On the second floor of his office, Karl’s boney finger traced a line on a glowing, holographic screen. Below him, the Necro Market humd with comrce, a symphony of growth he had orchestrated. But even as the profits rolled in, a bottleneck lood. He needed to think bigger. He needed logistics. He needed to build a truck.
"Hmm," he muttered, the dry click of his jaw the only sound in the cavernous room. "Which should I prioritize next?"
He looked at two flashing icons on his dashboard: the tallurgy Center and the Skeleton Barracks. The logistics of his empire, his budding Necro Corp, demanded a vehicle. A truck. A symbol of true industrial power. For that, he needed engine parts, gearboxes, suspensions, and wheels. All of that required the tallurgy Center to be upgraded and operating at a much higher capacity. But then there was the manpower issue.
"I could just buy a few packs of skeletons," he considered, tapping the barracks icon. "The good thing is they don’t increase the minion command capacity. It’s just a raw numbers ga. The bad thing is... they’re not exactly flexible. I can’t just reassign them from forging to, say, accounting." He scoffed at the idea.
He sighed, the sound a dry rustle of air. "No, let’s just go with the tallurgy Center first. Manpower is useless if I have nothing for them to work with." He dismissed the barracks icon with a flick of his wrist.
He focused the view on the tallurgy Center, a blocky, unimpressive structure on the third floor. He could see his skeleton workers hamring away at forges, powered by archaic, charcoal-burning fires. It was a scene from a history book, a relic of a pre-industrial age. "That won’t do," he said to an empty room. "Not for a Volvo FH16."
He closed his eyes, his consciousness retreating into the system’s design interface. He began ntally building, drawing on the raw magical elents of his dungeon. "Right, the tallurgy center is not yet integrated with the elental stones. Let’s fix that. I need a new module, a new structure right next to it."
He envisioned it taking shape—a grand hall, with specialized bays and integrated pipes. This structure wouldn’t just be an upgrade; it would be an engine of its own. It would draw on the power of fire stones to replace the inefficient charcoal. It would use earth stones to stabilize the molds for perfect, flawless casting.
The water stones would provide a new kind of precise quenching—not regular water that caused thermal shock and made the tal hard but brittle, but a special non-polar fluid that cooled it safely, preventing microfractures. And at its heart, an Arcstone, a pulsating core that would control the timing and output of every single elental stone, ensuring perfect synergy.
As his design solidified, the system chid to life, a series of notifications flashing across his inner vision.
[ You have created a custom structure! ]
[ Stage Two Synergy Detected! ]
[ Adjusting synergy paraters... ]
Karl’s eyes snapped open, a slow smirk spreading across his skeletal face. He knew that feeling. It was the feeling of hitting a gold mine. The feeling of a million-dollar idea paying off.
[ You have created a tallurgy Center Synergy upgrade! ]
[ Synergy Structure Blueprint: 🏭 Elental Integrated Foundry Hall ]
[ Status: Offline ]
[ Level: 1 (Upgradeable to Lv.5) ]
[ Elental Slots Installed: Fire x8 | Earth x6 | Water x4 | Arcstone x1 ]
[ Capacity: 4 concurrent production lines ]
[ Overview: The pinnacle of your tal industry — a unified complex where slting, alloying, casting, and magical enhancent rge. Elental stones power every stage of the process, Arcstone triggers control sequence timing, and refined output flows directly to your Distribution Center. ]
[ Functions: This Foundry Hall combines base tals with elental energy to produce magically attuned alloys. It features integrated casting lines for automated pouring, cooling, and shaping, along with precision quenching and tempering using elental water and fire. Mana-infused forging is made possible through Arcstone-powered hamrs and presses, and an automated routing system ensures finished products flow directly to storage, builders, or other production chains. ]
[ Output Types:
Elental Steel (Fire/Earth)
Frosted Iron (Water/Earth)
Shock Alloy (Fire/Earth Arcstone trigger)
Dense Mana Bronze (Earth Water)
Decorative Mana-etched Plates
Arcstone Housing Fras ]
[ You earned 650 NP ]
Karl threw his head back and laughed, a hollow, echoing sound that filled the room. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" he howled, jumping to his feet. He started a bizarre, spidery dance, his skeletal limbs a blur of motion. "Yeah, boiii! This is what I like! There’s even a combination of elental alloys! HAHAHAHAH!"
