Dungeon Building.

After Desmond had made as many bricks as possible, I went up to the dungeon core and summoned a few more monsters using the remaining mana crystals.

Another thing I noticed was that I could summon the Eyeball monster I slayed before. It cost a whopping 2 big Dark mana crystals to summon, double the amount I got for killing it.

I of course didn't have enough to summon it.

But that was fine since I got some more shadow goblins and one more minotaur to help with the dungeon repair.

The plan was to use the bricks to seal up the cracks and rebuild the walls and stuff.

How were we gonna make that possible?

Using Desmond of course. His earth magic evolved because of his evolution, so I intended to take full advantage of it.

I decided to break down the old core room entirely and build a new one from scratch. The old core room was way too damaged and small anyway, so it was the best choice to demolish it.

I ordered the summons to mine out the room outward with the core at its back side. Meaning, the core would be on the back side of the new room. It was a mammoth task but it was doable with monster power within the time limit.

After all of the mining was done, the bricklaying started with Desmond's help.

The room's walls were now completed.

The next project was making a proper door to the core room.

Unfortunately, I didn't have any metal or any way to make a heavy door, so I decided to take my army of monsters to that one big door behind which that monster carcass was and 'reuse' it in front of the core room.

After the door was fitted, the construction of the corridors began.

I wanted the corridors near the core room to be a little bit wider than the other corridors.

After a painstakingly long time, the whole project was complete.

At least the skeleton of the project.

The quest was a month-long one, remember? I'm not even a quarter of the way there.

The next two weeks consisted of me, Desmond and a few other monsters going out hunting for magic crystals to summon more monsters to get more work done.

Not a moment's rest...

The core room was transformed from a barebones, broken old room to a somewhat decent-looking throne room.

The throne was of course for me to sit on, haha.

We also came across many different types of monsters.

Imps, which could use fire magic, slime nobles that could use acidic attacks, insect-type monsters, Kobolds and so on.

We subjugated a total of 5 more dungeons.

From the dungeons, we looted all that could possibly be looted. There were no gear or valuables though, only new kinds of monsters.

The corridors, starting from the core room, were repaired and lit up using torches.

We also explored the other corridors which looked identical to the main one as well.

Turns out, those corridors were either jail cells, torture chambers or storage units.

I found human skeletons in the jail cells and the torture chambers. That whole section of the dungeon was extremely gruesome.

Anyway, outside the dungeon, we found something extraordinary.

A magma pool. That's right, a real magma pool.

I really wanted to build a forge there as soon as possible since I wanted to use metal, but I didn't risk wasting time.

I was sure I would get more than enough time afterwards.

I decorated the core room, which I will be referring to as the Throne room from now on, with the things we plundered from the other dungeons.

The throne room, at least, started to look like a real demon's lair, with red carpets, dim lights and an overall dark aesthetic.

Even though the throne itself was quite uncomfortable to sit on, my inner eighth grader was jumping up and down in joy seeing it and I was happy since all of it was the result of extreme hard work.

There was still around a week left before the completion of the quest, and I hadn't gotten the notification from the mysterious system whether I had completed the quest or not, so I continued to work hard.

I cleaned up the carcass from that room, which was the remains of a Chimera by the way, and made it into some sort of a training ground. I don't know who will be training there, but it looked presentable. I didn't care as long as the quest was completed.

After renovating the core room into the throne room, adjacent corridors, jail cells, torture chambers, storage units, and the chimera room, the quest was finally completed.

[Quest Completed!]

[Rewards: Self-Repairing {The dungeon core recognises the new layout of the dungeon and will repair any damage done to it automatically without the owner's help. However, proper materials will be required to make the function work.}]

[Rewards: MAG C+ -> MAG B+]

[Rewards: WIS D+ -> WIS C+]

[Rewards: STM E+ -> STM D]

'...'

I was so tired that I didn't even process the rewards properly...

But even though I didn't have much of a reaction, I was content with the rewards.

The self-repair function was amazing in and of itself, but all of the stat increases were a bonus.

Also, not even counting the fact that my Dark Magic levelled up twice during the quest and Desmond got even stronger with his Ice Magic levelling up as well.

My current loadout was:

[Console]

[Race: Arch-Demon{Variant}]

[Class: Mage]

[Attribute(s): Darkness, Necromancy]

[STR: E]

[STM: D]

[MAG: B+]

[WIS: C+]

[CHR: A+]

[Skills: {Miasma Spike IV}, {Dark Knives IV}, {Shadow Bind III}, {Raise Undead II (7/7)}, {Necroflame I}]

Quite a satisfying thing to look at to say to least.

Oh and by the way, my undead summons were maxed out since I had a few other undead supporting me directly in battle.

One of them was a zombie knight that I found in one of the dungeons.

The guy was a tough opponent to subjugate even though we outnumbered him 4 - 1.

I doubt I could have won if not for my other two summons, apart from Desmond, sacrificing themselves to hold it back long enough for us to cast the powerful spells that ended it.

--- recall ---

Me, Desmond and two other skeleton assassins were clearing a dungeon. Up until that point we had encountered a few tough opponents but none of them were even a threat to us. Desmond could have handled them himself.

But everything we encountered was completely blown out of the water by the next opponent we faced. It was probably the boss of that dungeon.

A zombie that looked very different from other zombies. Its rotting body was uncannily stable. Its right hand held a rusty sword that looked like it was once bathed in the blood of its wielder's enemies. The steel-coloured armour it was wearing had a few gemstones on it, glowing with ethereal colours. The helm managed to hide most of the zombie's contorted face, but its chin was still visible, with contorted flesh and broken bones.

Me and Desmond wasted no time firing spells at it, but it didn't have much of an effect on the zombie.

It simply raised its sword with blinding speed and deflected all of the spells heralding towards him.

I cast shadow bind on it and Desmond followed with a frost grip, but it could only hold it back for a few seconds.

With swift slashes of its blade, my black chains were cut up into pieces and Desmond's ice was shattered by the zombie's sheer strength.

'Is this what the STR stat looks like?!', I yelled internally.

The Zombie Knight suddenly jumped up from the ground with unbelievable speed, leaving traces of cracks on the floor beneath, and barely missed my head by a few inches since I managed to dodge thanks to Corvis's ability.

That knight was a monster.

The skeleton assassins thankfully weren't completely useless.

As soon as the knight landed, missing me, the skeleton assassins dashed towards it, attempting to stab its neck which was vulnerable because of the gaps in between its armour.

It didn't work though. The knight jolted around, swung his sword in a deadly arc and destroyed one of the skeletons completely.

But this much was enough. Desmond had already cast another frost grip on the knight and the second skeleton assassin held onto the knight's helm, trying to insert its dagger into the eye slits.

I took this chance to cast another shadow bind on the knight.

Right afterwards, the knight swung his sword upwards, destroying the last skeleton assassin.

This much was enough to charge up the Miasma spike spell and put an end to the fight.

And so I finally did.

--- Recall end ---

I looked at the skeleton knight who was once the zombie knight and thought up a name to give him since he deserves it.

"Skeleton Knight. From now on, your name will be Spectre, since you're an undead.", I decided.

After a few seconds, that same aura that covered Desmond covered Spectre and he bowed to me.

"My Lord... I am... In your... Disposal...", Spectre said.

[Spectre]

[Race: Skeleton Knight]

[Status: Respectful, Grateful]

[HP: 100/100]