[D'sP] Seventeenth - Chapter 390

Ace was wrong. He seemed to be cursed to keep having to dip into the wizards tower more and more often over the next few days. To be fair, most of this was needing to tweak settings and such. It was honestly inevitable, given what the source of this tower model was. While they had special privileges, the people from the inner circle were not nobles in the traditional sense and so many pre-set rules based on that assumption needed changing.

And all of that required talking directly with the tower. While the settings were available in the system, in theory, the reality of the situation is that the tower was a sapient being, if only technically. As such, it had settings on its own side of things which allowed it to set ranges and such on what options Ace could mess with. Ace noted it was similar to how the dungeon worked, except at least with the tower he could just tell it what settings to change for him. The voice still creeped him out, though.

Of course, this wasn’t the only thing Ace had to deal with. It seemed that while his town’s haul from the quest has been quite varied, other settlements received their own interesting widgets. All of which Wolf’s Rest is now aggressively seeking out. Whether it was literally just a simple calculator that ran in Mana instead of solar or a steam engine from some sort of aquatic vehicle.

This wasn’t as hard as it could have been. After all, they were the breadbasket for their community, even if most of the food was meat instead of wheat. In fact, people had started to get smart about the value of system coins and so this was the perfect time to gouge them over something else. While people did value the various bits and bobs they had gotten, Wolf’s Rest didn’t need a bunch of any one thing. So even if a place would be leery about selling off multiple of a thing, Wolf’s Rest was only trying to get samples.

Ace even went as far as to use Nancy Williams to get out ahead of the news that they were buying the stuff. She had become pretty important, being one of the few scouts in the inner circle. However, she was also fast enough to cover the distances needed to get out ahead of the news. So after being handed the two bags of holding stuffed with meat, she set out at a sustainable jog which would make sprinters jealous. Even with the bags, she wouldn’t be able to carry all the stuff she traded for, but behind her was a team of merchants who would pick up the goods either from hidden caches or trusted locals.

Besides that, Ace was forced to delve the dungeon at a frantic pace. Not that he didn’t want to, but it had started to drop things that the town needed as many as possible. In particular, basically every magic user and crafter was trying to get their hands on a few of those new runic aircon plates. Nevermind that Ace needed to reserve a bunch of them for their meat warehouse.

Oh, and now they finally had a use for all those monster cores. It wasn’t obvious right off the bat, but if you just slap one on the input side of those plates, the energy would be pulled out and supercharge the effect. This allowed for an actual freezer without basically forcing someone with ice magic to keep channeling magic into it.

At first, Ace had figured such things would be easy. Except for the fact that magically made ice either vanishes or if made of actual water, melt at a supernatural pace. While magic could affect the environment, once the magic was gone, it tended to fade just as fast, if not faster.

However, the thing that Ace was most interested in wasn’t any of that. Rather, it was the fact that there were kobolds dropping the quartz polymer. He wasn’t certain which specific floors yet, but it seemed to be only on floors after the second boss.

It represented not only a new building material they could use, but something even more important. There was a burgeoning community of what the system called the Talented, those who could use psionic powers. And while a lot of the old superstitions were either wrong or at least warped, psychic power loved crystals. Oh, sure, it preferred living brains and nerves or the equivalent, but Ace wasn’t comfortable with biotech like that.

On top of that, it wasn’t like psionic power was rare. Yes, in the wider universe it tended to be a rare power barring places like their planet. However, in the end, psionic power was literally just the power of thought. You might not be able to use it, but if a thing could form even the most rudimentary of thoughts, it has psionic power.

So, with that in mind, Ace was focusing on developing their crystal carvers. Though it didn’t hurt that the Raccoonkin were a deft hand at the trade. The Deerkin had already shown their value because of their knowledge of various farming techniques and such, but the Raccoonkin hadn’t quite had the chance yet. So while the Raccoonkin themselves hadn’t yet revealed any affinity for being Talented, their deft hands would push the town’s development forward.

With all that in mind, Ace was particularly interested in what would happen if you made something with carved pieces of quartz and the polymer. All other things aside, it would work even better than super glue to attach pieces of quartz together. Maybe even repair psionic devices made of the stuff, only time would tell. For now, Ace could only focus on gathering more of the stuff.

And while Ace is running himself ragged up on the surface, Doyle has decided to make a new floor.

{Seventeenth floor dimensionally anchored

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

Seventeenth floor spending limit set to 105,240 [Previous floor’s limit(91,560) + Intelligence(114) * 120]

Monster level cap updated

Quintessence debt paid back by 5}

Doyle, ‘Hmm, [What’s my quintessence debt now?]’

{Quintessence Debt: 20.61}

Doyle nods, it was almost gone. Even if he didn’t do anything besides make new floors, it would be gone after seven more. Though, of course, once it got down to less than five, he would probably focus on removing the debt entirely. No reason to let it just sit around.

