66 Dots And A New Discovery

((A/N: I've had the flu for the past two days or so, but I'm starting to feel better. I'll see about getting an extra chapter out for the day I missed, but no promises. Writing can be a challenge for me even when I'm 100%.))

He quickly brought up the notification and just looked at the top section of the Castle Core's summary page.

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Castle Level: Level 3 | Mana: 103/2500 | Regeneration: 23/30

Garrison: (50/50)| Staff: (10/10)| Total Capacity (75/70)

Keep: (Level 3)| Upgrade Cost: 5500| Total Number Of Upgrades: (12)

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Callum couldn't help but sigh in disappointment when he saw what his latest upgrade bought him. Or rather he sighed at how much mana it would cost him to upgrade Mana Siphon again; the next upgrade cost 20,000 Mana.

He tried to do some quick math in his head, but eventually had to grab a quill and paper. Even if the Casle Core had full use of its Mana generation, it would still take over a month of saving the Mana just for the next upgrade.

However, first he would need to upgrade the Mana Battery at least once as the Castle Core could only handle an 8th of the Mana he needed. He did have the ability to speed up the process with Beast Cores, but they were a limited resource.

At 0.02 or 0.03 Mana for their Beast Cores, he would have needed to harvest the Beast Cores of thousands of the lowest leveled goblins. Fortunately, there were higher leveled goblins and treasure chests to help increase the farming rate of Beast Cores.

Unfortunately, today's dungeon diving had only earned his party one full Beast Core and half of the next one.

There were two parties that were stronger than their party; half of the other parties were at about the same strength of Ravi's party and the rest were weaker. One and a half Beast Cores per party each day seemed to be about what he could expect.

'If I can even afford to buy all of the Beast Cores up,' Callum mused to himself.

"I could beggar myself before the winter is over, and I have plans for some of that gold."

"What was that Callum? Why are you worrying about gold?" Primrose's question interrupted Callum's thoughts.

"Did I speak out loud? Sorry, I was just wondering to myself." Callum said as he tried to remember if he had or not.

'It's scary how quickly I got used to talking to myself when I was exiled. Hmm, well I was mostly by myself for the six months prior to that day, I just had the illusion that I wasn't alone since I had a whole community around me.'

He ruefully kicked the ground, 'Even if most of the communities' interactions with me were hostile. They were still around and I had hope that I'd be proven innocent.'

He was distracted from his self-recrimination when Primrose flew right before his eyes, "I said are you okay, sir Murray?"

Callum shook himself, he had been caught up in his memories. He must have missed her response to his question.

"Sorry Primrose, it's been a long day and I think it's starting to catch up to me. And you know that you can call me by my first name, I'm pretty sure we talked about this before."

He spent several minutes talking to the cheerful little fairy and it helped him to put aside his baggage, for now at least. Callum was getting tired and his near death experience, and his execution orders earlier today weren't helping his stress levels either.

'I don't have to solve this tonight, just focus and learn what you can,' Callum reminded himself as he once more delved into the latest upgrade.

There was one other change he had noted that he wanted to check out before heading to bed. The projected map of the surrounding area had gotten larger; he had briefly glanced at it earlier and he had seen some new symbols on it.

Last time, there had been only two dots present, an orange and a red dot; this time there were several more further out, and the new ones ranged in color from yellow to a reddish orange. There was also a star and a large shaded area marking the map.

From previous talks with Primrose, he knew that he could probably take on the monsters that were marked with yellow dots by himself, but he would likely need a party to handle the monsters that were dotted in orange.

The red-orange monster was likely stronger still, but not as much as the pure red dotted monster. He eyed the red dot that represented the Greater Steel Bear, he once more made a note to stay away from it until they were stronger.

Unfortunately, all of the dots were out in the main pass area, somewhere he couldn't go with the enemy force still in the area.

They knew they were only delaying the inevitable, as the Dog would eventually find them. The Baron's party thought they'd given him a slip several times in the past, but he always found them.

