Peter was the last to enter the newly expanded fish bowl conference room at the back of his headquarters. He took a moment to study the gathered dungeon units that also served as leaders in his dungeon. A year ago it had basically been a handful of dark elves and Boris. Now however there was also a small complement of moon elves and gnomes including the new blue sky gnome. In the future he would only add to this group. Still there were a few proverbial empty seats due to this years losses..

  Peter felt his stomach roll as he thought about it. The sky gnome had survived the battle as had several other new A rank units, but the sky gnome was the only sentient one among them. Already hundreds of different types of units not counting all the one offs had fought and died for him. In fact, not many survived battle to battle. Other than the spectral armor and the ghastly soldier he had lost all the melee elites including Turtle, N’toah the dark mauler elf, N’torem the huntsman dark elf. All three of them would have been in this meeting had they survived. But their loss was not something unique.

  In reality battle to battle he lost most of his units, although backliner elites clearly did better. Glenda had survived although driven to the point of total exhaustion, as had flame flinger the hedgehog like unit, for whom this was its second battle. Not something many others had accomplished.

  Only the porcupine unit who was now the 4th floor boss of his collection dungeon was alive from his tutorial battle. From the battle with the dart frog…Peter checked. There had been a handful, but now there was only the B tier metal glider fly left. The other 4 C tier dragon flies had fallen, as had the C tier malleable iron. Peter had not even noted their loss amidst the chaos.

  Delilah and N’tuma were the only other two to survive more than one battle. Delilah had been severely wounded, and N’tuma had only served as an adjunctant for Glenda this time since they had gone with an air attack. Instead Peter had put the new sky gnome in charge of the assault force.

  Peter felt bad about a lot of things since becoming a core. The human and elf adventurers that sometimes died in his collection dungeon were the least of them. He had never really interacted with any of them, nor could he recall actually any specific one that had later died. Their existence was basically like a TV show to him, one that he seldom watched since his first year. Honestly as far as them, he felt worse about the fact that he had basically upturned the lives of the locals than the deaths in his dungeon.

  Then were Turtle N’toah, and N’torem and the hundreds of sentient C and D tier one offs that had died under his banner. Perhaps purposely he had not interacted with any of them, all that much. Still he had talked briefly to some. They were different and more warlike than what he would nominally consider people, but there were also similarities with any human he passed going about their day back on Earth. They loved and enjoyed life. Not their fault that they seemingly sprung into existence with what Peter assumed were fake memories of lives of their life leading up to that point.

  What really made Peter feel bad however was the fact that he even had a resurrect in his back pocket, but had deemed that not even Turtle was worth its use. Other than Glenda he did not know if any of his units could have tempted him to use it. Delilah would have, but that would have been for another reason.

  Peter pushed the thoughts aside. They were really only prevalent now due to him dwelling on having gotten Multiple and Magic mixed up in a dispute he had started with the undead rookies. Callous as it was, he knew the exposed nerve would soon sink under the surface and become only a distant pressure in the back of his mind.

  Peter took his place at the head of the U shaped long table. “Okay I guess first we should go over the highlights of the congregation yesterday. Then we can move on to what our next steps should be.” Peter said, looking at them all furtively. He did not have to wait long. Glenda was the first to speak up.

  “First, I would like to highlight our need for more firepower. I was run ragged trying to keep our defense afloat. I know I put a lot of effort so that I could inconspicuously participate in battles, and I still want to in the future. But that was just too much.”

  There were quite a few nods of agreement. Always one to want to share his own view point, Khan was next to chime in.

  “Correct, we need to be less worried about the future and improve on today’s forces. On top of next year's congregation, we now have to start worrying about this out of the dungeon scouting the older dungeons seem to be partaking in. Thanks to our allied cores we are now at greater odds with the insect faction and potentially the demon faction as well as the undead that we personally antagonized.” Khan added that last part as more of an accusation. Far from the first time that the ‘ancient rainger’ had broached it.

  “I think we did ourselves a great disservice not making a strong interdimensional force. We got ourselves a strong dimensional card type, but only summoned a token force to hold the alternate dimension. We have seen several instances where the older dungeons use the alternate dimension to easily beat a weaker dungeon.” This time the speaker was Delilah. She flashed him an apologetic smile.

