Chapter 192 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Dungeon Core

The 35th floor was now officially done, and I was proud of the playroom I managed to make. It was interesting to see how the environment differed because every creature was lizard-type. I would need to think if I would want to do this with other types of creatures, but I have already done it before with bugs. I don’t feel like it’s necessary for mammals, as I’ve already used quite a lot of them.

My breakthrough also went quite well. I managed to get my dungeon rules skill to A plus rank. I had been expanding my 36th floor for a while now and was nearing completion when I was interrupted by something major.

For the first time, I felt people entering the silver floors of not my regular dungeon but my underwater one. Immediately, I focused on it to see a group of 10 people appearing before a boss room that would take them to the 1st silver floor.

"Wait, the pressure is right for this floor. I didn’t think the surface dungeons would know how to do that," one of them immediately commented in one of their languages.

Thanks to Claw, we know every single one of those languages, and with every year we know more about their myriad of cultures. They went into the boss fight immediately, only to be impressed once again as I have been heavily using the underwater dungeon's design schemes for my own designs.

One of the crucial things was that the water pressure of this boss needed to be that of a silver rank floor and not the current iron one. That was crucial for the advancement test of their culture. For adventurers, it was even more important as they needed to prove that they could fight at that depth and not just survive it.

These adventurers killed the boss quite fast, but they weren’t adventurers who had just advanced to the silver rank; no, they were closing in on the gold rank. This was, however, only the first party to enter, and it seemed like they were testing me thoroughly as they even had a gold-rank party. Now I was quite glad that I had finished making all the underwater dungeon rooms.

They, of course, also had a couple of platinum ranks and even one diamond rank with them, but the platinum’s didn't enter my dungeon. To my complete surprise, they seemed to have already found my mountain lake.

They seemed quite pleased, especially when the first reports came back to them about the suitability of my dungeon for their needs. I also hoped that by adding some above-ground rooms and even some entire zones into the underwater dungeon room sections, they would see this as a training opportunity for their young to get accustomed to the surface world a little bit more.

It seems that they’re also quite thorough, and it will probably take many years before they decide anything, but I had time, although not an infinite amount. This was unfortunate, but when I got strong enough, the real powers of the world would finally properly notice me, and getting new adventurers after that would be incredibly hard.

There was an option to slow down my growth, but I couldn’t because who knows when they would actually discover what I’m truly capable of. If I don’t have defenses and creatures strong enough to go against them, I simply won’t survive. We will see; once I feel secure enough, perhaps then I will slow down, or perhaps it will not be necessary and by that time I will already have everything I wanted.

There was also more trouble with the beasts, as they’re pushing quite hard against my academy’s guild, but the bug guy seems to be handling it quite decently. It also seems like Ace was trying to smooth things over, which was appreciated.

Fortunately, they are a bit more distracted with the arrival of the delivers, as they and the masters hadn't expected such a large group to arrive and that they would bring one of their stronger diamond ranks instead of a new one to do the grunt work.

While all of this political maneuvering was happening, I finally finished expanding the 36th floor. It was magnificent in its size, with its length being a bit over 70,000 kilometers, its width just above 60,000 kilometers, and its height being a modest 3,100 meters. Perhaps I should shrink down the length and width of the floors in the future to get more height, but I will think about that in the future.

As for the playroom itself, it will be, I suspect, one of my least populated playrooms, but I hope that over time more life will find a way to live here. Fortunately, I had just enough patterns that could survive in this kind of environment to form a basic ecosystem. At the start, I would make a normal playroom; at least the terrain would be normal, but things would go very differently from that point onwards.

Many volcanoes would rise, the sun would start to burn more, all of the oceans would evaporate, and would slowly start to fill with magma. It will be a dry world with almost no water, but it would be mineral-rich, as the patterns that could survive this needed to get their sustenance from somewhere, at least at the bottom of the food chain. I would be quite interested to see what patterns could survive this environment and what patterns would thrive in it.

While the dungeon rooms would remain quite similar, but of course more difficult than the last floor, there was one important change. While it wasn't a real rank and didn't give anything, black gold was still a rank given to adventurers who conquered the 35th floor of a dungeon and stepped onto the 36th.

While before adventurers could get the skill stones from quests, now they would be added to a few of the loot tables. Although it would still be really hard to get them, it should become a lot easier and more important; someone could get really lucky and get a really good skill, which I think would motivate adventurers even more. It will be fun to see when they discover this particular change.

Pov Rafe

Damn, the fish in my pond are a bit too smart. I think I need to design some new lures. They just aren't biting anymore. Still, it was quite calm, and I enjoyed being in my hideout. My father has been quite busy constantly working on his new floors, but fortunately, I was able to convince him to make me a hideout similar to what some of the clans had on the 36th floor.

The dungeon rooms themselves were quite easy for me, but that’s because I just recently reached the platinum rank. While I didn’t get an upgrade to my talent, and in all honesty, I didn’t need one, I did get an interesting new one that allows me to incorporate my skills to a greater degree. These two of my talents are quite synergistic, and while I’m still experimenting with things, I have high hopes that I could make these two talents of mine work perfectly together.

I was now also completely free. Quite a while ago, I finished my last tests to go to the outside world, but I didn’t leave because of the trouble with the beasts. That, however, just solved itself, and while they hold a large grudge against the Curious Adventurers and, of course, the bug guy, they can no longer act so brazenly as they are no longer hidden. In time, I think they will come to thank the bug guy for his help.

I looked up towards the fake sky and remembered what happened. I was hiding as a hunting dog when they finally arrived. They were surprised to find so many platinum ranks, but many more were completely hidden from their senses.

Still, they thought that they had the upper hand. Now, I don’t know what they originally planned; I don’t think they actually knew what they were going to do, but I’m certain they didn’t expect what happened next.

"You demand a lot of things: that we keep your secrets, that we kill anyone who finds out, that we ourselves must vow to keep what we know a secret from everyone. I can see you have come with ample strength to enforce your rules, but I’m afraid you are too late. You no longer have any need to enforce such strict rules on yourselves or anyone else," the bug guy said after they had been arguing for a little while.

The leader of the beasts was taken aback. "What is the meaning of this? What did you do?" The bug guy simply smiled.

"I didn't reveal your organization to the world; that would be suicide. No, I revealed a connection between a particular set of talents and old bloodlines from races long ago dead. The secret's out, my extended family, and I think you will end up thanking me."

After that, there was tension, and a lot of it, but they didn’t strike in the end. They hadn't come back, and I don't think they will because, to their complete surprise, some people came forward and revealed that they had such talents.

Long-lost bloodlines were rediscovered, and that’s only in the last couple of months. Who knows what will happen in the coming decades? This also shook up the power structure a bit because the beasts were getting a lot of new blood, which strengthened their faction quite a bit.

It was also time for me to leave. I have some creatures to catch that would be quite difficult for the Academy to acquire just yet, which would make me even more powerful. There is also the problem of dragons.

There are quite a lot of them in this world, but they are all living on the small islands off the Shadow Ocean. To get permission to go there, I would need to climb higher in the Adventurers Guild, and for that, I needed to do a lot of real hunting. Fortunately, I could do both things at once, so I could eventually get the features of a dragon, one of the most powerful creatures of this world.