As soon as the two scouts were inside the mine , I could immediately tell just how weak they were. I mean, I had already known this, judging from the fact that they were f ranked and trying to fit in a rock-level guild.
However, I had at least expected that they would have some manna perception ability. I mean, how else would they even know whether I was a dungeon or not?
This rock guild had to be downright desperate to send such poorly trained scouts ,that is if at all they were even trained.
what if I was a dormant dungeon? Because from games and stories I knew some dungeons went into a sort of hibernation as a strategy.
Not that they were weak, they were powerful, but they probably wanted to play it low, to avoid strong adventurers coming to clear them too fast. Had that been the case, these two would have been dead long ago, as soon as they entered.
Then again, from what I knew about most guilds, they had no qualms sacrificing adventurers from lower ranks. I mean, they brought nothing to the guild. Not glory, not recognition, and not territory either. These are the things guilds valued.
That's why most of their powerful members were well protected and compensated.
Even looking at their gear, it was clear that no one would bat an eye if these two disappeared. If you ask me, I would say that the taller guy had it right. No one would even tell whether they checked or not. All the rock guilds needed was a destination to be marked as a dungeon, so that it would have a place to send new members, who would already be paying for guild membership.
Either way, it was a win-win for them. The guild did not care whether it members found monsters or any treasures to boost their stats. All it needed was existence. Pathetic.
Still, weak as they were, I too was just as weak.
Yes, I had six energy stones. But honestly, I still needed four more to be able to spawn a monster, since the cheapest one cost ten energy stones.
The first time, I had depended on sheer luck to trigger fear. But even luck had its limits, and especially so for a stony dungeon.
I tried to rack my awareness on what I could use here. The wolves that dwelled inside me a while ago might have become of benefit, but they did so once in a while, and they were rarely ever present during the day.
All I could do was what I hated most, sit and observe.
And as I observed, my suspicion that I was in a Wierd mix between a developed and medieval world was stamped.
These two were the second set of humans I had encountered thus far , actually the third if I was counting the shepherds. And all of them were dressed in a unique sort of way.
This two were wielding swords, and the second guy, the shorter one,carried what looked like a wierd mace dangling by his waist, further strengthened this theory.
" I told you this place has nothing. It's a mine. What else do you need to confirm?" The two scouts argued as they moved from one corridor to the next.
The great thing about the mines was that it had different paths, or rather corridors, that kept going deeper and deeper, on different directions, like blood veins.
And as I watched them move from one to the other, all I could hope was that one of them got scared.
That was how desperate I was.
I needed someone to be scared by whichever means . Even better, I needed both of them to be scared at the same time.
That would be gold, because with one go, the deficit of four energy stones would have been eliminated immediately.
My hope came to fruition a short while later.
Never in my life had I ever thought that rats would come to my aid. But as the two scouts rounded around the corridor that was only two corridors away from the pond I was resting on, the family of rats that habited around that corner came bursting out in terror.
But they were not the only ones terrified. The taller guy, who had been leading in front, carrying a torch, almost dropped to his feet as he tried to make room for his sword.
That was another advantage.
The corridor was so constrained that moving side to side with the extended arm was almost an impossibility.
The shorter guy, who had been behind, fell on his back as he tried to retreat suddenly when a well-placed stone tripped him.
Two notifications popped at once.
Fear detected:+2 energy stones
Fear detected :+2 energy stones
Pain detected :+4 energy stones.
I would have almost jumped if I had the ability. I would have almost screamed if I could.
I had reached the threshold to spawn a monster.
Even better, I had four more.
Almost immediately the notifications began to pop.
Actions available.
Spawn a monster. Unlocked.
But that is where the excitement died. Because beneath it was the most heart-breaking option I ever thought would be available to me.
I stared at it for a few seconds as if it was a jest.
'fuck' , I cursed in frustration.
The first option was rats. Freaking rats. And it wasn't any rats that I could spawn at that moment.
The option read;
rat line available . You can assimilate the rats that inhabit inside the dungeon. Once assimilated, the rats will be able to respond to your instructions. Their abilities will be limited to only what they can do at the moment. But once enough energy stones have been attained, you can evolve the rat line to more powerful options later.
Fuck that!... seriously, rats?
I mean, they had been helpful, yes, in granting me the four stones that I had needed. But their helpfulness came from the few number of stones I needed. It only needed one instance of fear to receive those four. And you could bet that those two were not getting scared again just by seeing rats.
If at least I was increasing their size right in front of their eye, it might trigger fear, but really, just making them respond to my instructions?... What good would that do?
The second option was even crazier. But to me it looked more reasonable than the rats.
The flesh leech. This was the first form of the leech line. They could later be evolved into manna leech, then blood leech, then venom leech. But each required more energy stone.
Honestly, I didn't care whether these ones were manna leech or not, because my current victims could not even detect manna. Neither did they have any manna to be stolen from them.
But this option also had a problem.
They were giving me three leeches for a price of ten energy stones.
What would those three leeches do?... They were freaking flesh leech. Their benefit to me would be inducing pain. Pain which earned four energy stones.
Thing is, as soon as they triggered that pain, these adventurers would probably slap them into pulp. Then those would be ten energy stones lost.
Unless there were some sort of skills they could perform to evade being killed, which I didn't see at the moment, because the description stated that their benefit was inducing pain by biting the adventurers in soft places.
Against my wishes, I still turned my attention back to the rats. My awareness told me there were eight rats in total. And for a price of ten energy stones, they would all respond to my wishes.
This alone just outdid the leeches, because already the rats had skills of their own. It was not like I was spawning a completely new monster, as compared to leeches, which I would be spawning completely from scratch.
If I knew anything about monster evolution and spawning, it is that the anatomy of these monsters depends on the strength of the dungeon.
The monster might not respond completely to my wishes. So taking a chance on rats who were already nimble and small and fast gave me a better chance , I could manage to display some sort of habits that would lead these guys into yet another instance of fear.
And that is what I needed. So all in all, although leeches would have been more beneficial to me in swarms, at my current situation, I had no choice but to pick the family of eight rats.
Link established. You have total control of the rat line.
You have spent ten energy stones.
4 energy stones are available.
Well, now it was time to see what I could do with a pack of rats