Angie was reviewing the next dungeon in the lineup for Lindsay when she noticed how many dungeons could now be created. The three of them were nearing the end of the list, and the number of dungeons that could be created had grown to eighty. When they started, it was at seventy-three, so they had added seven more.

  After working with Nate on the dungeons like this, she was coming to appreciate just how much work they were. The key to making each one successful was having a higher-level Dungeon Core to pick up the slack and start taking care of things for them.

  Creating all those traps was a lot of work, and she hadn’t even been a part of it for more than a week or so.

  ***

  “Are you ready?” Aura asked the group as they finished up a while later.

  Nate nodded. “Just finished. The core in the Grand Canyon dungeon could be upgraded as well. Since all they really seem to do is drift through the dungeon and never do anything, the energy has been slowly building this entire time.”

  A few had left through the entrance, but most were content to just stay inside the dungeon. Since he had been studying them, he hadn’t filled the place with traps either. Honestly, they were mostly harmless. As long as you left them alone, they would do the same to you.

  That had bumped up the final number to eighty-one dungeons. They needed to start creating more dungeons. They were just getting so expensive and would only get more so. Still, that excuse only worked for so long.

  Lindsay caught Mika, who had jumped into her arms. “Is tonight the night? Are you going to advance your core and move into the next stage of cultivation?”

  Aura nodded. “That’s the plan. I’ve been working toward gathering enough energy for the last few days, and I almost have enough. Just a few more of those rainbow orbs should be enough to push me over the edge.”

  “You’ll be getting another tail, right?” She asked excitedly.

  “Yes,” Aura replied with a sigh.

  Mika flipped her own tail, tickling Lindsay’s nose with the tip, as though reminding her that she had a tail as well. “I’m sorry Mika, but you only have the one fluffy tail, and Aura is going to have five!”

  “You have a problem,” Angie told the girl as they got ready to enter one of the dungeons for a while. “Ever since you discovered Aura had four tails, you’ve been getting worse…” She stopped speaking. “Then again, I guess she did help you bond with your mother more.”

  “I’m not sure if that is a good excuse for terrorizing Aura,” Nate quipped. He had been busy selecting the dungeon they would enter that night. There were plenty of options, but they wanted one that had enemies they could handle and gave good rewards. They had discovered that it wasn’t just material goods that varied between races, but other items as well.

  The only real constant was the different herbs and the rainbow orbs. Everything else could fluctuate wildly from one dungeon to the next. However, even the number of herbs and rainbow orbs they would receive or, more accurately, the strength of those items could change between dungeons as well.

  He had always known that to some extent, however, the full difference had become more obvious over time as more dungeons were added.

  The particular dungeon they were going to was one that had been created in the far reaches of Canada. It was odd, as the same being had also appeared in Minnesota, except there they were somewhat weaker. They would be going up against Yetis. Snow beasts, the abominable snowman, the pale bigfoot. Whatever you wanted to call them, they were big and strong, at least in this dungeon. At the Minnesota variant, they were somewhat weaker and gave worse rewards as a result.

  If it was this dungeon, then they might only need one rainbow core to push Aura over the edge.

  “Dress warmly everyone, we’re heading to the arctic.” He said with a grin while knowing that he would likely be the coldest one among them. They could bring their regular clothes… Actually, they had yet to try that. “Um, would one of you mind bringing in a few items for me?” He asked sheepishly, quickly explaining the limitations of his equipment and the avatar.

  “It would be a little too powerful if you could just constantly bring out that weird gun of yours,” Lindsay agreed as they both took an item of clothing, just in case.

  “I like that weird gun of mine,” He protested. “But I also try not to use it that often. Since I don’t have one outside of the dungeon, it feels a little pointless to train with it every day when I could be using the crossbow, my kukris, or the kriegsmesser instead.”

  “You don’t have a kriegsmesser out here either,” Angie pointed out, as she put a coat on over her armor.

  “Yeah, but I might get one someday.” He said. “There’s little chance I’ll get another gun. I get the feeling that was the Dungeon Core or the Dungeon System, whichever just taking pity on me at the time.”

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  Lindsay pulled Mika from her neck and looked the sad weasel in the eye. “While we’re gone, I want you to sit on Nate’s chest like a good girl and guard him, okay? Make sure nothing happens to him while we’re gone.”

  Mika softly whined but bobbed her head in agreement, her tongue flicking out to lick the tip of Lindsay’s nose. Lindsay squealed and hugged her.

  “Alright, let’s do this. Aura, are you going in first?” Angie asked as Nate settled into place on the bed.

  Without saying a word, one way or another, Aura sank into Nate’s chest and vanished from view the next second.

  “Alright then, I guess that answers that question, and she is definitely impatient at this point.” Lindsay joked, before activating her own process and grabbing hold of Nate’s hand, only to sink into his skin in a flash of a light.

  “That is so weird looking,” Angie muttered.

