Chương 25: Exploration #2. Following the bats and spiders.

Following the bats and spiders.

Census data < Death and Age heading under "Human" section > Rural – Average age split by adventurer status.

< Adventurer Human > Percent of population with adventuring class 67% Death by old age: min 80 yrs, max 589 yrs, mean 90 yrs, STD 10 yrs Death by unnatural causes: mean 25 yrs, STD 25 yrs, percent of pop 90% Level at natural death: min 48, max 163, mean 53, STD 3 < Non-Adventurer Human > Death by old age: min 50 yrs, max 140 yrs, mean 70 yrs Death by unnatural causes: mean 40 yrs, STD 25 yrs, percent of pop 60% Level at natural death: min 40, max 51, mean 43, STD 3 Urban – Average age split by adventurer status.

Note: Much higher level and age distribution in urban areas due to less dangers and a higher quality of living enabling a lazy lifestyle. While also having more ways for the driven to suceed and reach a higher level.

< Adventurer Human > Percent of population with adventuring class 17% Death by old age: min 100 yrs, max 358 yrs, mean 189 yrs, STD 50 yrs Death unnatural causes: mean 25 yrs STD 25 yrs*, percent of pop 75% *Note: Heavily skewed at bottom, the number of adventuring related deaths is bunched up in the early 20s with a majority of deaths being between the ages of 12 and 25. This is the only statistic that deviates so far from a normal distribution it requires a dedicated note.

Level at natural death: min 42, max 89, mean 51, STD 6 < Non-Adventurer Human > Death by old age: min 80 yrs, max 380 yrs, mean 110 yrs Death unnatural causes: mean 40 yrs, STD 20 yrs, percent of pop 14% Level at natural death: min 4, max 95, mean 33, STD 25 On level and lifespan. A detailed study of probability and age. Disclaimer: these statistics are all based on tracked values obtained mostly from humans with basic classes.

They are also simply average statistics related to old age - not an exact age one will live to - and are heavily skewed by diet and health. It's estimated that each racial level adds roughly 3% to your remaining lifespan. The reason this doesn't compound as drastically as you might expect is that this effect is not an extension to someone's full lifespan but their remaining lifespan. An extra few levels near when someone is born are worth quite a bit more than ones obtained when they are about to die.

Extending their life by a few years instead of hours. It might not seem like alot but the earlier you level up the more of an effect your level has on age... which in turn increases your chances of living longer and levelling even higher. Assuming a level 1 human lives to be 31 years old (results obtained pre system and sligthly innacurate due to city lifestyles extending that age), someone who naturally levels around the average (3 months compounded every 5 levels by 1. 5) can live to be on average 70 and die around level 40-45. (actual age from polled results is an average of 85 years old however there were a higher number of city humans polled than rural humans and thus results were skewed from the math... however the average level in cities can also be lower with the innovations of a few high leveled individuals making several normal people lazier) However!

In the case of an adventurer who levels twice as fast, they might die somewhere between levels 50-55 at the ripe old age of 97. Going further Elite adventurers who are even faster at levelling, tend to end up around levels 65-70 and live to be around 138 years old. (both those values are approximations people tend to vary from the average quite a bit) The age delaying effects of higher levels are also further muddled by stat choices.

With more even distributions or ones focused on vitality giving higher age increasing effects. Disclaimer: While average old age increases, adventurers are known to have a lower average lifespan due to the danger of their profession. Less likely to die of old age but more likely to die by a monster. Of course, all these values were estimated using a Basic class and a "regular" human. The "Level 1" age of various races varies wildly. Elves for instance can live to be over a 100, even while staying at level 1.

However, the amount of lifespan they gain from levelling is slightly lower than humans, while the speed they gain racial levels is wildly different. Without more data we can't confirm exact values - we can prove however the levelling effect can compound elves to live to be several centuries old and that is just the average. Most higher tiered human classes are easier to level.

Hence the few lucky or talented enough to gain one, have managed to reach level 70+ while living to be over 100 quite easily, even with average ability. Finally, there are those rare geniuses that break all these stats. Those who break all levelling records, have a monstrous class and monstrous ability. Those who manage to reach level 50 before they even turn 16. They are the 500-year-old humans. 1000-year-old dwarves. 10 000-year-old elves.

