CH14: Menagerie Cradle Dungeon

The sounds of the wounded and dying resounded like a choir outside Blackland town. A horse lay put out of its misery with its head hanging by a shred of tendon. Its owner cried to its side as they passed him by. Thankfully, the man was too distracted to see what Zack was about to do. Zack saw a strange black flower beside the corpse and casually snatched it with a portal, placing it on a small hill with damp soil and plenty of sunlight. Clouds of smoke filled the air with the scent of burning pork. Crowds of people wearing whatever armor they could afford, from rusty chainmail to old cast iron pots and pans fastened with leather straps milled about. Some chatted amiably while others glared at one another like mortal enemies. But stars were high overhead, and the heat was on. Some people poured with sweat while others passed out in their armor.

Zack wore shorts, a loose white shirt, and, of course, his snake boots. While the rest of these guys dressed for protection, he dressed for comfort. It wasn’t arrogance when he could cut through iron with a punch.

His attention moved to the flower while they stood in line. It was a kind of grass that grew best in or around rotting corpses. When consumed, it adds to the perception potential. With Milly out of his demi-plane, it was safe to increase the time to 20x, and he said a few cows and last year’s bull calf. Zack used his influence over his demi-plane to move all the corpses, which were too rotten to matter, to the ground under the new grass called corpse blossom, even if it wasn’t a flower. Zack was confident it would spread across the hill in a few short weeks, then he would place cows there.

Their corpse-blossom diet might make them into monsters or alter their meat to improve their perception potential.

“We can back out of this if neither of you are confident in our chances,” Thistle said.

“I think our chances are pretty good. I can’t wait to see all the monsters.” He was going to add the best to his demi-plane and farm them. Maybe he could feed the corpse-blossom gras to some goats instead of cows. Some variety wasn’t a bad thing. “Do you think there will be goats in the dungeon?” Zack asked.

“There are more animals turned into monsters than you can imagine. The adventurer’s guild named the dungeon the Menagerie Cradle. It will be trendy among monster tamers and blue druids.”

Zack raised an eyebrow behind Milly’s back. “My eyebrows are raised in question. What are Blue Druids?”

“Oh, they can transform their bodies into different monsters. If you had that skill, you could have transformed parts of your body into a centaur.” Thistle said.

“Thistle is female so that you would have grown a female centaur’s genitalia,” Milly said.

Zack felt like he dodged a bullet. If there were one thing that could have turned two nights ago into an unmitigated disaster, it would have been spontaneously becoming female.

“Great, that’s what we need a beast to shit in the line.”

“Maybe we should go,” Thistle whispered.

Zack placed a hand on her flank. “Don’t let fools get you down. He’ll probably die on the first floor.”

He looked back and saw nothing of value in the man who commented. The guy had neither good boots, a reliable weapon, nor an animal companion. While there was some muscle to the guy, it was soft like plastic gained from years of eating strength-enhancing food without training. His eyes flicked away, already bored of the guy.

A woman with lime green hair had a staff in her hand with a red flower at its head. He could sense the mana in the flower. The petals were red like blood, and he felt they had some special effect. Maybe it was something rare with exciting properties. The woman was also attractive. She had green hair, golden eyes, and pointy elf ears. The way her butt moved as she shifted from foot to foot in line was also cute; then there were her quiet sighs as her companions spoke to her.

Milly grabbed his shoulder, and he shook out of his haze. “Was that your first time seeing an elf?”

“Yeah, what’s up with her?”

“Elves and centaurs might not look it, but they’re related. Both are technically nature spirits.” Milly said.

“Elves get a glamour that attracts onlookers, a voice that makes flowers bloom, and affinities for nature magic. I can run down, outshoot, and overpower any foe. My father used to keep a harem of them.” Milly and Zack stared at her. “They had the elasticity skill and were very thankful for our tribe’s protection. Elves produce three to one female to male offspring, so their females are traded off to allies for favors.” Thistle said.

“So if I wanted her to tend to my forests.”

“Elves love new and unexplored forests. The wilder, the better. I’m not sure if she would appreciate being kidnapped.”

Zack checked his Primordial World (seed) skill.

Primordial World (Seed): An inner world with a single meter of land bursting with potential and hunger for mana. The user can open and close portals to their land out of combat. The world is an extension of the user’s soul, giving the user complete autonomy over the world beyond even the gods and their domains. The size of the portal is dependent on the user manual. G x 1 meter. 

Level:115/99999

Rank: G

Range: 1.025 Cubic Kilometers

He had crossed into kilometers, and he never felt better. The group in front of them mixed a little with theirs as they approached the town gate. Soon, they would register and move to the waiting area for the final journey to the dungeon.

“Hey, I noticed you're friendly with a centaur. Are you two?” she looked between Thistle and Zack. “Together?” the elf asked lamely. Zack felt his face heat up as he felt lost for words.

Zack sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, we’re together. There is nothing wrong with that.”

The elf raised her hands defensively. “No, growing up, my mother talked about how great centaurs were at guarding the forest where we lived. My sister was even honored as an offering to a powerful chief. The way I see it, you chose well. Centaurs are strong, brave, and true to themselves and nature. I wanted to talk with a fellow admirer of nature. My name is Erie, and I’m a pure druidess. But don’t think you know my build just because it has an official name.” Erie said.

