Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

Simon had already seen the sort of effects the crimson mutation crystals was capable of bringing thus he did not waste any time experimenting with these crystals on the fanged mouse and other monsters of his dungeon once again.

The result was after a week, various new species were registered to his dungeon and the new floors that he added were frolicking with these very types of monsters.

Of course, it was not like the experimentation was all a success, there were many failures and many deaths on the side of monsters that cost him quite a lot of DP. However, Simon wasn't discouraged, he saw every failure as a step forward to success and due to this quality of his, new species of monsters were born in his dungeon Laplace.

Amongst the new species, some had the ability to use water and wind attributes while those which already had this attribute, to begin with, became even stronger after the mutation.

For example, amongst one of the monster species that was experimented upon, were the lizardmen and pirodiles that are spawned on upper floors. These aquatic races already had the affinity with water attribute thus after the mutation, they evolved into a new type of species with increased strength and basic abilities.

Looking at their pre-mutated form and post-mutated form, one cannot even compare them anymore since the strength brought by that change was just too drastic. And of course, just like with the fire fanged mouse and fire eater rat, Simon had to personally see them with his eyes to register them to the dungeon.

Unlike the last time when they were caught unprepared by the powerful effects of the crystal, which brought a menace on the upper floors, this time they were ready and had stopped any problems before they arrived.

That is... not counting the number of monsters that were sacrificed during the experiment. The experiment as a whole might be a success but it cost a lot of DP and other than Simon who had amassed a lot of DP in a short period of time, even a high ranking demon wouldn't expend so much resources on simply mutating low level monsters.

After all, with the amount of DP that Simon had used to spawn the monsters and experiment on them, they might be able to create a couple of floors.

To others, it might look like Simon was being too extravagant with his experiments but he himself knew how much his heart bled whenever colonies of monsters died unable to assimilate with the effects of the mutation crystals.

Ultimately though, his efforts had paid off and an unknown number of sacrifices later, new and powerful species of monsters were born. These new species cost as much DP as their pre-mutation species so in a way, Simon had benefitted from this experiment enormously.

While he was thinking all that, Coleus who was reporting him about the events occurring around his dungeon furrowed his brows at his moment.

"Alright, I will report this to lord Simon immediately". It seemed like he had received a message from his fellow [Helpers].

The role feature created a neural network amongst the associated parties thus it was possible to communicate with one another without having a need to be physically present near. It was also through this network that Simon communicated with his subordinates.

Coleus after receiving the message from his associates, gave another report to Simon.

"Lord Simon, I have received a message saying 'that thing' has woken up. Maya and Fay are currently monitoring it".

The moment he heard those words, Simon's indifferent crimson eyes shone a bright glaring red for a moment. From his appearance, it seemed like he was extremely interested in that 'thing' that Coleus mentioned.

Simon got up from his couch and said with a wide smile "In that case, let us go there and greet it".

Coleus obediently nodded his head and along with Simon they teleported to one of the new floors. The place they teleported to was a wide rocky terrain filled with gravel, boulders and mountains as far as the eye can see.

The floor was the forty-fifth floor of the dungeon which was recently created by Simon and was relatively very small compared to the floors above it. The reason it was small was because there was no monster spawned in this area yet and was currently used for something else.

On a side note, the previous thirty-sixth floor ruled by the lightning draconic serpent was shifted below and was the current forty-sixth floor.

The moment they arrived on the forty-fifth floor, their aura was detected by the people that were already there as they came forward and bowed towards Simon.

Simon looked at Maya and Fay and told them to raise their head. His gaze roamed around seemingly trying to spot someone "Alice is not with you?".

"Reporting to Lord Simon, Miss Alice is currently locked in a fight with that thing" Fay stated looking at a particular direction of the floor where continuous noise of the dull explosion was coming.

"It was as lord Simon had expected, as soon as that thing woke up, it started attacking and became hostile to everything around it" Maya added.

