Chapter 178 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Edmund

"It will be a journey of three weeks. We will all stick together and we will be going at a fast pace. Now, this pathway we're using is in heavy use, so I do not want any mistakes," our minder said, giving each of us a look daring us to disobey him.

He looked at me last but quickly looked away as our eyes met. He would be able to order the others around without any problems, but he would have a more difficult time with me.

Not to say that I would be stupid enough not to listen to what he says—he has a lot of experience in this dungeon—but because he knows who I’m related to our power dynamic is off. I kinda wish he didn't know, as everything is so much simpler without everyone knowing, but at least it seems that this group doesn't realize who they are traveling with.

It took a bit of time, but eventually even my application to train in this dungeon was accepted, especially now when we had a few hundred of our members here.

Everyone gathered their things and followed the minder out of the compound we had built in a less busy area of the eternal city-state. There were so many people here, and I was not used to it.

Our people usually lived in small communities in places that most would call too dangerous to live. We liked our isolation, but those areas weren’t like dungeons; those areas could only support the advancement of a few of us.

The dungeons we owned were too strong for gold ranks. It was the mistakes of the past that led us to that problem, and the few that we owned and were good for the lower ranks were usually too busy to keep up with our population.

Fortunately, we had the seven free dungeons, but there we needed to be especially careful not to reveal our secrets. Before gold rank, it’s fine, but after we get our talent, it's hard to control the switch into our animal forms. So for us, the gold rank is where we struggle the most. It would, of course, be different if we didn't need to keep ourselves a secret.

My train of thought ground to a halt when we witnessed the entrance to this dungeon. I had seen drawings of it for our lessons, but they didn't do it justice. It felt like I was walking into the halls of giants, and we were just small ants using their greatness. There was a line to get into the numerous gateways, but we were heading towards the two lines where you could actually reserve a time to use them.

I was still getting used to the smells my talent-enhanced body brought, and this place smelled a lot better than most. It didn't take me long to figure out why; it was the loot of the dungeon.

There was a lot of meat being carted away, and it smelled amazing, but even more so were the animal parts, especially the belts. For some reason, I really liked the smell of them, especially the ones that looked expensive. Currently, there wasn’t time, but I would definitely need to figure out what that was about.

We all one by one touched the gateway, but there was only one choice for us. Since we were gold ranks, we couldn’t go to the first floor. The only gateway open to us was the 20th floor one that would take us directly in front of the boss room that guarded the gold rank floors.

This time we weren't going to kill the boss; instead, we were going to go backwards to the second hub station of the 20th floor and the most populous hub station of this dungeon, mainly because every new gold rank that entered this dungeon was doing the same thing as we were.

We were not going to do any fighting on our way as we started to run, mainly because this main pathway to the hub station was in constant use. It was a fascinating journey, and our minder was constantly sharing his knowledge about this dungeon and what we should expect in it. On the second week of our journey, he started to speak about the political situation inside the dungeon.

We had been briefed on it a little bit, but the more I heard, the more it felt like this dungeon functioned like a world with its own rules and customs. I could see some of our group members not really listening, but I absorbed every piece of information.

I needed to learn as much as possible while I was still relatively free. While it was more than likely that I would never be in a seat of leadership. Because of my lineage to one of the patriarchs, who was the oldest and strongest I needed to be ready to lead if called upon.

We were about two days away from the hub station when I overheard a particularly unfortunate piece of information. It seems that one of my cousins had already arrived here.

At first, I was excited, as most of them were decent people, but when I heard who it was, I kind of wanted to turn around and start delving on my own. He was a particularly nasty individual who often used our need for secrecy as a way to guarantee the death of innocent bystanders.

"Do you think we would be able to join him as he delves? My mother would kill me if I didn’t try to get closer to a person who had the same bloodline as one of the patriarchs. Fortunately, there aren’t any who are related to the matriarchs because I know if I couldn’t get close to them, she would actually flay me instead of just killing me."

The other person laughed at that. "Yeah, it would be the same, only my father would do it. I heard that he wanted to go to the upper floors. It's unfortunate that we can't do so at our rank. It would be fun."

I held back my urge to knock their heads together. Whoever was giving this dungeon advice, they were doing an excellent job with it. With these necklaces that everyone was wearing, the dungeon would inform you if you were doing something wrong, and everyone had active quests on what not to do, like killing someone in a way station or a hub station if sanctioned war wasn't declared.

One of those quests clearly outlined that any gold rank who would try to go backwards in the dungeon to the 19th floor or ascend even more would get the negative rewards that come with these kinds of quests.

It was an excellent way of controlling a population of people who didn’t like to be controlled. The fact that you could get quests to kill these individuals if they go too far and even get excellent rewards for it was an even better way of self-correcting the troublesome individuals. In some ways, it was ruthless, but I was impressed and wondered if it was possible to replicate this kind of method of control outside this dungeon.

When we reached the hub station, I was not expecting it to look like a piece of the surface world. Everything was real, and there was enough room for there to be multiple villages and, of course, the large central city.

Our destination was one of the taverns, as for some reason, our base's secret entrance was connected to it. Apparently, most of the guilds and organizations used similar ways to hide their bases, something to do with the beginnings of this place.

We entered the large tavern that was holding at least 200 people to find it still. A huge man, at least three heads taller than me, was holding a normal-sized man by his shirt and lifting him up so high that his legs dangled easily.

Our minder looked annoyed and was about to go and break this fight apart when he realized who the large person was. It was my cousin. Our minder looked towards me, and I could tell that he was asking for my help.

"You think you can stare at me without consequences and then tell me you don’t think I’m worth fighting because I’m too weak. I could crush your head with only one of my hands!" My cousin yelled.

The other man started to laugh at those words, but his laughter cut off when my cousin, with his other hand, grabbed his neck and started to squeeze. I started to rush forward to stop him, but before I could yell to him, to my complete surprise, the man whose neck should’ve already broken spoke like nothing was squeezing the life out of him.

"I was just interested because you smelled a bit different than others, so I forgot about my etiquette lessons, but this is your last warning to put me down." My cousin started to laugh and tried to squeeze harder, yet the next moment he stumbled backwards. That man had moved so fast. With one hand he had wrenched my cousin's hand away from his neck and with the other hit him in the face, breaking his nose.

My cousin was about to rush that man again, but before anyone could react, he was on the other side of the tavern, looking at his fist that was covered in my cousin's blood. He had truly broken his nose completely.

That was impressive, and I wondered who he was. "Come back here, you rat!" But the man wasn't paying attention, and then he did something no one expected: he licked the blood off his fist. Only then did he look up and smile. "Thanks," and then he was gone.

"Find him now!" my cousin yelled, and I kind of agreed because that was really weird. We spent the next few hours trying to search for this person, but he had disappeared completely.

It was nice to see that the person in charge of this whole operation, and someone even I and my cousin needed to listen to, was currently scolding my cousin for his poor judgment. I’m pretty sure he’s going to get punished quite harshly for this. What I expected to be a shitty day turned out to be an excellent one, and I was hoping for more of those later down the line