Worthy Core

As Xenia and Guy share the latest updates with the dungeon's guardians shortly after the midnight reset, each of them begins shouting, laughing, or cheering at various aspects of the new upgrades.

"Fifty in two minutes!? Unholy hells, I heard the ambush went well, but I had no idea it went that well!" Lollyp slides back in her chair, a hand going to her forehead. "That many deaths on my floor and I didn't even cause a single one of them! Though, fuck, what do you think comes after that? A hundred? No way anyone's stupid enough to line up that many idiots for us to take out, right?"

Sincere nods along. "Short of somehow collapsing an entire heavily crowded floor at once, it seems rather implausible. Perhaps even several. It's...perhaps not entirely impossible that another dungeon has received this before, but it must be quite rare. A few large raids or core-cracking attempts throughout history have gone quite badly, but I'm uncertain if any went that badly that quickly."

"And the chain effect!" Taly points at a piece of paper where Sincere has been taking notes. "I wonder how bad that bonus damage is...probably not enough to kill someone outright, but what if you kill multiple people at once? If a party of five comes in, you smash four of them at once, will the fifth just fall to pieces all on their own?"

"Gruesome, but effective, I'm sure." Pizola smirks as she catches Xenia's eye. "But the unlocks, hrmm? The S tier...that's good, yes? I'm not sure exactly how these letters work..."

Xenia gives a slight laugh. "Ah, yeah, I think it just...adds on more S's as it goes from there? I'm not sure what the theoretical max is, but Em's mirror is a double-S item. But yeah, first from the normal upgrades! Well, aside from food, anyways. Armor and undead...one of those is probably more valuable right now than the others, I'd say."

"Well, I wouldn't count out the thought of equipping some of our defenders in such superior gear." Trush grins as he crosses his arms, before furrowing his brow. "But we already have a problem of affording such rewards, do we not? Dungeon rewards were not intended to be produced in bulk and simply handed out. Can we actually make use of this?"

At that question Xenia has to sigh. "I might try and make at least one or two sets a day. I mean, virtually everyone came in here with their own gear, so it's not like I've gotta mass-produce a ton of C-tier shit just to give people something to wear. If we could get one squad equipped in something really good, it could turn them into game changers if we use them right."

Yulia, currently wearing her succubus form, raises her hand. "But yes, the undead, grandmother! Obviously this came from the great many new corpses we have collected. But what does this do for us?"

"Good question." The dungeon master doesn't answer right away, as her eyes skim through one of Guy's sub-screens. "The obvious bit is that I can upgrade Taly to an S-tier Banshee Queen. Tougher, faster, more magical reserves and all that. Oh, hey - at S-tier you get a new special banshee power! 'Mark For Death.' For the duration of a fight, you can cast it on someone and healing will hurt them instead of help them. That'll be a nice trick. Oh, and for Tank and Dips they get 'Extra Unlife'. After their armor is destroyed, they can possess one more item in the room, as long as it's not an intruder's own equipment. Putting some spares around the place won't be an issue."

"They'll be glad to hear that." Parker rubs his hands together, caught up in the excitement. "And DEATH?"

Xenia snorts. "'Hop Into the Grave', which lets him jump into the ground and then pop up somewhere else in the arena. Good for when he's getting overwhelmed by ranged opponents, I'd say."

"All excellent upgrades, grandmother." Sevastion, also wearing a demonic body at the moment, nods eagerly. "But are there new monsters as well? Something to crush our enemies wills, as well as their bodies? Eh?"

"Jeeze, settle down, kids, let granny read for a minute." The reincarnator continues going through the list. "Obviously, tougher versions of everything, but more expensive, too. If I turned all of the Terror Tentacles on Floor Three into S-tier versions, I'd only get like one or two per hallway. 'Angel of Death', that sounds promising. There's a...brain-eating worm that turns people directly into zombies? Honestly, not sure I'm feelin' that one. What if one of them got loose and ran for office or something? A couple specialized types of ghosts, and new sub-bosses for vampires and zombies and stuff...it's a long list to go through."

Parker brings her attention back to another point. "Let's not forget we've just unlocked our eleventh floor, right? Definitely useful. Any ideas for how to use it?"

The reminder makes the reincarnator grin. "Oh yeah, that's boss rush mode floor for sure. There was that 'Like a Boss' achievement I earned a bit back, which lets me replace a floor guardian with weaker versions of the previous four? Which means that on Floor Eleven we'd get copies of Yulia, Parker, Brightsky, and Pizola. Might have to think a bit about how to design an arena that works for all four of you, though having Brightsky to provide air support would definitely help the others out." Xenia's eyes widen, and she claps her hands together. "Oh yeah, and I get freebies for spending a floor unlock! I don't have a design planned out yet, but we need everything we can get right now, so...I'll just make an empty room down below the Core Chamber, and...there we go."

Before anyone can ask questions Guy produces a new screen, and Xenia waves it forward so that most of the room can see it.

Lollyp scratches her head. "How does magma get better in quality, anyways? Not that I've seen much of the stuff."

"Looks like it's higher temperature, mostly." Xenia peers at another screen. "Along with getting a sprite upgrade, seems like it's pushing a fire theme a bit there. Might be something to consider, we don't really use that aside from smaller traps so it's not something they'll be well-prepped for."

"All very useful." Valkyrie Brightsky's tone is even as she reviews the floating screens. "Well, perhaps not the...pigs. But there's another matter to address." As everyone turns their attention to the green-skinned elf, she continues. "What exactly is your current stockpile of souls, Xenia?"

"Welllll...with the seventy-nine today, the eleven from the first wave - we didn't manage to scoop up the ones that fell into the hole - and the ones I had before all this? ...One hundred and ninety-one."

There's a few dropped jaws and widened eyes at that number. Parker swallows as he considers it. "I'm aware many have lost their lives in here...but I had no idea it was so many."

"And that's just the ones Brightsky didn't want! By the way, do you want any of this batch?"

The valkyrie quickly shakes her head. "Perhaps there'd be some gems in the rough, but I'm not here to send my lord every random soldier who falls before me. Besides, it seems they may be of more use to you, if I'm not mistaken?"

"Yeah..." Xenia's lips turn into a thin smile. "I'd been stockpiling them for a while, not spending any, just in case something came up. But now something's come up, so it's time to make it rain. Let's bring up the store and check the options there again." She summons the screen for the Soul Store from Guy's floating form, but finds it to be slightly changed from the last time she viewed it.

"Ah, dangit! The S-tier stuff gets more expensive to upgrade? Well, I suppose at least they don't do a price increase at every tier..."

"Well, not like you can't afford it! But what's first on your list?" Lollyp's eyes literally grow larger, gleaming in the light of the room's magic crystals.

"There's a few obvious ones, for sure." Xenia begins tapping away at her screens, without bothering to ask for advice. A moment later, a receipt display appears.

"Annnd down to a hundred and one!" Xenia claps her hands, while Lollyp begins feeling at her own body.

"Whoa, I'm S-tier now!?"

"...Not yet, Lolly Pop, I actually gotta spend the mana to upgrade your body specifically, first. But these categories plus the undead represent the bread-and-butter of our monster and guardian types, so we may as well get you all boosted as much as possible. Might need some time to consider your new abilities and how to make use of them in the field, too."

"Interesting..." Pizola rubs her chin. "And just what are our new abilities?"

"Well, let's take a look and find out..."