Once Amelia had started that ball rolling it had been impossible to stop, and a few minutes later Mark had finished making their guardian floor. Mark based it to be highly advantageous for spiders. The floor was ridiculously uneven, almost like a mini map of the endless bluffs. Sheer faced walls up to 10 feet high in some locations would limit mobility for the undead or humanoids the other two dungeons would be sending. In addition there are a bunch of crevices with a hundred foot drop and subterranean tunnels. The interface had prevented him from making anything subterranean even close to big enough for a giant tarantula but their other defenders would be able to make use of them. Perhaps the terrain would not provide much of an advantage, but Mark was not going to go with the simple large cavern as Daniel had done.

  Then they were ready. Mark chose the stone tarantula spending 288 DP in a one time purchase. A moment later the hay barn sized spider appeared in the center of the giant cavern. It was every bit as big as the red dragon or hydra, but had double the width as column sized legs clinked against the stone. As Mark had expected the spider was not some sort of spider construct, but was a flesh and blood spider with an exoskeleton that was plated with stone. The spider’s exoskeleton was a sandy color swirled with dark grains. The only other features were black hairs and the eight abyss eyes.

  Now came the real question: could the 28.8 power rating spider be bred. Mark decided to go with a midnight lotus instead of their normal sunflower breeders. In addition to being able to breed the lotus aura would strengthen the symbiote units Mark planned to summon for the other defenders. Additionally the flower would be able to hug itself against the back of the spider with its tendril like vines. If this did not work, Mark would locate the blossom underground and breed other defenders.

  A minute later they had a midnight lotus hugged closely on the back of the giant spider. The dark purple petals would definitely contrast on the black sandy swirl color the spider had going for it. Mark wasted no time, the blossom used proliferate on the giant tarantula. At first there was nothing, but then like a balloon a sandy sphere started to form at the rear of the spider. Mark was practically jumping out of his seat, but they had to wait a minute before the sphere even finished growing. It was roughly the size of his old college dorm room or a 200 by 200 foot room.

  It clanked to the floor moments later. It was basically like a rock egg. It was incredibly hard but extremely thin. Another minute later the egg started cracking. Then out came 14 spiderlings, each mini versions of their mother. They were all the size of a pony, and each had a power rating of between 7.6 and 8.3. Not as many or as powerful as he had hoped, but even a dozen hard to kill minions that could be occasionally spanned throughout the battle would be helpful. Each of the spiderlings would have to die before the lotus could rebreed the champion, so it was not a limitless army by any means.

  Mark took another minute to see the limits of their dungeon guardians' stalagmite capabilities and physical prowess. The stalagmite ability had been what Mark had expected. The spider could make whole lines of jagged stone shoot out of the earth. The spears lasted a minute or so before they crumbled into rubble. Other than that the spider was actually fairly agile, and moved quite easily across the guardian floor. Across the uneven terrain the guardian would reign supreme. Still they did have another exciting matter to decide on, so Mark soon shifted his attention away from the matter. They would summon more defenders at a later time.

  Now they had to decide which of the three champion options they would go with for their non dungeon champion. Once again they had 3 options, one from each branch. The first was the lightning elemental goblin. Similar to fashion the option seemed to be based on another aspect of their dungeon. The spectral goblin had been based on their spiritualist class. The tarantula was based on the stone essence. Perhaps the perennial option had been based on life essence. The second list of options belayed the point that it had not been coincidental.

  The lightning elemental goblin with the normal sized humanoid cost reduction was by far the cheapest at 1.8 million MP. That by itself would make the offer tempting since the others would take longer to complete, but the goblin also only had a power rating of 20.8. Not a serious detractor since all of the others were actually on the lower side as well. It was basically a being of energy, which being incorporeal, would make it highly resistant to physical attacks. The champion only had two options. The first was lightning essence, which would likely turbocharge the champion. They could either pay CP or dedicate the required amount of lightning essence already in their possession. The second was an ability called lightning storm, that they could add for 220,000 CP. If they went with the elementals, Mark would definitely add both, but Mark’s eyes were drawn more to the other options. Mainly because their names and thumbnail images were a bit more interesting.

  True to form, the creepy crawly option was another spider, the Bombardier weaver. This time the spider was a lot sleeker with a yellowish tint and granddaddy spider windley legs. The power rating was also on the lower side at 22 even, but based on its look and name the spider clearly was based on their black powder or perhaps sulfur aspects. Both were confirmed when Mark looked at the options. Enriched sulfur essence was one of the options as was the blast hazard toggle bar.