  “As far as improvements, we should first look to improve our air forces. Only two other A tiers, the lightning shrike and flame sparrow survived. I’m sure you were all able to witness how I led our forces to an overwhelming victory,” the great Gnther stated. Peter eyed the new addition to his staff. The blue gnome was small, really small. Peter could only see his head and upper shoulders, the rest covered by the table, and that was only the gnome standing on his chair.

  What he lacked in size the gnome made up for in magic being near the level of even Glenda despite his special attribute not being as high. He also seemingly had to make his presence known since his size did not do the trick. Peter could already tell he was a character. Peter certainly had not named him ‘the great Gnther’. Gnther was actually a somewhat normal sounding name compared to the normal mostly consonant naming conventions the gnomes usually went with, but the damn gnome had just had to add ‘the great’ part. Peter only shook his head at the thought. He would just let it be, not that he would call him anything but Gunther.

  “That tactic will not be nearly as effective in the future. On average air units seem to be far more vulnerable to attacks. Their defense attribute is only so high thanks to their mobility. It only worked this time since our opponent could not effectively counter it,” Khan said, looking down at the much shorter gnome.

  “We could literally make an entire force of dragons. Their physical defense would be excellent,” Gnther spoke back.

  “True, I’m not saying that we should have an air division. They likely were the only reason we were able to win that battle as easily as we did, but I don’t think we should rely on one aspect alone,”The old dark elf also shot a look at Delilah. Then he gave an affirming nod to Glenda. “Fact is we have a lot of areas we need to improve to get to an adequate level for future battles. We can’t hope that our future opponents will be as incompetent as the Salamander, dart frog, or ghost cores obviously were.”

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  “Noted,” Peter said, staring the old dark elf down. He could acknowledge the guy's point. They had a lot of deficiencies. Still he could hardly keep pace in every facet of dungeon progress, win battles, and prepare for the future. He was doing the best that he could with what he had. The old man belaboring at every turn was past old and hardly helpful. Anyone could say we should be better at everything..

  “Is there anything else? Other than to highlight the deficiencies of our forces,” Peter asked looking out over the group.

  It was Boris that spoke up from his left. “We have more than met all our long term trading goals for this year except for the trade with the final black listed dungeon, not that we could do so since the other black lister stays seated off by itself on the other side of the room.”

  Peter nodded. Other than the moon elf and Abyss dungeon cores there was one other, but the Elm tree core simply did not give any opportunities. They all kept relatively to themselves, but the elm tree did not even move around. Like a tree it stayed rooted off in its own corner, making it difficult to approach a trade without being completely obvious about it.

  “Of more importance are the elites of our year group, the appearance of S tiers, millineal protégés, and at least 2 core types with a strong tier up ability. I believe our scope of what others are capable of needs to be adjusted. Although I do not believe that we can count on having an off year at this point to consolidate our forces…”

  Khan gave Peter a look of victory. Peter’s move of taking out the ghost core and his current group had basically guaranteed they would be in the crosshairs of someone all the way up until cores started preparing for the integration, or if they scared away the challenge through show of force. The latter of which was less likely since he kept buying maelstroms which were extremely expensive, it meant he was winning battles by a far tighter margin than he perhaps could.

  “From what Elyra and Predator said I think we should be extremely thankful we have fought weaker dungeons up till now,” Khan said. “Sure we were sitting back on a bunch of original cards we could have used if things went bad, but that’s nothing special. Our opponent had as well. We need greater numbers in general on top of more of the higher tiers.

  Peter sighed deeply. He wanted to throttle the old elf. What did the guy think he was doing? Did he think they could match unit numbers with a dungeon twice their age without taking appropriate measures well beforehand? He knew exactly what they would be up against which is why he was preparing now.

  “Well at least the core group we joined are fairly strong since they are able to at least rival other elites,” Glenda spoke up. “Elyra in particular seems to be quite powerful since she has won multiple battles and since she already has a S rank. We also need to consider keeping our allies safe in the near term.”

  Mentioning the half demoness earned her a disapproving look from Delilah. “In the end it will be our own strength that keeps us alive. The allied dungeon cores are useful trading partners and can help deal with some attention from the bigger factions, but I doubt they would be of much help when we truly could use them. After all, their own survival will always come first.”

  “I was more thinking of what we should prepare for,” Peter said cutting off the discussion, shifting his eyes between those gathered before him. “After all I’m sure the undead dungeon cores will come back first thing next year, but we also have the insect faction that might be out for blood after what Elyra did, or some of the other potential rivals.”

