Hurray for more space and a lot of work.

"Well then my dear ally, what would you be in need of?"(Me)

Gulagh laughed at my question and seemed to ponder for a little while before he nodded and responded.

"Yes, the most dire would be Food. We expend too many resources to get enough of that since we have to grow it through magical means. Which, if one is not a dungeon, brings quite a lot of problems with it."(Gulagh)

Food huh? Well I can indeed see where the problem must be there. Without growth… Though for that I will have to make a thorough expansion.

"hmmm, for that I will have to make some bigger changes first. I also need to let the goblins find some plants more suited for consumption. Unless you like Meat Snails. How will we be paid for the food?"(Me)

"Once we know how much you can produce in a stable manner we will be able to tell. Any preferences for our considerations?"(Gulagh)

"Tools. Axes, spades, pickaxes, wood and stone working tools. Besides that I am interested in herbal and alchemistic as well as magical knowledge."(Me)

Gulagh looked at me with a an arched brow while I listed what would be of interest to me then laughed and shook his head.

"Well you surely are not hesitant to voice your wishes. But those sound reasonable. We will keep some of those things prepared and depending on the amount you deliver you will get paid with those things."(Gulagh)

Seems we have reached an agreement. Excellent.

"Good, then you are of course welcome to stay, but I guess you will need to make arrangements as well ? "(Me)

Not that I disliked the guys… But I prefer to stay with goblins for now.

Gulagh raised himself for a moment, then looked at the two women with him before he nodded at the right one.

"That is true, but I would prefer to leave one of my attendants here. It would be very much a problem if something got rid of you. Besides that she has some knowledge about magic. She will answer you to some extend. "(Gulagh)

I couldn't help but twitch an eye at his words.

Leaving a watchdog here huh ? Well whatever. It will be indeed safer with her and I am curious to see how much her knowledge will differ with Gobar´s.

"One thing before you leave. How did you know I was the avatar and not simply the goblins leader?"(Me)

This had actually bothered me for a while now. How had he known ?

Gulagh looked at me with an amused smile and tilted his head.

"I knew because I understood you even though you were speaking goblin. You will need to control that skill better. Until next time, Dungeon Lord."(Gulagh )

As he finished his sentence he and the other drow vanished just as they had appeared before. Meanwhile the one that would remain here simply put her mask and hood back on and stood there like a statue. I was actually grinding my teeth.

How could I have forgotten such a thing? I will need to take care of that matter later.

I turned my attention back to the goblins and noticed that they were still wearing disturbed expressions mixed with fear in them.

Of course, they only have heard my part of the conversation.

"Well this is pretty useful. The Drows that were here before were patrons of the spiders dungeon. For now I agreed to trade with them. So if any Drow comes along lead them here and inform me. "(Me)

"Trade, Lord? Are you sure this will work out ?"(Gobar)

The old goblin was still gripping his staff nervously as he looked between me and the remaining Drow woman.

"It will, at least for now. Right now we must focus on getting stronger, it seems the forest is the home of Elves which are in conflict with the Drows. Are they really that opposed to Dungeons?"(Me)

When i mentioned elves it was as if i had told them that the world was going to end. Each of them went almost entirely white and i was already worrying about some of them going faint.

"That… that is indeed the case. Not just dungeons, they hate any of the so called dark races. They have slain innumerable amounts of our brethren in the great war."(Gobar)

Huh so he was speaking in the truth in this matter at least.

"Then it is even more important to keep up the trade arrangement. Gobtar, head out as soon as possible. We neglected the collection of resources too long. Bring me any plant you can find and branches of trees that bear fruit. Ignore any wildlife unless it poses a threat. Leave right away, Gobar will inform you about any other matter that will come up later."(Me)

"Yes, Lord!"(Gobtar)

The fresh leader of the scouts sprinted off in a hurry as soon as I had dismissed him and i went straight on with the other goblins.

