Dungeon Overlord: My First SSS Gacha Summon Was a Yandere

"System, raise the upgrades category to level four, please."

[ Spend 1,500 mana points on upgrading the upgrades category to Level 4? ]

"Yes~~!"

[ Upgrades Category -> Level 4. ]

[ New upgrades are now available. ]

[ Dungeon Heart — Level 4 -> Level 5 — Cost: 1,500 mana points ]

[ Buildings Category — Level 4 -> Level 5 — Cost: 2,000 mana points ]

[ Summons Category — Level 4 -> Level 5 — Cost: 2,000 mana points ]

Freya couldn’t have been anything other than delighted, having just gained an entirely new way of seeing mana that went far beyond anything she could have imagined, a quantum one at that, on top of receiving a new Gacha that was permanent unlike the last two, and to top it all off she had watched her own classification rise to the point of becoming a Mana Transcendent, which, without her quite knowing what that actually entailed, made her happy simply by bringing her closer to that status of a god Aria had promised her.

And above all of that, the notifications she had been dreaming about for weeks were finally displayed right in front of her.

So she couldn’t help humming as she gave her instructions to the system.

"As usual, let’s not waste any more time~~ System, raise the Heart to level 5, please~~!"

[ Spend 1,500 mana points to raise the Dungeon Heart to level 5? ]

"Yes~!"

[ Congratulations! Your Dungeon Heart has reached level 5. ]

[ You now generate 50 mana points every hour. ]

Before running a single calculation, she turned her eyes straight to her dungeon’s Heart, and what she saw killed off any desire to count anything at all.

The billions upon billions of Quantimana contracted all at once, every one of them drawn toward a single point at the center, compressed under a density that bore no resemblance whatsoever to what she’d been looking at moments earlier, and then everything released at once.

And she finally understood what she had never managed to explain to herself before, namely that this famous density she observed with each evolution of her Heart was nothing other than the number of Quantimana exploding upward and multiplying.

Woooow~~

Of course, she couldn’t say whether it had multiplied by one point two, by two, by three or by considerably more, since counting at that scale was simply impossible, but it was visual, and she could see it as clearly as she could feel it, the number of Quantimana was now far greater than it had been.

She stayed there a while, pleased at having caught the phenomenon, which she was already classifying as the most beautiful thing she had ever witnessed in her entire existence.

Well... not counting that sweet Aria, obviously~~

She now had an idea, or rather the beginnings of a lead, because she had seen the phenomenon with her own eyes and that might help her later in understanding the mystery surrounding Quantimana, her Heart, and the Dungeon Lords themselves, or so she hoped.

And either way, I’m not losing anything on the trade, given how beautiful it was!

Anyway! Now, on to the math~~!

The fifty mana points per hour confirmed exactly what she’d thought last time, namely that the progression worked in tiers, and she no longer had the slightest doubt that the next upgrade would bring her a hundred per hour, but she refocused on the current tier, which was fifty.

Which amounted to the modest sum of one thousand two hundred mana points per day, precisely double what she had been earning moments earlier.

She was satisfied with that passive output, even if the joy was somewhat dampened by the fact that she still earned considerably more from the percentage taken off her faction.

So she moved straight on to the next step, without even bothering to check her remaining mana, knowing perfectly well that she had seven thousand points left.

"System, raise the Buildings category to level five, please."

[ Spend 2,000 mana points to raise the Buildings category to level 5? ]

"Yes~!"

[ You have unlocked eight new buildings! ]

[ Forest Generator — Level 1 (0/1) — Cost: 1,000 mana ] Generates a forest from mana, the timber of which is then cut by your Worker Mycofoxes. Requires 10 mana points per day to operate.

[ Iron Ore Generator — Level 1 (0/1) — Cost: 1,000 mana ] Generates iron ore from mana, subsequently extracted by your Worker Mycofoxes. Requires 10 mana points per day to operate.

[ Burrow Complex — Level 1 (0/2) — Cost: 750 mana ] A complex of Mycofox burrows capable of housing numerous residents. Consumes food each day to function.

[ Nursery — Level 1 (0/1) — Cost: 1,000 mana ] Unlocks Mycofox reproduction, used for delivering Mycofox young and caring for newborns. Requires a Nurse Mycofox. Requires 5 mana points per day to operate.

[ Universal School — Level 1 (0/1) — Cost: 1,000 mana ] Allows young Mycofoxes leaving the Nursery to be educated in the fundamentals of universal knowledge. Requires an Educator Mycofox. Requires 1 mana point per day to operate.

[ Academy — Level 1 (0/1) — Cost: 1,000 mana ] Allows Mycofoxes leaving the Universal School to study universal knowledge at an advanced level. Requires an Instructor Mycofox. Requires 2 mana points per day to operate.

