NOVEL WEB Chapter 9 - Breaking In
Dungeon Day 20
Giving the go-ahead signal to the World Crystal, Dan felt the space in front of Ingot stabilize, and it slowly faded, allowing daylight to peek through. Waiting until the space was fully clear, he saw the forest on the other side. So, Dan gave Ingot the go-ahead, and the bear rushed through with his two squads following soon after. Then, once the bears were out, Hawk and Eagle moved out with their minions and began a survey of the nearby region.
Dan could feel the unease from his monsters as they prepared to confront the unknown.
Switching from Ingot's point of view, Dan began observing the world through Hawk's eyes, high up in the air. The bird could see around three miles off into the distance, and all it could spot was forest as far as it could see. Something Dan noticed that his bosses might have missed was the sky. The sky looked just like a normal earthen sky, well, at least before the invasion.
It was nice and blue, and some clouds were even floating calmly across it. However, there was no sun, and light seemed to just come from very up high. Wanting to know more, Dan issued Eagle, who was the fastest flier, to head up and see where the limit was. He also switched to the small hawk as he wanted to view it himself.
It turns out the sky went up for maybe three to five miles off the ground; at least, that's what it felt like from Eagle’s internal height measurements. After that distance, things got odd as the space would go all silly, and she would find herself flying in a different direction.
Coming back down, Dan also properly saw how the space connected to the rest of its reality. The “walls” of the area gave off a fog that got thicker and thicker as it got closer to the spatial connection to whatever else was out there. For their part, the World Crystal seemed to have stabilized a small area that then connected the cave to this new space. That alone made Dan question why the deity-like entity hadn’t already taken back the shattered space, and he was quickly given an answer.
Apparently, after it had finished making the world, the World Crystal's large terrain remodeling abilities were revoked along with his soul creation. It could still stabilize reality like it had done with the outside world, stopping shattered lands from expanding further, but it couldn’t retake them and remake them into proper reality.
Adding to that, the crystal also explained that usually, the inhabitants of a planet could go in and stabilize the shattered lands; however, due to Dan having been so strong, the inhabitants of its planet weren’t able to overwhelm him as was possible. This then allowed Dan to self-destruct, further destabilizing the space and stopping the world's inhabitants from going in and doing their thing. And now with permission from the Chaos Mother, Dan would go in and stabilize the shattered lands. That was the only reason they were doing this: because the Chaos Mother had agreed. The World Crystal wasn’t sure why she had, and it had expected her to deny the request since it wasn’t her problem in the end.
Dan didn’t believe that the Chaos Mother would actually let an entire planet full of people die by letting the other shards grow in power inside the shattered space. After all, he was here and had been given the opportunity. It was a bit of a roundabout way of doing things since, with the power involved, either of the two beings should be able to fix the issue. However, Dan thought of it as something from the stories of ancient Greece and the Olympians. There, the gods didn’t solve mortal problems but gave them the tools, in this case, Dan, to fix them instead.
This time around, there were certain conditions, just like with quests. For this quest, one condition was that only Dan could enter the zones, even if that was his own fault. Another condition was the whole not being able to use Ambient Mana. In fact, the only reason his monsters could regenerate mana was due to their connection to him and his connection to the World Crystal. The crystal god was, essentially, regenerating their mana but in a balanced fashion; hence, they could only regenerate mana inside his dungeon areas, and the amount they regenerated was completely based on their rank.
There were a few other things that Dan still questioned, but decided to leave that for another time. Instead, he finished processing the current information he had been given.
Looking back at the rest of the information from the World Crystal, Dan learned that this gateway it had just made to let him enter the shattered lands was a one-time thing. That after heading inside, Dan would be able to move to the next zone by himself. In a final addition to that, even the World Crystal wasn’t sure what Dan would find inside. Apparently, when Mother Infinity got involved, the bit of sight it had inside the space had gone fully dark, which was really reassuring to Dan.
Now, his inside crystal into the operation was cut off, and they were both left in the dark.
Deciding to move on from the latest revelations about reality, Dan focused on his monsters.
He told Hawk and her eagles to chill in the area for aerial protection while Eagle was to spread out with the rest of her hawks and try to map out the area they were in.
From there, he switched to Ingot as the bear inspected the nearby woods, and Dan was glad to see that they were mostly empty. The edge of this particular area was fairly empty of trees, at least the area where it met the fog. Another plus was that it was mostly a flat area, which gave Dan the perfect location for a temporary camp. And since the forest didn’t start properly until further out, they would have clear space to spot any approaching enemies.
So, with Ingot having secured the outside properly, Dan began to push out the rest of the monsters. He didn’t want anyone to fully head out just yet. However, he did set lines of defense. The bears and gorillas were on the outer edge with the baboons riding on their backs.
Then came the big cats, and finally, the doe’s and stags were in the inner circle closets to the cave entrance.
From there, he decided it was time to properly set up a camp of operations. He got Fur and the stags to start summoning ten-foot-high walls in a rectangularish area around the dungeon entrance. Dan wanted to claim it, but he would rather save the mana. Overall, he would have to claim around 1500 feet of space, and it would take too much mana. In fact, the whole claim thing was going to need to be reworked because the costs would spike incredibly hard, and there was no way that Dan would grind that hard. However, before he got into that conversation with the World Crystal, he needed to ensure his new base was operational.
He would keep Fir, Fur, Ingot, Hawk, and Xinos in the base, along with pretty much the entire force. The only ones he planned on deploying along with the hawks would be the panthers, cheetahs, George, and Kinetic. And even then, it would be at different distances. Dan had to plan for the long game, and even though his monsters didn’t need sleep, he wouldn’t leave himself undefended.
