Daisy does end up entering the dungeon. In fact, she ended up delving much more than expected as everyone else was focused on their skills. Even Jim would have problems gathering a full team and so she was voluntold to fill in when needed. It was good for her and certainly helped when out of the dungeon as well. After all, Luck builds on what is already there. It takes a lot more to ricochet an arrow off something to turn a miss into a hit than it does to make sure the wind blows just right to make sure a hit finds a weak point.

Doyle mostly ignored this development as he was about to finish the first main piece of his longest term project. On the seventh floor, he was finally finishing up the first scene on the sphere. When he started, Doyle had a generic idea about combining the kobold monument appearing and the failed raid, especially when the off world guild official showed up. The problem was making sure it didn't look like the kobolds were lording over the town.

In actuality, Doyle should have probably made it into two murals. Instead, he took many hours of work to design things to be just right. The monument part of things was easy. All that part of the design needed was a stylistic rendition of the monument and some kobolds living together peacefully around it.

Though even that required a ton of redesigns. In the end, Doyle settled on one of the more cliche options for displaying two opposites. The classic ying-yang symbol. And it was this that suddenly fueled his creativity.

White on black, the town and traitorous raiders in their stockades. Certain details brought into emphasis with white stone such as the shark teeth of the guild rep and the stockades, which took center stage. Black on white, the kobolds all joined hands. The monument in black as well as certain details such as the kobold leader's armor.

By using white and black stone set into patterns, then engraved, Doyle is able to bring out the scene. Each side separated and yet set against each other. And yeah, he did portray his kobolds in a positive light. If he is writing the history, or engraving it as the case may be, then he gets to spin it how he wants.

The engraved mural wasn't done in a hyper realistic style which helped speed things up. Sure, Doyle could have engraved each kobold accurately down to the scale, but that wasn't the feel he wanted. Rather, the mural was meant to have that powerful feel you get from a highly stylistic and simple piece of art.

Simple figures and forms. Mostly empty faces, except for relevant details like with the guild officials shark teeth. From a certain perspective, it could be seen as creepy. However, the mural overall projected a heavy feeling of solemness and the weight of history. That last one was odd since none of it had any actual history behind it.

Doyle called Ally over and they both stood back and took in the engraving as a whole. It was spectacular. Then the system message popped up.

{World Heritage Site updated

Communities of Myriad Heritages II unlocked}

Doyle nodded, it made a certain amount of sense that changing the heritage site could unlock the next rank of the location path. And if he remembered correctly, he still has seventy-ish points kicking around. The new path should be affordable, likely the same cost that other rank two locations paths did. Though he checked real quick to confirm.

{Communities of Myriad Heritages II 15/30}

Satisfied, Doyle turned to Ally with a concern he had, 'So uh, is each of my murals going to simply unlock new ranks of my location? Like, not the worst, but the point cost is going to go up quite quickly. There will be a ton more murals than ranks I can afford.'

Ally shrugs, 'Too many variables to tell. My best guess is that since your mural includes multiple communities, it hooked into the whole "myriad" thing. Maybe if you had just drawn the monument, it would have unlocked the second rank of the kobold path.'

Doyle, 'So no chance of just getting straight up improvements from it? I'm always going to get delayed rewards?'

Ally shrugs again, 'Of all paths, location paths are the least well known. Even dungeon paths are better documented because of the tutorial dungeons.'

Doyle tilts to the side, 'That doesn't make sense. They should also have location paths.'

Ally shakes her head, 'Not particularly. Flisle is a good example to look at. While dungeons are a location, most focus on their monsters, which grants them regular paths. Now, Flisle does have some unique locations, but they're built with the monsters that will inhabit it first. Plus, since they come from outside of this universe, their paths are all rough translations.

'Anyway, I figure paths won't be the only reward. This time, it was just particularly suited for it. I'm sure your future murals will have their own special rewards. Though I won't doubt that, you'll get your fair share of location paths to build on what you have.'

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Doyle sighs, 'I'm going to guess bemoaning a lack of points is universal?'

Ally laughs, 'Never enough for what you need. Then again, most people would be perfectly happy to buy every path that comes their way if it was possible. Except in leveling skills for the points, they'd be earning new paths as well.'

Doyle shakes his core, 'So, do you think I should buy this new location right away?'

Ally, 'Well, you did want to trade out the kobold location for the more general one, so no time like the present? Plus, if I remember correctly, you got a few interesting options with the last one. It should be interesting whatever you get from it.'

