Dungeon Hunter - Chapter 59

Chapter 59: Episode 16. Breeding Species (3)

‘I never knew about such achievements.’

Interested, I stared at the message that appeared in the air. This particular achievement was a first-time achievement.

Therefore, the rewards of this achievement were far better than regular achievements. I received 600,000 points, which was a huge amount.

The reward would be able to make up for all the points that I used to purchase monsters.

‘I guess that there could be other achievements related to breeding species besides this one…’

I rubbed my chin gently.

Now that I had started to increase the number of species that I would breed, I wanted to obtain every possible achievement related to breeding.

I wanted to earn all the first-time achievements!

That was all I wanted.

If I was rewarded for achievements that were hard to be found or that I didn’t want others to receive, I would earn quite a large number of points. Furthermore, there could be additional rewards for achieving such goals.

‘I’ll give it a shot.’

I always wanted to finish strong if I started something.

The same went for this.

Curling up the sides of my mouth, I started to think about ways to obtain new achievements.

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[Amazing achievement! You have successfully ‘crossbred’ for the first time.]

[350,000 points will be rewarded.]

I clapped. The results were as I expected.

I had successfully crossbred Werewolves and Crazy Hounds. Crossbreeding the two species wasn’t too difficult, since both of them were canine monsters.

I was quite generous to newborn younglings, as long as the breeding was successful. I turned around and looked at the newborn, whose skin was so light that its capillaries were almost visible.

The mixed-blood was indeed a hybrid. As the name ‘little Werewolf’ stated, the newborn looked like a Werewolf in general, but it was smaller in size and its legs were shorter.

In addition, its potential wasn’t as great, similar to that of a lower-level monster. I didn’t have many expectations for this newborn.

However, what mattered was that I earned a new ‘achievement.’

I managed to earn such profits without spending many points. It would have taken me at least two and half months to earn 350,000 points.

Currently, I was making about 40,000 points from Japan and about 110,000 points from Korea every month. Considering my income, the profit was a huge gain.

‘I want to start preparing for the next Auction of Devildom. The conditions are just about right.’

It had already been nine months since the first Auction of Devildom.

The spirits must have nearly finished preparing items for the next auction.

I was expecting that Devorong would soon contact me.

‘And… there will be massive monster waves around the world before the auction.’

The demons must have been preparing for the auction on their end.

They were helpless during the first auction, because they had no previous experiences with auctions. Now that they knew how the game was played, I suspected that they were learning observation skills and gathering points in preparation for the upcoming auction.

In addition, the demons would try to earn as many points as possible during monster waves. They would aim for hunting awakened heroes, who would try to stop monster waves, rather than regular civilians.

I also earned a lot of points by leading the destruction of Japan and hundreds of awakened heroes and using them as bait.

I had earned nearly half a million points…

As a result, I currently had about 2.7 million points. I should have had over 3.2 million points, but I had spent 300,000 points on the dungeon in Japan and 200,000 points on purchasing additional 40 Dwarves recently.

In the next three months, I expected to earn at least 450,000 points from both of my dungeons. If I earned additional achievements related to breeding, I would easily make another four million points.

I was amazed at the amount that I could earn—four million points—after only two years.

Such a high number of points would even allow me to purchase a top-notch monster.

My mouth twisted subconsciously.

I wondered how many points other demons had collected.

‘Had they not used a single point throughout the entire year, they would have accumulated about 800,000 points.’

However, I was quite sure that the demons must have spent some points.

There were plenty of reasons to use points. Some of them included upgrading abilities, maintaining dungeons, purchasing monsters, and trying different experiments. It had to be difficult to fund all these activities.

There were many uncertainties in the Auction of Devildom, and I was quite sure that no demon would try to risk their everything on the auction. The fact that it had only been two years also made things even more uncertain. Despite the uncertainties, some of them would prepare for the auction, but there was no way that any one of them could possibly have four million points.