He pointed a bony finger at the "Shock Alloy" listing. "Shock alloy?! Damn! Electricity is now sothing I can reach! HAHAHAH!" His mind raced with the possibilities. "I can even create elental machines, like air conditioning, and elental swords and armors, HAHAHAHAHA!"
He pointed to the Frosted Iron. "While I have no vehicle yet, I can use the wagons to carry frosted iron as a large cooler for my food! My first truck is coming! HAHAHA! Volvo FH16 here I co!"
The 3D map of the dungeon showed the tallurgy center [ Upgrade ] button. Karl, still dancing from his success, tapped the upgrade button, then he stopped when the system notified him,
[ Build Materials and Components Missing! ]
.Karl sighed. "Here we go, this is the painful part of upgrading, buying the missing components I don’t have." Since he had most of the wooden beams, stone blocks, elental stones, and arcstones, he could just buy what he didn’t have from the store. He sighed again, "All of that happiness just lasted a few seconds." He then opened the shop and started purchasing the components, equipnt, and new tools for the upgrade. As he pressed [ Purchase ] on the bucket list of requirents, he watched as his NP slowly dwindled down.
He leaned back in his chair, a hollow, dry click echoing in the room. "This still feels like a never-ending cycle of paycheck to paycheck," he muttered to the ceiling, the joy of the upgrade already a distant mory.
Karl then decided to walked outside his office. The builder skeletons and haulers were at work again, but now the second floor was much larger, the rooms now were in the middle of the floor due to the expansion. He then got to dungeon edit, opening his 3D map, and panning wide the second floor. He selected each structure and repositioned them and moved them in accordance with the expanded floor, moving each room to the edges of the walls. As usual, anyone inside had to endure the sudden, disorienting effects of gravity, but Karl was laughing, enjoying the chaos. He moved each room to the edges, then finished and stretched. "Ahhhh.. that’s comforting."
"Now," he said, smiling, "the entire second-floor hallway is wide enough. I can put in more industrial rooms, or maybe more resource gathering, like the lumber yard but upgraded, and a hunter’s lounge." He smirked, "Or better yet, a magic station for skeleton mages! Since I have elental stones, maybe I can actually add mages to my army." An idea began to form in his head. He smirked. "Hehehe, maybe I can make an army of ranged units. Instead of actual guns, for the mont I can use elental stone-integrated staves as guns." He then sighed, "For that, I need a lot of raw mana stones."
As he sighed wondering if he can actually make it into a reality, then the manager approached him. "My lord?" the manager said.
Karl smiled. "Oh, manager, how are our custors and suppliers doing?"
"They’re enjoying our establishnt well, my lord," the manager replied.
"That’s good to hear. So what do you need?"
"I’ve got information regarding the raw mana stones, my lord," the manager said.
Karl smiled. "Just in ti. Go on."
"I’ve got the information from a wandering trader. He said that raw mana stones are usually a common occurence," the manager began, "particularly because a very rare percentage of beastkins knew magic. Only a few foxkin clans knew how to convert these raw mana stones into light stones, fire stones, and water stones, like we do. While the foxkin companies and rchant conglorates use these raw mana stones to sell them to the populace at an extrely high price. But due to the high consumption of mana from these stones, they seem to constantly replace them."
Karl said, "Ahhh... yes, it’s similar to our issue, huh? Thankfully, we now have arcstone that can constantly transfer mana to the surrounding elental stones."
The manager nodded. "Yes, my lord. Now, due to the foxkins’ secretive nature, the elental stones in the market degraded in value particularly, because the citizens don’t want to buy a these expensive stones and then later buying another. Now, only the nobles and large rchant companies will buy them and use them into their everyday lives. But since so of the populace hunts wildlife, the butchered animals, also have mana stones in them."
Karl was already smiling as he started his slow dance again. "And?" he said.
The manager smiled and said, "Now, the entire region has an excess of raw mana stones. A trader saw our light stones and asked us for a supply deal. But my problem is, so of the foxkin clans might not like this move of ours. They might see this as an interference and sabotage to their business."
Karl scoffed, mocking, "Pffftt!! Fuck them, obviously. That’s just competition and availability. If they pressure us, we’re gonna use the people against them if it cos down to it. We’re gonna need a lot of raw mana stones, and if this region is shitting magic stones like crazy, then I say, buy them all. Use everything necessary to control the flow of our mana stone imports. The foxkin are gonna do the sa thing, with buying them at high prices, but they don’t have the spending power as much as we do. Though it’s still early to tell, it’s better to co prepared than have them surprise us later on."
The manager nodded and smiled. "Yes, my lord."
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