case something was able to threaten him. The first thing was to create a shield that would both stop attacks and any magical spying. Sadly, the shield and effects were only as strong as he was, so if a strong enough foe came, they would be able to eventually smash or pierce its anti-clairvoyance magic. Still, it was a good investment, so Dan quickly looked through his menu, selecting the add enchantment option as the menu cascaded to show more options.
Claim or Edit Area.
— Claim Area
— Edit Area
- - Transform Environment
- - Add Enchantment
- - - Enchantment List
The list of enchantments was vast, and he could even create his own. This time around, that wasn't going to be necessary, so he selected the shield and anti-clairvoyance options, which he quickly found through a nice mental filter option. Both enchantments were going to be D rank, though their complexities differed. The most straightforward one was the anti-spying magic, which would be more passive since its whole thing was blocking one specific type of magic. Now, the shield was more complex because it needed to defend itself from attacks from multiple sources, with each source having a different magical nature.
Either way, Dan would still have to keep a daily cost to maintain the enchantments active. And feed them mana to actually make them work. He worried about that, but since his minions could contribute and give their mana to the shield, he could have both of them for as long as he wanted. That would change when they activated since they did need mana to work. In total, the cost of both enchantments in the area around the fort came to a nice upfront cost of 276 mana with a daily price of 138 mana to keep refreshing the enchantments and not let them fade.
Confirming the purchase, Dan felt the mana drain from him, and a nice light blue and slightly fogged shield appeared around his fort. Happy with his creation, Dan then moved to next defense enchantments that were probably more important than the ones he had just made.
What could be more important than a defense shield to stop enemy attacks and an anti-clairvoyance zone? A defense that would stop most foes from easily getting within striking distance to begin with. Dan was going to make an anti-flying and anti-teleportation zone along with a mist to help keep out normal prying eyes.
This new zone would be much more expensive than the one that had just been made as it wasn't going to just cover the small fort. Where the fort area was around 36,000 square feet, the new zone would be 80,000 square feet around the fort.
Even then, the covered area would only add around half of the total cost. The real expenditure was going to come from the magic used. In short, magic, as Dan knew, was roughly divided into four categories in many worlds. There was simple, advanced, crafting and mind magic.
Each magic category could be divided into many more separate magics that were then debated into oblivion as to what made them different. It was such topics that wizards went on about in a normal world. However, Dan couldn't be bothered to get into it. The only thing he needed to know was the four different categories. Specifically, the advanced and mind magic ones, as any enchantments using magic in those categories, were inherently more expensive.
Advanced Magic consists of Soul, Space, Gravity, and Time, with Mind magic dealing in Telekinesis, Domination, Telepathy, and Illusion. As such, a dome prohibiting teleportation would be much more expensive than a zone that shot out fireballs.
This meant that in addition to his anti-teleportation and anti-flying zone. The mist he was going to make to confuse invaders would add even more cost due to the use of mind magic. Then, adding the strength and complexity of the enchantments brought the upfront cost to a total of 659 mana with an additional daily charge of 330 mana. Even then, he paid the amount and felt his mana tank dip heavily. After paying, Dan felt a buzz of magic go through the area as the enchantments activated, and a fog slowly appeared in the surroundings.
Having spent so much mana, Dan had to wait a bit more before he could start doing other things.
As the day went by and Dan regained some of his mana, he decided to respawn his two underwater bosses. Paying the 690 mana, Dan respawned Billy and Jaws outside of the island where his teleporter was. Dan didn't have much use for his underwater bosses and told all three of them to do as they pleased as long as they didn't bother the frog people. He was tempted to make it so they could work above water and make them breathe air, but he didn't feel the need to have them join combat. They had done their job, and they had done it well and had secured him the win, so as far as he was concerned, they could just chill in the lake until it was dungeon time.
From there, Dan decided to look back at his menu as he wanted to see just how much pure mana regen his bosses were giving him.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷Dungeon Menu 🔷
Name: Dan.
Rank: Low D Rank.
Shards Collected: 2/98.
Points till Next Rank: 0/700.
Mana: 237/900.