  Soon enough, they were all inside the dungeon and freezing. As odd as the comparison might be, abominable snowmen had more in common with the Japanese Yuki Onna or Snow Woman than Bigfoot. They generated their own realm of cold and ice, and they were particularly good at it as well. In that way, the traps that he had put in the dungeon had proven remarkably ineffective. While they had worked against the weaker variants in the Minnesota dungeon, the ones here were simply too strong.

  Until the traps became stronger, either through research or the Core leveling up, the traps were next to useless. They were distractions to the monsters and little more.

  They weren’t there to inspect or criticize the effectiveness of the traps in the dungeon though. This time they were there to gather rainbow energy orbs for Aura, so she could advance to the next cultivation stage.

  “Why is it so cold?” Lindsay demanded, her teeth chattering.

  Nate glared at her, his skin turning red beneath his armor and clothes. “At least you have a coat and thick pants on.” He said, the clatter of his own teeth making it hard to be understood. “Try to pull out my clothes, please? I’m freezing here.”

  If this didn’t work, then they would move on to a different dungeon. The cold was just unbearable, and there was supposed to be steam vents scattered about the place. Funnily enough, the yetis had taken offense to them and worked to freeze everyone that they could find. Occasionally, one would blow its icicle lid, but the place was so cold by this point that it would reform fairly quickly afterward. Even the vents they hadn’t found had begun to freeze over.

  They were so strong that they had quite literally overpowered the theme of the dungeon and made one of the essential traps worthless.

  Yet, here the group was, preparing to go hunt them down for Aura’s sake.

  Lindsay tossed him his coat, and then his snow pants, which he gratefully put on. Instantly feeling warmer. A hat and gloves followed a moment later.

  “Hmm, alright, it looks like I was right. The two of you can bring in items for me to use, getting around my own limitations!” Nate exclaimed happily.

  Well, he said that, but the limitation wasn’t all that serious most of the time. It wasn’t like he wanted to swap his equipment around most of the time anyway. There had been occasions where it would have been useful, and he had hesitated because he would have lost one of his avatar’s weapons. Now he didn’t need to worry about that anymore.

  Actually… he glanced at Aura and mentally palmed his face. Why had they never thought to try this out beforehand? She had a storage function as well, so there had been nothing stopping her from doing the exact same thing as Angie or Lindsay. All he had needed to do was ask… or think of it.

  Nate groaned, feeling like an idiot.

  Sticking a fire-aligned beast core into the hopper of his gun, he made sure it was ready to be used before holstering it and unslinging the crossbow from his back.

  While he had been getting dressed, Angie had been working with her sling and sword. She eventually put the sword away, not liking how clumsy it felt in her gloved hands. During this run, she would be sticking with her sling and the heavy ball bearings she collected every chance she saw them in a store.

  Lindsay would be focused on her halberd, as it was capable of massive damage due to its size and weight.

  While they had been getting ready, Aura was studying the dungeon ahead of them.

  “If you three are ready, I have found our first target,” She informed them. “This particular yeti is three rooms ahead of us and appears to be asleep at the moment inside a shelter of its own making.”

  With those words and a few images echoing inside their heads, the kitsune took the lead.

  She wasn’t kidding about the yeti that was to be their target, being asleep inside a homemade shelter. Each of them had pulled up camera screens to view the dungeon ahead as they moved and saw what appeared to be a large igloo made of ice.

  “Are there any traps in this place that still work?” Lindsay hissed upon witnessing the large being sleeping on a bed of ice with a pillow of snow.

  Nate chose that moment to slip, getting sent to his rear with a pained grunt. “I doubt it,” He grumbled. “The floor and walls are all covered in a layer of ice. These stupid abominable snowmen are making the place too cold. Until we upgrade the Dungeon Core, I don’t even know if there is anything that can be done. At least they seem content to stay inside and keep adding energy to the dungeon.”

  Collecting energy through just their presence was much slower than their deaths. It was based on how much qi they naturally released into the air. They kept the purer qi and released the corrupt energy or affinities they couldn’t use. At least that was how Aura had explained it to him, which meant it varied from race to race and being to being.

  It added up. He had seen it before, but it just took longer was all.

  In this case, the yetis were releasing a fairly small amount of qi naturally. It would take another week or two before they could perform the upgrade. If they could manage to kill a few of them though, that might change things.

  Nate took hold of his gun, charging a shot, while Aura prepared to use a skill from her third tail, the red one. The skill was called ‘Magma Spear’ and was a mix of fire and volcanic rock.

  Cracking his neck, Nate aimed and fired at the ice dome. The fire cores were an interesting one to use as they were somewhat different from the rest. If he just squeezed the trigger like normal, a bullet of fire would shoot out and splash almost uselessly across whatever he had aimed at. If he held the trigger down, then it became a flamethrower. However, if he charged the attack, then it became something truly awesome. It was still a flamethrower, only now it was spitting out napalm mixed with thermite that stuck to whatever it touched.

  The ice dome only took a few seconds to cover in a burning layer of fire.

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