A few days after the battle, Mafu learnt the ugly truth about the Hollow.
They were parasites. Slugs that possessed dead bodies, keeping them "fresh" with their sludge and moving them around. Athena figured this out as we transported the Hollow bodies to the fungal pool. The slugs could not be seen by the naked eye, but in the pool they were revealed instantly.
They tightly hugged the spinal cord of the bodies they inhabited and used feelers and sludge to control the bodies. This was why the Hollow felt no pain and seemed to have no mind. The mind was the slugs, and they used skills to avoid detection.
Mafu's first question to Taressa was:
"Can you aim your psychic attacks towards where the slugs are, or do you need to invade the mind directly?"
"We need a connection to use our psychic attacks; they cannot be used in an area."
Shit. Knowing that the slugs were there would not help us all that much. Sure, we could focus our attacks on the spinal cord, but then the Hollow would attack back. The fighting style would change subtly, and we would get a slightly better result, but it was not a massive advantage.
And after speaking to the orc council, it seemed that this attack of 500 or so Hollow was not the maximum they could amass. Usually there were scout groups of 10-15 Hollow moving about, or you'd meet the horde of thousands of them. This group of 500 was probably just a response to Mafu's connection to the sludge network that the slugs used.
[You have analysed 10 parasitic lifeforms in your fungal pool.]
[Parasitic Function] unlocked.
[In the future, parasitic functions can be added to subjects that willingly enter the fungal pool.]
Mafu had finally learnt a new skill at level 46. Speaking of, the Hollow gave next to no experience. Jod had killed more than a hundred Hollow on his own, and he was level 48. Mafu's assumption was that while Jod decimated the bodies of the Hollow, the slugs probably escaped stealthily, and the slugs were the main source of experience.
And that led to the next issue that Mafu had realised. The orcs were mostly low level. Oran and Otek had levelled up by hunting the great beasts on the plateau, so they were special. Warchief Parek was also on a high level, as he had been at the forefront fighting the Hollow for a long time.
But the normal orc warriors were barely breaking level 50. It was most likely due to the issue of the slugs escaping and the orcs being locked in their village unless they possessed stealth abilities. So with that, Mafu was working on a solution with Athena but was not yet ready to reveal it to the people.
---
Jod had taken a few days of rest, not really doing anything. The same was true for the orc warriors. It seemed that the psychological effect of fighting the Hollow tore at even seasoned warriors such as Warchief Parek.
Four days after the battle, Oran and Otek came back from scouting for ore mines around the mountains, and they had also taken some time to hunt while they were out. As they came back with fresh meat, a small feast was held to celebrate the victory over the Hollow.
Jod felt embarrassed as the warchief and some of the orc warriors praised him heavily, making the battle seem more like a story told by bards. It didn't fit Jod's image of what it was. A bloody, disgusting massacre of creatures that did not have emotion. The stories told by the orc warriors made it seem like a gallant and epic battle, and Jod briefly wondered if this was how all the stories the bards told were in reality.
He tried his best to keep a good demeanour and did not stop the orcs from telling those who hadn't seen the battle of Jod's prowess. Maybe this was their way of coping with it, and Jod had no right to interfere.
He had tried using his new skills during the battle. [Light of the King] gave resistances and took away the resistances of the enemies. 'Resistances' referred to the elements, not physical attacks, so the resistance gain for his allies had been quite useless in this fight. The Hollow who got hit by the skill had burnt slightly easier, but it was a small amount.
The skill did not use much mana, though, and could be cast every few seconds, so Jod judged it to be meant for leading an army rather than in a small skirmish.
[Dark Judgement] had worked somewhat. It had dealt an unavoidable blow to the Hollow at a range of about ten metres, but the fear effect had not triggered. And since he was on the fungal territory, his normal swings with the sword seemed to have the same effect.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
If he was outside the territory, maybe [Dark Judgement] would be more useful, but in the territory he resolved that he did not need to use it.
He was immersed in the thoughts of the battle and his skills until late in the night, as the feast went on around him.
---
A month after the battle.
Mafu had done something entirely ridiculous. With the help of Athena, he had managed to create something that came straight out of a video game.
A dungeon.
With the free movement of his mycelium, the ants digging the structure of the dungeon, and Athena helping him research how to create actual monsters in the fungal pool, he had succeeded.
He had woven his mycelium tightly in the dungeon walls, containing all the mana in the dungeon. The basic ingredient to make monsters was to have stagnant mana in a location, as theorised by Athena. Keeping a large amount of mana "locked in place" would eventually form a monster that was adapted to the environment where it was formed.
