For that night's council, Peter formed a new room at the back of headquarters, affectionately deeming it the fishbowl since its perimeter was nearly completely windows. For now, Peter just mentally formed a large oval table and chairs. They only took up a quarter of the room, so he added another table for the food that Delilah should be bringing.

  The room expansion had pushed him even closer to the edge of what he currently could use of his core space. Space was limited probably to prevent cores from storing thousands or millions of units in a free space. Peter did not get a percentage of how much space he had left, only the option to pay 5 million essence to expand it. Not a lot of essence in the long run, but it was pretty substantial right now.not something he would likely do in the near future. For now, he guessed he had utilized about 85% of the available space. Right now the headquarters took up a good 60% of it, but he also had his personal room. Then there were other rooms for things like a hot tub, sauna, and such. Things he could mentally shift to something else when needed.

  “As an exertion of his dominance,” Peter did not allow things to begin until everyone was present, and had a chance to pick from the food. There were only 7 beings in total: Peter, Boris, Delilah, Khan, and the other 3 dark elf deans. Peter did not expect much from the deans.

  “Boris, why don’t we start with an abbreviated report,” Peter said, thinking that he might as well hear his aid first since Khan would try to dominate things once he got a hold of the discussion.

  “Collections are proceeding as normal. Talk from adventurers indicates no upheavals that might affect things in the near term.” Boris reported.

  Peter nodded. He had the robot or his underlings monitor what was being said inside of his dungeon. Something that he had instituted early on. Had not resulted in much that would really affect them, but when Peter got curious the information on prospective settlement changes or other developments was there for his perusal sorted and filed by the clockwork E tiers, so far the only note of interest that he had learned was that there was a dungeon in the neighboring country of Warsaw. A country that Dawn, the country his dungeon lay in, had formerly been a part of.

  There were two notes of interest about that dungeon. For one it was clearly older. Second, it was an insect dungeon. Although from that much information he had no way to determine which core the dungeon actually belonged to. Still it was not something that would hopefully affect things in the short term.

  “Any recommendations,” Peter asked his aid.

  “Nothing new, that we have not previously discussed. Although I would like to emphasize that we are leaving a lot on the table technology wise. Based on what I’ve seen, older dungeons have progressed in that area to some extent regardless of whether they had units like clockworks or not . I have tinkered with ideas in my spare time along with some of my subordinates, but if we only depend on the E tiers that work at it full time we won’t progress very far or do so very quickly.”

  It was not surprising. Indeed Peter had seen the undead using steam punk short barrel cannon like devices shooting high arching flaming ball like projectiles. They were more like mortars than cannons, but they had been far from the only thing. He had even seen some plasma rifles or something of that sort carried by skeleton units drawing power from some larger battery like device. It was the one case of D tier units that he had witnessed in the centurion battles. It might seem like something that would break the heavily fantasy-like dungeon theme, but when spells were just as or even more devastating as such weapons they were by no means balance breakers. Just another prospective tool.

  Peter used Boris’ comment to segway into his own plans. “Exactly, that was why, for my first move, I was planning on increasing the number of support personnel. More competent workers, not the various E or D tiers that we have laying around. Gnomes for technology, mining, running the forge. Hopefully I can get some helpful moon elves as well.”

  Khan clearly did not like the idea, his scowl was contorted a step beyond what he had previously witnessed. The sentiment was shared on the other three dark elf faces. Delilah however had to hide her smile with a hand.

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  Peter continued through before any of them could protest. “We also have the dryad card which hopefully can help out with the college of herbology. Long story short, I’m interested in diversifying and bringing out the strengths of various races.” Peter snuck in that last sentence as he saw Khan working finally working himself up to tap in.

  “Now you got more dark elf cards as well. No reason a dark elf could not head other fields of study. Better than any moon elf, likely,” Khan said in a challenging manner. Peter wasn’t stupid so didn’t respond. Satisfied, Khan continued.

  “I will admit the gnomes are probably the best for technology,” Khan remarked regretfully before adding. “Although the dark elves could also do just fine making weapons, N’torra has plenty to focus on to build and manage our inventory.”

  Khan was not done. He had to highlight each of the other deans contributions. “N’tuma managed our defense and watched the other battles. I’m sure he has some ideas on how to improve things, but we could always use more martial leaders.” “N’terrin is figuring out how to breed dungeon monsters more effectively, and I… I hardly need help with my department,” Khan said, dismissing the idea that a dryad could in any way add something that he couldn’t.

  “Yes, I’m not downplaying the dark elf contributions to the last battle, or for our future. But I am the design dungeon core, not dark elf. To play to the strengths of my type I need to be highly versatile, a mishmash of whatever I need. Dark elves are not all I need…” Peter took things back.

  He had spent all day thinking up a counter against Khan. Delilah made the so-so hand sign. Clearly she thought it was weak, so appearently did Khan

  “A force, a unit, a dungeooon…. Will be far more cohesive if all the forces are able to interact and work with each other. Just ask this box of gears here,” Khan retorted, indicating Boris who just sat there unbothered about the potential insult. “An arrow can only move in one direction and continue to be effective.”

  Delilah stifled a laugh behind her hand. If she had the mental link, she probably would have said, ‘I told you so.’ But end of the day, this was his dungeon.

  “That is my decision,” Peter said daringly. “The dark elves have brought materials like dark wood. I’m interested in what the dryads or moon elves might bring to the table. I’m interested in what technology and weapons the gnomes will add. As well as other races in the future. I will add more dark elves, but they will only ever be a part of my dungeon. A part of this council,” Peter hung that last bit.

  Actually wilting from the challenge, Khan settled back in his chair. He crossed his arms. “Still don’t think we need moon elves,” he grumbled more to himself.

  Delilah did a few fake hand pumps concealed from Khan by her body, and mouthed ‘yeah.’ N’terrin and N’torra both noticed since they were on the opposite side of the table. Both smiled.

  Leadership or being in control were both concepts to him. In his mind, despite being 23… 25 now he was not much different than the kid he had been through high school, so he somewhat unconsciously accepted some old guy bossing him around. He could only wonder when he crossed over some sort of threshold where the internal view of himself as a youth would become less prevalent. Regardless, he would need to get better.

  “Now lets move on.”

  N’tuma the combat dean made some good points about army structuring based on his observations, but it might be a while before they could actually implement most of them, but in the end it was Khan who made the most valid recommendation. The old guy had changed his arrogant tone to bring up a legitimate concern.

  “Listen young master. I know you are the design core… But especially for units that will likely only be used to supplement our numbers or for those being used for support,” he let that hang before continuing his point. As far as the support, he was obviously referring to the moon elves since Peter could not display them in battles.

  “You should not necessarily use combination cards. Even for a doublification we are spending a 100,000 essence for the other design card component. Sure we are more likely to get a stronger A tier, but we could also have 2 A tiers for the same cost…”

  That floored Peter for a moment. The guy had a point. Of course he wanted the strongest, smartest units possible. Even researchers, crafters could be more effective if they were a touch smarter. Then again was it worth the potential millions it would take right now to build up such a retinue. Then for battles having a higher number of A tiers also had its own merit. To some extent he had been caught in a gambler like mentality. Each combination at least offered the hope of a complete tier up or some awesome combinations. He could still do some to get some true elites, but he should not do it everytime.

  How long had he been sitting on all the clockwork cards? He wanted to wait until he could ensure getting something useful, but how far down the line was he willing to wait? He had been sitting on a pair of B tiers for a year now, and the A tier for half a year. Khan probably had not previously pointed them out because he did not particularly want more clockworks running around, but he definitely would not allow Peter to sit on a dark elf origionals.