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Chapter 22: Spending
🕑 Added 2023-08-05 15:28:55 +0000 UTC—ALERT—
- Dungeon Shop is now open
- One Earth year until System Portal is activated.
- Dungeons and System Enhanced Zones have been added to Earth
The first Alert was a welcome sight. Rick had been eagerly awaiting the moment he could fully explore the Dungeon Shop. The second Alert appeared to be more relevant to regular people like Jimmy, but it was interesting nonetheless.
The third? It was much like the second. He didn’t see the relevance to him directly, but it was interesting that the System had planted other dungeons on Earth. Were they like him? Did the System choose people to become Cores, or were they something else?
The System must have given him the Alerts for a reason, but it was another mystery to Rick at the moment.
Before diving into the Dungeon Shop, Rick observed the people inside his domain. Jimmy and Kara’s eyes were already glazed over as they went through their Alerts and looked through the System Shop. Surprisingly, Penny’s were too. Her tongue hung out of the side of her mouth as she looked up blankly.
Adam, on the other hand, was standing in the shop and looking at a simple clay disc about twice the size of a quarter.
“I suppose it’s time to go back,” he said.
Not interested in getting sick, Rick just listened rather than respond. He wasn’t exactly sure what Adam was waiting for. The man had been desperate to leave for a long time.
“I was Level 597 before it was all stripped from me and the dungeon sent me here.”
The number was absurd, making it hard for Rick to wrap his mind around it. The fact that a dungeon was able to strip Adam’s levels and send him to a planet that wasn’t under System control was too much for him to comprehend. Could dungeons become as powerful as the System?
“When I go back, I’ll still be Level 38. My status as a prestigious Core Hunter will be gone. My dungeon may even reject me. I’ve considered staying here and running the damn planet. Everyone here is so ignorant of the way the multiverse works, it would be easy.”
“I liked you better when you weren’t such a windbag,” Rick blurted out and considered making himself sick just to tell Adam to get on with it.
“But I must go back,” Adam continued. “There are too many things I have left unfinished. The probability of me dying is high. I hope you enjoyed the gifts I gave you. If anyone on this forsaken planet will survive the Integration, it’ll be you and Jimmy.”
Adam took a deep breath and held the clay disc up in front of his face. “Take care. Don’t slack off or someone like me will steal your Core,” he said with a chuckle.
Then, he put the disc in his mouth and his eyes glazed over. Beams of light flickered in and out of various spots on his body. Only a few at first, but grew in intensity. In a matter of moments, Adam’s entire body was bursting with light until even Rick couldn’t sense him.
Suddenly, the light stopped and Adam was gone. Billy respawned, confirming that the Core Hunter was truly out of Rick’s domain.
Before Billy could start talking or anything else that could interrupt him, Rick opened the Dungeon Shop.
It was essentially the same as when he selected Minions and Floor Bosses. Except now, there were even more tabs. Anything you could possibly imagine was available for purchase — ranging from stars to microscopic lifeforms.
The problem was that most of the really cool shit cost billions of CP. Considering he had a total of 1300 CP, he would not be purchasing a sun any time soon. It was pretty easy to filter the shop for anything at 1300 CP and below, so he did that and started to browse.
“I should rename myself ‘Peasant Dungeon’,” Rick mumbled as he watched all of the options fit for a god disappear.
The first thing he searched for was anything that could help him track down his parents. That hope was quickly shut down as nothing in the Shop worked outside of his domain.
The second thing he searched for was something to automate Energy regeneration in the event people stopped bringing him trash to burn or the stream turned out to not be as viable as he’d hoped.
The only items that were within his price range for Energy purposes were “Core Fragments”. They were more or less a speck of dust that could hold 100 stored Energy. Rick could then consume them for a temporary boost. The problem was that these little specks of Core dust cost 1000 CP.
“Christ, these things are more expensive than minions,” Rick complained.
Next, he looked for something that could passively grow his floors to complement his evolved Spatial Expansion skill. Nothing showed up within his price range, so he shut off the filter. It was never a bad idea to save for something in the future.
For a measly 157 billion Challenge Points, he could buy a “Critical Nexus”. After reading its description, it basically acted as a “Big Bang” simulator within his domain, creating a universe on one of his floors. Rick figured that by the time he could afford to buy one of those, he would be able to build one himself. In fact, a lot of these items were so expensive that they just fueled him with ideas for future plans rather than attempting to save up to buy them.