The few sentient races to break the level 100 barrier and prove that there isn't a level cap. They are the ones we refer to as transcendents. Geniuses transending their species. Excerpt obtained from the famous survey, "The largest census ever performed". Results were made from the population of Ire and surroundings in "1750 A. S." and distributed to everyone who could read.

Some believe this was done to try and convince some lazy city folks that they should try harder, (such that they weren't a lower level than farmers and random people living in the woods). Most agree with the accuracy of the results. The crystal spiders and bats had headed off towards where the demon had been found and passed it by with few events. Recommencing his expansion on this side after they caught up to where Innearth had expanded to before. He observed the area he had first spotted the demon.

The floor and walls directly where it had been resting were a dull matte grey instead of the black obsidian of everything else. Completely devoid of mana despite the time that had passed, the area felt dim and fuzzy in Innearth's sight. Everything else had mostly healed from the demon's consumption of all the mana – but that one spot remained barren. Does this area have like… maybe an anti-magic effect? Innearth wondered while trying to form a small ball of Fire mana as a curiosity.

It did seem to be harder to form right above the demon's place of rest and shooting it down at the ground it felt muted somehow as it dissipated and was barely absorbed. Not leaving a single indication that it had hit. So not really a material that could be used to suppress magic but maybe one that could defend against it? I'll come back to this sometime soon. Continuing on, Innearth came to a large low-down room with several smashed... pillars? Walls?

The spiders skittered out, preferring to climb along the ceiling, while the bats flitted back and forth around their partners nervously. The biggest upgrade besides adding mana circuits to both of these monster schematics had been the introduction of directionless Gravity mana. Inverting its effect, the gravity bones in both of the creations lessened gravity's effect on them.

For the magma spiders that meant Innearth had added bones making them much lighter and then several kinetic disks on both their legs and body pushing them back "down". The difference was that "down" was now more closely tied to the direction they were facing and less to do with any pesky gravity or shared notion of "down" the rest of us had. Their form was able to crawl across the solid rock of the ceiling while also able to flip and drop on anything unsuspecting below. They hadn't fared the best against the demon…

but then again nothing had fared well against it. The biggest problem was despite being a tank, the demon's magical maw had simply bypassed its defences. Back in the present, Innearth stared at the patch of non mana reactive stone, wondering if it was best to make a panic door around his core room using it. Or if it was better to try and see if making a few unique monsters out of it that could resist magic was better.

He didn't have a lot of material and making monsters would probably stretch it out more than throwing it all on a door. Then again considering a demon made this who knows if it would even be effective against a demon… its weird jittering time magic thing seemed as detrimental to it as it was positive… but who knows? Not me that's for sure. For the crystal bats otherwise known as "flying crystals" Innearth had achieved something pretty mobile with just Kinetic mana.

However, by lightening them with gravity bones, the amount of over-engineering designed to just keep them in the air could be diverted into increasing their mobility instead. Similar to the turtles, the bats now had a lattice of crystal and kinetic cores around their body that helped them shoot and increased their movement and control of their own body. The rest of the time was trying to figure out how to increase their damage output.

Thinking back to how they had fared against the demon, his previous flying crystals had done a bit of damage... but it paled in comparison to the snakes. They had also simply been caught in the demon's lunges and easily broken. One option was to go the same route as the turtles and add a poison sack. There wasn't as much space in the bat's body, so it wasn't as useful as a long-term weapon. But he definitely had room to shove a small poison gland by its attacking blowgun, that could be added to a single shot.

Finally, Innearth figured out something different. By adding a small propeller to the end of the "barrel" – 5 blades using a strip of Kinetic movement on one side and sword material on the other to increase sharpness – the bats were able to blend the living crystal shots as they exited the barrel. He had also tipped them with Kinetic crystals so they could give an extra burst of speed for the actual blending. Of course, on its own, this didn't do much other than ruin the bat's aim.

Sending its semi deadly spike outwards in all directions. However, combined with the magic control offered by its lattice network of crystal and kinetic cores, the bats were able to "Push" all the mini shards away from them in a second burst. Despite being smaller, these small shards were much sharper and while many small shots instead of one big one ruined some of its armour piercing capabilities... the damage was higher against anything fleshy that could bleed.