Doyle nods, 'Fair enough. [System, add fifteen points to Communities of Myriad Heritages II.]'

{15 points applied to Communities of Myriad Heritages II...

20/30 - You have earned +40 Destiny, Beings that are created or born within communities that identify themselves as being in and around your location and all monster patterns gain +2 Constitution

25/30 - You have earned +4 Karma/Level, Communities that identify themselves as being in and around your Location have their Soul growth boosted depending on how varied their sapient population is

30/30 - Path Complete, The more varied the communities that identify themselves as being in and around your Location the more likely it is for beings who match the main views of those communities will hear about them and immigrate, You may now view the evolution connections between monster patterns, Non-sapient communities within your dungeon will more closely follow how they would act in the wild unless otherwise directed}

Doyle glows brighter as he reads the last bit. 'Now that is something I'm happy about.'

Ally smiles and nods her head, 'Yeah, the Soul growth bonus is an amazing thing to get this early on.'

Doyle shakes his core, 'I don't know what that means, though since you're so into it, I guess it is a good thing. But no, what I am looking at is the bit about "non-sapient communities". That will be particularly useful for me.'

Ally frowns, 'Don't they already do that? The creatures should already be following their natural reactions.'

Doyle, 'Yes, but no. On an individual level, they certainly will act "naturally". The catch is that this is about how the community acts and not the individual. Sure, some aspects of their community will develop as normal, but my dungeon is missing a ton of the normal pressures that would be a part of that.

'The kobolds are a good example. They're generally mid to bottom of the local food chain until they get a big enough community going. A kobold community that forms out in the wild? They're going to be building hidden homes and have a culture of sneakiness.

'Now look at the fifth floor. They're out in the open building human style homes because that is what I know. That isn't how a normal society of kobolds would develop unless they were already in a human society.'

Ally nods, 'Okay, I can see that. This will give you more realistic monster communities and not just human style communities.'

Doyle, 'Very much that. I don't even know how myconids should live, so what I have is all guesswork. Now, I can set up a bunch of myconids and see what they do.'

Ally shrugs, 'I don't really see that providing too much in the end, but it is interesting. However, back it up to that part about the soul growth bonus. That is BIG.'

Doyle, 'So what does it do?'

Ally smiles, 'It gives you more stats.'

Doyle tilts to the side, 'I didn't get any extra stats from it, the message would have told me. Being vague to draw things out?'

Ally, 'That is literally what it does, give more stats to your Soul. However, the way it does so is more broad and foundational than other boosts. This is the kind of bonus that can't be quantified, but if someone did nail down what was happening here, it would be worse than people finding out about your Energy Well path.'

Doyle rolls back and his core goes dark for a moment. 'Am I just putting up all the red flags? My luck isn't that bad, is it?'

Ally snorts, 'No need to be so dramatic. Remember, it can't be quantified. You can think of body, mind, and soul growth as hidden stats that even systems don't put into numbers. In fact, the only reason we know anything about them is the fact that True Immortals have told people about it and systems tend to announce to you when they increase or decrease.'

Doyle, 'So how do they increase your stats?'

Ally, 'Instead of a direct plus five or a per a level bonus, those values provide a boost to what you get whenever you would get a stat boost. Now, that might sound like it would be easy to figure out, except the variables are too many and you don't know what will give how much of any particular stat.

'Just look at the flat 40 Wisdom you got from the path. Even if another location got the exact same path, it might only give them 30 or maybe 50. And now with this bonus? Maybe if you took it now, it would give plus 45. Or maybe it still gives plus 40 because the boost is too small for even 40 points all at once to mean anything. Good thing we are mostly certain that these bonuses gather until you do get a full point, so maybe a few paths later you get six Wisdom instead of five.'

Doyle, 'Yeah, I can see how something like that would cause a bloody war. And this is a boost to the soul stats. A boost to body or mind aren't bad, but they're straightforward. Though I have to ask, are there known places with effects like this? I assume since I did get the effect, it isn't the rarest of location path bonus.'

Ally nods, 'There are entire planets known to boost these kinds of things. In fact, generally the smallest location found will be at least continent sized. Any area smaller than that tends to end up passed over. There are an infinite number of reasons one town might have people with a higher Destiny than another.

'It is only when the boost is over a large enough area to be statistically significant and unlikely to be from something else that people start testing for it. Maybe a town that has stronger people living in it simply draw their water from a well that happens to be leaching magic from an artifact that can strengthen someone. If instead it is an entire continent? Irrespective of what lever nation might be ruling things? Then people start pulling out the isolation equipment to test things.'

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