Chapter 10: Blooming army

No matter how much he probed or pondered, the answers never came. But although he had not found the truth, he did have a theory: there could be a rule in the universe that makes it so.

After all, the universe is vast, and many things about it are still mysteries. Heck, even he, as a dungeon, does not know exactly where Ether comes from. The best he could get from his senses was that it comes from a space or dimension that is filled with an endless supply of ether. Other than that, he was clueless.

Thinking too hard for the time being would just be a waste of his energy. Just like his previous life memories, it would be better if he left it for later.

"What would be a better use of my time, however, is figuring out if I could use this discovery to my advantage."

This is third-order energy, after all. The one thing a dungeon actually needs So he thought, "If I could be able to simulate what is happening to the goblin, would I be able to get an infinite amount of third-order energy?"

It was a curious thought. A thought that seemed unlikely. After all, the quantity of energy is far too low. Barely enough to even create one single goblin. The amount would not be able to cover his ocean-like capacity. One must know that even if a dungeon were to connect to a world, it would need a whole lot of energy to rank up.

So although the idea was worth a thought, for the time being, it did not seem like it would yield much. An idea that was likely to require more energy than it was worth.

"I guess I still don't have anything to do. Am I really just going to wait and watch the goblins all day?"

Truthfully, it was not that he was bored. But he felt the time he spent watching these goblins could be used better. As the goblins are already on their way to creating him and a good number of troops are protecting him, they do not need his supervision. All that is left on the army's birth plan is for the females to give birth. Once the first batch gives birth, he will order the hobgoblin to mate with them. Then the second will follow. For the first batch, if you include the first female, he expects at least eight goblins to be born. since goblins have a high likelihood of twinning.

On the second batch, since there are only two female goblins, four little goblins are to be expected.

All in all, there should be about 19 goblins at the end of the second batch's parturition. The best part is that 19 is only the minimum amount. as goblins can give birth to three or more children. Which is good considering that his energy only allowed him to make about 15 goblins before. Plus, some of the newborns won't be just goblins but hobgoblins. A single of which equals three goblins or more.

The only downside to this method is that he would have to wait for the goblins children to grow up. Luckily, though, goblins grow fast as long as they have food. So a strong goblin army of at least 19 will be fully prepared within two or three months.

"But I still don't know what to do within that."

The child was still musing when he noticed something about goblins. It was something that he had forgotten due to his new dungeon identity. As he knows, he no longer needs it.

They were naked.

"Soldiers don't go to war naked now, do they? And they certainly can't do without weapons, right? Should I use ether to make weaponry for the goblins?"

It was they who had an idea of what to do in the coming few days.

"Why don't you research more on my ether creation and manipulation?"

As a natural ether creation machine, the child was well versed in the creation aspect of ether. Together with his eight affinities, the child's creation abilities are nearly endless. But when it comes to the manipulation part, not so much.

As of now, he can basically turn Ether into the most basic things he knows of. Like using earth-type ether to make metal, water-type ether to make clouds, or fire-type ether to make lava. But he is unable to make earth spikes come out of the ground and kill the enemy. He can't make a water dragon appear out of nowhere, and he most certainly can't make a summoning portal to another world.

Although his use of ether could be commendable, it was too lethal. He could only use his ether for creation purposes.

"Now that I think about it, why should I use my ether only for creation? I mean, if I dabble a little bit, surely I should be able to create some sort of attack method. After all, with an infinite ether pool backing me up, I could become a hard mage to beat. There is no reason why I should follow the rules and wait for the dungeon inhabitants to protect me."

The more I thought about this idea, the more feasible it seemed.

"Yes, why shouldn't a dungeon be able to attack?"

...

"So that's why dungeons can't attack on their own."

Two weeks have passed, and the child has found out why dungeons don't just attack everything inside them personally.

"Dungeons have terrible magic control beyond their dungeon core."

So although he can summon earth spikes, that is only inside the dungeon core. Beyond that, he really can't do much of anything. The worst part is that his magic creations dissipate very easily outside his core.

As ether easily reverts to its original form, mages or practically any magic-using being uses their mental energy to force the ether to stay in a single form. But at some point, it's going to end up reverting back to ether. So the big problem is that a child's or practically every dungeon's mind can't do the same. They can make the ether hold it together, but that's only for a very short time. Which is a hundred times weaker than an average mage.

As such, his magic development plan was a complete flop. But although the child had a taste of failure for the first time, he wasn't disheartened.

There are two reasons why he did not feel so bad about his failure. First, although he has failed, his understanding of magic and ether has gone many times beyond what he knew before. So his creation abilities have grown greatly.

Secondly, within the past week, the first female goblin had finally given birth. It gave birth to four newborns. But to the child's disappointment, all of them were male. Meaning that in the future, these goblin babies could only be used as cannon fodder. If they had been born as females, he would have been elated, as every fully grown female goblin could be equal to at least two new goblins in the future.

But alas, they are male. As males, their only good use is to donate sperm, but theirs is undesirable, so there is no way the child will let them sow their seeds.

By the child's estimates after watching them over the next week, these children will take about one month to be fully grown. That is, of course, if they get as much energy as possible. But energy is the one thing he is currently lacking.

Since the mother of the four had now given birth and was ready to give birth once more, the male goblin approached with the intention to 'battle.' But the child found this a bit unnecessary for the time being, so he ordered that they not mate anymore. After all, there are already many females pregnant. If the current birth rate occurred more than once and all the goblins gave birth, there would be about 28 new goblins and a total of 37 goblins in the small dungeon.

The child recognized that his interior was too small to house that many goblins, so mating was of no use for the time being. And if he wanted them to mate, it would not be with the male goblin but with the hobgoblin.

As such, the male goblin could only grow confused as its first harem member no longer wanted to get back in business.

...