  “By all indications the undead faction does not seem to be the type to allow their rookie dungeons to struggle. Just from their use of epic cards, we should assume the older undead dungeons are providing all sorts of aid including a breakdown of our most recent battle,” Boris stated robotically.

  “Which means there is a good chance they will know we picked up a bunch of Holy cards. We did display a bunch of units from that type. Also since Holy survived when he should not have, the older dungeons might suspect that he gained some spare cores from another source. I’m sure many could potentially make such a connection.” Boris continued speculatively.

  “That is a good point,” Peter said, shrinking back into his chair. The full implications of his trade were now at the front of his consciousness. He had not clearly thought it all through to the inevitable end. Just like how his use of the moon elves would make it obvious that he had broken the declared black list trade embargo, him using a bunch of holy type units on the same day that a core that should have died survived would likely not be missed.

  His staff had broken into half a dozen different side bars as they each considered and discussed the full implications of the latest congregation. Peter let them talk for several minutes before bringing things back to order. “Unless we want to quickly challenge another dungeon core, I guess we can assume we will be fighting undead next year.” He said finally. No one disagreed.

  “Then I guess we can proceed with our gameplan,” Peter said. Before anyone could step in he continued. “I think at the top of the list would be for us to summon a strong holy unit to increase our dungeons capability against the undead as well as to improve our healing capabilities. I would also like to have a S rank or two before the next congregation, and to utilize the ‘User chose card’ to make a maelstrom for it. Ideally we would meet both conditions with one unit. We have quite a few new card types to choose from including: 5 Void, 42 Dragon, and 40 Abyss cards.”

  That set the room astir as each had an opinion on how they should move forward. Proposed tripplifications all included at least one of those four types, but Peter also 11 A tier original cards from other card types. Not to mention a handful of others that he still had stock for. The amount of possible combinations was in the hundreds. With 44 triplifications in hand he could make quite a few of them reality. However it would take Peter weeks to actually start realizing the discussed combinations since he would have to earn enough essence to buy a 100,000 A tier design card each time.

  Peter summoned the first later that evening using up his common dungeon upgrade cards to afford the A tier design card. He combined it along with the dragon and holy types. His goal was to get an A or S tier healer. Combining one of his strong type cards seemed at least the most likely to hit the S tier, but based on his 3 options maybe not a great match with the holy type. The best of the 3 choices he had been offered was the A tier planetary dragon, but neither of the other two had any indication that they would have holy power. It was unusual for his 3 choices to not give one indication of one of the card types, either by the name or by the picture.

  But it was not a loss. The planetary dragon’s special ability was dimensional travel and it could fly. It was definitely not a bad addition to his forces. It just was not what he had been looking for right now..

  Three days later Peter tried again with another semi intelligent card type. This time he used holy, design, and ape, but once again Peter did not get what he had been hoping for. The Golden ape A (+) was not a bad unit, but it could not heal. Unlike the planetary dragon it did have holy power, but it was only used to harden its hide to be impervious to many kinds of attacks, mainly those from dark magic, curses…

  Unfortunately, he did not have any other sentient race originals in hand right now other than the moon elves that he could not use wide scale and a dryad which he did not think would be a good fit.

  Peter decided to try again with the initial combination before he had to set aside a full week too to grab a dark elf card from stock on top of the design card. Once again not exactly something he wanted to do, dark elves were not exactly synonymous with holy power. It was practically their opposite. Once again he tired Holy with the dragon type. This time however there was an obvious choice. The first option, in addition to already being at a A(+) rank, had Holy in the name, multiple S tier attributes, and 2 special abilities.

  Holy armor dragon A (+): ATT: A(-), DEF: S, SPE: S (-), SPE: A

  The sample picture was of an aqua green dragon encrusted with golden armor. It was likely a land based dragon since it lacked even a hint of wings, but it was too grandiose to compare to a lizard. Just based on its stats it was likely near the top of what could be considered the A tier, and he still had his design card increase as well as the additional increase support card that he could use. That and it had a second special ability. He had only seen that a couple times so far, including for his earth trotter dryad.

  Peter selected it and added both increases toward the second special ability, hoping that pushing it into the S tier would increase the unit's overall tier. If it happened to be the special that was the healing ability he also wanted to push it up. His heart dropped when he noticed that it only bumped up to A (+), but then he noticed the new unit’s overall tier. It was tier S (-).