Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 48

"Think they'll venture into the city today?" It was day three of immersion, and James watched as Z and the Knight's once again made their way through the first floor, heading casually for the barn. Other groups of adventurers in the instance cast glances at the party as they moved about, many eyeing the knights with envy. Not only were the Knight's wearing their full Demonic Farmer sets, each of them was wielding a weapon crafted with materials from the second floor, and each had a steampunk dinosaur pet.

After their party wipe, the Knights proceeded to kill all the mobs they could on the first floor, before hoping back into the second floor. Skar's team, after cursing Z and his group for stealing some of their mobs, had stormed back to the second floor and the city, and promptly gotten wiped by another pack of mobs. Unlike Skar's group, Z's group decided to avoid the city, and check out the area around it. In doing so, they had found James's Break-i-asarus and Steamosaurusus for farming. These were the mobs they proceeded to hunt every time they dove, for the past two days.

During that time, James had managed to at least hit Tier 2 Rank 2, and was making his way slowly towards Rank 3. Because of his level up, the mobs on his second floor jumped from level 15 to 16, while B.L.U. became level 21, and the Terminus Rex, still undiscovered, had grown to level 26. James was really hoping Z's group would find his final boss, but he figured they believed B.L.U. was the actual boss of the floor, since it was a roaming mob, just like Old Man Jenkins. Oh how they were in for a surprise.

Along with his rank up, James had held off on upgrading his second floor mobs, as only a handful of parties had managed to make it to the second floor, and actually survive against the mobs. So far, no groups, other than Skar's made the mistake of entering the city more than once, as between the Spy-nosaurusus and the velocity raptors, they could not make it out alive. The groups that farmed outside the city, as well as purposefully returned to their new floor one to clear the floor, had started to climb in experience and level much faster than those still struggling through James's first floor.

The way James saw it, the mobs outside of the city, the ones that ranged from level 1-10 that the developers had put in, was the training area. Once parties were confident with those mobs, they made their way to James's dungeon, and fought against the horror that was his demonic farm. From there though, most players had been advised to farm the farm until they were at least level 15, giving them a fair warning about going through the portal to the second floor.

Many players were paying heed to this warning, and spending a lot of time in the demonic farm. James figured this wasn't just for the experience gain, but also because of the draw of not only quests, but the pet drops on the floor. It seemed a lot of players had taken up pet battling, and there was apparently an extremely high demand for these mobs. What's more, some people had found Old Man Jenkins had the chance to drop a miniature version of himself. Needless to say, there was a lot of boss farming going on, on top of mob slaying.

Because of the popularity of these pet drops, Rue's shrine had been getting a lot of attention as well. It had been found, and immediately posted on the forums for James's players, that the shrine had different tiers, which could grant different percentage increases to loot chance. Now, while players didn't know what percentages James had set for his loot, the percent increases the shrine gave were shown to the player who inserted a coin and pulled the lever.

The shrine varied its bonus chance dependent on the type of coin inserted, which James had to admit, was a rather crafty ploy by Rue. If a copper coin was inserted, players had a chance to gain a 1-5% increase to loot drops. A silver coin gave a 5-10% chance, and so far, no one had attempted to drop a gold coin at the shrine, but James could guess it would increases their chance by 10-15%. Granted, an increase of 10-15% of an item with only a 1% chance to drop wasn't much, gamers would still pay, especially on later floors, and especially because the buff seemed to increase in duration dependent on the coin offered. Copper coins granted a 30 minute buff, silver coins granted 1hour. So the more coin you dropped, the better and longer chance you got for farming.

"Well, they look like they might be ready." Rue was glancing at her screen, and James could guess she was counting. According to the pixie, 1 copper coin translated to .01 resources, so it took 100 copper coins, or 1 silver, for her to make a single resource. At first James had balked at the conversion, before he remembered just how many adventurers came through his dungeon every hour or two. Currently James, with Rank 2 Instance research, was able to have 20 instances with 30 adventurers in it for just tier 1, as well as 20 tier 2 instances with the same max. While there was only ever 1 or 2 tier 2 instances created, James's tier 1 instances were always full. That meant over 600 adventurers at a time, and almost every single one of them was willing to cough up a copper to the shrine of the Goddess of Luck.

"I mean, they've been going non-stop. Likely they wanted to make sure they could bring B.L.U. down on a single try." James's comment earned him a nod from Rue, and the pixie waved her hand, closing her screen, to watch the group. The Knights had farmed longer and harder than James had thought they would, and on their last dive, the group had grown to level 20. The next closest group was Skar's group, as they were all close to level 18 last James had checked. However, the other groups James saw strolling around his tier 2 instances were all ranging from level 15 to 17. They were all experienced players from what James could see, but something about Z's group just helped them stay ahead. James guessed it was their bond and experience, as he could tell they had likely been gaming together long before immersion became a thing. Their bond was something that went deeper, and it allowed them to survive situations and push themselves harder than any of the other teams did.

"Well, I wish them the best of luck." Rue grinned as she watched the group near the portal, each of them offering each other a nod, before walking through. For a second their faces changed from carefree, to determined, and James felt excitement fill him. The past few days had started to grow boring for him, as everyone started to get into a routine, and his growth had slowed. He spent a lot of his time either watching movies with Rue, or chatting on the Dungeon Core forum. James needed something to pull him from his lull, and that something, he knew, was a high risk dive from a group. Based off of what he just saw, he was certain he was about to get just that.

"Should we stream their dive?" James glanced at the instance information just as Z's group arrived on his second floor. On the second day of his current immersion session, Dungeon Cores had started live streaming instances from their dungeons on the forums. The fact you could live stream instances had immediately led to an increase in not only activity on the forums, but a mass of streaming videos. From these, James and Rue could observe other dungeon's floors, their mobs, and their adventurers. During these live stream sessions, a chat window was available, so they could all comment in real time on the video they were watching. James had wanted to set up a live stream, and share his adventurers as well, but he just hadn't found the right time. He didn't want to share people just farming his mobs, and he hadn't found a group he wanted to share fighting his mobs. Other than Dwight's mimic video, which did happen to have a record number of views, James hadn't shared that much about his dungeon and its mobs. However, glancing at Z's group, James felt excitement growing. Maybe this could be the first epic moment he shared. Maybe this would be the video he would be proud of live streaming to the other dungeon cores.

"Why not." And with that, Rue waved her hand, and a new window appeared to the side of the instance window they were watching. A chat bar appeared on the side of it, where dungeon cores could interact, while an exact copy of the instance James was watching appeared in the window. Z's group was now being live streamed to any and all Dungeon Cores who wanted to watch. James smiled smugly as he watched the numbers slowly climb for viewer count. He hoped Z and the others didn't mind an audience. He also hoped they wouldn't let him down.