“Dungeon floors, dungeon floors…” After reading the level-up message that popped in front of me, I try to remember something.

  What does it mean by ‘dungeon floors’? Can’t you just put one of the dungeon areas on top of each other to create several levels and floors? Doesn’t my dungeon already have several ‘floors’?

  I know I’ve heard that name before, probably during one of Ricard’s ‘knowledge drilling’ sessions. But I don’t remember what he said… I believe he said something along the lines of ‘bigger on the inside’...

  “Ah! Now I remember!”

  The problem comes from the way the game calls this new feature I just unlocked, because most players who use this feature use it to create different floors. Floors as in completely isolated dungeon sectors that can work and behave differently from each other.

  Most players who use this feature use it to create dungeons that remind those dungeons from other games and books: dungeons with multiple levels, each one with a unique theme, monsters, and difficulty; and that usually have a boss you must ‘beat’ to get to the next level. Each level is more difficult than the previous one, and a final boss, stronger than any other monster so far, awaits at the end of the last floor.

  For example, the first level is a forest that contains slimes and goblins, the second level is a cave filled with bats and orcs, the third is a desert inhabited by giant scorpions, etc.

  This is why the game calls this feature ‘Dungeon floors’.

  But for the rest of the players, this feature, as Ricard delightfully explained during a more than two-hour-long ‘knowledge drilling’ session, which I might or might not have paid much attention to, is this: bigger on the inside.

  Imagine this.

  You’ve built an amazing castle, with lots of rooms, intricate corridors, and even a labyrinth, and want to put your castle in the middle of a town. The town serves as an introduction to what the invaders will find once they go inside the castle, so you don’t want to delete either of the two. The problem is… if you put everything you’ve created together, the castle would be as big, if not bigger, than the whole town.

  Yeah… it wouldn’t make any sense. It’d look extremely weird.

  So, instead, to avoid this, you can use the ‘Dungeon floors’. You just need to separate the castle’s inside and outside into two different floors, and connect the entrances… and you’ve got it fixed by using the ‘bigger on the inside’ solution. Because… well, it’s bigger on the inside.

  Ricard made sure I knew it’s easy to mess up the connections if you’re not careful, confusing the invaders and making your dungeon worse, though.

  Oh, and yes. As you might expect, the ‘floors’ each have independent maps, solving the problems it would have caused in any of the two approaches; those being a ridiculously large map on ‘floor’ dungeons, up to the point of being unwieldy, and overlapping maps on the ‘bigger on the inside’ dungeons.

  “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I have no intention to use Dungeon floors in my dungeon.”

  I want to keep my dungeon as realistic as possible, so I prefer not using them.

  Unless, in the future, I find the need for extra space, I refuse to create separated dungeon sectors that are treated as different maps. Mostly because I enjoy being able to see the minimap and 3D giant map when invading, but also because it’s better for realism.

  Furthermore, it’s also easier for my roaming monsters like the Sexy Secretary and the Hunters.

  “What matters is that I can now level up my monsters and Champion to level 10. And talking about the Hunters… I should finish what I was doing before I forget.”

  I have the Pulse skill I just found, but I’m sure I can find something else too. Furthermore, The Sun was level 7, so I can give it up to three new skills or upgrades if I wish to.

  “But then I’d raise its stats too…”

  Bah! Who cares? Who cares if the invaders have a harder time and die more than they do right now? Only the invaders do, but they don’t have rights or feelings, so…

  It might be different if it was the weaker mobs, but for the ‘boss-like’ existences, it’s okay if they’re strong.

  Now that I know what I’m looking for, it doesn’t take long to find another skill that’d fit The Sun perfectly and solve the problem I have with it. It’s called Fire Sentries.

  Like lots of other skills, there’s a version of Fire Sentries for most of the damage types, but as you might expect, I’m only interested in the fire one. I don’t need to explain why, do I?

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  Unlike the other passive skills that can deal damage I’ve seen so far, like the auras, Fire Sentinels isn’t very efficient. The cost is steep, and it deals less damage than basic spells like my Cold Blast.

  But it more than makes it up with versatility. Just taking into account that the cost is per bolt instead of a constant drain, means Fire Sentries is as efficient (or badly efficient in this case) against a single opponent as it is against hordes of enemies. Even better is that it doesn’t hurt allies and that it doesn’t take any time to activate, unlike other spells and abilities.

  It isn’t like The Sun will have MP problems even if I give it this skill, as it rarely spends it on attacks and spells due to how I set up the AI, so it doesn’t matter that much.

  Anyway, the skill fits The Sun’s theme, so I like it.

  “If I give it both skills, I’ll have to level it up to level nine… I can still give it one more level, which will leave me with one more skill point…”

  I can give it a third new skill or upgrade one. The Sun doesn’t need any boost to the original damage skills as it can nuke invaders perfectly fine as it is right now. But I don’t want to mess with the new skills until I see them in action, and I don’t like the idea of upgrading a utility skill, so…

  “Ah! I know!”

  All three of the damage passives, Pulse, Fire Sentinels, and In Flames have the same range: five meters. Without changing its damage and skills, I can upgrade one and increase its range.

  This poses a question: which one?

  “The aura, the auto-firing, or the unexpected nova? Which one makes more sense?”

  After a while of thinking, I decide to upgrade Pulse’s range. I’d love to see the players face the dilemma of taking into account Pulse’s possible sudden damage burst during the fight when it might not even happen.

  I also like that the other two fit into the same package, a package labeled ‘You’ll burn if you get too close to the sun’.

  “This settles it. Let’s start the changes.”

  Having decided all the changes I want to make to The Sun’s skills, I open the Template and start modifying it.

  Each time I press the level-up button, the cost increases. It starts low at 10 cp for level two, but when it gets to level ten, the cost is 270 cp.

  “Uaaah…! A total of 1.050 cp to level up to level ten! And that’s without the unit’s cost!”

  I now start to understand why high-level players don’t like using low-cost monsters in their dungeons, and even less in PvP. And, when they do, they don’t level them up to the maximum level.

  A unit that costs 20 cp to build will require the same cp as a unit that costs 1.000 cp to level up to level ten. This makes it extremely ineffective when you’re on a budget, as their stats can’t compare.

  I knew the theory behind it, but feeling it in person is different.

  It’s like the difference between knowing your parents will scold you for failing an exam, and actually failing the exam and having to suffer the repercussions: it doesn’t seem too bad until it’s too late.

  Not that I’ve ever failed an exam… D-don’t look at me with those eyes! I’m telling the truth!

  This is how The Sun’s stats look like when I finish the changes.

  Other than the skills, I also changed the AI. Now, during the combat, instead of standing high in the air doing nothing, my monster will roam around and dive into the enemy team from time to time.

  I call it ‘Sunfall’.

  The invaders will have to avoid The Sun when it approaches unless they want to get burned by In Flames and Fire Sentinels.

  Furthermore, there’s also the Pulse skill, which doubles the danger zone, but it isn’t a sure danger. When The Sun dives, Pulse might or not activate, making the invaders decide if they want to take the extra distance – disrupting formations and possibly messing with their plans – or take the risk.

  “As I like to say, it’s a win-win situation. For me, of course! Hahaha!”

  And now that I’ve finished what I started, I can do what I’ve been itching to do since I saw the level-up message. I’ll revise and upgrade with the other Hunters later, this is way more important.

  “Now, the time has finally come! The time to upgrade the Mad Rat to the next level!” Literally, I mean. “I’ll be unstoppable! Fufufu! Hahaha!”

  I might be a bit too excited about this.