“Ok, let’s rein it in,” Rick said to himself as he delved deeper and deeper into things he would likely never be able to afford.
That brought him back to scrolling through minions. He could afford pretty much anything below Level 7, but Finn and Stella had given him an idea a while ago. Playing around with the filters, he found that he could sort the affordable minions by how prolific they were.
If he purchased a couple of minions that could procreate fast enough, he could populate floors much faster. Hopefully, he would get lucky and find some variants like the Ceaseless Wolves.
At the top of the list, Goblins were the fastest at reproducing. Although, there were major drawbacks to purchasing the goblins. Apparently, they were so prolific that they could overrun an entire floor, driving the other minions insane. Goblins were also much less self-sufficient than he would have guessed for a humanoid creature. They wouldn’t build things for themselves unless forced to. They also wouldn’t cook and Rick imagined constantly summoning thousands of plates of chicken parm for the greedy goblins.
Among other minor downsides like poor hygiene, the goblins were weak, and he was not interested in the headache that they would surely bring.
After a few more similar creatures such as gremlins, he came to two choices that were both reptilian. The first were kobolds. They were small reptilian creatures, resembling poor, wingless dragons. The other reptilian creature was simply called a lizardfolk.
The kobolds were slightly more prolific and decent with magic according to the descriptions. However, they preferred to dwell underground. The problem with that was Rick planned on having them on the same floor as Billy and the wolves. He didn’t think Billy would want to live underground, and as the floor boss, he could potentially be killed before the Kobolds even emerged to the surface.
The lizardfolk, on the other hand, looked more akin to a monitor lizard that you might find in some parts of Asia or near the Nile River. However, the lizardfolk were also humanoid creatures that stood about seven feet tall. They preferred to live in swamps or jungles, which suited Rick just fine. He would have to modify the floor a little bit, but it wouldn’t be too hard.
The main downside with the lizardfolk compared to the kobolds was that they weren’t as sneaky or adept at magic, but they were much more effective with weapons and brute force. Down the road, it could potentially be an issue, but for now, it would do the trick.
“Ok, Lizardfolk it is,” Rick said.
Now that he decided on the lizardfolk, he now had to scroll through another giant list of different classes of them.
After a couple of hours poring over the list, he settled on two that he could afford as well as suited his needs. The first was a female, and the second one was a male:
Level 6 Lizardfolk Trapper
Level 6 Lizardfolk Builder
The pair cost him a combined 1050 CP, leaving him with 250 left. Once he summoned them, he saw how impressive they truly looked. They both dwarfed Billy in size. If he were a Challenger, he’d immediately think that these two beings were the Floor Bosses.
They looked at each other and hissed simultaneously, “Thank you, dungeon. We come to serve.” They said the last part with a bow.
Rick had forgotten that the description of the lizardfolk said that they were deeply religious. He didn’t want to be treated like a god, but he also wasn’t interested in wasting a bunch of time trying to change their nature.
“Welcome to R&J’s Dungeon Depot. I just have a couple of questions for you and then I’ll turn you over to the Floor Boss, Billy, to get situated.”
“Yes, dungeon,” they said as one.
“Ok, you — Builder. What materials do you work best with?” Rick asked.
“Wood and stone,” the male lizardfolk responded.
“And you — Trapper. What do you need to make traps?”
“I can improvise, although I would prefer to have a Trapper’s Kit. It’s a box of tools for my class,” the female lizardfolk explained.
“Understood. Now, go see Billy and I’ll try to find what you need.”
The pair of lizardfolk slid their tongues out, tasting the air in an attempt to find the Floor Boss. Billy was already walking toward them.
“Oh, and Billy? You’re on name duty again. Thanks.”
A smile formed on Billy’s face. Rick knew he secretly enjoyed that task.
A few hours had now passed since the Dungeon Shop and System Shop had opened. Jimmy’s eyes were still glazed over, but Rick felt it was time to interrupt him now.
“So, find anything to kill Gus or find our family?” Rick prodded telepathically.
Jimmy’s eyes refocused, exiting the Shop. He had a wicked grin on his face. Rick had seen the look before, like the time he traded a microwave for a rare coin worth thousands of dollars. “I have some ideas.”