Of course, he can’t start on the floor right away. Have to wait for it to finish the starting growth spurt, but that just means there is time to plan. And who better to do it with?

Doyle, ‘Hey Ally, any ideas for the new floor?’

Ally turns away from her screen, ‘Hmm, well, the last couple floors have been all over the place. A series of islands, a mountain valley, a giant tunnel, and so on. Maybe go back to the basics? Not as in a cave or anything, but I mean focus on the kobolds. After all, you just got the elder kobold pattern.’

Doyle, ‘Oh yeah, side question, why is the elder kobold a new pattern like most other monsters, while the void kobolds isn’t?’

Ally, ‘That is a bit complex. The short of it is that going up an age category is a complete change of the creature in the same way a goat made of wood differs from a regular goat. Though even the grassen goat is so different as to not be a regular goat anymore.

‘On the other hand, a voibold is basically just a kobold with some adaptations around microgravity environments and having certain skills. As for why the kobolds have this and the other monsters don’t? That has to do with how close the kobolds are to being an enlightened species, IE, a race that is born sapient.

‘Most sapient beings stop evolving in the same way monsters do. Such a large change can cause problems between the body and the soul. Though admittedly, age category evolutions are the classic half-step example. There are even some beings where reaching a certain age category automatically grants and or requires they become sapient. Sort of a chicken or the egg situation with that one.

‘Though, there are also unlucky species out there that go in the opposite direction. Off the top of my head, there is a race butterflyfolk out there where when they go through metamorphosis, they lose their soul. Don’t feel too bad for them, their caterpillar stage lasts a couple centuries even without magic. Turning into a butterfly is the equivalent of dying of old age for them.’

Doyle, ‘So, what does going up an age category usually give? Because now I have the elder assassin vines and elder kobold patterns. Though I guess I should bring up the kobold pattern real quick to check it.’

Ally pulls a window from the side of her workspace. ‘Here’s the base pattern for all three.’

{Kobold

S[4+2] A[7] C[4+2] I[6] W[6] P[6]

Max 3 Skills

Available Skills: Heavy Bash lv3, Improvise Trap lv3, Animal Handling lv1, Precise Stab lv1, Smooth Slash lv1, Forceful Bullet lv1, Accurate Arrow lv1, Combat Casting lv1, Mining lv1, Smelting lv1, Scavenge lv1

Cost: World Energy[50]

Void Kobold (Voibold)

S[4+2] A[10] C[4+2] I[6] W[6] P[6]

Inherits from [Kobold]

Required Skills: Pressure Sensitivity

Extra Skills: 3D Movement lv3, Pressure Sensitivity lv1

Cost: World Energy[50]

Elder Kobold (lv10)

S[6+2] A[20] C[8+2] I[8] W[24] P[9]

Max 3 Skills

Available Skills: Improvise Trap lv10, Primitive Leadership lv8, Heavy Bash lv3, Animal Handling lv3, Precise Stab lv1, Smooth Slash lv1, Forceful Bullet lv1, Accurate Arrow lv1, Combat Casting lv1, Mining lv1, Smelting lv1, Scavenge lv1

Cost: World Energy[100]}

Ally, ‘Now, you’ll note right away the stat increases. Given your current stats at level 10, this might not seem like much. In fact, I’m sure you’ve probably wondered about this as of late, given how much stat inflation takes hold if you plan things at all.

‘Base statistics do not really do all that much, besides giving you a place to start. For sapient beings. Now, since we can’t exactly analyze exactly what is happening, everything is mostly a guess, but for non-dungeon creatures it is believed that they gain stats and those stats are based on their base stars in the same way your monsters gain skill levels based on their base skill level.

‘However, when it comes to an increase in age category, these base stats do one very important thing that won’t matter to you in the least. A being evolving into the next age category is a refresh for them. They lose any negative penalties from growing old and this is partly based on how much their base stats increase.

‘A decrepit kobold who can barely shuffle around that turns into an elder kobold will not only regain full mobility, but likely be able to move even better than when they were in their prime as a regular kobold. This doesn’t matter much to any nigh immortal race like the more pure-blooded dragons or vampires. However, there is a reason you see a lot of people with a dragon ancestor. For even the chance of gaining the ability to have age-based evolutions, people will go to crazy lengths.

‘Then add on top of it the fact that certain racial skills will gain a boost to their base level and you become surprised at how resilient the human genome is. Just look at the elder kobold. They gain seven base levels of improvise trap and access to a whole new skill that starts at level 8, primitive leadership. Since that is the base level, all the gains a monster will get with levels to those skills get added on top. It is kind of absurd how powerful going up an age category can be. Now, obviously, not all such evolutions will be that powerful.’

Plank To The Face - Chapter 389

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