Twenty hours later
The planning for floors 1 to 3 is now complete, the floor crystals now need almost three thousand mana to create them. And I was only able to push in eight hundred mana so far even with that boost quest. With Mana Regeneration at 2.3 points per hour that is like watching paint dry. I know that a soldier’s task is month of waiting followed by minutes of intense workout or combat, but this is ridiculous.
"Booble, is there anything I can do while waiting for mana or to speed up mana regeneration?"
"That's not enough for the five weeks I would have to wait, anything else?"
"That's a joke, right? I don't even sleep anymore, and a human can't slow down thinking. There has to be a way to pass time!"
“There is someone really snarky behind the world system and its descriptions, isn’t it?”
I don't have hands to hold cards, and with the sight as a dungeon core I would know everything anyway. But I can use one "Art" picture to paint a board...
"Booble, have you ever heard about something called chess? I'll think I explain the rules to you to pass the time..."
...
Five Weeks Later
"No, Booble, you need to learn to calculate more than two or three moves into the future if you ever want to win - but the last game was much better already, I really had to work for victory here. But now the three floor crystals finally have enough mana to place all three floors at the same time, with some leftovers for me in case of problems."
"But that would have given away my real exit. No matter, [Activate all Floor Crystals for excavation]."
"Problems like needing mana for several levelups... [Yes], level up, [one free point each to Core-Power, Core-Influence and Core-Size]."
"Wait - TWO quests completed? There was only one, where is the log?"
Let's look back - "Place Defenses"??? They were expecting the dungeon cores to excavate an empty floor and then only place defenses? No wonder so many lose, it would be much more effective if the floorplan and the defenses are developed together...
One level before I get the reincarnation skill to revive Gunny. Let's check what is missing [Status]
"Booble? The need values for the next level not ony show much more mana costs, but also require 20 DP. Why is that?"
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"That is a surprise - I have the DP due to keeping a reserve and multiple levelup at the same time, but other dungeons might sometimes be blocked and require DP from adventurers to proceed. And if that can happen - what exactly are the Ranked Escapees and the Ranked Kills as needs?"
"OK, I'll keep that in mind. I need a few hundred XP for the next level before I can reincarnate Gunny. That means the next quest and some added excavation of the current floors and floor 4. Any advice on modifications?"
Arctic Foxes, here we go.
Nice teeths and claws you have.
Concentrate
"Yes, I wish to pay 10 DP for the Silver Fox template".
Already done that for my floors, will have to do the quest on floor 4. Now just a bit of excavating that and a short wait and I can finally get Gunny alive again.