I didn't rush back into the dungeon after my update but relaxed instead. Or I tried to.
"YOUR MOTHER WASHES FEET AND COSTS LESS THAN FIVE VALIS!" a loud voice yelled in the middle of the night and I woke up laughing.
I didn't even need to look to know some dumbass tried to break into my workshop and the door was telling them off. I specifically made the thing to use childish insults when it did so I'd get a laugh out of it and it paid off.-
"I officially think I preferred the other door." Daphne said in the morning at the breakfast table.
"Agreed, that new door is way too damned loud. And those insults, by the gods I can't believe how terrible they are." Welf said with a grimace.
"Ah, don't be like that. I think it's hilarious!" I said with a grin as I flash cooked some sausages.
""Of course you do!"" both of them yelled in unison before awkwardly looking at the other.
"Can't you like mute the thing at night or something? This is the third time in as many days and we are losing sleep over it." Hestia said with dark bags starting to form under her eyes.
I shrugged "I could but that defeats the purpose. It's loud because it's supposed to let us know someone's trying to break in. Wouldn't do a good job at that if you can just sleep through it." I said casually as I fed one of the sausages to the cat.
"I give up! You can have your stupid finger eating door back." she said defeated.
"Nah, I think I'll make it eat whole hands this time. No wait maybe I'll make it eat the whole person. Nah that could back fire, you know what I'll keep it a surprise." I said with a grin while they all shuddered.
"You're a scary bastard sometimes you know?" Welf asked and I chuckled.
"If it's only sometimes you aren't paying enough attention." I said honestly.
"Besides that door are you planning to do anything else all day or just sleep all day again?" Ophelia asked curiously as she tore into one of the sausages she nabbed from my plate.
"I did find something interesting in the dungeon on my way down. An intact corpse. A scorpion monster of some sort with odd script written on it's carapace that excites my cursed energy. I plan to do some experiments with it." I said with a shrug.
"That sounds interesting. Are you sure it wasn't a fresh body?" Welf asked curiously.
"Yeah, it was under the oasis. The dungeon also got a bit sensitive about it when I found it too so It's probably at least a little important." I said seriously.
"Sensitive? You mean hostile right?" Daphne asked confused.
"No, unlike most people the dungeon actually likes me. Even Ouranos himself confirmed this. Thanks to my technique and cursed energy I can sort of sense the dungeons mood at any given moment." I said casually like I hadn't dropped a massive bomb of a reveal.
"I knew it was alive because your technique works on it but I didn't know it could think. This changes everything we thought knew about it!" Welf exclaimed in shock.
I shrugged "Not like it changes things to know. Adventurers still go in the dungeon and face monsters. All that knowing that the dungeon can think does is make it easier to hate. Well for anyone not favored by it like me." I said not caring one way or the other.
"I mean he kinda has a point? Like does actually knowing it can think CHANGE anything at all besides our perception of it?" Ophelia said reluctant to agree with me but facts are facts.
The dining area got quiet at that and I just finished off my food before leaving for my workshop. I took a moment to take down the door and replace it with a new one that was in fact made of many connected tentacles interlocked that when messed with by anyone without authorization would lash out and capture the person until I or someone else could release them.-
Just for shits and giggles I also made them vibrate in uncomfortable places the more you resisted. Truly my genius was without equal. Not only were the thieves caught but they were violated at the same time. That should drop the amount of attempts by a bunch. Still once that was done with I went into my workshop and dug out my written down script from that corpse. My first test was taking each individual symbol and imprinting them onto a single penny sized coin of bone with a level one cursed stone sending energy to the symbol and observing the reaction.-
For some nothing seemed to happen but for others there was a faint reaction. I found the five symbols I believed representing the basic elements of water, fire, earth, air and spirit. Yeah spirit was a basic element according to the gods, it's place was to take the inertness of the other four and give them movement. It's also ironically why creating false lifeforms was forbidden as you needed a "soul" to give the base elements making it up the spark of life.-
Anyways these five symbols were merely my own speculation given what they did. The spirit symbol when given energy gave off a faint soul like glow to my eyes like looking at only the edges of a soul rather than the whole thing. It could mean something else but my gut told me that I was on the right track. Most of the other symbols didn't have any real use though at first glance as nothing seemed to happen even when I deeply observed them with my technique. It was annoying and left me moving on to the next step, mixing and matching symbols.