It was mid week on week 33 that Peter finally accumulated the 5 million required to unlock A tier. He had completed it far quicker than he had first calculated due to his daily essence having gone up to where he was currently earning about 32,000 a day. He immediately unlocked it, but was a bit disappointed with the lack of fanfare after a near half year of saving and effort. All he had to show was the now unlocked A tier design cards and the 1 A tier clockwork card. The A tier type cards cost 100,000 essence a piece. It would only take him 3 days worth of essence at this point, but then his daily essence likely would not be going up by too much more for the next 8 and a half years.

  Peter had assumed that would be the price. It was a bit sad that he would only be able to buy about 130 of them a year with his current essence collection, but it was also a good thing. Even the millennial dungeons should not be able to produce more than 3 to 4 hundred in a year’s time. It was still an overwhelming amount since they would potentially have hundreds of thousands of cards worth of essence ready to go, but he was still far off from that point. The rookie dungeons and other intermediate dungeons would have far less. Since he knew what year group each dungeon was from, Peter could even make rough estimates of how much essence they should have collected up to that point and an even rougher estimate of the cost of what forces they could bring to bear.

  Peter decided to take a walk. His destination was of course the tenth floor. He appeared in the core. He passed over the C tier malleable iron unit that was spread out like a welcome mat in front of the core. A last line of defense, that was almost definitely an unnecessary precaution.

  The floor outside the core room came into view. A vast expanse of mostly open land that was at least a half mile from wall to wall in each direction except up. Peter was exiting from the middle of the back wall. To the right were thousands of dark wood saplings shooting up a good distance from one another. Tiny steeples growing at a rate comparable to 6 or 7 year’s worth back on earth. It would only take a few decades for them to stretch far up towards and into the ceiling.

  Their lumber would be a tier 2 wood. Something he could not organically summon. Arrow shafts, staffs, and whatever else the wood could be used for would be far more durable and hold better enchantments. Off hand Khan had known how to produce the dark wood trees. It was possible to get a tier 3 wood or higher in the future.

  To his left was dungeon mine 1 and the dark elf village. The apes were mining further in and down everyday. Base metals like iron, copper, zinc were found relatively often. They had yet to discover any of the special resources. One day an ape would discover a vein of one of the metals. A day or two later they would have mined the entire vein out producing hundreds of buckets full of ore. The more common ores had mounds starting to develop as buckets were emptied in a spot over and over. They did not have to worry about the rain here. The ambience of the dungeon took care of all the plant life needs.

  Next to the mine would be the smithy. Already a handful of the C tier elves were working to develop their weapon making capabilities. They knew the basics, but better alloys would have to be discovered. The only visible set of large buildings was his new college campus. Where the smiths researched at the smithy through trial and error, the other focuses would have their own colleges to work in. Each building was massive, far surpassing the current number of occupants. They were also spaced far enough apart where Peter could add more buildings later on. Eventually he might have a full college campus. For now he had various schools or focuses.

  Other than those two locations was the actual village, which right now was just a handful of buildings. There were currently less than 300 dark elves, although 4 more were added each week. Already the D tier innate space sorcerers made up a third of the population. Peter had only summoned a handful of one offs for the other dark elf B tiers. Alongside and nearby the village were a wide variety of plots where various produce or herbs were grown. Already 1 round of produce and many of the various herbs had been collected. The next round was nearly ready as well, with everything maturing in about a 15 week cycle or 4 times a year.

  Peter made for the magic focused college. It looked to be twilight all the time here, but according to the dark elves schedule it was midday on this floor. The dark elves all kept to it. When not in a dungeon battle they had to sleep and live just like he did. Peter was pretty sure he could design himself to not require sleep or make other such changes to his avatar, but he liked how sleeping helped him to reset his mood and emotional state. Also things that he could likely do away with, but Peter did not exactly want to become less human. Plus if he did so he would wind up just like Clockwork.

  “Young master,” came a gruf old voice off to his left. It was of course Khan. He would know even if he did not recognize the voice. All the units that could talk called him master. Khan with his setting of ‘aged’ was the only one that added the young part. Khan stepped out from behind a picket fence, there for the purpose of some grape vine like plant to grow. Somehow Khan was always the first to intercept him.

  Peter did not mind, although he would prefer if it was less sudden each time. Yes he could use night vision or check where his units were on the map, but he never did, since he enjoyed the ambience. His walks were as close to walking outdoors as he could practically get without leaving the dungeon. In his previous life this type of environment would be creepy ass scary, but nothing could harm him inside his dungeon.

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  “Khan,” he recognized the guy's presence.

  Khan of course took this as his chance to petition for various things. Really the only thing left was asking for more dark elves, which would be quite easy for him to do, not that Khan would be satisfied. It was the normal justifications this time as well.

  “We can hardly continue to expand and develop with only 4 new innate space sorcerers each week. Its only every couple of batches that we get one suited for joining Delialah at the magic college. The rest generally can only be used to help grow and harvest the plants.”