Just a day ago, Simon had tasked Alice with protecting the [Helpers] just in case the thing turned out to be hostile. Looking at it now, it was a right decision to send her here since his suspicions came out to be true.

The four of them with Simon in the lead, rushed toward the base of a rocky mountain where the battle was currently going on. As soon as they arrived near, they could see a petite blonde girl valiantly fighting a scary entity multiple times bigger and bulkier than her.

<strong>RAWRR…</strong> the being smashed its claws and easily shattered a huge boulder. It had a massive body crossing a height of eight meters, four stout arms long enough to touch the ground and stumpy legs providing it a good centre of gravity.

It had a head of an ape, elongated fangs and a bipedal body filled with raw muscles. The fur on its back, hands and legs were burning in fire but strangely, it did not harm the entity.

The aura released by it was enough to scare these [Helpers] into submission and given its scary face it was only natural that evoked a sense of dread in others. However, no matter how powerful or scary the being was, the petite figure fighting it held no such feelings as she nimbly dodge its attacks and lead it by the nose.

Her attacks were not as heavy as the latter and were only used to keep the being in place.

<strong>RAWRRR…</strong>

Seemingly frustrated for not being able to land an attack, the fire around the being's entire body started blazing, quickly increasing the heat around the surroundings. Following which, it opened its mouth wide revealing its sharp fangs and firing a stream of condensed fire.

"Eh?!" the petite figure seeing that a column of fire was coming towards her, swiftly dodged to the side and counter-attacked by firing two bullets made of lightning from her fingers.

<strong>BAM… BAM…</strong> although the bullets were extremely small, it still managed to scar the being as could be seen from its face that was writhing in agony.

"Hehe, be obedient or else I'll keep firing at you with those bullets until your entire body becomes sore" managing to do what she intended, the petite figure blew at her finger that was positioned in the shape of a handgun.

The jubilantly smiling figure was none other than Alice, the youngest of all the Valkyries.

"?"

Seeing that the being was glaring at her in defiance, she was just to teach it a lesson when she sensed a familiar presence approach her. Her mood immediately became happy and her face bloomed just like a sunflower.

"Hello~ master".

Simon gave a helpless smile seeing that Alice was waving her hands towards him and turning her back towards the enemy during a battle.

Normally, he would have scolded her for doing something like that but since he knew how strong the latter was, he decided to refrain for now and reminded her to keep her eyes on the enemy.

The Valkyries might be [A] rank subordinates, but they lacked combat experience thus they were prone to making mistakes in battles. Simon knew that he had to address this issue sooner than later thus he created a new regime and ordered all of his subordinates to have a spar with each other on the forty-seventh floor every day.

The forty-seventh floor similar to the prison floor, was an empty floor but it was much wider, spanning for more than thirty kilometres.

Currently, all of his subordinates were diligently training there, Alice was also there until yesterday. When he raised this issue about training to his subordinates, to his surprise he got a favourable reply from them.

The maids true to the moniker of Valkyries showed extreme enthusiasm. Gaining combat experience was a continuous process, one cannot become a master in it overnight. Even Simon who had accumulated a rich experience of fighting from his adventures, did not dare say that he was a master in it.

On the contrary, he was always looking for an opportunity to increase his combat experience. That is why, he felt that the training floor he had created, might not show its effectiveness now but with time, the difference it makes will only get apparent.

Anyways, he didn't come here to the forty-fifth floor to preach all of this to Alice instead he was here to check the being who was engulfed in a coat of fire.

Race- Fire demon Ape

Level- 423

Rank [D][?]

Skills- Fire Magic Mastery, Super Enhanced Strength, Super Enhanced Defence, Super enhanced Endurance, Blunt resistance, High Speed Regeneration, Body Strengthening, Berserk, Demonic Roar, Brutal Charge, Heavy Punch, Brute force, Demonic Strength, Cannibalism, Taboo.