Mana Regen: 32 Mana a Day.
Chaos Mana Regen: 16 Chaos Mana a Day.
Constant Mana Expenditure: 325 Mana a Day.
Number of People in Dungeon: 0.
Number of Boss Monsters: 15.
Number of Monsters: 611.
Number of Humanoids: 1087.
Non-Original Residents: 32.
Monster Telepathy Range: 300ft.
Total Area Claimed: 578 Square Miles.
Pure Arcane Mana: 5250/5250.
Pure Mana Regen: +45 Per Minute.
Order Mana: N/A.
Abilities: 15.
Claim or Edit Area.
Create or Edit Creature.
Create or Edit Item.
Claiming Goals.
🔷
Looking at his status, something wasn't right. He should have around 27,000 pure arcane mana. However, for some reason, he only had 5250, which didn't make sense, especially since he had a cap now instead of just being able to collect however much he wanted. That could only mean one thing. The damn crystal had nerfed him.
“Damn it! You shiny bastard, you can't do this to me! I was about to be so overpowered! How dare you nerf me.” Dan yelled out, his voice reverberating across the fort and through creatures connected to him, causing them to send back feelings of unease.
He hadn’t brought it up exactly for that reason. The fact that he was going to be able to have unlimited mana was just too good. Dan assumed that, at some point during the last few hours, the crystal had noticed the amount of mana that Dan had been accumulating and had secretly nerfed him. However, Dan still had a secret ploy in his mind, and he quickly opened up the menu of one of his beasts.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷 Monster Statblock 🔷
Rank: Low D Rank.
Name: Ingot the Bear.
Type: Beast.
Size: Huge.
Hierarchy: Boss.
Mind: Intelligent, Sapient.
Arcane Mana: 1200/1200.
Arcane Mana Regen: +6 Per Minute.
Pure Arcane Mana: 600/600.
Pure Arcane Mana Conversion: +3 Per Minute.
Abilities: 8.
Earth Affinity. Earth Slam. Earth Entomb. Earthen Armor. Manage Storage. Body Enhancement - Resilient and Strength. Roar of the Mountain.
Innate Abilities: 6.
Night Vision. Keen Smell. Strength. Mental Resistance. Regeneration. Share Sense.
Respawn Timer: 6 Hours.
Respawn Cost: 158 Mana.
Original Create Cost: 316 Mana.
🔷
“No,no,no,no,no,noooooo!” Dan yelled out again, his rage returning when he saw the amount of pure mana his beasts had access to, which had also been capped.
It was unacceptable! He had been nerfed! All of Dan’s plans of quick dungeon domination came crashing down. It had been simple: he would give each of them 10,000 pure mana and see them explode themselves like atomic bombs, annihilating all life within miles. It was going to be glorious. The goblin camp would have been child’s play, and so would have been the ogres and trolls. However, now he would be forced to be strategic and fight more battles.
Unmotivated by losing his cheats, Dan spent the whole day grumbling to himself about crystals and spewing, “How dare they do this to him?” He still did his job while he grumbled as he began spawning even more of his monster teams. In total, he was able to spawn four more teams, which was a rather nice amount for only a few hours of work. He would have made more, but he had spent much of his daily allotment on the enchantments and upgrading his bosses.
As night approached, Dan began to get a bad feeling because things stopped spawning. Usually, it would slow down by the end of the day. Then, things would pick back up after midnight as the new day seemed to reset the invader spawns. Some still came from outside of his territories but still, it was a bit of a low number.
Around an hour or two from midnight, his worries were relieved in the worst way possible.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
Attention! A new event has been activated.
Event Name: Wolfbat Rumble.
Event details: A wave of wolfbats will invade your territory, along with their leader. To succeed, you must eliminate all wolfbats and survive.
Warning! Until the event is completed, any creature tied to you cannot leave your territory. Additionally, time outside of your territory is frozen, and night will remain frozen until all wolfbats are beaten!
Good Luck, Dan. Mother says congrats on ranking up!
🔷
“God Dammit.” Were Dan’s only words as his attention was brought to the fog west of his fort.