[D'sP] A New Floor And A Discovery - Chapter 476

Doyle could see the sense in what Ally had told him. Though it also meant that his growth would continue to slow down. After all, even if a young whale grew by an adult human’s weight every day at the start? Well, it certainly didn’t keep up that pace in the long run.

So with that in mind, Doyle decided for floor 21, he was going to put in more effort to see if it made a difference. After all, each floor has been the same process with little improvement involved.

Doyle withdrew his full attention to the core room and built up the power needed to make a new floor. Tried all he could to condense the power even more and draw one last drop of power from the surroundings.

And while the actual act hadn’t improved much, this gathering of power is smoother. The amount of power gathered was greater. And of course, Doyle was capable of contracting it tighter.

Then came the mind-bending part of floor creation. Extending the power out and drawing it back in while creating a space within a space. Like the classic blue box, the inner space was bigger than the area it took up. Though this wasn’t helped along by the fact floor creation went beyond that. Less a single bigger on the inside space, but a nesting doll put together in reverse.

Because each floor truly is within the previous floor. Stacked on one another so invaders can’t skip floors. More than that, with each floor’s increase in area, Doyle can see how things become harder and the design makes more sense.

What person in charge of a secure area wouldn’t want as small a border to guard as possible? The first floor is basically the size of a building and those which exist in the Void would need to find it among so much. Doyle’s biggest weakness on that end is that his dungeon is attached to a dimension. Yet the size difference is so absurd you might as well not count it. One building compared to all of space and time? Harder than a needle hidden on a planet of haystacks.

And throughout the process of floor formation, Doyle felt hopeful. His skill at each step had improved, even if only because of general finesse. After all, this was only the 21st time he has done this. Not many chances to practice.

So Doyle waited as the final bits settled in. The system message would pop up soon and he could see if his actions changed anything.

{

Twenty-first floor dimensionally anchored

World Energy cap +12,700 [Constitution(127) * 100]

Twenty-first floor spending limit set to 159,960 [Previous floor’s limit(146 ,280) + Intelligence(114) * 120]

Monster level cap updated

Floors 10 to 19 stabilized and are available to be instanced

}

Doyle’s core dims, nothing has changed. Then he notices something else besides the fact the floor had been created exactly like normal, ‘Hey Ally, I created the floor, but it didn’t mention anything about paying back my quintessence Debt? What’s up with that?’

Ally takes a peek at the screen, ‘Huh. Well, what is our debt standing at right now?’

Doyle, ‘[System, what is my quintessence debt right now?]’

{

There is currently no registered debt

}

Ally laughs, ‘Well that would explain! You can’t pay back what you don’t owe!’

Doyle, ‘But I thought I would notice the changes? Like, under ten and my skills would grow faster. Then, once paid back, I get more world energy from delvers.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Says the guy who is capped on his most used skills and hasn’t tried to spend outside of your means.’

Doyle grumbles, ‘Well, I was sort of hoping that my skill bottleneck was from the debt.’

Ally shakes her head, ‘That was never going to be the case. A bottleneck will only ever be an internal matter. Even a system can’t mess with it. Skills are part of a soul’s growth and you can’t touch that willy-nilly.

‘Like, the system can sculpt how that works? The whole “levels” thing added onto skills or even organization what you can do into skills is exactly that. But actually stop growth? No, not a chance.’

Doyle, ‘Well! Humph. I guess I still have stuff to–’

Another system message interrupts him.

{

Level Gained!

Level goes from 10 to 11, Strength goes from 96 to 104, Agility goes from 246 to 292, Constitution goes from 127 to 137, Intelligence goes from 114 to 124, Wisdom goes from 308 to 352, Presence goes from 99 to 107, Destiny goes from 216 to 229, Karma goes from 288 to 329, Luck goes from 171 to 188

}

Doyle, ‘Oh come on! The level has to come now and not before I make the floor? All those stat increases would have been handy.’

Ally laughs, ‘You do realize that it was likely the creation of a new floor which tipped you over into a new level?’

Doyle sighs, ‘I got the feeling, but still!’

Ally shakes her head, ‘I have a feeling that you’ll get to experience this a lot more going forward. The deeper a floor you’re creating, the more experience it will provide. After all, not only is every new floor bigger than the last, but they’re metaphysically more significant as well. Another wall between you and the Void. One more layer of defense. Plus, it also makes it harder for delvers to reach your core as well.’

Doyle, ‘Wait, doesn’t the general amount of experience you need for a level not exactly grow all that much?’

Ally nods, ‘That’s the general idea and why at the top end, you have beings with thousands or tens of thousands of levels. Though levels do tend to slow down even if technically what is needed to reach the next isn’t any greater than the last.’

Doyle, ‘That doesn’t make sense?’

Ally, ‘It has more to do with experience than the levels themselves. Newly integrated planets like your own are a good example. Everything on the planet is leveling like you have rockets strapped to your backsides.’