Creating monster waves wouldn’t make much of a difference. I stirred up the awakened heroes and brought them to my place. Had I not led them, I would have only earned about 150,000 points.

‘It’s much more beneficial to collect all the first-time achievements instead of creating monster waves.’

There had to be more than one first-time achievement about breeding, which I had just received.

I was certain that there were many unknown first-time achievements out there.

If I could take all of them for myself, I would even be able to earn more than four million points before the Auction of Devildom took place.

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Over the course of the next month, I accomplished two achievements at the same time.

Several message windows popped in the air simultaneously.

[Unbelievable achievement! For the first time, you have successfully grown twenty adult Pyroks. A Pyrok youngling has less than a one percent chance of successfully growing to an adult. Due to such low yield, even the shop for everything cannot sell them.]

[450,000 points will be rewarded.]

[Great achievement! For the first time, you have released five different species of monsters to transformed landscapes, where each species has enough numbers to reproduce.]

[300,000 points will be rewarded.]

When I released a variety of low-level monsters, such as twenty Pyroks, Fire Larvae, Fire Slimes, Lava Spiders, and Flame Lizards, I received such messages and accomplished achievements simultaneously.

I had earned 3.3 million points so far, and everything was going as smoothly as I planned.

I noticed that one of the messages that popped up highlighted the fact that the achievement was accomplished specifically in “transformed landscapes.” Based on this observation, I guessed that I would be able to earn other achievements if I released more breeding species in different types of landscapes.

Anyway, I was very satisfied with the results. Just as I was laughing proudly, something happened.

[Achievement quest—breeding species]

[This quest is only offered to Dungeon Masters with a score of 1,000 or higher in related achievements.]

[Find the species of monsters that match the frequency of Mana as closely as possible and reproduce them.]

[You have 45 days to complete this quest. The reward will vary depending on how well the monster matches the frequency of Mana and how many monsters reproduce.]

“…” I lost my smile all of a sudden.

‘An achievement quest?’

I tilted my head to think. I had heard about “special quests,” but I had never heard about “achievement quests.”

Special quests were a type of quest that updated automatically after a certain period of time. Some of them were available to both awakened heroes and demons, while some of them were only available to demons.

Besides those quests, there were no additional quests available to demons, or so I had thought.

‘Did I receive this quest because I accomplished four achievements related to breeding species?’

The fact that this quest had popped up in front of me was indeed very interesting.

Furthermore, the quest was exactly what I had been planning on doing for the next step.

‘I suppose Adol didn’t receive this quest.’

The breeding species that matched the dungeon in Japan were Goblins. However, I was convinced that Adol wouldn’t have received this request.

In order to receive this quest, one had to complete a related quest. Adol didn’t seemed to be interested in such quests at all.

Thinking about the condition of his dungeon, I was even more convinced that he must not have accomplished any related quests.

I nodded as I was reading the message in the air again.

‘I’ll need to figure this out first.’

I looked at the beast-like monsters that I had already released in advance.

Most of them were very active and expanding their territories.

The rate of reproduction and the number of anomalous offspring alone couldn’t guarantee that that species matched the frequency of Mana. Mana was a source. If a species resonated with the frequency, something had to be different about them, and the difference had to be seen in their behaviors.

When they were away from their homes, beast-like monsters usually couldn’t adapt to new environments. It took sufficient time for them to slowly adjust to a new environment.

However, if a species matched the frequency of Mana, the entire dungeon would feel like a cozy home to them. There would be no need for them to carefully observe their surroundings or take time to adjust.

Three species showed such behavior.

They were Minotaurs, Shabel Tigers, and Dark Bears.

Unlike the three above, Mammathdons didn’t look very comfortable in the dungeon.

They were rather passive in expanding their territory, and their actions were slightly awkward. Most of them threw up every now and then, and they also defecated frequently.

As a result, I decided to exclude Mammathdons from the list of potential candidates. I took time to conduct careful results, and I trusted my observations.

‘I may find the correct species by looking closely at their young.’