Adding the poison to the mix gave a spray of countless mini poisoning shards of death. Finally, even with all these changes to the individual monsters, the biggest difference made, was that he had cemented their partnership. Innearth had added a 2-way Mental mana link between spider and bat – two large blocks of Mental mana linked to each other near the center of each monster touching their cores. They were split into lifelong partners and he always made the two in pairs.

They would be created, each bonding and showing some of the most protective instincts of any monster he had made before starting their routine. These combined pairs truly cared for their bond and worked to keep them safe. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. As a duo they were vastly improved this way and while individually his snakes were still slightly stronger than either monster on its own…

combined they were winning every single conflict they caused, making these pairs the alpha force (ignoring the frankly overpowered beholder and boss) in Innearth's dungeon. Even evening out the match and making it 2 on 2 the snakes lost out to the duo's teamwork. The only potential problem this pairing had caused was what happened when one of them died. A snake had managed to knock a bat to the ground with its crystal magic then shattered it – causing the spider to go absolutely berserk.

It threw away all self preservation and simply threw itself at the snake with as much ferocity as the insane jumpers had back in the day. After killing the snake, the spider had thrown itself at more and more enemies before finding and attempting to attack one of the beholders. It didn't have any way to show expression or emotion however Innearth was sure it was mentally screaming the whole time.

Not enough time had passed for one of the spiders to die, but he assumed the bats would do something similar if and when that happened. It felt kind of weird to Innearth. They were obviously grieving and that kind of made him uncomfortable. Them dying didn't bother him but the pain they were in did somehow. They are much stronger and more balanced together, however. I don't want to stop making pairs just because I'm feeling weird by separating the pairs.

I could try and see if there's a way to kill one off as soon as the other dies? … But that kind of feels dumb to purposefully implement when I'm trying to make them stronger. Consciously closing off his heart to the concept Innearth purposefully decided to try and ignore the moral situation. If he started feeling too guilty in the future he'd invest in a "Deadman's switch" to put em' out of their misery. The spider-bat pairs continued on into a new completely wrecked room.

Whatever had once been here, had long since been destroyed. The rubble joining the dead monster parts as if they were dead dungeon parts. Progressing further Innearth passed a wall of writing. Half smashed in, it was written in dungeon script and told a sad tale. Here marks the room of Ignition. The eventual strongest Dungeon Core of all! I immortalized my progress in earth strengthened obsidian, such that my journey to greatness w il l forever b e rem embered.

I began my j ourn ey surroun ded by a ir pockets and empty lav a sh oo ts. Exp̸a n d̷i̶n̷g̷ ̸t̷h̴o̷s̶e̶ ̸. ̴o̴o̷t̸s̵ ̴I̷ ̷̲͒. ̴̨̆ ̵͈͘a̸b̷l̸e̴ ̶t̴o̸ ̷g̶r̴o̶. ̵͇́ ̶͑ͅl̵a̷r̴g̸e̸ ̸h̸a̷. ̴̻̓ ̸̹͘. ̴͔̍y̸s̸ ̶f̶a̶s̷t̶e̸r̴ ̶̮̄. ̴̻̓ ̸̹͘m̵y̵ ̴p̸. ̵e̶, ̴s̴… ̵ The rest of it was smashed beyond repair.... that's what you get for bragging when you couldn't back it up. Rip "strongest Dungeon Core"- you were not known and thus could not be missed... Expanding past the wall into a room he found the remains of a Core.

Unlike every monster core that shattered in an explosion of mana, this Dungeon Core's core had been chewed and spat out into a pile of dull blue shards covered in teeth marks. They were dry but Innearth could imagine they were once covered in wet slobber. Innearth felt weird looking at those shards. They forced him to confront his own mortality and he didn't like it. He kept trying to joke about their pride being their downfall…

but knew he too had a bit too much pride and that it could very well have been him laying there broken on the ground. It very well nearly was me laying there on the ground: / He tried to absorb a bit of the shard so it would disappear from his influence and he wouldn't have to look at it anymore. The shard barely disappeared in terms of size, while his storage shot up like crazy. Is… Is the cores Inventory? Is our inventory attached to our core somehow?

The second or two of absorption had given Innearth some useful materials like a bunch of silver which he hadn't found yet. But even so, he stopped immediately. It's probably better if I don't absorb this. There are probably some useful materials but... It's compressed into an insane ratio right now… and I'm okay on inventory space currently. Who knows how I'll be if I am dumb and take on this core's whole storage?