Still, they likely had a week or two before they were discovered. That was a week or two they could use to stock up on provisions for a possible siege, and it was time they could try to level up in the dungeon.

"Primrose what are these two new symbols on the map?"

"The star is the goblin dungeon and there is another dungeon somewhere in the shaded area," she replied.

"How does the Castle Core know the exact area of one dungeon, but not the other?" Callum asked.

"The other dungeon is much further away, so it's harder to get an accurate fix. We only know it's there somewhere because of how the Mana is moving in that area."

Callum nodded his head thoughtfully, they would have to explore that area later, when they had more freedom to move about.

"I also cheated, I know where the goblin dungeon is because it's been a major topic of conversation. So, I just removed the shaded area and marked it appropriately, and I'll do the same when you locate the new dungeon," she replied.

Callum became confused as she talked, he couldn't remember a shaded area when he first looked at the map, but he had gotten distracted.

"Wait, how can the Castle Core pinpoint exactly where these wandering monsters are, but not these dungeons? I would have thought that it would be the other way around."

"Monsters are the result of wild magical mutations, but the dungeons were created by the gods. The flow of Mana around dungeons is a lot smoother and harder to pick up, but the monsters produce a chaotic flow around them," Primrose explained.

"That chaos is why they're detected, huh? I'm guessing that chaos is also why they negatively affect the Mana Siphon?"

Callum said before he felt an emotion of impatience over his bond with Amarok. He got the impression that Amarok was locked outside his bedroom and wanted to be let into the room.

"Yes! Imagine a large boulder in a stream and how big of an impact to the natural flow it has," she eagerly agreed.

"Last question, is there a way that this map can show where The Dog and his men are?" Callum asked.

"No, not unless they start sling major magic around like they were doing when they ran into the Baroness' group,"

Callum thanked her and said goodnight before he headed up the stairs to his room. As he climbed the stairs, he sent an apology to Amarok and let him know he'd be coming up to unlock the door momentarily.

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A knock sounded on the door and, once again, Callum woke up with Amarok hogging most of his bed.

"I got you a nice comfortable bed to lay on," Callum sleepily groused as he used his elbow to give himself a little bit more breathing space. He looked at the system time and realized it was morning and he should get out of bed.

"I'm up, thanks for the wake up call. I'll be down in a bit," Callum called out to the unseen person behind the door; he assumed it was one of the hunters he had coordinated with yesterday.

Callum blearily wandered over to the washroom and took care of his morning business; the chill in the room left him longing for his warm bed.He fully dressed himself and wandered downstairs to find something to eat.

Amarok raced ahead of him once he opened the bedroom door while Callum followed at a more sedate pace. He grabbed some breakfast for both himself and the Dire Wolf that was outside taking care of his own morning business.

Once breakfast was complete, Callum taught Amarok how to play fetch while the rest of the hunting party was forming up. It had been decided to have large hunts every couple of days, and today was the first one.

Amarok was by far the biggest contributor, and the entire hunting plan revolved around his ability to scent out prey. Some of the adventuring parties joined the hunters; the hunt had over thirty people involved in it.

The Dire Wolf led them to various animals they could hunt. Callum's connection with Amarok was invaluable as well, he was able to direct smaller groups into position on numerous occasions.

The hunting party slowly dwindled in size as one or two individuals would stay back with the latest kill in order to start dressing the kill and guard it until the follow up team reached it.

The clean up crew consisted of all the cooks and butchers. Accompanying them was an adventurer's party to guard them and to help with many of the sleds. This group easily followed the large trail left behind by the hunters.

Bighorn sheep, deer, elk, and even a couple of regular bears were all hunted and killed by the large hunting party led by Amarok's senses. Occasionally, a small party would split off to go after a single animal while the rest of the group went after larger prey or even a small herd.

By midmorning, word came up from the cleanup crew that they had reached their limit. It would take them a day or two to properly process and preserve all of the meat that today's hunt had brought in.

The hunt was called off and a boisterous and joyful group headed back towards the castle. The experienced hunters all agreed that hunting with a Dire Wolf was much more effective than even hunting hounds.