Chapter 187 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Ace

Finally, I was able to just sit on my throne without having to go somewhere tonight. It was a hard day today. A lot of people needed to be executed, more than I expected after all the investigation we did.

When everyone figured out I was gone, I guess they thought I would never return. Because of that, they started to act a lot more openly, which was actually a positive thing in the end. Yet, too many lives were destroyed for me to consider doing something like this on purpose.

It took a month and a half after my return to make it to this point, and while there's still a lot of work, everything is slowly returning to how things used to be. Me, on the other hand, I will never return to the simpler times when I just had to run a small nation. There was too much I knew about the world and how it actually functioned.

The fact that those power-hungry assholes were actually trying to help ensure the destruction of this world just so they could start anew made my stomach twist. While yes, civilization will eventually recover, so many would be lost, and the fact that this has happened four times before just breaks my heart.

So much struggle to build civilization, to fight to keep yours, and then in the end it's all undone by a dungeon reaching the limit of this world and then pushing it forward by triggering a rupture that only a few survive. You could make a religion out of this I believe, and perhaps there was, but it was destroyed like everything else.

Isn't being diamond enough; I could feel the power that courses through me. I could feel my lifespan, and I could not see an end to it. Crushing rocks was so simple, yet I was still weak compared to others, especially because all my skill slots were filled with useless skills that wouldn't help me be stronger. Yet even this system is a lie. Does this world really need to function like this?

I can’t communicate any of this information to anyone. Even trying will most likely lead to my death as they would know. The only reason I was given so much information was so I could monitor ETG, and if anything went wrong, fix it myself or tell the others so they could decide if this dungeon needed destroying.

The worst thing was there were at least four or five points that could be argued, and two of those were a certainty that would sentence this dungeon to death. It was really hard to keep myself from reacting in any way during those lessons.

First of all, bugs, specifically ants, were a big no-no. That’s because they brought about the age of monsters, which by all counts was one of the most terrifying-sounding worlds I’ve heard about, especially those ants that triggered the end of the first age.

Fortunately, they are basically extinct, and while it seems they are not fully eradicated and never seem to be, as even a singular escaped ant could become a queen and start everything over once again, there are systems that span the whole world in place to make sure that doesn't happen for too long so things don’t get out of hand.

It was a known fact that dungeon monsters couldn’t leave their dungeon, so to find out that wasn't strictly correct was terrifying. It was the main reason why bugs were banned. Whenever a dungeon monster had offspring, they wouldn't be dungeon-made anymore and could leave even if they were weaker outside. Bugs had a habit of producing an enormous amount of offspring, at least some species, and that could easily lead to a huge disaster.

From the few surviving records of the second age that I was required to read, it seems that it was common for dungeons to be used to produce foot soldiers for whoever was bonded to the dungeon. It's so weird to think that back in those days, every dungeon could make humans or dwarves or anyone else the same way as they make monsters nowadays.

The dragons changed that. Unfortunately, it wasn't for our benefit but so dungeons wouldn't be as powerful tools as they previously were. The ban on bugs was made by the dragons, and they were the true rulers of the new world for quite a while.

Yet everyone could now reach gold rank, and their need for servants to produce more and more gold and items meant that civilisations were eventually large enough and strong enough to rebel against the dragons.

It was, from all accounts, a true generational war that continued into the next age, where civilization finally won—not only against dragons, although the fight wasn’t over. Dragons still exist and are hunted down whenever they get to platinum rank even now.

When I asked why they didn’t wipe them out completely, I should have expected the answer to be for the materials that dragons' bodies could give. They were purposely leaving such a threat alive just because you could make, I will admit it, some truly wonderful potions that, if offered, I don’t know if I could refuse.

The fact that I’m pretty sure that ETG is capable of reaching the end a lot faster than everyone thinks possible is so scary. He has gotten better and better at not reacting to my presence and everything I could sense that's down there is just overwhelming. Yet from my bond with him, I could not feel any malice.

He's also gotten a lot better at communicating. While before it felt like I could barely understand his words, now there is no difference if I was speaking to him or anyone else. The fact that my talent can pull strength from his territory also means that we might actually have something closer to the bond dungeons used to have with others until the pixies changed that particular aspect. Now only contracts could initiate a shallow bond unlike how it used to be.

I think that because of my talent, I didn’t get any new ones, but the one I currently have is nothing like it used to be. The fact that it's so perfect for ruling makes me a little bit sick because that means that I’m actually meant for it.

Now I can feel everything so much better, and the benefits I get seem a lot better, and it feels like I’m only scratching the surface. Fortunately, everyone thinks that I just have a generic boost talent, which could be argued, it technically is, although it is a lot more. Fortunately, they didn’t ask much about it, no matter how overbearing they are, there are some taboos even they don't like crossing.

Thanks to my talent, however, I now know that the dungeon below my feet is so much bigger, like so much bigger than it should be, and there’s so much life in it. Not just monsters, but the literal things we should be watching out for and trying to stop. There are real creatures down there, properly real, and that would explain why it's so easy for him to advance.

It's also funny because that's probably also the reason why he hasn't been destroyed yet. Of course, he isn't the first dungeon to figure this out, but usually, they start to advance even before they finish the previous floor they were working on.

Those dungeons are quickly destroyed as they are deemed too dangerous to keep alive. Yet ETG seems to find general enjoyment out of watching adventurers and whatever is happening down below that's unseen. By a stroke of luck, he has gone unnoticed.

From what I feel down there, if we could keep everything hidden until like floor 80, I’m pretty sure that he could burst to the end quite fast. But what would be the point in that? Everything would be destroyed.

The real question is could this be stopped because I don’t think ETG would like his dungeon destroyed just to become a watcher of the world. Could we stop the cycle? There was so much I didn’t know, and I’m pretty sure not even the strongest and oldest diamond ranks knew everything.

There should also be people out there who could fix my skill problems, but the moment I would try to search them out, death would follow. The very fact that the skills and talents that make getting powerful so much easier are the result of the dungeons that reach the end, giving us a better chance at getting stronger, is something I don’t know how to feel about.

The fact that in the first age, there weren't any skills or even the inner realm we entered to view those skills and talents. Back in those days, when you could only reach the bronze rank, any magic you had to learn from the bottom up and only a few could ever do it. Nowadays, absolutely anyone who wants to can become a mage and would probably have more power and more spells at their disposal than the mages of the first age.

The fact that every dungeon that has ended an age has added to that system is still strange. What would ETG add? Will there be quests in the new world like we get with the dungeon necklaces? How would that work? You reach the age of 16 and all of a sudden you get a quest to go slay five goblins or something.

That world would be so much different than our world, just like the worlds before were so much different. Thinking about this always gives me a headache. Perhaps it’s time to think about some more pleasant things.