Boss Monster

The first time David left for the night, Violet used her mana to build the last three apple blossom trees of the eight she needed. Then she used the remaining 20 MP to continue building the pond hole in the pond room. She noted she now had 40 MP out of the 170 MP needed for the pond hole now invested. This pond was certainly going to end up being expensive by the time everything was said and done. It was a real shame to spend so much of her resources on it, but, honestly, there wasn't a ton of use for small chunks of mana right now.

Violet joined back in on sword training when David re-entered the dungeon, but it seemed almost pointless to have his company. He was too tired to be of much help and so Violet was mostly just practicing her sword swings by herself while David occasionally made comments. Violet ended up shooing David away after an hour, happy to, at least, have another round of mana to spend. It was starting to seem pointless even to have David around if he couldn't spar with her and correct her on her form. Violet mostly had the various poses and sword swings down, so she could easily do that by herself.

This time, Violet spent her 50 MP on a spawner for the boss room. Since she now had the hedges finished and all the trees planted, the next step was obviously to add a spawner. If she invested her mana into a slime and it died before she could get a spawner, it would be too disappointing. That was the only reason her previous 20 MP wasn't put towards other small purchases for the boss room like a slime. Still, the next time Violet had a decent chunk of mana, she'd be purchasing a slime to work on evolving.

The next day, Violet checked her dungeon status menu

[Dungeon Status:

Current Mana 13 / 50

Current DP: 721

Current Floors: 1

Current Rooms: 9

Monsters

Critters

Construction

Research

Missions]

As her kodama had brought her five repeats, she had only gained 5 DP from all of its hard work. Violet was happy to see her dungeon points were at a nice level, but she knew it was likely she'd end up having to spend most of it to get a decent boss [Monster] for her boss room. Speaking of, Violet quickly spent 10 MP to summon a basic slime into the boss room. Then she moved on to the research stage of things.

"I'd like to research a rock-based slime evolution using earth magic."

[Would you like to research slimes using [Base Resources] stone and earth magic to create slime evolution [Rock Slime] for 250 DP?

Yes or No?]

Violet selected the [Yes] option and then read the description for her new slime evolution.

-Rock Slime (25 DP)

Requires a slime to evolve. Has a protective external layer made from stone. Shoots stone projectiles that cause minor damage, but are capable of evolving into larger varieties of slime.

Violet wasn't sure what was possible in regards to a slime monster, so this was much better than she had been hoping for. At best, she thought the slime might get a nice protective layer or be able to disguise itself as a large rock. However, a slime being able to shoot projectiles and have a hardened outer layer of stone armor was incredible!

Violet quickly upgraded her basic slime into a rock slime. She watched as the slime's semi-transparent skin started to harden and turn gray. Violet giggled as she said

"It looks just like a pet rock!"

The slimes didn't exactly have faces, normally, but this one had to have somewhere for the small stone pebbles to be launched from. So, it had two shallow eye-like holes and a larger, rounder hole for a mouth that the stone pellets could launch out from. Violet was a bit curious about how her new slime type would even be defeated. 

The others had bodies that could easily repair themselves, but had an obvious weakness via their cores that, once destroyed, would cause them to melt into a puddle as they were defeated. This stone slime made it difficult to tell where its core might be, but their description made them sound the same on the inside. They were supposed to have stone armor on the outside, but that suggested they weren't entirely made of stone. It sounded like their core could still be moved around to avoid being easily destroyed, but it was hard to know since it wasn't like Violet could peer inside the slime.

However, that also brought other interesting questions up. Could the slime repair its stone armor? How did it form the stones that it used as projectiles? Was its core capable of using magic when the slime had a magic-based evolution? Was it turning its own body into stone and launching that or was the stone created out of mana in the air? Violet sighed, no matter how many questions she came up with, it wouldn't help her to get any answers.

Deciding to move on, Violet asked

"How much does it cost to research a new slime size-based evolution?"

[Would you like to research slimes using [Monster] slime to create slime evolution [Big Slime] for 100 DP?

Yes or No?]

Violet went wide-eyed, feeling surprised that it only cost 100 DP to research this evolution type. All of the skill-based ones seemed to cost 250 DP, but a size increase, which was supposed to increase the slimes' stats only cost 100 DP? Hardly believing her luck, Violet easily selected [Yes] before prompting the system for further upgrades.

[Would you like to research slimes using [Monster] big slime to create slime evolution [Large Slime] for 100 DP?

Yes or No?]

[Would you like to research slimes using [Monster] large slime to create slime evolution [king Slime] for 100 DP?

Yes or No?]

[Would you like to research slimes using [Monster] king slime to create slime evolution [Emperor Slime] for 100 DP?

Yes or No?]

After spending an entire 400 DP on researching new slime evolutions, Violet only had 46 DP left. Luckily, when Violet pulled up the descriptions for the slimes, it seemed that the Emperor slime was the largest size that she could research.

-Big Slime (10 MP & 10 DP)

Requires a slime to evolve. Can be applied to basic slimes and specialized slimes. Does slightly more damage than their smaller counterparts, but is capable of evolving.

-Large Slime (10 MP & 10 DP)

Requires a big slime to evolve. Can be applied to basic big slimes and specialized big slimes. Does slightly more damage than their smaller counterparts, but is capable of evolving.

-King Slime (10 MP & 10 DP)

Requires a large slime to evolve. Can be applied to basic large slimes and specialized large slimes. Does slightly more damage than their smaller counterparts, but are incapable of movement. Capable of evolving.

-Emperor Slime (10 MP & 10 DP)

Requires a king slime to evolve. Can be applied to basic king slimes and specialized king slimes. Does the most damage of all slime types, but is incapable of movement.

Unfortunately, with the additional mana cost to upgrade it, Violet couldn't afford to evolve her rock slime. It was likely that the spawner in this room would also be full once she was done. That didn't bother her too much since it wasn't really necessary to have a bunch of [Monsters] in the boss room, just one strong [Monster] was fine. It just would have been nice to add some [Critters] to the room.