Chapter 32 Night Life

(This floor is special compared to the two previous floors. The golden tree you see in the distance is an Elder Space Tree, it has the ability to alter the spatial layers of its surrounding with the golden aura it admits.)

"So everything that is covered by its golden aura is being affected by it", I ask in surprise.

(Exactly, that's why it took you hours to reach the lake even though it looked like it would only take you a couple hours yet it took you several hours to reach it. It's also the reason that even though this lake appears to be two miles in diameter, it's taking you a few hours to walk around it.)

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After learning the secret characteristic of this floor, I am slowly starting to notice that the closer I get to the Elder Space Tree, the longer it takes me to make any real progress. It takes me the rest of the entire day to make it to the opposite side of the lake.

"At this rate it could take me years to make it to the Elder Tree", I sigh in frustration as I begin setting up my camp for the night.

(I don't believe it will take that long, but it will take you several times longer than you originally anticipated)

"Great, we'll at least my clone and everyone else will have plenty of time to get stronger and improve the Kingdom while I'm up here traversing this spatially challenged floor", I say sarcastically.

After my camp is set up and I make myself comfortable I notice that the ever present shinning golden aura of the Elder Tree begins to darken almost like a sun setting and making way for night. As the light darkens I begin to see bioluminescent insects emerge from the forest and fly around the lakes surface.

I observe them as I use my appraisal skill on them to see what I can learn about them.

Lunar Firefly

D Rank

Lunar Firefly - The Lunar Firefly is a nocturnal insect that likes to travel in groups and congregate around fresh water sources. They are extremely docile and aren't known to show hostility towards other living creatures.

Lunar Fireflies huh? Even these harmless insects are the same rank as I am. I will have to be careful if this is what the bottom of the food chain looks like on this floor. Although I can use them to rank up since they won't fight back, but I don't feel right picking on defenseless creatures just to get some easy stat points.

As I'm watching the lunar fireflies dance across the lakes surface I begin to see other insects that appear to produce their own luminescence come out of the forest and gather around the lake to drink water and potentially mate. After laying quietly in my camp woodland creatures slowly begin to approach the lake in order to quench their thirst after sleeping during the day. I begin identifying them with appraisal as they slowly make their way out of the forest.

Brush Mice – D Rank

Starling Owls – D Rank

Shadow Badgers – D Rank

Assassin Leopards – D Rank

Midnight Raccoons – D Rank

After almost an hour of observing the forest creatures before me, I learn that most of the creatures on this floor are nocturnal, meaning they only come out at night. This explains why I hadn't seen any creatures throughout my journey during the day.

Since I have been traveling all day I decide not to hunt any of the creatures, at least not tonight, I cast Aegis and proceed to get some sleep.

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Back in Murcrilium my clone has become the leader in the mission to eradicate the spiders. With numerous dwarves showing up to the outpost every day, we have been able to increase the size of the outpost by clearing more space in the spider's territory. Instead of only occupying the very bottom of the entrance wall, we know maintain almost a mile into spider territory.

With the added space the mages guild and the engineering guild have begun construction of an outer wall at the new edge of our newly cleared land. This way with all the new dwarves showing up we have enough room to make more living quarters. As of right now there are twenty dwarves to a room due to the lack of space, but in the next few days we will be able to lower that number down to four to a room.

With so many dwarves here in the outpost we have managed to kill several thousand spiders in the last two weeks. With this massive amount of kills, the dwarves have set up a small market inside the outpost for all the newly arriving dwarves to purchase monster cores and different pieces of equipment either dwarven make or from loot drops.

Over the past couple weeks I have been able to notice that the amount of time for the dwarves to absorb the monster cores varies greatly. So far nobody is able to absorb them as fast as I can, on average it takes about half a day for most dwarves to successfully absorb a single monster core. Some dwarves are faster, I believe it's due to a higher intelligence stat but I can't be one hundred percent sure.

The good news is that all the dwarves that have come to the outpost have grown in strength by leaps and bounds. With so many dwarves, the original members of the Adventure's Guild have taken the role of leading the newer dwarves that have little to no combat experience. They've set up a party system where a single Adventurer will lead a group of three to four, green horns, into the spider's territory and slowly give them battle experience.

So far there have been no lives lost although there have been a few injuries, mostly to some of the green horns getting overly excited or overly arrogant due to the system they now have. Thankfully all the injuries have been able to be taken care of by the healers from the Mages Guild.

My clone has also been going out and scouting deeper into the spider's territory due to his sneak ability. He has also made massive contributions in killing the spiders' and allowing the advancement a mile deep into their territory. Without his efforts the dwarves would have only maybe made it half as far as they currently are. Due to how dense the spider population is, he hasn't gotten the chance to absorb any monster cores since the spiders' are constantly attacking the outpost.

Currently he is the main defense allowing the Mages Guild and the Engineering Guild to expand the outpost walls. Although there are others protecting the builders, my clone is able to use his awareness in order to accurately locate the attacking spiders and kill them with his magic bullet before they even know what hit them.

Although he is killing the majority of the spiders, he allows the other dwarves to collect the monster cores and the loot, so he doesn't currently have several hundreds of cores like he normally would, but he is facilitating the growth of all the dwarves now in his Familia.

Giving the dwarves most of the monster cores and the loot is a small matter to him but to the dwarves themselves it is an amazing occurrence. Not only is their new deity protecting them and killing the scarlet death spider scourge, but he is even giving away around eighty percent of all the monster core and the loot drops. Little do they know that every time my clone kills a spider he gains a small amount of soul essence which is ever so slowly strengthening my soul through him.

After several days of protecting the builders, they have finally completed the new exterior outpost wall ensuring that no spider can make it to the ever expanding outpost. Now that the builders have finished my clone can finally absorb the monster cores that he has kept after giving the rest to the dwarves running the outposts merchant square.

Even after giving away roughly eighty percent of the monster cores my clone is still left with four hundred cores. He goes back to the his lodging in the center of the outpost, unlike everyone else that is staying here, the dwarves made an entire residence just for me. They were going to make an extremely extravagant house that would be on par with Golaium's caste but I stopped them and instructed them to make a simple one story open floor plan building that I can sleep in, bath and cook food. I told them that I only need the basic amenities and doing anything more would be a waste of time and resources that could be used improving the living areas of the rest of the dwarves. This gave the dwarves an even greater respect and reverence towards me since I am willing to live in a simple dwelling and make sure everyone else has comfortable accommodations.

After going back to my house, my clone washes up and begins to absorb the four hundred monster cores. It takes him almost two days to absorb every last one of them but since my intelligence stat is sitting at four hundred, I am able to absorb the monster cores rather quickly. Noticing this I am able to confirm that the intelligence stat does in fact dictate how fast a person can absorb monster cores.

Status:

Race - Goblin Shaman

Title - Nephelium's Successor

Soul Rank - Mortal (progressive)

D Rank

Strength - 250 (20)

Intelligence - 400

Stamina - 250 (25)

Dexterity - 250 (15)

Vitality - 250 (20)

Agility - 250 (25)

Magic - Infinite

Luck - Blessing of Fortuna

Available Attribute Points - 500

Skills:

Awareness Rank D

Slash Rank D

Appraisal Rank D

Sneak Rank D

Craftsman Rank D

Aegis Rank D

Hallowed Ground Rank D

Magic Bullet Rank D

Innate Skills:

Creation (Active) Divine Rank

Blessing of Fortuna (Passive) Divine Rank

Genesis (Active) Divine Rank

Unique Skill:

Mana Manipulation and Augmentation (Passive)

Lux Artis (Passive)

Soul Devourer (Passive)