Zach opened his eyes to see Alexa staring at a blue screen when one popped up for him.
Zach almost jumped back to his mana pool to see if he couldn’t learn the spell Mend, but then he saw a sight that shocked him. Andy and Milly had received two screens instead of one. One looked just like the blue screen that he had received, but the other was a red screen that seemed to have a flashing border. Andy studied his screen for a long moment and his wrinkled face seemed to bunch about his eyes as the narrowed. Andy brought up his hand and as if he was holding the screen flicked it over to Zach to see.
Guilt reared his ugly head making Zach feel as if he should apologize to Andy and Milly. How could he have known that by adding Dark Mana to the core that it would start summoning Horned Rabbits. As Andy pulled back the red screen he saw that Alexa had been reading her mothers and then looked up at him. Though Zach had no skills that would read minds the look she shoot him said that he was to blame for everything bad in her life. However, it was Andy that stopped the shouting match that was about to erupt as he scooped up a spoonful of vegetable soup and placing it in Zach’s bowl.
“Well, at least we will now have a steady source of rabbit meat for everyone’s diet.” Andy said as Milly seemed to pass her bowl and Alexa’s.
“Dad! Oh can’t be serious! We weren’t thinking about creating a city dungeon for years, at the very least not until we had leveled up James and Myself. Now all of a sudden he comes along and we will have to create a dungeon with only one floor of Horned Rabbits? Who is going to want to come out and trade with us then? We needed mana cores from several beasts… We should throw him out! Yeah that what we should do!” Alexa hit the table with a fist and Zach turned his head to her with a look of anger. He was about to shout some very angry things back at her when Milly stepped in.
“Hmmmmm… I wish we had a bit of sea salt it would have made the soup pop a little more on your tongue.” Alexa looked at her mother and father as they both took a sip from their spoons. Seeing a confused look on Alexa’s face, Milly placed her spoon down in the green broth and spoke. “Alexa, I am going to explain why your father and me haven’t a care about this warning. Once I am done, I expect you to apologize to Zach for your senseless reaction, or you can work with your father in the fields for the next few days instead of training.”
Milly poured a glass of water as Zach took a spoonful of the vegetable stew. Unlike the bland can soups that he had eaten countlessly over his life, this came with a taste of freshness and energy that seemed to hum throughout his body. “First, having a small training field of Horned Rabbits out pass the boundary stones will help the farmers and families around us. If we all take a few days and train some of the men or women in slings and daggers, then they can gain mana and experience from just going pass the boundary stones. Also, if you think about it this way we now have a source of meat close to our village that is infused with mana. If your father and me were to go out and wipe out the rabbit population and place them in a dungeon, then they would have to enter the dungeon to get a little bit of meat, mana, or experience instead of just watching the fields for a lone rabbit they could fight. Since every dungeon has a one day cooldown before entering it again, they would be tempted to take risks and attack more creatures for several meals instead of just one that was an easy kill.” Milly paused for a moment as she ate a little more.
“Finally, the longer an elite creature lives the more levels it has. If we went to a dungeon and killed the boss to gain their cores, their levels will always be static. If we instead allow the elites more time to grow and gain levels, they can be used by the dungeon on multiple levels.” Zach looked up at Milly about that last comment, why couldn’t the dungeon just scale the mana beasts. Seeing Zach’s look Milly sighed, “Zach, a mana core contains the history of that creature. A creature coming from a dungeon will only have the history of one level, unless the people allow the creature’s time to grow between dives. Out in the wild, they keep growing and leveling, once they achieve elite status a dungeon can populate creatures of any level that the elite was in its past. That’s why most city with a core will employ a group of hunters out in the wilds, or will allow their dungeon months of rest before sending in a raid to kill the more powerful creatures.” Though Zach was surprised at the information, he nodded showing Milly he understood. However at this time Milly turned her head toward Alexa and waited patiently.
Alexa took a deep breath and spoke, “I am sorry for accusing you of ruining our town. At the time, I could only think about the danger it presented to the families and how it cripple our dungeon before we even started it.” Alexa then looked down at her bowl. Zach merely acceptable the apology and with that the family ate their dinner in silence. Tomorrow would come soon enough and the answers to Zach’s questions about how to obtain his first spell or summon his first golem could wait.
