Invitation (2)

Two days later, Five finally reached the end of the contract. It took him forever to read through the confusing paragraphs referencing each other. After reading through hundreds of pages, Five finally had all the details of the contract written on a note. The main details could be summarized as followed:

He would receive a few things from the Hurricane Alliance. In terms of assets, he would first receive a down payment of ten million DP in the form of a monster attack. At the same time, he would also have the opportunity of leveling up his harpy queen to her level cap by killing these monsters.

Second, he would receive three artifacts; the Demonic Shackles, the Core of Wilderness and an Eye Extender. They were all very useful for a variety of reason. The Demonic Shackles' use was to restrict the monster in his dungeon core!

The contract explained that the monsters inside the dungeon cores had the ability to escape from their prison. They could absorb the dungeon core of other dungeon masters and grow in strength. As they became more powerful, they would unlock more and more abilities and would tempt the dungeon master in letting them out.

Even if the dungeon master was able to see through the monster's scheme, at some point, the monster in the core would become strong enough to break free of the prison on its own. This was where the Demonic Shackles came into play. They could put an additional restraint on the monster, pushing back the point where it would be strong enough to escape.

In other words, it would allow Five to upgrade his dungeon core more without facing the threat of suddenly having a monster aiming for his life. The drawback was naturally to completely turn Lavenus into his enemy. Usually, the dungeon master would aim to obtain as many benefits as possible from the monsters while keeping them under control.

According to the writer of the contract, it was safe to upgrade the dungeon cores up to Grade 5 without risking that the monster would escape. This naturally varied according to the strength of the monster. The example given was that Farsight, the dungeon master who challenged him in the battle earlier, owned the Core of Lust. Being the representative of one of the seven sins, it was only safe to upgrade the Core of Lust to Grade 3; any further and there would be a huge risk of having the monster breaking out.

The Core of Wilderness was a dungeon core conquered earlier by the old dungeon masters; they had no use for it and were willing to give it to Five to help him upgrade his dungeon core to its limit since he would have the Demonic Shackles.

Finally, the Eye extender was a very peculiar artifact. It was something crafted by the dungeon masters that would allow him to extend the camera functions of the dungeon interface. Instead of being limited to watching the inside of the dungeon, he would not be able to watch the events taking place outside the dungeon too.

Aside from DP and the artifacts, Five would also be provided assistance in case of an emergency. He would be given a portal that would connect him to another dungeon. The portal would be locked and would require Five's permission to activate, preventing any monster from sneaking into his dungeon without his permission.

The portal was connected to another dungeon called the Hub. It was the dungeon created by the Sub Core, an artifact bought by the Hurricane Alliance at the auction. All the young dungeon masters had a portal connecting their dungeon to the Hub. They could quickly react in case of emergency and it allowed the members to see each other quite often.

The benefits offered by the Hurricane Alliance were quite substantial. Ten million DP was not a small amount and putting aside the artifacts, it also provided him with a huge opportunity to network with the other dungeon masters.

However, the benefits came with a price but to Five's surprise, it was quite low. They only asked him to provide 30% of his monsters and his strongest Boss Monster in case of emergency. He would also be tasked into helping the Hurricane Alliance to conquer the dungeons in the barbarian territory.

The old dungeon masters were not allowed to attack the new ones for now. This gave the opportunity to the other alliances to send their new dungeon masters. Five's task would be to take down these undesirable dungeons and to hand over a portion of the loot. They wanted a third of the dungeon cores he would obtain in the process.

It was a hefty price but he would also obtain the help of the young dungeon masters. His starting position would be higher than most of the players; he would start directly as the leader of the area. He would also get the opportunity to get rid of many neighboring dungeons, increasing the traffic to his dungeon.

The contract outlined the basic rules of the Hurricane Alliance such as the fact that battles between members were forbidden. They would also need to meet up regularly for alliance meetings.

Five would be lying if he said he was not interested in the offer. Accepting it would be extremely beneficial to the dungeon. He needed an umbrella to hide under and at the same time, the offer was also accompanied by a threat. If he refused, the Hurricane Alliance will withdraw their monsters and the Storm Alliance might rush here to attack him. He had learned from Stargaze during his chat with him that the Storm Alliance had many new dungeons in the neighboring regions ruled by the barbarians.

Five debated on the matter for a long time. The monsters had no real opinion on the matter; it did not matter with who Five chose to ally himself. For many, it was their first time joining a dungeon.

Five was blankly staring at the contract when suddenly, he received a message.

Merlin: "Have you made your decision? Just a friendly reminder that you should quickly answer. You have one of the best offers I've seen, it's as good as the seeded ones. Don't take too long or you might end up with nothing, the alliance leader is not very patient."

Five clicked his tongue in annoyance. He needed to answer quickly? He barely had time to correctly read the contract. 'Fine then, I did not see anything wrong in this contract. I just need a temporary shelter anyway. If things turn sour, I will just use the [Void Contract] and leave. I'll just remember to check the original contract to see if its the same as this one when signing.'