Eventually, he gave the go-ahead for George and Kinetic, with the condition that they couldn’t head out more than half a day's distance, which was a lot for Kinetic. Speaking of days, time did seem to pass as the shadows were growing longer, but from measuring them based on old Earth standards, it was around 1 PM, giving them plenty of time to explore.
The cheetahs were allowed to explore freely, while the panthers would be the early warning systems. The black cats could go somewhat far, but Dan wanted them to stay relatively close so they could spot any approaching problems.
From there, Dan had five teams to work with. Three of the teams were going to be on patrol, while the other two would sit in the base in case of a direct attack or as support for the other three teams in case they came under attack.
Each team was going to have a bear, gorilla, jaguar, doe, stag, eagle, and finally, two baboons. So, giving them the go-ahead, the three teams marched out the exit of their small camp. Dan made the other two groups patrol the walls or guard the exit. Well, it was more like the gorillas, baboons, and jaguars patrolled the walls. The bears guarded the exit while the doe’s asked to return to the dungeon cave, which Dan agreed to. This also had the stags follow the doe’s inside, but Dan didn’t mind it. That left Ingot, Fir, Fur, and Xinos standing outside.
The bosses were a bit on edge, but Dan was sure it was more from having to sit still and wait for the scouts to report something than actually worrying about a possible threat. Dan also had to admit that his nerves were also getting to him.
As the day passed, Dan noticed that there wasn’t much heat. Instead, it just felt pleasant. He wasn’t sure if it was just the lack of sun or the fact that there was a constant breeze from the forest. Either way, Dan was beginning to get bored as he wasn’t getting much from the scouts. It had only been about 30 minutes, but still.
However, just as Dan had been thinking about that, he got a nudge from Eagle and switched to seeing things from her eyes.
There was a big ass grey tree. A dead big-ass grey tree. The whole thing was in the middle of a clearing and was fortified by a semi-circle of dead trees lying on top of each other, along with a big rock in one of the corners. Most of the trees and the rock were covered in thorny vines that did not look welcoming. Additionally, Dan spotted a large bear, snake, and raven.
Of course, they weren’t the same size, but they were larger than usual. Luckily, Eagle was high up, and the raven hadn’t noticed her. However, Dan could feel Eagle wanting to dive down and smack it, but Dan nudged her against it and instead encouraged her to keep exploring.
Dan didn’t want to start a fight with anything or anyone just yet. He wanted to get the lay of the land first. So, he nudged George and Kinetic to head in different directions. Dan wasn’t sure exactly where they were but knew their general direction and could point them towards a different angle than where he felt Eagle. Additionally, he nudged the rest of the hawks and ensured everyone knew not to engage unless they were attacked first.
After that bit of excitement Dan decided it was time to speak with the World Crystal about the whole claiming problem. Well, speaking was saying a lot as now they just communicated via feelings. Still, Dan managed to get his worry through as it was a fact that if he kept claiming land the way he was currently doing, and the shattered spaces came in the size of dozens of miles. Then his claiming costs would reach into the millions of mana spent.
The World Crystal told him he would have to check the contract between them and Mother Eternity again. After a few minutes, Dan was told to check his status and that he would still need to claim land, but only when presented with certain situations that he would eventually run into.
Having nothing better to do, Dan opened his status.
🔷 Crystal Notice 🔷
🔷Dungeon Menu 🔷
Name: Dan.
Rank: Common.
Shards Collected: 0/100.
Points till Next Rank: 0/100.
Mana: 300/300.
Mana Regen: 8 Mana a Day.
Chaos Mana Regen: 4 Chaos Mana a Day.
Constant Mana Expenditure: N/A.
Number of People in Dungeon: 0.
Number of Boss Monsters: 8.
Number of Monsters: 68.
Monster Telepathy Range: 100ft.
Total Area Claimed: 695 feet.
Pure Arcane Mana: N/A.
Order Mana: N/A.
Abilities: 15.
Claim or Edit Area.
Create or Edit Creature.
Create or Edit Item.
Claiming Goals.
🔷
Naturally, he clicked on Claiming Goals.
Claiming Goals.
— Factions Under Control 0/9.
— Shards Collected 0/8.
— All Creatures in Area Under Control 0/1.
That gave Dan lots of information that he was definitely not aware of.
First, there were nine different factions in the area with him. He did not know what these factions were or how big, but in the end, he didn’t have much of a choice and would eventually have to conquer all of them. Additionally, he now knew that eight of his Eldritch God shards were in the area with him, which he also had to find and absorb. At the very least, he hoped that some of the factions were under the control of these shards, which would make everything much simpler.
Finally, there was the part of him needing to control all creatures within the shattered space. That alone was going to be an undertaking. However, hoping to get more information, he nudged the menu and discovered that the first and third options were connected.
Taking control of a faction also meant taking control of all the creatures belonging to that faction, regardless of their type. It also specified that they needed to be under his sole control via his Dungeon God Connection ability. Thankfully, another addition was that each faction had lands under control. And, once Dan took over that faction, their land would be automatically claimed for him. It further specified that claiming the land did not automatically give him control of all creatures within said land.
Thinking about it, Dan was a bit confused at first, but after breaking it down, it became much clearer. A faction controlled their lands, but within said lands, there could be creatures that did not belong to that faction. Thus, if he took over a faction by conquering the creatures belonging to it, he would then get their lands but not the creatures that didn’t belong to that faction. To that extent, he would have to make the other creatures in his claimed lands serve him via the Dungeon God Connection ability. There were a few other fine prints about certain interactions, but nothing Dan needed to worry about then and there.
Looking at everything, Dan was pleased as it would all be less trouble than spending millions of mana on claiming land. He was also happy to know that even super power full system creating World Gods weren’t perfect.