Chapter 12

After crafting the soil boulders and getting his golems to position each block next to their respective doorway, John seperated them into 3 teams with different duties. Team A with 12 golems worked on inscribing reinforcement runes to the 2 soil boulders to make them durable and resistant to damage, Team B with 10 golems continued to excavate the 7th floor, Team C with 10 golems to guard the dungeon entry and Team D with 5 golems stayed in his crystal room as bodyguards.

John also started working on a new permanent 24 hour security team. This team will be placed near the ceiling entrance and act as the first line of defence against intruders. John wanted to redesign the golem to play this role more effectively so he tried hard to come up with a more combat orientated design. They won't be eating soil to excavate new floors so there was no need to have a big tummy.... More strength and speed will be useful but how can he create stronger golems from soil? John also wasn't some expert in anatomy and he didn't have any sources of information for reference so he gave up this line of thought. Instead of making any big changes with unknown results he simply made normal golems but with a big S written on their belly.

This will be the placeholder until next time when John was in the mood to do more experiments with the golem making spells and try to increase their combat power with better designs if possible. John created 3 of this new S belly golems before running low on mana, he ordered the S golems to takeover Team C and the original 10 golems from Team C to merge with Team B in excavating the new 7th floor.

Switching vision to the corrupted corpse, John noticed the corpse had developed lines of glowing purple running throughout its pale dead body, it actually looked quite nice on the outside. John sent his senses deeper into the corpse and discovered that the flesh and internal organs had changed. The previously dead flesh and organs now had a familiar type of vitality running through them, the only problem was the heart wasn't beating, there was no blood running in the veins and John knew the brains must be damaged beyond repair by now. Hmm... How could he make use of this corpse??. Maybe..... Maybe if he took a rabbit soul and somehow forced it inside? Nah.... How would that help with having no brains and blood. What if.... He took the corpse and fed it to a living animal? Maybe there could be zombie virus or the living animal might absorb some of his dungeon energy and gradually transform ? Hmm.....possible. Or he could..... Try making a flesh golem? Nah... Flesh is probably weaker then his soil golem and he had this feeling... An instinct... That this corrupted corpse is best used as something else. John stayed there, looking at the transformed corpse while trying to catch that elusive feeling, what is it ?? Concentrate....Concentrate...Concentrate...Should he do a blood sacrifice with living prisoners? Somehow that seems to make sense to him.

John tried to push more mana into the corpse and discovered that he could !, so he spent some time to refill the corpse with mana again until it was full once more. John then checked on the corrupted snake, it was still in coma but there are clear signs of transformation appearing on its body such as a small horn glowing with mana growing out of its head and a pattern of glowing green magical veins running throughout its body, the inside of its body had mana infused blood flowing as per normal and mana infused organs all functioning normally.

Its snake scales showed even more exciting changes with initial signs of runes starting to form on each and every one of the scales. John tested the snake's mana levels and discovered that the snake was actually absorbing ambient dungeon mana just like his golems ! The amount of ambient mana it passively absorbs is very tiny and easily missed if he wasn't being so observant. Happy with all the changes, John filled the snake with more mana until its body showed signs of rejecting the mana, upon which he immediately stopped the mana transfusion. John then rested himself for awhile, waiting for his mana to refill.

Unexpectedly, before his mana fully recovered a group of goblins entered his dungeon again, perhaps they were attracted by the corpses on the 2nd floor. Initially John felt disdain and ridiculed the goblins, it was already lucky for them to escape with their life the last time, how dare they come back again. This goblins must be so low on IQ, they were asking for death!. However the disdainful emotions was soon replaced by surprise as John could feel goblin after goblin entering the ceiling tunnel.

He watched with stunned disbelief and faint horror as a fast growing crowd of goblins rapidly descended the rope ladder and this time the goblins were all armed for trouble. They carried either spiked clubs or simple stone attached to wood maces, afew also had short wood javelins and sling shots. The 3 S golems followed his orders and charged the intruders with the intention of killing all the goblins.

The ridiculous sight of his outnumbered golems charging the goblins woke him up from his shock. He had to give his dumb golems new orders ! Unfortunately there was no hope for the 3 S golems. John hurriedly ordered all his other golems working on the 6th and 7th floor to assemble at the 6th floor staircase! Back to the first floor, the group of goblins took out rope with stones tied to both ends and threw it at the golem legs, the rope entangling their legs causing the clumsy golems to fall on their faces.

The goblins swarmed the fallen golems, fiercely swinging away with their clubs and maces. The golems tried to roll over and punch the goblins but the green devils were too nimble, easily dodging the clumsy golems. The out numbered golems were hammered from all sides by clubs and maces, their soil body deforming under the rain of blows and finally exploding when the internal mana flow became unstable. In only afew minutes, all 3 golems exploded, showering the surrounding area with their magical soil while more and more goblins continued to climb down from the rope ladder, leaving John feeling stressed.

This is the negative outcome for following his human ideas and not growing strong as fast as he should. He could have a dungeon full of high level golems if he had focused on killing animals and making golems, instead he wasted alot of effort on making his dungeon look like a shopping center and now his under threat !! John could sense there were 27 of this green buggers already inside his dungeon. On his side he only had 12 golems positioned at the 6th floor's sole staircase.

John was unwilling to give up his corrupted snake on the 4th floor and after a moment of hesitation, he ordered the 12 golems to go carry back the snake, taking a gamble that his golems can rescue the snake before the goblins reach the 4th floor. Over at the first floor, goblins were still coming in, those that arrived earlier organised themselves into teams of 4 and started scouting the place.

John hoped the goblins will slowly scout and give him time to save his snake. He watched with bated breath as his golems marched towards the 4th floor and the goblin scouts rapidly fan across the empty 1st floor, then proceeded to sweep the 2nd floor, only stopping to post sentries around the corpse room. As the goblin scouts entered the 3rd floor, John's golems had reached the snake and were struggling to haul its heavy ass back to safety. It took 10 golems to properly move the snake and that left only 2 golems to guard against the goblins.

John got anxious and ordered another 10 golems to reinforce them. Leaving only 10 golems to guard the 6th floor staircase and 5 golems remaining with him inside his crystal room. To be safer, John also ordered his 5 golems to seal off the doorways with the uncompleted soil boulders. A team of goblin scouts near the 3rd floor staircase seem to have heard his golems clumsy attempts at carrying the snake as they skipped the 3rd floor and cautiously jogged directly towards his golems. At this point his reinforcements had not arrived yet and John only had 2 golems to use against the 4 goblin scouts.

Recalling how easy they destroyed his S type golems, John knew that a direct confrontation won't be good for him. So instead he got the 2 extra golems to hide in different shops. John waited until the goblin scouts got near enough, then he ordered the golem to walk a short distance out of the shop, pause while looking at the goblins, and then walk back in. As expected, this unusual action made the scouts wary of traps or hidden ambushes. The 4 scouts paused a safe distance away and briefly conferred among themselves before carefully edging towards the golem. It didn't take long for them to reach the shop and the 4 goblins charged in at once, wildly swinging with their home made clubs to hit the golem hiding inside. John was excited when he saw all the goblins charge in, he quickly ordered the other golem to attack and surprise them from behind