Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The more he heard about the current situation of the dungeon, the more frustrated he got. He was frustrated not at his subordinates, but at himself. To think that he would leave his dungeon in such a precarious state.

What would have happened if he didn't make it in time? Had he decided to stay in that dream, would his dungeon be still standing? Losing everything he had built so far, just the thought of it send shivers down his spine.

Simon released a deep breath of sigh and thanked his subordinates. Had it not been for them, he would have lost everything.

"You guys have worked hard". He could see from the exhausted look on their face that they did not have an ounce of rest for a long time.

"My lord, this is our duty. Even if we have to lay our lives down, we will keep the dungeon safe" Coleus and the other [Helpers] hurriedly bowed their heads and declared.

Simon couldn't help but helplessly shake his head at their loyalty. There was no way he was going to let that happen. Now that he was up and conscious, he was going to make sure that everything goes back to normal.

"My lord" Coleus called out.

"?"

He extended his hands and passed a bag towards him. When Simon looked inside the bag, he was surprised to find that it was full of space rings.

"My lord, these are the space rings that we gathered from adventurers after the dungeon defence" Coleus explained.

The space rings were full of various sorts of artefacts, weapons, armours and possessions of the adventurers. Their qualities were not bad, most of them were around [B] tier with some [A] tier in the mix.

The rank up of the dungeon and the gifts weren't the only benefits they received from the whole ordeal, the massive amount of DP and possession of the adventurers were also left behind for them to use.

Simon nodded his head and kept the bag inside his inventory. Once he sorts out all the items inside the space rings, he would distribute them to his subordinates as per their needs.

Though that being said, these items were meant for the adventurers to use so most of them might be unsuitable for them. Well in the last case scenario, he can always use them for the treasure chests or inside that mysterious abyss of his main menu.

The last time he failed to evoke any response even after throwing dozens of [C] rank artefacts inside it but maybe it will show some response this time once he used this many items.

In any case, they were consumables for him to use and if it could help him better understand some of the mysteries of his [Main Menu], then why not?

After discussing various others issues with his subordinates, Simon asked them to continue putting their efforts for a few more days. During this time, Simon started upgrading his dungeon like a madman.

First, he altered the new floors that Irene had created, making them treacherous and more tricky to tread before moving on to adding new floors.

One of the newest upgrades after his dungeon became an intermediate tier dungeon, was the increase of floor count. Now Simon can add up to a hundred and fifty floors to dungeon Laplace.

Not only that, he can also apply floor effects called the 'Affliction' on some of the floors. The Affliction can be in the form of various status effects that can nerf, weaken, deteriorate the status or the condition of the invaders making it more difficult for them to clear the floors.

Or he can also instead choose to strengthen the condition of the natives of that floor using the Affliction. It was one or the other.

For example, he can apply the Affliction of -15% stamina on the invaders on a floor or he can choose to strengthen the monsters with the very same Affliction..i.e monsters +15% stamina. Of course, he cannot apply both because of the limitations of the dungeon.

Additionally, only one kind of Affliction can be applied on the floors of a [C] tier dungeon at a given time. There were different kinds of Affliction like the Attack -10%, Healing rate -15%, fire resistance -35% and so on and so forth.

One needed to choose carefully which Affliction to apply on what floor since it had a long cooldown time and took a ton of DP to remove the floor effects. Of course to Simon who was a former game developer, this was an element he could take full advantage of to make his dungeon stronger than ever before.

Other than that, the maximum number of floors that can be applied with Affliction on a [C] tier dungeon was 10.

Of course, once his dungeon's rank increases further he would be able to apply affliction on more floor, not only that he would be able to use more than one Affliction on each floor and of varying effects.

But that is something for the future, currently he had to make do with only ten floors and one Affliction each.

The other upgrades that the dungeon received after increasing in rank was the [Spawn] option. Simon was now able to spawn more powerful monsters befitting the dungeon's rank like the hellhounds, sand golems, firefox and such.

Not only that, traps like the magical traps, teleportation traps also became available for him to install now.

Simon finally understood why it was so difficult to conquer a dungeon starting from the intermediate rank. It was because of the existence and influence of these many elements that made the intermediate tier and higher ranked dungeon so formidable.

Simon quickly got to work, his fingers swiping around the windows at an astonishing pace. Even though his dungeon had ranked up to become an intermediate tier dungeon, with the way it was right now, it would not be wrong to say that in essence, it was still at [D] tier dungeon.

He needed to quickly install all of the new upgrades and fortify his dungeon as soon as possible.

Simon put all of his years of knowledge, experience and achievement into it and soon new and new floors started popping up every day. With him back and taking the helm once again, his subordinates felt much more sense of peace.

The gloomy aura that the inhabitants of the dungeon Laplace were surrounded with, dissipated like it was never there.

After a few days, Simon called all of his subordinates from the frontlines back and the wall of monsters blocking the 51st floor was removed, allowing adventurers to explore further.

New floors, new monsters, new traps and new Affliction were installed in the dungeon every day. One would think that with the way, Simon was splurging his DP stocks, he would soon run out.

However, far from it, his DP showed no signs of reducing instead it showed an increasing trend. With the greater influx of adventurers diving inside his dungeon, the DP that he earned was higher than before.

Not only that, with him offering generous rewards (the items he got from the expedition team) for clearing floors, higher levelled adventurers also flocked into his dungeon and soon the dungeon Laplace entered a flourishing time.

During this time, Simon dedicated himself to his role as the dungeon master. Of course, he didn't forget the date he made with Irene.

Training floor, a vast expanse of land with nothing in sight for as far as the eye can see.

"You are here early? Did you finish your task already?" Irene who saw Simon walking over asked.

Simon flashed a bitter smile, shrugged his shoulder and retorted "The job of a dungeon master is never over. In fact, the more I work, the more the tasks seem to increase. It's like its never ending".

"That being said, one needs a change of pace every now and then. Doing things excessively is not good. I have just survived from a near death experience, I cannot afford to collapse again and make my subordinates worry. Besides, the dungeon is stable now, even if I leave my post for some time, it should be alright".

Seeing Simon make jokes like that, Irene felt that something was different about him. Ever since he came back to his consciousness and recovered from his injuries, something about him had changed.

It was not the external change that Irene was talking about, if she had to point it, it would be more of an internal change. Like how the air around him was different. He used to have that reticent and impassive aura around him. But looking at him now, he seemed to be more relaxed and composed.

As if a weight that has been weighing on his heart for years, has somehow disappeared. Irene did not pry about his changes and started their training just like usual.

"Although I agreed to train you, what sort of picture did you have in mind when you asked me that at that time?" Irene questioned.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm asking what sort of direction do you want to grow in. As you know, the race of demon nobles are blessed with an allround stats. Physical combat and magic casting, it excels in both the fields. So which discipline do you have in mind?"

"I was thinking... both" Simon replied after thinking about it for a bit. he knew that his magic stats were higher than all of his other stats and he tends to rely on his magic all the time. However, his other stats weren't lagging behind too far apart and it would be a waste not to utilise them.