Ally gestures towards the ceiling, ‘Out in the rest of the universe, levels tend to come year by year. Proper adventurers who go out and do things will get more, but if you’re talking about an active dungeon farmer, a regular farmer, a government official, or what have you? They’re getting about a level a year once they’re an adult.’

Doyle, ‘What is up with kids, then?’

Ally shrugs, ‘Kids are somewhat similar to you guys on newly integrated planets. They build up life experience, but it doesn’t get applied right away. Not that they don’t gain levels, just that they tend not to gain many until the equivalent of puberty. Then they gain the back stocked levels at that point when they can train skills and pick paths.

Ally waves that away, ‘But that isn’t important for explaining why levels slow down the higher you get, even if the actual experience needed isn’t significantly greater.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Simply put? You need to experience things to gain experience. Sort of in the name. And the problem at higher levels is both that you're strong enough that many things stop being an experience. Don’t expect to gain anything from a “fight” that is anything but.

‘And even tough situations affect you less. It is simply a trade-off the mind makes to protect itself from time. Which is why innately immortal beings grow very slowly. Though even the naturally long-lived will suffer from this.

‘A mind can only hold so much at once and remain who they are. For instance, you are a good example of the mind slowing things down to protect itself.’

Doyle, ‘Well now, what do you mean by that?’

Ally gestures at all the blue screens she has scattered around her room. Each one displaying some bit of info or a view of somewhere else. ‘A natural dungeon is innately aware of all of that. Yes, it tends to be similar to how humans can see stuff with their peripheral vision. But at least you're aware of it.

‘And all of that is way too much for a human mind to process naturally. However! Your mind is adapting to this all. The limit being what your mind can accept without warping.’

Doyle, ‘Fair. And while this feels like it could do quite deep, let’s distract ourselves with the new floor. With an Earth theme, I’m considering this list of monsters.’ And he shows Ally what he has come up with so far.

Ally looks it over, ‘You’re missing one.’

Doyle looks the list over again, ‘I don’t think so? What do you see?’

Ally laughs, ‘Well, you did literally just get the Permafrost Lynx. That’s both Ice and Earth, so it would count.’

Doyle shakes his core and laughs at himself, ‘Yep, you’re right! I completely space cadet-ed it. I likely just had it filed under Ice and ignored the Earth part. Anyway, do you see anything else that is missing or should be removed from the list?’

Ally shrugs, ‘You already marked the questionable ones. If you upgrade the bear and remove the other two, that should be a decent selection. No need to have multiple of the same sort of thing. Besides, the Grassen Goat isn’t actually a goat aligned with nature or earth. Rather, it is a goat with plants growing on it in a symbiotic fashion.

‘Oh, and the Herb Cattle is similar. It eats herbs and turns them into potions. The cow itself is not actually specifically aligned with the earth. For instance, if you fed on Air herbs, the cow wouldn’t suddenly turn sky blue and gain the ability to fly. It would still be a cow. Just the milk it provides would provide some effect based on Air.’

Doyle, ‘Anything specific on upgrading the bear? I already have a few ideas. Aligning it to Earth seems like something I could easily do in a manner similar to what I did with the goats. Though the same wouldn’t be true for my other monsters. For some reason, I doubt a cave-in or landslide powerful enough to cause an evolution will be survivable by the monsters not already aligned with something else.’

Ally takes a bit to think about things. ‘Yeah, that would probably be the easiest method. Though there are definitely other ways to do this.’

Doyle nods, ‘Certainly, I just suspect they’re more time-intensive. Which is saying something! After all, my assassin vines and the goats were experiencing all that nonsense for quite a while, given the speed up that happens on empty floors.’

Ally, ‘The only thing I would worry about, would be if the experience instead pushes them towards simply being a tougher bear. They have a bunch of “this is a bear, but tougher” evolution options. Stuff like simply growing bigger or the hindbear. 

‘Though given dungeon nonsense, I wouldn’t even put it past the system, to have it simply evolve into a tougher natural variety of bear from your planet. Because yes, it would be silly for a brown bear to evolve into a polar bear because you dropped rocks on it. But the system has done sillier things before and will in the future.’

Doyle laughs, ‘I would be amusing to collect all the different types of bears off of a simple brown bear. Though a couple would be tough. I wonder if force-feeding a bear bamboo would get me a panda?’

Ally shrugs, ‘No clue. Are pandas actually a species of bear or just bear-like?’

Doyle, ‘I am mostly certain science placed them in the bear family? Though I guess that wouldn’t really matter so much to the system or magic. As long as people consider them a type of bear, it should work. Which just leads me to wonder about some animals that are thought of as one thing and yet aren’t.

‘Staying in the same name, there’s the red panda, which isn’t actually all that closely related to pandas. If I remember correctly, the name comes from the fact that “panda” means “bamboo eater”. So yeah, giant panda? Giant eater of bamboo. Red panda? A red critter that eats bamboo.’

Next Element - Chapter 475

A Little Work, A Little Fun - Chapter 477