Now that I reduced one species from the list, it was time to narrow it down even further.

There were four criteria that I needed to focus on.

Was the reproduction rate fast enough?

Was the potential greater than average when compared to similar species?

I also needed to look at the presence of anomalies and their rate of growth.

‘I don’t have enough samples.’

In order to draw more convincing results, I doubled the number of monsters for a larger number of samples. I didn’t “breed” the additional monsters, and they couldn’t be a part of the quest. However, I didn’t have much time. I only had 45 days, and I wanted to breed as many monsters as I could within that time frame.

It was uncertain whether I could complete the quest and earn the reward. Despite the uncertainties, I spent over 400,000 points. Had other demons seen me, they would have thought that I had lost my mind and even cursed me.

However, if I wanted higher returns, I had to accept a higher risk.

This quest was the first achievement quest that I had received, and it was worth investing such materials and effort.

‘The species need predators to increase the reproduction rate.’

I didn’t stop there; I went even further.

I decided to find predators of the potential breeding species and release them in my dungeon.

I had noticed that the presence of predators could, at most, double the rate of reproduction. Sure, some of them would die, but I didn’t care about adult monsters at this point. I needed younglings.

Without any hesitation, I released a large number of Orcs in my dungeon.

Orcs were low-level monsters, but the number of them was huge. All of the breeding species’ candidates were intermediate monsters at Level 3, but they were outnumbered by Orcs, and I expected that Orcs would be a threat to them.

Looking at their fights would give me more information about the species besides their rates of reproduction.

“Screech!”

“Screech!”

Dozens of Orcs gathered and made harsh noses.

Their numbers had reduced from several hundreds to only this many.

It was very dark around, and enemies were lurking everywhere.

The enemies came in like shadows and snatched Orcs. The Orcs weren’t prepared for such sudden attacks.

“Shabel Tiger! Screech!” shouted an Orc quickly.

It was the Shabel Tigers that were hunting the herds of Orcs.

Large in number, the Orcs were able to hunt a few Shabel Tigers. On that day, all of the Orcs feasted, and the Orc that struck the last blow was treated like a hero.

However, Orcs started to disappear one by one starting the next day. Only after tens of Orcs had disappeared did they realize that the Shabel Tigers started striking back.

Since then, every day had been a series of fierce battles, and their lives were at stake.

However, Orcs were low-level monsters. Their levels weren’t even impressive, and they were no match for Shabel Tigers, who could hunt secretly in the dark.

Of course, the Shabel Tigers did take some damage, but they managed to corner the Orcs in the end.

“Grr!”

“Screech, screech!”

Perhaps they knew they were dominating the Orcs? The Shabel Tigers came out from the shadows and exposed themselves to the Orcs.

They were approaching the Orcs from all directions!

Meanwhile, the Orcs were shivering harder than ever.

I rubbed my chin and watched through the crystal ball how Minotaurs, Shabel Tigers, and Dark Bears fought the Orcs.

The Shabel Tigers were the most outstanding out of the three.

Encountering their new enemies, Minotaurs and Dark Bears were rather shaky. It took some time for them to rearrange themselves and start striking back.

I wanted them to fight back quickly.

Out of the three breeding species, the Shabel Tigers eliminated the Orcs most quickly.

Shabel Tigers were fast, but they wouldn’t move unless they were convinced. The fact that they wiped out the Orcs so quickly implied that they had managed to analyze the Orcs in such a short period of time and then take action.

‘Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any anomalies in the Shabel Tigers… However, they’re surely superior in terms of potential.’

Minotaurs, Shabel Tigers, and Dark Bears were all Level-3 monsters. Their statistics and potential were on par with each other.

However, the potential of recently-born Shabel Tigers was about ten percent higher than others.

By this time, I was pretty convinced that I could draw a conclusion.

‘It’s the Shabel Tigers.’

I decided to choose Shabel Tigers as the breeding species for the dungeon in Korea.