Reborn as the 68th Demon Lord

The two hours it took for his form to fully regenerate were both an eternity and a blessing. The dull, pervasive ache slowly receded, and the piece of his essence that had been torn away gradually flowed back into him, knitting his amorphous body back to wholeness. He used the time not to rest, but to plan. The reinforced wall was a comfort, a solid, tangible success, but it was a static defense. In his old life, a single successful project was not a victory; it was merely a new baseline. Growth was the only true measure of success, and right now, his growth potential was stagnant.

He pulled up the [Resources] tab. 50 Dungeon Points. His daily income was another 50. A hundred points every 24 hours. A [Summoning Ritual] cost 100. He could, theoretically, summon a new familiar or mob every two days. But that would leave him with zero liquid capital for anything else. He couldn't build traps, he couldn't reinforce more walls, he couldn't do anything but slowly, blindly accumulate minions. It was an inefficient, unsustainable model.

The System had been clear. The primary driver of DP generation was [Threat Neutralization]. He had received 50 DP for the Cavern Crawler. To grow, he needed to fight. He needed to kill.

The thought was clinical, detached. There was no malice in it, no bloodlust. It was the same cold logic he would have used to identify a bottleneck in a supply chain. His DP income was the bottleneck. Hostile creatures were the raw material needed to solve it.

But where to find them? He was a slime, confined to a cave. He couldn't go hunting. The answer was obvious and unsettling: he had to turn his own home into a hunting ground. He needed to cultivate threats within his own domain.

His attention fell upon his lone servant. The Kobold was sitting quietly in a corner, patiently waiting, its yellow eyes following his every subtle ooze and quiver. It needed a designation. Calling it "Familiar" or "Kobold" in his mind felt clunky. He needed a shorthand. He observed its primary tool, the stone hammer, and its most useful trait, its skill with rock. A name clicked into place, efficient and descriptive. Stonetooth.

He sent his first real command to Stonetooth. It wasn't a simple, primal urge like before, but a more complex string of intent. Explore the main cavern. Every crack. Every shadow. Report anything that is not bare rock.

He felt a strange connection form, a new sensory input trickling into his consciousness. He could perceive what Stonetooth was perceiving, not as a clear video feed, but as a muted tapestry of pressure-sense and scent, overlaid with the Kobold's own innate geological understanding. He could feel the solid weight of the floor through its clawed feet, smell the damp, mineral scent of the air, and see the world in shades of structural integrity. It was disorienting, but powerful. He was no longer blind. He had a proxy.

Stonetooth moved with quiet efficiency, its hammer tapping gently against the walls, not randomly, but with a clear purpose. It was mapping, sounding out the cavern for weaknesses, for hollows, for anything out of the ordinary. It spent nearly an hour covering every inch of the main chamber before it stopped, its attention fixed on a dark, damp fissure near the floor on the far side of the cavern, hidden behind a fold in the rock.

Through his connection, Valerius felt the Kobold's curiosity. It smelled of wet earth and something else… something organic and faintly acidic. Stonetooth scraped away some of the loose rock around the fissure, widening the opening just enough to peer inside.

The feedback he received was immediate. A wave of hostile intent, weak but distinct. The fissure was not empty. It was a nest.

Stonetooth sent back a mental image, clarified by its own senses. Inside the dark, damp crack were dozens of small, grub-like creatures, no bigger than his old thumb. They had the same crystalline sheen as the Cavern Crawler, but their shells were soft, milky, and translucent. They were infants.

[Hostile Lifeforms Detected]

> Species: Cavern Crawler Grub (x34)

> Threat Level: 1 (Minimal threat to summoned minions)

Valerius felt a cold, sharp thrill. It wasn't excitement. It was the feeling of a project manager seeing a critical resource suddenly become available. This nest was not a threat. It was a farm. A renewable source of DP.

He formulated a new, more complex plan and transmitted it to Stonetooth. The Kobold's understanding was instantaneous. It didn't charge in. It took a piece of rubble and tapped it on the ground a few feet from the fissure, mimicking the vibration of a larger creature.

One of the grubs, aggressive and stupid, scurried out to investigate. As soon as it was clear of the nest, Stonetooth brought its hammer down in a single, precise crack, shattering the grub's weak shell.

A notification chimed. [+5 DP].

It worked.

For the next hour, they repeated the process. Stonetooth would lure out a single grub, and with brutal efficiency, dispatch it. Valerius watched, managing the operation from his Core room. He even tried to participate once, oozing out to smother a grub with his own body. It was a slow, messy, and undignified process, and while he succeeded, he concluded that Stonetooth was far more efficient at the task. He was the manager; the Kobold was the skilled labor.

After a dozen successful kills, he called a halt to the operation. His DP count now stood at 110. He had more than doubled his starting capital in a few hours. The nest was a sustainable resource that needed to be managed, not wiped out.

He looked at the small pile of grub carapaces, then at his loyal, diligent familiar. The process was slow. It was tedious. It was a repetitive, soul-crushing grind. It was, in almost every way, identical to his old job. But as he watched his DP tick upwards, a profound sense of satisfaction settled over him. Every point earned, every threat neutralized, every small improvement to his cave was his own. He wasn't building value for a faceless shareholder or a demanding boss.

He was building it for himself. This wasn't just a dungeon. It was his own, tiny, self-sustaining economy of one, and it was the first thing in two lives that had ever felt truly his.