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  Mark could toggle from 1 to 5 on the blast hazard bar. Each whole number would presumably increase the destructivity of the champion, but they exponentially increased the cost. At 1, the cost added zero to the base price of 2.135 million CP. By 5 the cost added was 1.2 million CP. The sulfur essence addition by itself was a half million price tag even if they mined the required essence themselves.

  The third option was the air chrysanthemum with a power rating of 21.1. The air chrysanthemum pulled from their most recent power of flight. According to the little thumb picture it was a giant floating flower. The additions to this champion were maneuverability which was once again a sliding bar this time with three selections between 1 and 3. Maxing it to 3 only cost 250,000 CP so it did not seem the change was too big. Then there was a manna increase indicating the champion was a mage. However the champion also had a support option with a divine aura. This ability had a 730,000 CP price tag, but increased unit power ratings by 10% for all friendly units. It also had a minor healing and stamina effect. It would basically help an entire army.

  Amelia gave a knowing sigh when Mark looked to her for confirmation. She knew which one he wanted to go with. Despite the other champion's high points, this was an easy decision for him. The spiders would win the day. They both had the highest power rating in their perspective groups for sure, but knowing that you could breed over a dozen spiderlings off them for battle gave the option quite a bit more pull. The spiderlings were basically at least midrange when it came to tier 3 units.

  Now the question was, how much extra they should spend to beef up their champion. The sulfur essence was a non negotiable. Of course they would collect the essence themselves to keep the price to a minimum. Already that would put it at a little over 2.6 million. Mark quickly graphed out the five points on a makeshift graph. There was no indication that the power rating was linear from one point to another, but the cost certainly was a more exponential increase making it quite a bit extra to tack on higher blast hazard levels. It went from 0 to 100,000 to 300,000 before jumping right up to 700,000 and ending with 1.2 million CP. Mark read it, meaning that perhaps the levels stretched battle balance a little more than they perhaps should.

  The full luxury champion addition would be 3.835 million CP. It would take 52 days if they just used only their daily allowance of CP and converted all of their RP. Of course Mark could speed it up if he was willing to convert some MP. A month and a half did not sound bad to get such a game changer, but for the same price Mark could potentially get two goblin champions.

  Then there was the fact that Daniel Hale had also clearly gotten his second champion in under a month. Of course the guy had likely been using his maximum MP contribution to speed up the process, showcasing how much MP that guy had been sitting on. During the same time frame he had also had to replace all the beasts that he lost when attacking their dungeon. Perhaps he had a bunch of MP prior to his attacks or perhaps he had measures to lessen the costs… It did not matter now.

  In the end, Mark could not say no to what he hoped was a bit of a balance breaking cheat and went with the fully suped up spider. As far as he could figure, they were at least 2 or 3 weeks ahead of the other dungeons in hitting level 4. If he suped up their Bombardier weaver hopefully it would be able to more easily take down the enemy champion and would then be free to wreak havoc on the dungeon’s other units.

  Mark had not quite done the calculations, but he had built enough armies of their units to have an idea of the time scale of what they would need. While waiting for their unique reward, he had contemplated a lot on their next course of action. Both the other dungeons wanted their help against the other, and Mark was fairly certain there would not be any tricks in a potential alliance with either. Both would rather take out the other and then press their advantage against Amelia’s weaker external support.

  It had occurred to Mark that he could also use that in the negotiations. He would offer less support in the alliance, and the other side would readily agree to it since they would be wary of Amelia and him siding with the other. Of course as soon as the opposing dungeon was destroyed, the fall out would be immediate. Once again time would only work against them since the other side would be getting more and more support packages, and Mark and Amelia had hit a ceiling in expanding their capabilities. They were already producing artifact level equipment. Sure they would be finding new capabilities, but so would the other side.

  Then there was the consideration that the addition of champions had severely decreased the edge their superior equipment had held. Dungeon level 4 had basically started a champion unit arms race. The dungeons with more and better champions would have a significant advantage over the others. Sure they had overcome Daniel, but his units were either the tree branch units that were extremely vulnerable to fire or beasts that were unarmored. Every single one of Leonard’s units would be armored, and their enchanted equipment was less effective against the undead.

  Mark was fairly sure of what they needed to do to be victorious. The other two dungeons needed to be taken out in quick succession. Which meant that Mark had to prepare two armies. If they wanted to win, they needed to do so in about a 3 to 4 month time frame. Which meant at most four champions, or just two extremely strong ones. The other sides would likely each have 2 by that point, meaning the next war would have a lot more titan confrontations like that of the reanimated Kong and the red dragon.