Five: "I just finished reading it... Are these terms the final one?"

Merlin: "You are too greedy, man. The old men already did their best. Honestly, the players here are all wondering if you have had some direct contact with the old men to get such a good contract."

Five: "Alright. I'll accept it then.

Merlin: "That's great. Welcome to our alliance then. I will inform the old men but before that... I will not lie; I looked at the terms you were offered. Will you be willing to sell the Core of Wilderness to me?"

Five was puzzled by Merlin's request and wrote.

Five: "How much?"

Merlin: "45 million? The usual price for one is 50 million but since we're friend, give me a small discount."

'45 million DP?' Five's mind went blank. Did Merlin have that much DP to trade? 'No... Impossible. Even Farsight did not have that much DP. His army was only worth a ten or twenty million...'

Five: "How do you have that much DP?"

Merlin: "I don't... I was hoping to get it at credit. We can sign a contract and I'll pay you back within one year. I can pay 1 million right now but for the rest, take it as a loan."

As he read the message, Five let out a sigh of relief. For a moment, he truly believed that Merlin was a monster for having that much DP. He quickly made up his mind; this deal was not beneficial to him. At the rate the dungeon was growing, 50 million DP would be nothing to him in a year, even with the constant nerfs to the DP generation.

Furthermore, if he accepted to join the Hurricane Alliance, with the Demonic Shackles, the problem of Lavenus escaping would be greatly reduced and he would get to increase his own power.

Five: "Are the cores that useful? I know it upgrades the dungeon cores but the benefits are negligible."

He was curious about the reasons Merlin might have for looking for the dungeon cores. The upgrades of his dungeons had all been fairly average; it was not worth investing so much into it.

Merlin: "The benefits vary from core to core. Mine gives me an early-game advantage; the earlier I upgrade it, the better. For you, I don't know the effects of your core."

Five: "Thanks but sorry, I won't sell it."

Merlin: "All good. I knew you wouldn't after reading the description of the Demonic Shackles. I'll get one later when you conquer the dungeons."

...

"I would like to inform you all that the dungeon master we invited earlier, Five, has officially accepted our invitation. All that is left is to have him sign the contract and he will be one of us," declared the third elder of the Hurricane Alliance.

The council of elders arranged a meeting using their dungeon cores; the elders could see and speak to each other despite the distance separating their dungeon. The Hurricane Alliance had a total of six elders and one alliance leader. It was very convenient to be able to arrange meetings from the safety of their dungeon.

"I still don't understand why we are giving him such good terms. You are aware he has a [Void Contract], right? What if he just runs away with our resources?" exclaimed the second elder.

"Tssk. That's what you get for always sleeping in meetings. Did you not listen to our previous discussions?" retorted the third elder. He sneered and dodged the second elder's gaze; he always hated that old man for not being attentive during meetings.

"It's fine if he leaves but as long as we do not make things too difficult for him, he would not do so. He needs us to protect him until he becomes strong enough to survive on his own. But it does not matter, we only need him to act as a decoy."

"The plan is to focus the attention of the other alliances on him. With the commotion, he caused in almost defeating the Storm Alliance's protégé, quite a few people should be interested in him. We only need to let the other alliances to target him such that even if he leaves, it would not matter. We need to buy enough time for our own seeded dungeon masters to mature. The resources we are giving him is a small price to pay for it."

The second elder grumbled. "Fine! Whatever... You guys always scheme too much. I would rather face those bastards directly! What's the point of making such complex plans... If there is nothing else, I will have to go. There is some trouble in the south I need to deal with."

"Sure. Then, let's call this meeting a day," declared the leader of the alliance.

One after the other, the elders disconnected from the meeting. A few seconds later, only the first elder and the leader of the alliance were left.

"Despond, I really hope your plan will work... We might end up killing all our new recruits if everything goes as you planned..."

The first elder, Despond, laughed lightly, "Robinson... You can drop all pretense now that they are gone. So what if we kill our recruits? Wouldn't that just end up giving us enough cores to upgrade our dungeon cores? The price of these stagnated because it was impossible for us to obtain more cores without a war but with all the fresh blood, we have more than enough to reach Grade 9! Everyone is still worried that the recruits might turn against us, so why don't we simply get rid of them and increase our power once they are no longer useful?"

"That's true, but the others are quite attached to their students. Do you really feel nothing when you think about killing yours?"

"My student? He is completely useless. With the Core of Sloth, he does absolutely nothing all day and I cannot even blame it for that. The less people come to his dungeon, the more DP he obtains. I cannot wait for him to die and absorb his core!!!"

"Just be patient and you'll get what you want. And don't show that creepy nature of yours; I don't want to alarm the recruits. You should speak to Five once he joins. Get him to lead the recruits and start attacking the other dungeons. We need to start gathering attention on him."