“Soooo… time for my present right?” Delilah stated as soon as he was done.

  “What really? We just went from no double S tiers to 3, along with 4 other powerful S tiers, and that is what you care for. We can’t just take a moment to bask in our dungeon’s greatness,” Peter asked.

  “Yes, yes it is all rather impressive, but wouldn’t you rather bask in something else…” she said, trailing a finger across his chest. Come to think of it, hadn’t she said something about clothes interfering with the energy absorption process. “Now come on, and don’t stick your nose in the air and talk about your greatness. I will have to avoid you for a while if you start reminding me of Gnther….”

  “Point taken,” Peter said, scurrying after her. Boris would take care of getting the new units situated.

  Fifteen minutes later, they were deep in the dark wood. Other than the earth trotter dryads nothing normally came this deep. Peter was not actually going to make his fishing pond into a development pool. It was not like he wanted his fish to get more powerful. It took only a few thousand essences to form the future shadow pool. The trees in the way were auto-cut down and put to the side between the long rows. Peter went ahead and spent one pinnacle dungeon upgrade.

  [Development pool (shadow) (Level 1): Provides 100 development essence daily that can be used to directly strengthen units up to peak B tier. (The shadow nature of the pool will increase effects up to 10% for dark or shadow based uses. It will decrease effects up to 10% for light or holy based units)]

  “I wonder if you will get the bonus,” Peter asked. Only the parenthesis shadow nature portion was a surprise. It seemed there were benefits and disadvantages just like there were for the mine to build the pool in a dark wood realm.

  “Maybe some, I doubt to the extent some shadow monster would get. Now upgrade it again,” Delilah said eagerly. Peter pulled up the upgrade option for level 2.

  [Development pool (Shadow) level 2 upgrade: increases the amount of Developmental points to 250. Maximum upgrade potential upgraded to A tier. (The shadow nature of the pool will increase effects up to 20% for dark or shadow based uses and will decrease effects by up to 20% for light and holy based uses.) Cost: 2 Pinnacle dungeon upgrades.]

  Peter did quick calculations. It would take a good 2 years to take a unit to peak A tier, which with level 2 pool would now be possible. One peak A tier was not much compared to even the three pinnacle upgrades he would use to get to that point, but this pool would be with him forever. If he devoted enough resources it would become even more powerful. Peter bought the second level so that he could see the third level.

  [Development pool (Shadow) level 3 upgrade: increases the amount of Developmental points to 500. Maximum upgrade potential upgraded to S tier. (The shadow nature of the pool will increase effects up to 30% for dark or shadow based uses and will decrease effects by up to 20% for light and holy based uses.) Cost: 4 Pinnacle dungeon upgrades.]

  Then Peter looked at the new development chart for level 3 and the projected level 4.

  Every successive tier encompassed a larger range, and the gaps between them grew as well. As far as Peter could tell, the gaps represented wasted potential required to set a foundation, probably more for game balance than anything else. He now would get 210,000 annual developmental essence. He could easily take a peak A tier and make it a weaker S tier in only a year. It would take another 2 years to take it to the peak of S. Not too bad but after that it would take 2 years of foundation to pop it up into the SS tier. Of course that was not currently available. He would have to use 8 pinnacle upgrades to unlock level 4 for that. Then likely 16 for level 5.

  Still Peter could imagine it. A level 5 development pool was a route to SSS tier units. Before he had known of the development pool, the route to SSS had seemed impossible to get to when S tier cards were the best that he could get. It was not terribly difficult to push a unit up to SS with the right support cards. It also was not impossible to get a single attribute up to SSS. He had proved both those points today, but to get a unit powerful enough where it was overall in the SSS tier had been clearly out of reach. Then the prospect of maxing the unit up at the peak of SSS was even more so. This development pond promised a way for both. That was a concern for the future, he could imagine and speculate about it when he had nothing better to do.

  For now, Delilah would have first dibs for the pool which should allow her to get to peak A tier by this year’s battle. By the year 9 congregation, she could be a S tier although only a weaker one. Of course that was assuming they only used it for her... Delilah was already tasked with providing B innate space sorcerer replacements for herself for out of dungeon operations. That would only set her back a few months worth of development though. Her handing off those duties was probably the best aspect of her becoming stronger. If she died during out of dungeon operations, then he would not even get the option of resurrecting her since he would not know about it.

  Delilah hung her head as she sifted her arm through the water. The pond had an inordinate amount of storage for energy. It could hold a year’s worth of developmental essence that would slowly charge day by day. Depending where she fell in the B tier range it would be several months before it could take her to the peak of B tier, through the foundational gap in between tiers and into the A tier. Peter would guess that Delilah fell on the lower end of the B tier as a humanoid despite her special attribute being at A(-) rank, not that he intended to ask. It was her pool to manage for now.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Peter did not consider sitting on the last pinnacle dungeon upgrade. He used it to bring 75 dark wood trees to level 2. It was just a small fraction of them since there were 14,000 plus trees in total, but the trees were also absurdly large. If one became tier 3 or 4 wood they would make tens or even hundreds of thousands of arrows, which would allow for stronger enchantments. For now however, Peter did not note a change in the trees. Maybe unlike the mine it was not immediate.

  A few months later, Peter bought the second maelstrom for his new space cessation mage, Einstein. Merlin and the S tier were actively working on the teleportation project. Already they had worked out a teleportation circle that could take a unit from one spot on the floor to another. It required two carefully inscribed circles at each location, something that would have to be set up well beforehand. A lot of effort for something that was not quite game changing yet, but in the future it could lead to inte-rfloor or even inter-dungeon teleportation.