Thistle reached out and patted Erie’s luscious green hair. “Aren’t you precious? I had a bunch of elf siblings growing up. Father liked to collect elf maidens from different tribes. They were always nice to me.”

Zack struggled to resist the urge to snatch the elf girl up. Her staff flower was fantastic, but adding the complete package would be even better. It wasn’t kidnapping; it was a delivery no worse than an Uber driver since he was taking her where she would want to go.

But how was he going to do it? Milly could tell him her general direction, but that wouldn’t always work. He needed a way to track people and find them when they were vulnerable. Then, he could send her through a portal to paradise. Elves also had lots of mana and could help his world expand. She could help grow his forests and world, fulfilling her purpose. Zack could train with far more resources; it was a double win.

Zack would have to wait and see.

…

A man dressed in a set of shiny silver plate mail with a cross encircled on his breastplate smirked at him and pointed at a wooden dummy. This was a test to see if they had business in the dungeon. They had no business in a dungeon if they couldn’t show they could fight or at least damage a simple stationary wooden target. Healers were excused, so all they had to worry about was the combat types in their party making it.

“So, do you want me to destroy it or what?” The man rolled his eyes and patted the dummy on its gambeson and leather-covered torso. “Slap it into splinters,” Zack said.

“Sure, if you can slap this dummy into splinters, I’ll sponsor your group. On the honor of House Crux, we who nail them up and leave them for the crows.” Okay, he wasn’t the Jesus and peace type. “If you can’t even damage this dummy, you should give up adventuring now.”

“Ser Crux, can I punch it instead.”

“Why limit yourself? We have plenty of swords, axes, and even war gloves if you feel adventurous. Sorry, no whips if you’re a beast tamer. We don’t support tamer builds in this dungeon yet. They are too valuable to risk. If you are a tame builder, I would advise you to sign up for a later dive with more support.” Ser Crux said.

Zack scratched the back of his head. While he was a tamer build, he also had one hell of an offensive option at the end of the day.

He raised his fist and tapped the dummy. The ten-inch-thick post-split in two, and so did the armor. Rocks took effort to cut through, but wood and leather were easy. When he didn’t have a knife on him, he used his fists to skin animals.

“Oh, yeah, you wanted me to splinter the wood.” He punched, and the wooden beam burst and smashed into the back wall, leaving pieces of wood stuck to the stone.

Zack turned to the knight, expecting him to be astonished, surprised, or completely bewildered. Instead, the man nodded and checked his report.

“Congratulations on meeting the bare minimum. Please leave through that door.”

…

Charles Crux felt his body shake as thoughts of revenge filled him that he couldn’t let go. He had found him, the son of that monster Joshua Smith, the man who humiliated the Crux family. They nailed them up and left their bodies for the crows.

He checked and adjusted the assigned entry points. It would be one of the last teams in before the dungeon surge. If he had messed with the paperwork a little, he could have had them entered just in time for the surge to happen.

It was an easy error to make. Charles had made it before, and Zack had no last name as a bastard except Joshua Smith, who taught him his prized skill.

…

Zack had to wait far longer than expected. The two stars in the sky began setting before they were called, and his team was more than ready. Milly had even taken a secret trip into his demi-plane to warm up. When they were finally called, he was thinking about taking a trip with Thistle for a quickie.

The stone path to the dungeon was brand new, and he could hear Thistle’s metal shoes clacking. Zack patted her side, a little worried for her joints on the road, but kept his cool. Zack was thinking about buying some Vulcanite from the shop and having a blacksmith forge it into new shoes for Thistle. Zack found it on the ship while browsing through stuff one evening. Unfortunately, it had a price tag of nearly two billion a kilogram. That was enough of the miracle light shock absorbing metal to keep her joints moving well.

The guards stopped as they passed a team of healers and the remainder of the team ahead of them. Jason, their team healer, stopped one of them to ask what was happening.

“The team escaped, but some crazy boss monster decided that it wanted to keep the elf as a pet. It's on the second floor, but no professional teams want to try. I mean, it's for an elf, right? Who cares.”

“We’ll save her.” Zack thought about it, tossed Thistle her second tower shield from his inventory, and replaced her lance.”

“Guys, what are we doing?” Jason asked.

“We’re going to rescue Erie from the boss on the second floor. You’ll ride on Thistle and conserve your mana while I lead. Milly will take care of anything behind or trying to flank us. We’ll go in like spear and pierce to the second floor before the first can mount a proper defense.” Zack said.

“Are you out of your mind? We don’t even know this elf?”

“Her sister was one of my father’s concubines, and she’s practically family,” Thistle said.

“Pack protects their own,” Milly said.

“No one deserves to be some monster’s plaything,” Zack checked the time on his system. “How long has she been alone?”

“Time moves faster in the dungeon floor. Two should be three times the speed. Compared to the outside.” Milly said.

They entered the dungeon and found themselves overlooking a battle between hundreds of monsters.

…

A creature opened its eyes as it landed on cold stone soil. It knew its purpose was to be the king who would create the first kingdom of monsters. It stood 8 feet tall, a holy number because the king was blessed by the dragon god Bael. Its first skill appeared before it.

Cloud Rider: Blessed by El and the gods before the king can ride the wind, rain, clouds, and lighting and command them.

1/999

Rank: G

The king instantly grasped the power and prestige such a divine skill granted him. He turned his attention to the roaming bands of monsters in the wilderness of the land he was born in. He would take the land and build a kingdom worthy of a true king.