Dungeon of Niflheim

Upon the arrival of the large leader board and Dark's fanfare many cores eyed their ranking with hawk like gazes, some even glared at their nearby siblings, marking them as direct competition. Pretty much everyone was curious about their rankings as it was a reflection of their development, something that could make their father proud.

Frost was no exception his gaze quickly eyed the top ten spots confident that he would be among them. He was 4th last time and that was before he experienced the very lucrative monster stampede so surely he'd be ranked even higher this time around, right.

The rankings were based on cumulative DP income since the last family gathering. Whether that DP was spent or saved in the bank mattered not, it only cared about the income not the expenditure. Thus having a larger victim pool, more efficient harvesting methods and to some degree a larger dungeon certainly made a difference. However this was not the only way to gain DP.

Some Dungeon cores such as Void, Chronos and Damascus frequently exchanged items through the Dungeon menu for a set amount of DP. Treasures of any kind could be exchanged through the menu not just gold and silver coins. For example Void and Chronos would trade in their excess supply of spell books while Damascus offered up the occasional weapon or armour that he forged.

If there was value in an item then the Dungeon menu would accept it, whether or not the resulting DP was worth or not was hard to say but the three of them managed to establish a fairly lucrative business through these regular exchanges.

And in addition to these minor transactions Void and Chronos received a hefty downpayment directly from Dark the moment they created a brand new spell while Damascus charged an arm and a leg to personally forge weapons for his siblings.

There was always another way to make DP. If the Dungeon cores held no talent or interest in the traditional methods, they just needed to find it.

With it being 11 months since the last ranking and with many of the Dungeon cores branching out in many shapes and forms it was hard to tell where one might stand this time around thus the eagerness was to be expected.

Cursing, sighs of relief and even a few jumps of joy resounded around Frost as he finally set eyes upon his own ranking.

"3rd" He had surpassed his last ranking, displacing Pyro who was now relegated to 4th. Yami and Aqua were still aways ahead of them both but the margin between him and Pyro was a paltry few thousand DP, equivalent to mere hours of their daily income.

Perhaps if Pyro had betted with a little more thought and less emotion he would have retained his position, however that was not the case and the moment he realised that he'd not only failed to breach the gap between him, and 2nd place but fell to 4th. Well something seemed to snap inside of him.

His hatred for Frost that was already palpable and easily seen whenever they were in close proximity exploded. Flames erupted around him as he glared at the blaring number four and Frost's name that sat above it. He was positively livid.

Fafnir, who was by his side was no less shocked, she knew how hard Pyro worked, how much his Dungeon had expanded, how many beings he'd killed and wars he had started and yet all that carnage had failed to get him the position he rightfully deserved. She openly revealed her animosity, glaring harshly at Frost as he stood in a daze as though shocked by the situation.

Maya as his guardian immediately put herself between the two absorbing the brunt of Fafnir's aura and not so subtle killing intent. It only lasted a single second before Dark's gaze wandered over without any hint of the gentleness he showed his children but that brief moment was enough to make Maya's skin crawl. Just like how Frost was a bad match with Pyro she was a bad match for Fafnir.

Their natural inherent elements and even their bodily forms gave Maya a severe disadvantage. This was one enemy she really didn't want to make but if it was for Frost she'd even stand up to a God.

"Tch seems you've moved up in the world Frost while I'm still slumming it down with the average riff raff." Indra's irritating complaint caused everyone nearby to look at him with disdain. The damn bastard was ranked 5th, same as last time yet he described himself as riff raff. If the 5th ranked dungeon core was just average then what did that make those ranked lower, trash.

Of course Indra meant it as a joke but unfortunately it really didn't land well….he was quickly forced to apologise.

Though most of the upper rankings remained in similar positions the middle and lowers rankings saw a complete change-up. Terra who was in the mid-30s was now ranked 9th and would surely rise even further by the next gathering. A Dungeon core with the name Collete ranked 91st last time but now she was 47th while the new 91st was formerly 68th.

A major change that caught most by surprise and revealed who had been putting in the hard work.

"My my my, certainly a big change since last time, Pyro has been dethroned from 3rd place, Terra revealed his fangs with his abundance of passive DP. Void and Chronos are no longer lagging quite so far behind and little Collete I believe you've improved most of all jumping a whopping 44 places, very well done."

"Hehehe thank you Dad." Collette was over the moon, completely blown away by her ranking. She had unfortunately lost her first Dungeon war and expected to ranked as low as last time, but it seems that the major overhaul she did to her Dungeon afterwards paid out in spades, far better than what she imagined.

"Yami, Aqua prime role models as always and Frost congratulations on moving up to 3rd place very big accomplishment considering the efforts of the surrounding competition." Dark wasted no time praising his eldest son and daughter while at the same time making Frost out to be the enemy of everyone ranked 4th to 10th.

1st and 2nd were off the table, but 3rd was certainly up for grabs, Sylph, Indra, Damascus, Gaia and most certainly Pyro would be coming for his head at the next gathering.

'Jerk' Frost internally cursed his father as several sharp gazes locked onto him, most holding a friendly competitive attitude within but one or two were not so nice.

"Hmph must have gotten lucky." Sylph loudly hmphed as she refused to accept her inferiority to Frost for a second time. Apart from Pyro she was the Dungeon core with the biggest chip on her shoulder.

"..."While Sylph was very vocal Pyro was eerily silent, his glare piercing and if looks could kill he would dead a hundred times over.

Even Indra his supposed best friend was blatantly revealing his ambition, quietly muttering under his breath ways to knock Frost down a peg. Of course these mutterings were purposely made loud enough for Frost to hear.

"Piss off Indra or I'll tell Izuna what you've been saying behind her back."

"Ahhh what are you crazy or something shh shh."

"Hoh what exactly has he been saying Frost?" Izuna with a haunting smile suddenly appeared behind Indra, her hands tightly grasping his shoulder.

'Asshole do you have no honour?'

'Honour? says the one planning to openly stab me in the back.'

'It was a joke idiot!'

'Yeah but hidden beneath it were true feelings, you're super jealous.' The two brothers quickly had a full silent discussion with just their eyes. And thankfully in the end -for Indra's sake- Frost backed him up against Izuna's interrogation, calling his outburst an accidental slip of the tongue. Whether or not she bought their story was a whole other subject.

Dark gave his children several minutes to finish finding their name and revel in either joy or misery before moving on to the rewards which there were going to be a lot of this time around.

"First we'll grant those in the top 3 places their prizes, followed by the top ten and then a special prize for the Dungeon core that has improved most since the last gathering….. Punishments and forfeit challenges will come last and no I didn't forget about them." Dark bared his teeth evilly as he spied some of the lowest ranked cores causing them to cringe and tremble.

"1st place Yami, please step forward."

"Father." Yami boldly stood before his father with an unperturbed expression, not even the slightest hint of him revelling in his victory could be seen.

"For being 1st in the rankings, for a second time I grant you these boots of the shadow walker and a free purchase of any 3 star environment." Dark brought out a large chest from his spatial ring, inside were a pair of 4 star shimmering black boots that allowed their wearer to travel through shadows, within reason of course.

There was a limit to the distance travelled and the size of the exit and entry shadow as well as how opaque it was. Nonetheless it was a fine looking gift that suited Yami's style to a tee. But the free 3 star environment was truly something, though it wasn't a physical asset that he could personally use it could dramatically improve the prospects of his Dungeon.
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Only his most recent floor made use of a 3 star environment and the cost for a single room was in the tens of thousands.