Chapter 6

The golems rushed into the room to defend John, they used their body to cover his crystal, forcing the rabbits to narrow their attack range. A golem got a lucky punch and smacked a rabbit out of mid air. Another rabbit was stomped as it landed and the last rabbit was simply body piled by the golems and crushed to death. John didn't feel any glee or sense of anticipation like he did when the boar died, instead all he felt was a terrible relief that he was finally safe !. He was so worried that the rabbits would chip away more of his precious crystal. Each time the rabbits chipped away a tiny piece of his crystal, not only was it painful, but he also felt himself getting abit weaker as his total mana went down. Who knows how much time was needed to recover from his losses, even the sight of the rabbits life energy entering his golems didn't lift his mood.

John vengefully looked for the rabbit souls, he found them at the borders of his domain, banging against the boundary, trying to enter their afterlife. Hmph ! after wounding me do not expect to have a good time. John vengefully pulled the 6 struggling souls towards him. Hehehe its time for revenge!. Only problem is, John didn't know how he can make them suffer. Put them in his crystal? Seems too normal. He wanted to give them some punishment first. Hmmm.. John truly didn't know what to do, he tried to imagine some punishment or pain being inflicted on the souls but nothing happened. He tried shaping spikes of mana to poke the souls but the mana simply passed through. In the end John gave up and released the souls back to his domain, perhaps an eternity of denying their rightful entry to their afterlife is also a kind of punishment. The 6 souls went back to knocking against the boundary of his domain as they mindlessly tried to enter their afterlife.

The dead bodies of the rabbits were carried to the 2nd floor and dumped in the same room with the half eaten boar. John needed a better golem to guard his crystal room, he spent awhile thinking but couldn't find a satisfactory solution. Could he create a golem shaped like a square and big enough to mostly block his doorway? He didn't think the spell will allow it but he will still try some experiments. With that in mind, John thought of the rabbit corpses and he switched vision. Looking at the 6 rabbit corpses, John picked the corpse in the best condition and started a new golem spell. It took him many tries before he could shape the spell perfectly over the corpse, soon the familiar surge of mana began and John felt excited, it was working!

His spell was creating a new type of golem made from flesh!, the magic knitted the flesh together, re-animating it, filling it brimming with magical power. What was originally meant for a human size golem was now compressed into a rabbit size golem, John watched as the rabbit golem continued to fill with mana, overwhelming mana, uh oh too much mana now, why does the flesh look like this... no no no... BOOM!! The flesh golem exploded like a bomb, pieces of flesh and guts splashing on the walls, ceiling, everywhere. Shit.….it failed... too much mana, too little flesh. Perhaps i need a man size mound made from different corpses or a human size body or i can somehow try to lessen the amount of mana but i dun think its possible. John tried the spell again, this time on the corpse in the worst condition, it was a rabbit that was stomped on until its eyeballs were dangling loosely, its teeth are all gone and guts coming out of its mouth.

It was impossible to lower the mana going into the new golem's body, everytime he tried to lessen the mana it would bounce back again, John came to the conclusion that the amount of mana is fixed. He stopped the experiments for now and turned his attention on what he should focus on next, security or expansion. he only had enough mana to focus on one. John thought of making alot of golems to improve his security but there was two issues, 1)Each golem is a passive drain on his mana, they refill their magic powers directly from him. Making more golems will lower his mana regeneration. 2) He needs to create alot of golems to make up for their poor combat abilities. As a dungeon shouldn't he have some kind of fighting creature or ability?. What if he wasted all the mana on creating new golems and then his new spell appears. John sometimes can't help but wonder whether some part of his dungeon heritage or instinct didn't transfer properly because his obviously still a human inside this crystal body.

In the end John decided to expand his dungeon because it didn't put any potential blocks on his future and he instinctively knew that the mana density will improve deeper underground, giving him higher mana regeneration. John ordered his 25 golems to reinforce his existing dungeon first before he starts his expansion. 3 days passed peacefully, his mana surplus was filled up and abundant mana saturated his domain. His golems had finished completely reinforcing the 1st to 4th levels, layering the walls, ceiling and ground with numerous crudely inscribed runes that when link together in a giant magic pattern, sink into the soil and disappear from view. John didnt want to admit it but his blood lust was at breaking point after just 3 days of peace. He yearned for more excitement and also started having this urge to collect more souls like one might hoard gold bars. The 6 rabbit souls used to be so energetic trying to escape but now they aimlessly wandered around in the dungeon like lost souls. Even their original transparent body seems to be coloured a tiny bit blue now. It was a gratifying feeling for John to see those lost souls trapped in his domain. He had this feeling the souls were changing, being transformed by his influence into something else.

John decided to create 2 special golems for defending his crystal room before luring a new animal again. He tried to make a golem shaped like a door but his earlier suspicion was correct, the design wouldn't come to life no matter what he did. John finally categorised it as yet another limit of the spell, it looks like the [Improved Golem] spell only works within a certain range of factors. Since this was the case, John decided to just create 4 more normal golems to stand around his crystal. He also tried building walls to seal away his crystal room but dropped the idea as it felt uncomfortable.... it just didn't feel nice, like he was back to the beginning with soil all around. Like living in a wonderful mansion with a huge garden, swimming pool, tennis court, gym room, outdoor jacuzzi and all the good stuff... but restricting yourself to a dusty storeroom because your afraid of potential robbers. Well this mansion is HIS dungeon and he can create as many security guards as his mana can sustain, so why restrict himself ?.

He was going to own the next surface bitch that dropped from the ceiling, John prepared a simple plan for maximum victory. He split his golems into 3 teams, Team A was station in his room to protect his crystal. Team B at the 2nd floor near the room with the animal corpses, in case the animal got attracted by the smell of meat and Team C at the first floor, near the place where John was going to cast the [Basic Lure]. John activated the lure spell and waited, hoping for a easy win this time. However despite the lure spell, it seems like the animals this time were afraid to enter his dungeon. The first few animals only briefly explored near the entrance before running off after getting frightened by something unknown. Was it the blood spilled from the earlier battles ? John realized that he had no sense of smell but maybe the corpses could be stinking up the place. As John watched another strange animal almost enter but fled from his lobby, something in him snapped. The blood lust he had always been holding back erupted like a geyser. In truth his monster impulse to kill was already boiling after seeing living animals, and now yet another animal has ran away !!!. In his frustration, John casted a second [Basic Lure] spell next to the first, hoping for more attraction power to bait animals into his trap. This time a big animal came, John could feel it digging, trying to enlarge the tunnel entrance so it can come in. John gladly relaxed the magical defence on his ceiling and the surface bitch was finally able to enter. A heavily muscular predator with scary jaw full of teeth and a crushing mace like tail dropped down from the ceiling hole. John gulped...not in fear but in surging lust for the powerful vitality he can feel radiating from this deadly predator. John felt his mind go hazy and the barely controlled desire to kill becoming an uncontrollable urge within him. ATTACK !!!! John wasn't thinking properly anymore, all his golems on the 1st floor and 2nd floors did a mass disorganized run towards the intruder.