[ University — Level 1 (0/1) — Cost: 1,500 mana ] Allows Mycofoxes leaving the Academy to specialize in a domain of their choosing, pushing universal knowledge to the maximum it can reach within that specific domain. Requires a Professor Mycofox. Requires 3 mana points per day to operate.

[ Mana Proliferation Reactor — Level Max (0/1) — Cost: 3,000 mana ] A reactor containing a miniature Quantimana Core which, through the [law of mana conservation] and the [law of quantum mana proliferation], creates a self-sustaining proliferation of mana. Requires a Reactor Technician Mycofox. Requires 100 mana at launch to initiate the proliferation.

[!] The mana created by the Mana Proliferation Reactor does not feed the Mana Heart, but solely the dungeon’s buildings, thereby reducing daily costs. Excess mana is released into the dungeon and its surroundings, spreading into the world. [!]

[ Building count increased! ]

[ Storage Vault: limit raised to 3 buildings. ]

[ Dungeon Farm: limit raised to 5 buildings. ]

"Huh...?"

Her mind went blank for several moments, the sheer shock of it overtaking even her excitement.

She stayed like that for long seconds, simply reading, rereading, and rereading again what was in front of her, as though making sure none of it was about to vanish.

"A-a-a... a damn mana proliferation reactor?! Are you kidding me?!"

She leaned forward on her throne, her eyes running from one line to the next.

"A miniature Heart inside it?! And these laws? The law of mana conservation—"

She was cut off by the notification that appeared on its own to answer her.

[ Law of Mana Conservation: Mana cannot be truly destroyed or created from nothing; it can only be converted between different quantum states, forms of energy, or physical manifestations. ]

"So basically, no matter the density or even what you do with it, mana never disappears? It can only change form? And what about the law of quantum mana proliferation?"

[ Law of Quantum Mana Proliferation: When the density and energy of quantimanas within a confined field exceed a critical threshold, their quantum states enter collective resonance, causing the mana field itself to generate additional quantimanas and thereby increasing the total quantity of stable mana. ]

"S-so..."

She let out a long breath to gather herself in the face of all this information and all these staggering things she was learning at this very moment.

"Just to be sure, could you explain to me how it works and why these two laws cause mana to reproduce, in simple terms, please?"

[ ... ]

"...Please?"

[ The Law of Mana Conservation and the Law of Quantum Mana Proliferation work together within the reactor: a small Mana Core inside it compresses an initial amount of mana until the quantimanas reach an extreme density, causing them to enter quantum coherence and release immense amounts of energy. The reactor captures this energy and converts it into additional quantimanas, while continuously recycling part of the newly generated mana through the core to maintain the critical density and sustain the reaction. Thus, the reactor continuously produces more usable mana. ]

"But... but?"

Hold on, Freya...

She sprang to her feet and started hopping on the spot while breathing out hard, purely to get out all of this excess that was currently driving her completely insane, Anubia still fastened to her arm and swinging along with every movement without ever letting go, though her mind wasn’t slowing down in the slightest for it.

But is this the same process I saw in the Heart? Except that doesn’t make sense? I increased the size of my Heart in a way with the upgrade, I didn’t create a generation of mana? So why did the extreme density occur at all? And shouldn’t it happen every single day, every time I receive my passive mana, which would mean mana being created constantly?

She let out another breath.

"Aaaah..."

Then she forced her thoughts to stop for a moment and let her body slide down to the floor, her back against the stone, the cold of it through her silk pajamas doing her a world of good.

She then turned toward Anubia and waved a hand at her a few times to tell her to leave.

"...Please, Anubia. Later."

The crystalline bee understood and detached herself, sending out the usual spurt of blood in the process, while whistling a thoroughly satisfied "bzzz~ bzzz~ bzzz~" over her harvest.

And Freya set about breaking all of it down from top to bottom, methodically this time rather than letting her excitement rush her along, breathing out regularly to bring her heart rate down.

She stayed like that staring up at her stone ceiling for several more minutes, breathing slowly and deeply, gradually calming down, even if her mind kept wandering off on its own toward the other buildings, toward the coming population boom in her dungeon with this new chain, toward that universal knowledge whose nature she had absolutely no idea about, and toward everything else, but each time she forced herself back to calm, until she was finally operational and capable of perfectly lucid thought.

Let’s start at the beginning!

...

No, this isn’t going to work like this!

She shot back to her feet, still every bit as overexcited, with far too many questions in her head to hope to sort them out alone, and knowing perfectly well that theorizing away in her corner would be entirely the wrong approach, she set off in search of Aria and her knowledge.