Peter hit the ground running at the beginning of his year 3 congregation. “To your 7 o’clock,” Boris alerted him. Peter immediately looked around locating the Holy core making his way toward one of the stairwells. He moved quickly to intercept the guy. The holy type core was a middle aged looking man who wore a blue full body wizard robe. He was moving toward the far stairwell, the one closest to the stage. Was the guy trying to hide?

  Peter reached the base when the other was halfway up. “Holy core, I would like to make a deal,” Peter called up after him. It was hushed, no other cores were around to hear, but Peter did doubt that the two of them had not been witnessed headed this way by somebody.

  Holy turned his unease vanished when he saw who it was. A moment later a smile even crept onto his face. “I know who you are? And I’m sure I can guess why you are here. You will probably need my card type more than I will myself? The real question is why should I trade with you? My fate is basically already sealed.”

  Abyss had stated that this guy would be desperate, but it was a step further than that. The guy had not given up, but unfortunately it did not seem that Peter would get a good deal from holy. The thought was that perhaps the guy would be more am I able to help someone spit into the eye of his enemies. The core in front of him was far more cynical.

  “Here,” Peter said, holding out a design card. “My card will help you craft units better suited to whomever your opponent is.”

  Holy took the core and studied it. “True, I can see it’s use, but I would not be able to do so in the numbers I would need.” He handed the card back. “Like I said earlier my head is already on the chopping block. Unless you’re willing to part with a pair of your spare cores, I don’t see a reason why I should help you.”

  Peter twitched at the mention of the spare cores. They were handed out like candy to rookie dungeons winning battles in their first year, but after that they were pretty hard to get. You could get one if you unlocked the appropriate epic rarity card like he had been offered with his last card unloc, but Peter would never use an available card unlock for that.

  Other than that you could win them as rewards later on in the intermediate or centurion divisions, but generally only if your opponent was from a much higher year group than yourself. Then again he had 3 spare cores at this point, but with the presence of cards like Double tap which was only a rare card, only one extra spare core would not mean a whole lot.

  That being said, trying to build up block challenge cards or spare cores was an extremely defensive approach. If he was ever at the point where he was accepting a loss one year, then he probably would not last the next. Wouldn’t using these cores to get more tangible assets, be far more effective at ensuring his survival.

  Even if he lost today, there was a good chance that his opponent would not have a double tap card, so one spare core should suffice. Then again if he had really pissed off the undead, they might have gotten one of their elders to trade them one since they knew he had quite a few spares.

  Peter struggled with it for another moment before he decided. He crafted the trade to see how much the interface balance law would allow. Apparently the price the interface put on his spare cores was 1 million essence, although he saw that he could also add some support cards in addition. Not as much as he had hoped, but if he was going to do this he was going to milk the other core for all he could.

  “Very well, I will trade two of my spare cores for the max that I can get from you. 2 million essence in cards, and 20 common support cards or 3 uncommon. I would like to pick the support cards, and of course the card tiers that I will receive.”

  “No negotiation, that's the deal. It will effectively give you another year, maybe two to figure out what you can do. If nothing else… Then it is still a year,” Peter added, when Holy’s face took on a contemplative look.

  “Kid, you might be crazy. I guess I don’t have much choice in the matter,” Holy stated, accepting. “You’ve stirred things up yourself. Hope you don’t regret this decision later,” he added with an evil smile. It definitely was not from concern more similar to the expression a devil might make after it had signed a deal for someone’s soul, creepy…

  “Maybe so,” Peter said, departing in the opposite direction. Holy frequented the other side of the room that Peter had barely set foot. Holy’s support cards had been extremely limited, so Peter ended up with 8 doublifications, 5 increases, and 7 equipment cards. The guy had no uncommon or higher support cards at all. What Peter had just taken was likely what the guy was holding onto to use today.

  Then again, perhaps he should not be surprised. He had alot of support cards right now, but he was also getting 50 more each year for defeating another dungeon in battle as well as the 10 that he could buy. Most dungeons went years or even decades between battles so only got the 10 they could buy each year.

  As far as the card types, Peter went with 50 B tiers and 15 A tiers. If he did get challenged by an undead core, he would use all 50 B tiers immediately to buff up his forces. Then he would probably use a handful of the A tiers. He could have gone with 20 A tiers, but this way he would he would ensure a large number of stock cards on top of winning today.

  Peter would need this card type in the future, so he did not want to brun through them carelessly. Whoever he faced today would likely be the easiest undead or fiend opponent he would ever face. A decade from now he might very well be in the same position as Holy fighting cores two or three times older than himself. Surviving and winning today was of course important, but preparing for the future was far more so. He doubted he would be trading with Holy again, so these cards were what he would get.

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  On the way back, Peter ran into another familiar face walking back to their side of the room. The red demoness was smiling, and it only deepened when she caught sight of him. They both shifted their trajectory to meet at the middle stairwell back up to their side.

  “Whats so funny,” Peter asked as the two fell in step together.

  “Oh nothing, I just challenged one of the insect faction,” Elyra said still quiet pleased of herself.

