WolfWrites

Dungeon from the Void - Book 4 - Chapter 43 - Offer (Patreon)

Published:

2022-11-15 17:56:15

Imported:

2023-02

Content

Fenrir
Four months later

Okay, that should work…

I try spawning in the creature again, and it seems to work.

The creature has the shape of a wolf, but with scales covering its body instead of fur. It has the same black mist flowing across its scales as the void serpent, and its tail is like a reptile’s instead of a canine.

In fact, I think the only parts of it that are still wolf-like are its shape, its mouth and teeth, and its paws which.

I watch it look around very carefully before making a sound that’s some sort of mixture between a growl and a hiss, with its forked tongue sticking out of its mouth in the process.

Is it finally finished? Did I finally-

My thoughts are interrupted as a notification appears in my vision.

<------------------------>

System Notification:

Congratulations!

You have reached EXP Level 15!

<------------------------>

Huh?

Oh. Okay.

That took longer than I would’ve expected, but I guess it’s fine. Most of that time was spent obsessing over this monster anyways.

But at least I’m finally fini-

My thoughts cut off again as I return my focus to the monster, just to find it laying dead on the floor.

Or not.

What did I do wrong this time?

I look into the monster’s corpse to find what went wrong, just to find that its heart just plain stopped. Seemingly for no reason that I can find at a glance.

The hell?

I continue looking at the monster’s heart at a smaller and smaller level until I eventually find the problem. For some reason there’s a tiny little spec of void energy burning parts of the heart and disabling it from working.

Seriously?

“What’s wrong?” Dawn suddenly asks, startling me for a moment before I answer.

“It looks like the changes I made around the heart caused a side effect of spawning in some neutral void energy which is messing with the creature’s heart. So I’m going to have to go back over that problem from before and fix it in a different way in order to get both the heart and the bone marrow working.”

Dawn turns a greyish red at my answer in a clear display of her confusion, only to return to her usual blue color again as she says, “Okay. The Vampires are back.”

I immediately turn my attention to the core room to find two Vampires – the same most-likely-Tier-7-Vampires as last time – just sitting in there drinking something out of a small glass cup.

“How the hell did they get in there without me noticing?!” I practically shout, only to take it back a moment later as I remember their Tier. “Nevermind.”

“Have they said anything about why they’re here?” I ask Dawn, vaguely noticing on of the Vampires staring at my direct viewpoint before glancing at Dawn.

Can they hear my private conversations?

I certainly hope not, but I wouldn’t be all that surprised if they could.

“No, but part of the reason isn’t too hard to guess,” Dawn says back, making me confused for a moment until I notice the void element orb sitting in the palm of one of the Vampire’s hands.

Hmm. Some sort of deal, then? Like the last time?

Well, not gonna figure anything out staring at them and making them wait.

“Greetings,” I state to one of the Vampires – the one holding the void orb.

Despite only speaking to one of them, they both focus on me again and stand up and bow their heads in respect while answering, “Greetings, Dungeon Core Fenrir.”

I ignore the feeling of another group of intruders entering the dungeon as I ask, “So why did you come by today?”

One of the Vampires gently places the void orb on the ground in front of him before backing up. The other one then answers my question once the first one is far enough away from the orb, “First, we would like to offer you a gift.”

I stare at the two Vampires without saying anything in return.

“Second,” the other Vampire starts, having come to the conclusion that I’m not going to accept it until I know why they’re here, “is that we would like to make you an offer.”

Uh huh.

“And what might that offer be?” I ask, still not entirely sure about these guys. Although that might be because they’re too powerful for me to be comfortable with them sitting in my core room.

They share a glance before simultaneously answering, “We would like to purchase rift orbs from you in exchange for void element orbs.”

Rift… orbs?

“What are those?” I ask, briefly surprising the both of them.

However, before either of them can answer, Dawn appears and answers for them, “A rift orb is basically a mobile, one time use portal to the void that can be activated by anyone regardless of their element. It’s activated simply by pressing a button on the side of the orb and throwing it wherever you want a rift to the void to open up, and the rift will last for however long the creator – you – want it to.”

Huh.

That’s actually pretty cool.

“I didn’t mention it before because it was a little mana expensive to make,” Dawn mentions to me privately. Although considering the Vampires’ earlier reactions, I’m not sure if private is possible with them here. “So it wouldn’t have been useful. Not when making just two of them would use up all of your mana capacity.”

Oh. That makes sense.

Hearing about it does make me want to add it to the dungeon somehow, but if they’re that difficult to make then I won’t be able to. At least not for a long time.

“As mentioned earlier, we’d like to make an exchange deal of one void element orb the quality of the one in front of us per two rift orbs,” the first Vampire says while putting his hands in his pockets, which is really the only display of informality I’ve seen from these two yet. “At least, until we run out of void element orbs.”

I stare at them for a few seconds before glancing at Dawn, just to see her bob up and down in her version of an intruders’ shrug.

It’s basically one day’s worth of mana in exchange for a pretty good orb. One that should speed up my cultivation quite a lot.

“How often would we make the exchange?” I ask, just to make sure they don’t try to drain me dry of mana every day. Although I doubt they would.

“Once every two weeks,” the female Vampire answers this time.

So one day out of every two weeks I’d be mana-less? Or I guess I could also just spread the two orb creations out between two different days, making it so I’d only spend around half of my mana on the two days.

Either way, it sounds like a good deal.

“I agree with this arrangement,” I tell the two Vampires.

After all, even with the void element leaking from the portals in my dungeon, my cultivation has been a lot slower since the Vampires stopped supplying me with orbs.

And if I want to take revenge for Fenrir, then I’m gonna need all the power I can get as quickly as I can get it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discord Invite:

https://discord.gg/R7M6QNRm7y