  “We have been over this. They really are only temp workers. In half a year a good number of them will likely die in battle. At the next congregation I can try to trade for more dark elf cards. The only other guaranteed sentient beings I could summon for now are more D tier copies of yourself or the others or the high level clockworks,” Peter said frustratedly.. It was basically the first thing in the morning for him since he just lived and slept whenever he wanted.

  “Hgghhh,” the old guy sighed. “Well at least I’ll be at headquarters so I can advise you next time. I would make sure I got better trades than those soulless robots.”

  “Something we can both agree on,” Peter said. Borris was a great aid, but he was still a bit hesitant about summoning more of the high tier clockworks to serve as his aids. He was already glad all the other ones he had already had only reported to him through Borris, so that the aid could compile and filter it all. Sometimes it was a bit odd what they found exciting or interesting.

  “Uhhhh… although it would be handy to have them start a mechanical college. For obvious reasons they should be able to progress in that area of study far better than any of my people could.”

  Hell man you can’t have it both ways… “I’ll take it under advisement,” Peter said, continuing on. It would be one thing if they guy had something new to contribute, but it was the same complaints everyday. Had he gotten more short tempered having lived a whole year nearly alone….?

  The next figure that approached him was far more welcome. How Khan knew he was coming was a mystery. How she knew he was coming was quite obvious. She had innate connection with the space around her. Of course she could sense when something got close enough. Pretty good since he was still a couple hundred feet away from the back door of the college of magic’s main building.

  Delilah approached with a saunter. Like the rest she had dark skin and white hair. Common to the other females she wore a long dress with slits all the way to the waist on both sides that allowed for ease of movement. Mid thigh shorts were worn underneath, so it was not too salacious. Up top she wore a sleeveless vest. Once again this allowed the arms to move unencumbered. The male elves wore basically the same thing except pants instead of the long slitted skirt. Khan was the exception. He wore one large robe with his vest loosely hanging over the top.

  “Did I disrupt anything?” Peter asked with a wide smile on his face.

  “Just my train of thought. You know how it is, I think all day about it, but rarely actually make any progress,” Delilah said. Her tone was sultry and a bit calculative. She was actually fairly similar to Helen, Elyra’s guide, in that manner. Life was just one big game to meddle and mess around with.

  “I’m sure a good break is in order then. A lot of times inspiration will come when you least expect it.

  “A break…what do you have in mind,” she said, her lips twitching into a daring smile.

  “Just lunch… and conversation,” Peter shrugged. “Nothing special.”

  “Hmmm… the usual eehh?” she said. He was just close enough to see her roll her eyes. “Very well, lead the way,” she added playfully.

  “Today I thought we could do some barbecue on the fire floor,” Peter said, leading her back the way he had come. The fire floor was in the battle dungeon, so they would have to go back to the core to go through. Delilah fell into step by his side. Peter felt a shock when she just happened to bump shoulders.

  Perhaps it was not a good idea to actively date one of his dungeon units, but there was not much choice. It was not like he was capable of visiting another dungeon in the real world yet, and he only went to the congregation once every year. Not that he could get anything going with another core. They were technically all rivals. Plus it was a public venue, not like anything could come of it.

  Peter was definitely sure he should not be trying to date one of the most useful units he had. After all, if he wanted to stand a chance at battling this year, she would likely fight. Not that she would mind, she was playful but she also had a ruthless side to her. As did the rest of the dark elves, all of them had a vicious side they were just waiting to release.

  Peter did not mind, in fact her devilish smiles drew him in any more. He never knew it until recently, but apparently he had a thing for bad girls. In less than half a year, he might very well watch her cut through units with her knives he had summoned for her using equipment cards. Assuming he was still able to endanger her?

  In the end Peter would just continue as he was. Sure it was a bit questionable that he was dating a subordinate that he could technically override her free will, but as long as he didn’t it should be fine, right? It was always there though, under the surface. He had to be careful not to speak in a way that could be construed as an order. It was that way with all the sentient beings.

  If anything he was being rather gentlemanly about it. Guys in power back on earth were far worse about things. Dictators need love too right, even the ones who try not to control every facet of the ones beneath them, like himself.

  If only he could just do away with the accursed elven courtship. Likely due to their nature of naturally living for thousands of years, they were rather slow about how they went about things. Why rush when there are hundreds or thousands of years left to enjoy what comes after. Why not enjoy the early relationship dance for a bit longer, and Delilah loved the playful dance.

  Technically he fell in the same realm now too. Both of them would live until the end of time or someone destroyed his dungeon, but he still thought more in the realm of I have a few decades till I’m out of my prime. A few more decades till I’ll be old and decrepit, and just waiting my turn to die from whatever part of my body decides to shut down first. He could not shake this mindset either since he could very well be dead in a few decades if his plans went poorly. If anything his prospect of living a hundred years seemed like a more difficult task than it had in his previous life.