Chapter 17: Hunters
Zach was elated about the bonus skill experience he received. The skills he used the most had increased, making him stronger. At the same time, he felt a little depressed that he hadn't waited longer before claiming it. If he had, more skills would have gone up.
"Only twenty minutes in humanoid form each week doesn't look great for me right now. But if I keep leveling up, the time will increase. Eventually, I'll fully take on a human form again!" Zach encouraged himself. He refused to give up. The setback from his cursed royal family was just that, a setback. He would rise again. Women would belong to him, Zach the Dungeon.
The waiting period for his mana to recover was torture. Worse, leveling up didn't increase his mana recovery speed, which left him disappointed and bored.
When his mana was full enough, it was time to test the biomass converter. It looked like it was made out of mana turned into black flesh, though not real flesh. It consumed mana to operate. Black tentacles and knife-like extensions came out of it, cutting apart biological creatures and pulling them inside. The remains would be processed into organic materials.
A crazy idea struck him. Inside the existing pitfall trap, Zach built another one, but this time into the side wall. It failed as a proper pitfall, but it let him place the biomass converter inside. He could manually open it and drop in dead animals or creatures to be processed.
This was his grand design, and he proudly flexed his third vertex over it.
With everything ready, Zach watched with satisfaction as the converter extended its sturdy black tentacles. They sliced into the Panther bear he had caught earlier.
The cave filled with the wet sound of flesh being hacked and ground apart. It worked efficiently, finishing the entire bear in ten minutes. What was left was fifteen units of biomass, large bricks of fleshy substance that looked red or pink. Zach couldn't even tell which color it was in this form. Whatever it was, it was his new resource. Unfortunately, the converter couldn't clean up the pools of blood left in the pit, leaving behind a sickening sight.
From his knowledge of organic matter, he knew normal flesh would rot. But biomass should last longer because bacteria couldn't touch it the same way. Still, it wasn't immune, so he stored the bricks in his Internal Resource Storage. That way, it would last the longest.
With his prey gone, Zach had to do what all dungeons did—lure in more.
Using the biomass, he made bait: a pile of fruits and raw meat. He frowned at the messy appearance. Laid out on the ground like this, it was ugly. It would have looked far better on a platter, maybe with some sauce or garnish. After all, bait should look inviting.
His dungeon senses were sharper than the dungeon skills themselves. He was born to do this.
Still, he hated the cost of his dungeon skills. Five units of biomass equaled half a cubic meter, or five whole bricks, yet the pile of food wasn't even worth one of them in size.
Unhappy with this waste, Zach created a stone platter, carving swirling patterns into it. He used his dungeon senses to slide it under the food pile, setting it up right in front of the pitfall trap.
[Stone Platter (Swirl) Blueprint has been added.]
"They want to eat my food? This cost me five units of biomass! Five bricks! Do they think I'm some cheap market fool? No way, they don't deserve it!"
Two days passed without much excitement. The bait remained, and creatures did come, but none were very rewarding.
First were four horn rabbits. They were difficult to kill with the spike trap, and only gave two experience points each. Then came a deer-like antelope, and later a black jungle panther. The panther came at night, agile enough that it would have escaped the pitfall if the lid hadn't closed in time.
The horn rabbits, however, forced him to upgrade the trap design. Now the pitfall had spear traps on both sides, with the biomass converter moved to another section. Double the spears meant better chances to hit small targets and heavier damage against large ones.
The genius design had become even more genius.
His dungeon expanded quickly. Behind the entry tunnel, three large cavern rooms appeared, arranged in a triangle. Each room was filled with pitfall traps. Most held resource bricks, but some copied the pitfall plus spear design. The system scanned the first one and auto-built copies.
Some spear traps were even placed on the walls and ceiling, catching intruders who thought they could dodge by avoiding pitfalls.
[
Skill Level Up: Mining
+ New Subskill: Mineral Detection
]
"So these are subskills. What about traps then? Subrecipes?" Zach muttered.
The effect was instant. The new subskill made him feel the earth around his dungeon like sonar. For now, it only showed dirt and stone. But in the future, metals and treasures buried deep would be easy to locate.
At that moment, Zach sensed something at the entrance. Several large entities stepped inside. Focusing his attention, he saw three or four humans enter his dungeon.