Even better on space now that I can claim all this wonderful free expansion, I'll be able to expand for days without worrying. He could feel a faint twinge of another floor wanting to form, but he didn't want to stop before he had finished exploring and making sure this ruin was safe. It wasn't quite something he could stop – the floor forming like a distant truck coming to smash into him – but he could definitely just not help the forming along and ignore it while he tried to finish.

Innearth was starting to get more and more certain there had only been one demon, but he really didn't want to lose vigilance while there were still unexplored areas. Can't relax just yet. I'm sure as soon as I do, I'll regret it. Stop it body. Stop splitting. As Innearth expanded, he found a room hidden behind the wall with several small holes at angles to increase the influence transfer – while hiding its existence. The room had several dozen black basins of materials.

Many were solid rock – variations of basalt and obsidian – while a couple contained still bubbling pools of magical magma. I guess since it's impossible to store magical materials in your inventory... this was their material store? Either way, score! I should share this information with Abe. As a Fire affinity core, he would probably find more uses for some of these. Innearth: I have presents!

Sending Abe a small 1 liter sample of every single still active pool – as well as some of the floating magma from the snake section – Innearth felt like a true friend. Abe: wow. You needn't have m8 these are great. Innearth: Nah don't worry about it. If you find any really useful ones make sure to let me know! Abe: Shoving the work off on me eh. I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Innearth reached the last of the rooms in this section of the dungeon pretty quickly. Expansion was… incredibly slow as always.

Even sped up by the already dug out and thus "free" real estate that he was expanding into it took a few hours. The faint twinging of floor creation didn't help one bit and he was making the problem worse by continuing to expand. Somehow he managed to stall it for longer like a guy holding in the need to pee at a theatre because he didn't want to miss the movie. Despite the relatively long time it took him to map out this whole area, as Innearth grew older, his perception of time seemed to slow down and weaken.

It was either something to do with his Dungeon Core continence, or a side effect of spending days working on a single monster or trap design without rest. In comparison to the side the snakes were on, the spiders reached the dead Core's core room and the few surrounding areas pretty quickly. Quickly only in comparison, however. The last of the rooms – a small room at the end of the hallway containing a single black bowl full of a completely black, yet...

still bubbling with heat, liquid – was successfully claimed and Innearth relaxed his continuous commands to his spiders. Yeah, I think we are good! You guys are free to make yourself at home while I finish up on the other side. His neat army slowly split apart with spider and bat pairs exploring once more together – this time on their own terms.

Pulling back his attention from this area, he diverted his split attention towards the other army, which was currently going down two separate paths that kept linking up to each other like a ladder. What was the purpose of this hallway structure? I think maybe the core was planning on doing something with this but didn't manage to finish it? Or maybe it's just a way to make sure adventurers can get flanked pretty easily and monsters can get around them to attack from both sides.

Now that I thought that out it's probably the goal. It's certainly annoying enough to have to keep expanding each rung before continuing so I don't get anything slipping past these groups. It also makes the dungeon feel bigger than a straight hallway even if there is only really one direction. Two separate rooms came into focus a short while later.

They had several interlocking mechanisms connecting the two of them – a sort of drawer that couldn't be moved in one room but that was pushed in and out when someone pushed or pulled an identical drawer in the second room for example. There were also several painted symbols in one room with corresponding pushable floor plates in the other.

Several small tubes near the floor let sound pass between each room and a large amount of magma was contained in the ceiling above both rooms – held up by several trap doors that were sealed shut with interlocking rubbery mana material rims. Is this a punishment for people who just smash through the puzzles? I should claim it either way. This is the only real trap I've seen in this dungeon after all. If something dangerous comes by I can dump it on them puzzle or not!

As Innearth converted the magma dumping area to dungeon parts and continued to expand past it he studied the two rooms. They were amazingly thought-out… but weren't finished. For example, the drawer that was opened by the second room was empty and Innearth couldn't really tell what was supposed to go in it. A key? Then I would have to make a door. That would also be a pretty fast puzzle. There was also a bunch of random shapes and glyphs on the one wall... and none on the other.

I have to tie those into stuff in the other room somehow. I guess I'm stealing this setup and finishing it, instead of just ripping it up and moving on… I probably won't be able to do whatever this dungeon's vision was justice though. Wish I could steal the finished version. Continuing up he found the two winding passages met up with each other relatively quickly once more. So, one person can walk back and forth between the rooms if they need to do it alone? I'll ruminate on that I guess.