  Around the same time Delilah became an A tier. The development pond allowed her to direct how the majority of developmental energy was used. Delilah was going to stick with being a ranged fighter. Most of her energy was used to increase her manna capacity, which would mean more super powered shots with her rifle. A small minority of the energy was automatically sent to increase her other capabilities. Even as the weakest A tier she was already stronger and faster despite shifting a majority of the energy to her mana capacity and potency.

  Peter summoned two final units to add to his maelstrom spawned forces. The first was this year’s new infantry unit. Like the last E’wuni guard, Peter wanted more of a blunt force brute to face the stone golems. Peter used design, steel, and force to summon the Hammer brigadier A(+). Heavy plate wearing soldiers that carried a shield and large war hammers.

  For the second summon, Peter used design, rift, and force. He chose the card types for the same reason. If the stone golem had highly defensive units, he needed a good counter that he could spam. Of the options, Peter went with the Crevice beast A. It was a grayish reptilian who obviously had a strength based focus. Not quite what he had been picturing but it was good enough.

  Peter summoned 5 maelstroms for both when the essence became available. Once they were purchased, he started saving the rest for the upcoming battle. Luckily, things outside the dungeon seemed stable as far as they could tell. No movement by the weevil or demon dungeons nearby. There was only one major capability change from the prior year. The night before the year 8 congregation, Peter visited the site.

  Merlin, Michael, and Einstein along with several dozen one offs of all 3 types were busy etching the rune circles from floor to floor. Well the sigil masters were etching according to Merlin and Einstein’s instructions. When it came to enchanted weapons or in this case runes, the results from the sigil masters outplaced those made from a regular mage using mana by a noticeable margin.

  “How far did we get?” Peter asked as he moseyed on up with Boris in two. Both Merlin and Einstein looked less than pleased with his interruption, but Peter did not care. As far as he was concerned, they could get over it. It was his dungeon.

  Einstein finally spoke up. His input had been crucial to developing the teleportation capability, but at this point Merlin was just as suited if not more to ensure things were etched right.

  “Well boss, we are affixing a rune location on every floor of our dungeon, which should allow for interfloor transportation. However, the runes are fixed and time consuming to make, so we will likely not be able to make new ones mid battle once they are destroyed. There will be minor protections against area magic attacks, but they will still be destroyed quite easily. Once a floor falls they will be able to destroy them with ease assuming they find them.”

  “Which they will be likely to search for once they realize we have the capability,” Peter finished.

  Einstein nodded. “There are a few other considerations. We can only send over a few units periodically which takes about half a minute per a run, and each run will cost mana, which will vary based on how many floors we skip with the connection. You will burn through a lot of mana to send units from floor 10 to 1, so you will want to have them as close to the receiving point as possible.”

  “Kind of defeats the point of teleportation,” Peter stated frustratedly.

  “That is not the only problem. The process will have to be run by a mage or multiple mages. To be a part of it requires a level of mana awareness most normal units simply do not have.”

  “So, I can’t use the mana intrinsic to all units. This does not seem very beneficial. The diameter of the ring is what 40 feet?”

  “Just over 36 feet, we found at certain points the cost decreased dramatically based on symmetry, basically anything to the power of four. Raise 4 to the fifth power will you 1024 square feet. Big enough to send a small strike force over, but small enough to keep the cost down,” Einstein stated confidently.

  “How big of a power requirement are we talking?” Peter asked.

  “Well,” Einstein’s face scrunched up as he mouthed things silently in his head. He was clearly running through the numbers. “Well it is difficult to put specific numbers on a run. The energy required deviates substantially based on the mass of things to be sent over, but also varies with other considerations. But a gross estimate is that it would require a standard A tier mages full capacity to make 1 run from the tenth floor to the first. Or you could have several hundred C tier mages that would all be wrung dry to do the same thing. Far more than you would expect due to some waste in the process with multiple units being involved.”

  That was clearly out of the question. No way he would burn out an A tier mage to send units across his dungeon. “What about scrolls or other methods that could be used by non mage units?”

  “We don’t have strong enough materials for single use teleportation spells. However, things are not as bad as I have made them seem. Glenda put aside several hundred dark crystals that we have filled with mana. I think a handful of my B tier one offs should be able to use them and have decent results, as long as you moderate how many floors we try to skip.”

  Peter nodded. The dark crystals could hold mana. If the amount was kept low enough they would be stable enough assuming they were not handled roughly. They would however be a one and done option for the mages, since it would take mana to refill them. It could be done slowly over a long time. More commonly one of the mages just filled them up to ensure they were filled with the proper amount.

  “What about inter-dungeon teleportation?”

  “Haha, I was meaning to ask you about that,” Einstein said. He rubbed his hands. “I would like to set up a team of sigil masters, cessation mages, and causality wizards to make one of these runes in the enemies dungeon as soon as we take the first floor, so they can collect data.”

  “Very well, but I want to ensure all traces of the runes get destroyed after you are done. If the other core somehow survives, I don’t want to give him a free capability,” Peter said. Then it occurred to him. “Once we are able to inter-dungeon travel will I be able to install runes in allies dungeons so we can go back and forth even throughout the year?”

  Einstein shrugged, looking at Merlin. Merlin stood self importantly. “It is of course possible, but we will need to run tests outside the dungeon in Terra proper. Tests which we will likely have to be apart of.” That made Peter grimace.

  How much essence would it take to keep 2 A tiers and 1 S tier out of the dungeon for such a prolonged period of time?

  Merlin continued. “It would also likely take a large amount of power for each trip, which would change based on how close or far the other dungeon was and probably some other variables.”

  Peter quit listening as the causality mage constantly made the idea seem less and less feasible. It was something he could dismiss entirely, but he would likely have to wait until he had some breathing room.