"Gobuta carry on as you have until now. Gorin i will expand the dungeon soon. Keep an eye on the insects. Gobar please calm down the other goblins and relay my orders about the Drows. Especially no one is to do anything stupid towards our guest here. She will remain here for now. "(Me)

As the goblin leaders excused themselves one after another my eyes fell on the black package that was most likely gob.

Ah shit, over all that i completely forgot him.

"Will that black stuff dissapear soon ? Or can you help Gob out of there?"(Me)

"It will end soon, do not worry. "(???)

"Hmmh ok, in that case what is your name?"(Me)

"I am called Vierna Xiltyn"(Vierna)

"Hope to get along with you then Vierna. For now excuse me, I will need to make preparations. Currently we have not much to offer but if you need anything do tell me."(Me)

The drow nodded her head before she sat down somewhere out of the way, in a lotus seat and remained there completely silently. I for my part called over a goblin and told him to make sure that Gob would be checked out and told not to do anything stupid towards the guest. After that I hurried back into the crystal cave to park my Avatar.

Well then, explain to me how the floor expansion works, dear screen.

You unlocked the first floor.

You can open it for 300.000 M

The next floor can open up the same number

of blocks as your main one.

Oh wow this is going to be a hell of an expense. Ok fuck it. Give me the new floor and open up all new blocks on the main floor. Go towards my west and south.

You are about to buy 11 blocks of area and a new floor.

This will cost

480.000 M

It will increase your mana recovery by

9.000 M/h

Are you sure you want to proceed?

Yes I am sure i want to proceed. Also give me as many blocks in the new floor as you can. expand it exactly underneath the main floor.

You are about to buy 19 blocks of area and a new floor.

This will cost

380.000 M

It will increase your mana recovery by

11.000 M/h

Are you sure you want to proceed?

Warning your Mana reserves will be very low.

Yes I want to proceed.

I would like to say it felt like the previous times. Just that it did not. This time it felt as if a whole piece was ripped out of me and my vision grew dim.

Ho…. ly…. shit…

If I was still in my avatar body I am sure i would have keeled over as if I had been shot. This feeling of power gushing out of me was horrible and i vowed to never again do such a reckless thing. I needed quite a few moments to get back on my mental feet and took a look at my new map.

Woa this really is huge! How much Mana do I have actually left over ? 'Status'

Name: Goblin Rank: F

Mana: 18.400 Mana recovery: 28.870 Mana/h

Level: 4

Damn… My Mana hasn't been this low in a long time. But this Mana recovery is just out of this world. Well though I will need to put a lot of that to good use soon. But still.

For little bit I marveled at the number, but then i focused myself on the task at hand again. I realized i had been much too relaxed so far.

I need much more resources and personnel. I should have widened the dungeon by a lot more. My bad hoarding and what if habit again.

I begun with taking a look at the new constructions that i had gotten from the insect home. It Looked almost the same as the big cave of the spiders dungeon. The large one filled out one block pretty well though of course in an irregular formation. To test it I placed it in one of the many free spaces.

Wait… something seems strange? Why is there a sun crystal here? That other dungeon didn't have that.

The standard constructions will be modified according

to what other evolutions you unlock.

Ah pretty neat. That will make it a lot easier. It costs 3000 to build just like the goblin home and it also has growth for the plants activated.

Hmm, guess I should wait to build more of these until I have some mana reserves. Then let's make a defense meanwhile.

So the construction begun. I decided that the first two rows of the main floor would become a labyrinth. The first changes I made were in the locks to the side where nothing yet was constructed. I made many branches, small and large tunnels with varying sizes of caves strewn all about. I especially made a tunnel system which would be big enough for goblins to crawl through. This one would bring them to hidden points above cave entrances and from here they could either snipe or jump onto possible intruders from behind. Unless they were extremely cautious and brought light sources with them it would be hard to spot these. Learning from my own lessons I also created various tubes and smaller entrances to the caves that lay close to the surface. After being done with those parts were the blocks that housed the goblin home and the insect caves so far. Those were pushed further back so I could go on with the construction. Towards the end I had another idea and added 3 larger caves directly inside the Labyrinth where plants could grow and of course needed to be illuminated.

