Dungeon of Niflheim

202 Chapter 202: Evolution paths (3)

As Frost relayed their choices to his guardian, she nodded at each of their decisions and their reasons. “Great, all great choices, well done,” she applauded each of the dwarves causing them to slightly blush as they thrust out their chests with pride.

“Alright then if that’s what you want let’s get to it.” Frost clapped his hands with a smile and brought up the dungeon menu to start the evolution. He brought everyone to a large open room so they could all enjoy the scene of transformation without interruption. The three frost dwarves would undergo the change at the same time, so Frost had them split up to generate some breathing room.

Once everyone was ready, he clicked on the dungeon menu and confirmed their evolutionary paths. The moment he did he could feel a modicum of divine energy flow through his body before escaping. It was pale blue in colour and shiny, this narrow stream of divine energy flew out of his chest and split into three, entering the foreheads of the three frost dwarves.

“Ugh!” The three frost dwarves groaned as the stream entered their heads and barrelled through their bodies, altering it as it passed. after a few seconds the dwarves started to convulse, and their groans became more painful and loud. Their bodies then started to glow similar to when Findlay evolved though not as blinding. Cracks could be heard from their bodies as they changed in shape and density. Eventually the three of them were encapsulated in a sphere of light, obscuring the rest of their changes. Around a minute later the spheres dissolved back into harmless particles and revealed the new monsters from within.

Starting from the left, the former frost dwarf was now a frost dwarven rune mage. His frame wasn’t much different, in fact his muscles look even slightly smaller but not much could be seen under the new elegant robes that adorned him. They gave off the feel of magic yet at the same time they gave of the fierceness of a close combat fighter. The major changes however were within his body, his mana channels were now fully established allowing the for the use of magic. His new large Warhammer certainly amplified that aspect, making this rune mage far different from the regular spell caster.

Rune magic in itself was not much different from normal magic, just that the crests tended to be more square in structure and could be applied to weapons and even people. The best way to describe was a fusion of magic and artificing, something that was rather unique to the dwarven caste, whether they be sapient or monster. The Warhammer though only made of pykrete had an obvious rune crest adorned on the face. Its purpose was to allow the physical damage to become ice elemental damage, increasing its lethality.

Next was the frost dwarven smith in the middle. Like the rune mage its frame wasn’t much different, well except for his arms, they were at least one size larger, revealing their inherent power. He came dressed in blacksmithing attire; a large leather apron made from monster hide to protect him from fire. In his hands was a small iron hammer for pounding metal and a set of pliers to manoeuvre the material in and out of the flames. He didn’t come with an anvil, but Frost planned to purchase a few items such as that to make a workshop anyway. The smith came with a few smithing skills that helped him manage fire and shape materials into shape but no combat skills.

Finally, it was the quarreller, the dwarf was now adorned in leather armour and his eyes looked slightly more developed, again the external from didn’t show much change but internally his limbs were more flexible and steady so as to aid his accuracy with his new weapon. Speaking of, held in his two hand was a heavy looking crossbow, made of wood and iron, far more lethal than the bows that came with the frost goblin archers. On his back was a large quiver of bolts, at least 20. Once he ran out however, he’d either need Frost to purchase more or have his smith colleague make some. The construction wasn’t that hard and as long as the shape was the same pretty much any hard material could be used to replace them. It was the same for the frost goblin archers who had already run out of their inherent arrows and required new ones.

Frost couldn’t help but nod his head in appreciation as he looked over his new monsters. They all looked good, and their status showed a great more additions to their former skill less states. The smith in particular had one called [basic voice of materials] that allowed him to understand and manipulate materials better.

.....

Unfortunately, even though none of them evolved to the next monster rank their levels were reset back to zero and had to once again reach level 30 before they could evolve again.

“How do you feel?” Frost asked with a gentle smile towards the three dwarves who were examining their new bodies and weapons with interest.

“Really good master,” The rune mage spoke up, using common tongue for the first time in its life. Although neither of them could speak full common tongue, the rune mage given its intelligence could speak best.

“Fantastic, you can even speak some common tongue, perfect...welcome to the higher level of strength, I hope each of you will become leaders in your new professions and do me proud.” Frost spoke with a regal tone, liking the style more and more.

The three frost dwarves saluted once again and replied as one. “Yes master!” one would be put in charge of the ranged squad that he planned to create; another would be in charge of the new iron mine and the use of its product whereas the last he’d place as commander of his magic corps which only contained the ice flans at the moment. He even planned to take the rune mage under his own wing for a time, exchanging magic knowledge, Findlay could also be drawn in if he wasn’t busy. But that would be for later, he still needed to get through the rest of his monster’s evolutions, time waits for no man as they say.

For the next round of evolutions, it wasn’t quite so dramatic an event nor as detailed with the choices. The 2 winter boars each turned into frost tusked boars that focused on charging power whereas the four frost goblins turned into 3 archers and one fighter, supplying the frost dwarf quarreller with 3 more subordinates.

For the artic fox it had two options to choose from and since it didn’t have a preference it left the choice up to Frost, his choice was thus since the other seemed less powerful.

Polar fox, E-rank 110DP: the next evolution path of the artic fox, larger and faster than its previous incarnation. its fangs and claws deal cold damage, making being wounded by it quite dangerous. it can also generate a minor snow fog from its tail to aid in escape from predators.

The pelts from polar foxes were even more craved than those of artic foxes, yet like artic foxes they were incredibly cowardly and difficult to hunt. Frost didn’t have much hope towards the fox monster caste given that all his other monsters were far more powerful and didn’t have the cowardly trait. He was quite astonished that one of his foxes reached their max level so soon.

When it finished its transformation Maya’s eyes turned into semi circles, and she had to resist the urge to pick the fox up and squeeze it to death against her massive chest. This was another reason that he chose to occasionally summon a fox, they were cute, and Maya liked cute things. He still couldn’t get the image of the lucky frost slime that got to fully experience the entire weight of her chest back on the first day he arrived. As he remembered that he wondered why not a single one of his artic horned rabbit or frost slimes reached max level. They only had to reach level 10 after all and took part in more than a few battles.

The shame was that although these G-ranks took part in a great amount of action, they’d rarely deal much damage and would easily die if they weren’t careful. He had a couple that were level 9 after much hardship, but it was hard to send them into a battle and have them return alive. He was really excited to get higher level slimes, since Maya mentioned that high ranking slimes can be the bane of adventurers who don’t know magic which was quite common in most cases. In the entire month he’d been alive he’d only come across a few mages in the dungeon.

The final two were frost wolves, another monster that had been performing incredibly well and one he had a lot of hope for. He knew that frost wolves had a deep and long evolution tree and at the very end he may even be able to summon Fenrirs such as Maya....but that’s a long way off.