Continuing on the single path became steeper and steeper. Before cutting off abruptly in an anticlimactic way a dozen or so meters later. Innearth went through the whole dungeon he had claimed, solidifying his influence into the walls and double-checking each part before he was finally satisfied. He sent off a message to both Abe and Amy with a simple – Innearth: safe 🤞 It was that moment that he relaxed ever so slightly that triggered him getting hit by the floor forming process like a truck.

He was vastly vastly past his size requirement at this point despite each floor forming at a larger and larger space. Each floor formed larger than the last... but this time he had pushed so quickly he had claimed over doubled his previous dungeon in raw area. His past floors had been getting better and less annoying to form but this one slammed into him feeling like a portion of his soul was being ripped into smithereens and barely managing to make a dividing line.

Like the difference between a piece of paper that was ripped into two pieces and one that was cut with scissors. Most of his effort was spent trying to smooth the split and heal everything. Finally – without even having to sort stuff to ease it along – his 5th floor was formed. It took up over half the entire new dungeon area – which was already slightly larger than Innearth's old area – so he spent some time trying to evenly distribute the floors boundaries, so they were similar size.

His floors didn't really have any rhyme or reason right now. They were simply splits in the hallways, that unceremoniously divided a higher concentration of mana from its lesser version. I'm probably going have to move these again when I get bigger... there's no point in giving any meaning to it right now. The next few days were spent consolidating his space and in less than a week his 6th floor was also formed – before the effects of expanding so quickly was finally diminished.

After pushing so much over a month time his friends convinced him to take it slow and relax a bit. Amy was definitely convincing him to do so out of some sort of mental health benefit (> even if you find it fun, you don't want to get burnt out of your hobby, please just take a break you've been through a traumatic experience. You'll thank me later. <) while he was sure Abe was doing so out of a secret hope that he would catch up in level while Innearth languished.

Despite Abe's hidden agenda however, it was not to be. As if delayed and spread out – instead of being given all at once – experience ticked in steadily from his expansion and despite not innovating much he refused to waste his mana. So working through his break he periodically made spider bat pairs to fill the new dungeon and various slightly different snakes to fill his depths. The numbers swelled in size and dipped as each group sent raids into the other's territory.

The low effort "not cheating" way of attempting to improve them, was to alter the mana circuits of each monster ever so slightly with each attempt. Doesn't count as experimentation: 3 my attention slipped while making them that's why the circuit looks different yep. Many were made worse but a few changes definitely made stronger monsters and it was enough to quench his experimentation bug for a time. Constant battles of sorts happened, with a controlling god fueling their conflict for idle amusement.

However, there are only so many times you can watch two nearly identical groups of monsters fight before even that grows boring. In time he stopped paying attention to most of their scuffles just picking whichever side was losing (the snakes for the most part) and making more of them to keep it balanced.

During this time, he finally told Bose of his demon problem – he reacted the most shocked and briefly dropped his persona before regaining his composure and declaring at the time (> It's the master's job to help his apprentice. You simply must tell me if it happens again, I'll protect you! I'd have sent a dozen spirits! <). A good chunk of Innearth's time was spent just talking about anything and everything with his friends.

They grew on him more and more, however even though he was enjoying this time, he was starting to feel impatient to get back into the swing of things. A highlight of this period was when he found out he had actually surpassed Amy in level. She was level 17 by the time he was 18 and still there when he reached level 19. He knew level didn't mean everything but it still felt good. Finally, 2 things happened nearly simultaneously.

1 - He decided enough was enough and his semi-forced break was officially over and 2 - he levelled up to level 20. Ticking him into tier 3 with much less fanfare than his rank advancements he was nevertheless excited by the small form of progress. Tier 3... Let's see what I got and how this works! Amy said to wait the same amount of time as I had ignored them (a month) but 3 weeks is close enough! Lets gooo. Indecisive Earth Level 20 1/630 exp to next level. System Access Level 3 0/2 requirements met to advance.

-Reach the surface -Level 33+ Stats Mana Regeneration 25. 7 unit/min Mana Storage 630. 0/630. 0 units Physical Storage 51% Percent Capacity Titles. Earth Mana Specialization, Crystal Mana Specialization