If this happened in a forest, with a small amount of stagnant mana, a goblin would be formed. The difference between monsters and creatures was that the stagnant mana formed into a crystal inside the monster's body. And there were very few monsters who had intelligence.
So, the artificial dungeon was possible because Mafu could pump mana into it, wherever he wanted. His mycelium in the dungeon had been set to repel the mana there, and the entrance was closed by a door made of his mycelium with the same properties.
It took about a week for the monsters to start spawning. This was, of course, much faster than it would happen in a natural state, but the amount of mana inside the dungeon was much higher than would be possible normally.
The first monsters to spawn were centipedes that seemed to have a shell almost as strong as steel. Mafu prepared food for the centipedes, and they refused to eat any of the farm produce Demeter had prepared. They only ate raw meat and sometimes would kill each other to be able to eat a little bit more meat.
As the centipedes died, Mafu reabsorbed them into the mycelium and pumped the mana gained straight into the dungeon again. It was a closed system, and the mana loss per centipede defeated was quite low. Mafu's experiments seemed to indicate a 10% loss in mana every time a centipede died. That was manageable with the mana production of the territory being so high.
Mafu had no control of the monsters inside the dungeon, which he saw as an advantage. This probably meant that they would give experience to his people if they were killed. And another advantage was that the dungeon still counted as his territory, which meant Jod would enjoy his [Royal Blood] bonus while inside it.
Mafu contacted the orc council and Jod to have a sit-down. He had yet to tell them about his experiment, but now was the time.
As they gathered around his central firecap, which now had a simple wooden building around it with comfortable chairs around the firecap for meetings, Mafu looked at all of them and started talking:
"I have created a dungeon filled with centipede monsters that is meant for the people to gain levels in."
The orc council looked confused, but Jod's eyebrows went up so high they almost disappeared.
"You... created a dungeon? How?" Jod asked incredulously.
"Well, all it really takes is to have mana trapped, which I can do."
Jod had seen images of Mafu's experiment through their connection, but it had just looked like another anthill to him. Now he realised that he already knew the entire structure of the dungeon; if he just increased his connection to Mafu, all the information would be there for him to "read".
"What is a dungeon?" Farseer Telim asked.
All three orcs of the council seemed to not know the premise of a dungeon. So Mafu explained it.
"It is an area, often enclosed, such as a cave or something similar, that spawns monsters regularly. It is possible because too much stagnant mana will spawn monsters with stagnant mana crystals inside them. Killing these monsters should increase not only the level but also the techniques and knowledge of fighting skills of the orc warriors."
Mafu had used Toqlan's knowledge to figure out the basics of making a dungeon, but most of it had been through experimenting.
Warchief Parek looked pleased and enthusiastically asked:
"What monsters are there? How many of our warriors can enter at once?"
"So far, it is only centipedes with a hard armoured shell. They seem difficult to fight with physical force, but if you can flip them on their back, their armour is weaker underneath. The ants made the dungeon so that at least five warriors can walk and fight side by side."
"How many of our regular warriors does it take to kill a centipede?" Parek asked, with a slight worry in his voice.
I had already asked Athena to help me judge the strength of the orc warriors.
"About three should make it fairly doable. If five warriors enter, they should be able to easily beat one centipede."
"Then, what do we do if we face more than one centipede?" The Warchief's worries were valid; fighting in an enclosed space could make retreat difficult.
"I will make sure to help out if two centipedes attack together, but it is not likely. They seem to be quite solitary and often fight to the death over the meat I feed them."
"You can interfere in the dungeon?" Jod asked.
"Yes, its walls are made of my mycelium. It also counts as my territory, so you should be able to kill the centipedes easily by yourself. My interference is not strong, though, as I can only snare and immobilise the centipedes for a short amount of time. Maybe ten seconds, then they break the bindings."
Jod nodded along and had started to smile. Warchief Parek also looked happy, while Farseer Telim and Totemkeeper Bulok looked deep in thought.
Then the Warchief said:
"Before the warriors enter, I would wish to see this dungeon for myself. Jod, according to Mafu, we should have no issues if we enter it together." It was an invitation to enter it with Jod for a test run of sorts.
Jod smiled and answered:
"Of course, we have to make sure that there is no unforeseen danger; we should thoroughly inspect every part of the dungeon."
The smile shared between the Warchief and the Moonlit King was an immoral, greedy smile. But the fire in their eyes was the same; as warriors who wanted to get stronger, they lusted for combat with proper enemies. Not the Hollow, but monsters who would adapt and attack in different manners.
They both stood up to get ready to conquer the dungeon.
Mafu decided to name the dungeon [The nest of Khepri] after the Egyptian god of scarabs and rebirth.