  “Why is that funny?” Peter asked. The demoness had said she would challenge one of the insect faction rookies, but he and the others from their group had all thought she had been joking.

  “Oh, it's because of who my opponent is. A total loser for sure, but the other insect rookies were pissed.”

  Peter did not have to ask who she was talking about. Like the young undead cores had been depending on the ghost type, the insect faction had a core that was important to them, the butterfly core. Bug, arachnid, and whatever else fell into their faction were generally pretty resilient. The butterfly type could both fly and was a common healer core type for the faction.

  “I guess you were serious last year. We all thought you were joking,” Peter said exasperated. Having the undead mad at him was one thing, he had just basically ensured he could beat one of them and prepared for that future. Having a second powerful faction paying attention to him was not what he needed. Not when he still needed to get himself in position to make a mass deal with Dragon one of these years and prepare for when they joined the intermediate dungeons, now only 7 years away.

  “I would never joke,” Elyra said dismissively. “Hope you aren’t regretting being in my group now. I was just starting to like you. I was looking for someone to create some havoc with. Might be difficult to survive upsetting all the big factions if I was the only point of focus, but with a few others to take the heat with me…” she smiled wolfishly.

  “Great… does this mean you would be willing to trade 1 for 1 with me?” Peter asked.

  “Ha, 2 for 1 is the deal. What's the problem already out of all your ghost type cards?”

  Peter ignored her. When they got to the top of the stairs they both went in opposite directions. She was headed to the table their group had claimed last year. Peter was headed to check in with Emma and Fellette. Talking about insect dungeons had reminded him.

  “I found out there is an insect faction dungeon in the next country over, is that something I need to be worried about,” Peter asked as he claimed a chair.

  Emma and Fellette looked at each other. It was the ape core that spoke up first. “Normally not, attacking enemy dungeons on Terra is something that we’ve only heard about in legends. Another country might attack the one you currently reside in to take control over your dungeon, but other than a short term disruption to your essence collection it would eventually pick back up with the country that took over.”

  “What do you know about the other dungeon?” Emma asked.

  “Not much, just that it is an insect dungeon and that it has been around far longer than I have. I don’t know whether it would belong to the centurion or intermediate group, and I do not know what insect type since the adventurers in my dungeon mentioned 3 or 4 different types they encountered on only the first level and more on the following. They were comparing the dungeon floors.”

  “Well, is there a reason why the insect dungeon might want to act against you?” Emma asked, not particularly concerned. Peter told them about Elyra’s challenge.

  “Oh hun,” Emma said, she was clearly more concerned now.

  “The insect dungeons are exactly the type that you should be afraid of in this instance. Probably not the rookie dungeons, but the older types are even more cold blooded than the reptiles. Less logical to… I guess you could say their survival instinct is not the strongest. They will go scorched earth against cores or groups that upset them. That little demoness has really set you guys up. I don’t know why I’m sure Helen would have taught her better.” Fellette shook his head.

  “She’s been getting two or more cards with every trade, so she has a lot more resources than someone in our year would normally have. Do you think the other dungeon would even be aware of mine yet? Would the restrictions prevent some old centurion from attacking me in Terra?”

  “No, the restrictions would not stop them,” Emma replied glumly. “And it is extremely unlikely that the other dungeon does not know about your dungeon and has not even scouted you out by now.”

  “What!” Peter asked. He was shocked that the other dungeon might have already visited him.

  “Don’t worry, they would not have sent a unit inside and you would definitely know if they had. I’m sure you have read in the manual how dungeon units can be sent out,” Emme asked. Peter nodded. Dungeon units could leave the dungeon, but it would basically require a continual essence infusion to the unit to keep them from breaking down. For someone like him, trying to make every little bit of essence count, he had not even tried it.

  “Well most dungeon core’s will not send out too many units, and if they did it would be units operating in the alternate dimension out of sight of the populace. That significantly reduces the amount of essence needed to keep a scout unit from dispersing into the ether. Most dungeon cores will start sending out scouts to monitor their country and scout out their surroundings once they have survived the intermediate integration and have a bit of breathing room.”

  Fellette picked up, “Most interactions between dungeons in Terra however are more clandestine. Killing another’s scout, or doing things that might disrupt things in their country and therefore affecting their essence collection. It would usually involve assassinations or wiping out a village or portion of the populace since even sentient units cannot communicate with the native populace whether spoken or otherwise.”

  “But like we said, attacking another dungeon directly is the stuff of legends, other than perhaps the millennials there isn’t a dungeon alive that would have seen something like that. They would not send a whole army if they did, but that would not matter at this stage for you. If hundreds or thousands of A and S tiers showed up on your doorstep, it would be difficult for you to stop them,” Emma concluded.

  “However if you do survive, you would receive a huge payday in essence. Might even make it worth losing a spare core, if you could wipe a bunch of them out,” Fellette said scratching his chin. “Of course you would have to use it all to fight again since they would likely continue to come back until the job was finished.”

  Peter did not mention that he had just traded away several of the spare cores. Most cores might think he was crazy. The prospect of getting attacked at any time was not a comforting thought. Just one more thing to worry about.