Phew this took ages! But it's well worth it. Now then. allow the insects to get into the new areas. They can live and defend there right away.

It had taken a few hours to build all this and the huge Mana income i currently had boosted my reserves up plenty again to take the next steps. With the new mana I begun to add a few more Insect homes behind the Labyrinth, connected right to it. I actually did not bother to fill the caves myself with population and plants and instead told Gorin to organize that.

Hah they must be having a hard time with all those changes. Well the sooner they accustomed to it the better.

Thinking like that I moved the goblin home to the new floor along with the parkour course. The most important blocks would be made here after all. In order to not lock them in or out i connected this part directly with the insect homes.

Hmmm I guess i'll wait with the farming area until i see what my scouts bring back. For now it is time to make the goblins reward come true. During all that construction work I had paid very close attention to the flow of mana like Gobar had taught me before. Especially to the naturally forming crystals that were strewn throughout my area. Like this, with my mind linked back directly to the crystal body, I was actually able to feel it a lot more clearly and even manipulate it to some extend.

Now then, let's see if this works. I moved to the block north of the goblin home and created a small cave there. Here I spawned a Sun crystal and observed it thoroughly.

Well then, this thing emits light and a bit of heat, just like a sun. Let's see if i can get it to only emit heat.

I actually had to try around for a good while and smashed a load of crystals in the process but finally my effort paid off !

Unlocked new option for crystal construction

Heat crystal

Creates a crystal that emits a steady amount of heat.

100 M

20 M/h

Yes ! Now we are talking.

As soon as I got that message I begun to widen the cave up to use nearly the whole block. Towards the north the floor got higher than the south where the entrance would be. Then I made a series of deep basins into the floor and made small connections to the ones above them. Finally I placed a on a ledge above the highest basin a few wells and made them extend the mana consumption to have a lot more water rush out in a small waterfall.

Baths are open now !

I waved off the screen that told me about a new well and a large bath addition since that was just expected. I watched for a little while as the water filled up the basin and the water pouring from this one to the next, lower row of basins. Then I placed a heap of heat crystals inside the first one and less in the ones around it. Like there were basins with differing temperatures of water.

This will also take care of the goblins smell to some extend. They do stink a good bit.

Pleased with my creation I linked it up with the home cave and just in time as a few minutes later the scouts finally returned.

Your scouts have successfully returned.

No new map data

Scouts have brought back the following plants.

The Fool´s berry

Naka tree

Serdana tree

Wild Wheat

Pineberry

Whitecap mushroom

Plants were added to your spawn skill

Good good seems they found something decent this time.

I switched over to the entrance and looked over the scout. It had indeed worked for them to bring back just a few branches from trees to unlock them. Since I could spawn them now they didn't have to carry everything back to the home and could just leave it out here.

Now I can make some farming blocks.

Returning back to the lower floor i picked out the four blocks to the left of the goblin home and begun constructing. This was much easier as I simply turned two of them into large halls and spawned some tree seedlings in rows along the whole length of the blocks. Of course i also had to add sun crystals and growth to it. Next were the remaining two chosen blocks. Here I got a little more creative and actually made three floors into it 2 which were 2 m in height and one that was 1,5 m. For the first two I added sun crystals and growth before adding the pineberry and wild wheat. While the last one remained mostly dark with some glowing mushrooms on the walls and this one served as growing area for the whitecap mushrooms.

Added constructions

Large Orchard

Large layered Farm

Very good! This should be enough fiddling for now. Ah before i forget it, they will need someone to do the pollination i guess. Definitely have to find some bees. Hopefully they even exist here.

So I added a small nursery to them for some butterfly´s as well.