Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Rushing towards the place where the commotion erupted from, he was astounded to find a ring-shaped gate at the centre of the village.

Up until this point, there was no such construct here so of course all the passersby were stunned to find something so unusual here all of a sudden.

"This..." Fennel muttered creasing his brows.

"It is a teleport gate that is connected to the main floor where I reside" Simon silently appeared and answered his queries.

"As I thought, it is something installed by Lord Simon. Haha, it is embarrassing but it'll take some time to get used to things suddenly appearing inside the village" Fennel admitted after he dispersed the crowd that had gathered near the pond once again.

Simon affirmed, although it would take some time for them to adapt to it, he wasn't particularly worried about it.

Now with all the matters settled on this floor, he looked towards the newly appointed five [Helpers] behind him before stating "Right, the five of you come with me".

"Elder Fennel the services of the teleport gate is available all the time, you can use it to contact me" Simon said as he prepared to teleport. His destination was the 15th floor.

Simon along with the [Helpers] arrived onto a vast forest with tall trees and vines that covered most of his line of sight. Compared to the Forest Spring Spirit floor, the plant life here wasn't full of life and vibrant.

Even the vegetation here was mostly a single type, a clear contrast to the previous floor he came from.

The [Dungeon] function although allows him to modify the floors, it did not have many options to add. It might be because the dungeon is still a low-ranking one, but Simon hoped to have an assortment of options to tinker his floor with.

However, the reason why he arrived on the 15th floor personally wasn't to modify the topography of the floor.

"Lord Simon, why are we here?" Jared asked as he curiously looked at the floor he had arrived for the first time.

"We are here to conduct some experiment" Simon smiled as he walked ahead. The Forest was quite vast, more than fifteen kilometres in area, though it didn't take him long to find the objective he was looking for.

The 15th and the 16th floors were the same in that they are both forested areas and the monsters that spawned on these floors were Direwolves and Stormwolves. Their average level was around 80 to 130 and their numbers were in hundreds.

The last time Simon had spawned more than 50 of them from each race and since then their numbers had significantly gone up.

Opening the [Archive] function of his [Main Menu] which allows him to see the floors and all the entities on it in a three-dimensional structure, he quickly found the numbers of the wolves whose numbers had drastically increased to more than three hundred.

The rate at which they were breeding and increasing their number, even astounded Simon. Looking at their distribution and how they were spread around the floor, it seemed that there were multiple packs led by different leaders.

The Stormwolves were a variant of the Direwolves that are able to use some simple novice tier wind magic such as the [Wind Slash]. Fundamentally, they are of the same race and had no difficulty mixing along.

It was precisely because Simon had discovered that while he was exploring the eastern region of the Ghastly Winding Forest that Simon did not just spawn the Stormwolves but also the Direwolves.

Since Stormwolves are stronger than the normal Direwolves who have no skill or magic, they are also costlier to spawn. What Simon was trying to achieve by spawning fifty of each of them was to crossbreed so that more variants are born.

That way he would be able to save up some of his DP without needing to spawn them himself.

As he had expected, the number of the Stormwolves in the area had gone up slightly. Though it was not guaranteed that the born wolves would be Stormwolves every time, the probability was high enough for Simon to not make use of this method.

"Alright time to see if this works on them too" Simon approached one of the packs which had the highest numbers and took out a crimson crystal from his inventory.

The moment he took out the Crimson Mutation Crystal, the temperature of the surrounding air although slightly started rising. The crystal was something that the altered pond of serenity on his main floor had produced.

According to the description, the crystal has the ability to create a mutation on the monster consuming the crystal making it able to utilize the fire attribute of mana. That is to say, if a Direwolves or Stormwolves eat it, a new variant able to use fire magic will be born.

However, that is only if the mutation is a success. The chances of failure are much higher than it is for success and Simon did not how many of the crystal his pond had or can produce at a time.

He would have liked to experiment with more of this crystal in hand but right now he wanted to strengthen his dungeon in any way he can and so he decided to take the risk and use the crystal.

Simon was the Dungeon Master and had absolute control over all the monsters spawned by his dungeon. Hence the Wolves did not attack him and instead made a way for him, the same was true for the [Helpers].

Since the dungeon had recognized them as the aides of the Dungeon Master, they have certain control over the actions of the low-level monsters.

Approaching near a small mountain, Simon saw the mouth of the cave and a Stromwolf standing in front of it. The Stormwolf was as big as two meters, had greyish fur and scars all over its body.

Just like the Direwolves, the Stormwolves also had two tails and their intelligence was quite low. They were ruled by their instincts and were very territorial.

Seeing that Simon was coming closer, the Stormwolf that appeared to be the leader of this pack, backed away allowing him to effortlessly place the Scarlet Mutation Crystal on the cave.

After completing his task, they silently left the territory of the wolves and appeared in front of a tall mountain overlooking the area. From here, Simon could clearly see the whole territory of the wolves.

He looked behind him and saw the confounding faces of the [Helpers] and asked "Do you want to know what the experiment is all about?".

Seeing them nod their heads, Simon explained "Well the reason I brought you here is because I want you guys to observe the wolves residing in this territory or more precisely the one that consumes the crystal I left back at their cave".

"The Crimson Mutation Crystal has the ability to mutate the monster allowing it to gain new abilities. The mutation will take a few days to a week of time and that is why I need the assistance of the [Helpers]. Keep a tab on them and if you notice any changes, inform me. Ah right, you can take turns to keep a watch on them. The rest of you can use this chance to teleport and familiarize yourself with the other floors of this dungeon. Make sure not to teleport where the adventurers are".

After saying everything that needed to be said, Simon was just about to teleport away when Maya suddenly asked "Lord Simon'¦ uhm that is can I come to the main floor to meet with Cecilia more often?".

Her voice sounded tense and the way she was fidgeting around, Simon could see that she was quite nervous.

Nodding his head, he said nonchalantly "Suit yourself".

After hearing his words, Maya sighed in relief and thanked Simon incessantly even after he left. She and Cecilia were best friends ever since they were little kids back in their old village. She was used to seeing her every day before the incident with adventurers occurred.

Now that she had been given the discretion to use the teleport function however she liked, she could use it to meet with her anytime.

Arriving back on the main floor, Simon quickly went back to his previous spot near the pond of serenity and sat down. Last time he felt like he was very close to attaining the [Mana Lines] and if he activated the [Ancestral Symbol Ignition] skill a few more times, he felt like he would be able to grasp it.

Opening the [Main Menu] he surveyed the progress of the adventurers and saw that the progress of their exploration was very slow. It had only been a few hours and although the first few floors wasn't that big, it was enough to stall them for a while.

Seeing that the new adjustments and trap that he had laid on the floors were working like usual, Simon made a satisfied smile.

After the dungeon had ranked up, the power of the traps had also been enhanced making it quite effective in situations when the invaders are careless. The maze on the second floor had been enlarged and could easily stall a few adventurers team.

That was not all, the paths, the wall everything moved so as to confuse the senses of the adventurers and to make things worse, there were pin wall traps, spike wall traps and others added. Also, the monsters starting from the third and the fourth floor got stronger making the dungeon even more difficult to conquer than what it was before ranking up.

The sound of notification that Simon eagerly waited to hear for so long, finally started ringing once again as chunks of DP started being accumulated.