Chapter 176 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

I was incredibly excited. It took a bit of time, but finally, in the underwater capital, the gateway structure was finished. The only thing remaining was securing the room so no mana fluctuations could be sensed after opening the gateway.

Because of the time it takes and the resources required, we have only tested a gateway near me. It was quite the experience as it took so much more mana and a lot more of me to make a secure connection.

That was the reason why our first test with this gateway, which is quite a decent way away from me, is just going to be with some objects we won't miss if they are destroyed.

Of course, all of this wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for our teleportation mage. It was incredibly dangerous what she was doing, and the fact that she was able to bring not just people but quite a decent amount of mass with her when she teleported was practically unique.

There are, of course, many who could do the same, but that's only if you don't put things into perspective. Fortunately, this world's civilizations like to keep track of such things, and a few of the Academy members have been able to get into positions of power that allowed them access to this kind of information.

There were about 1,800 mages who could teleport about 100 kilometers. They are the first to be classified as long-range teleporters, but they could only bring themselves. Even these people are absolute geniuses, so most of the time they don’t risk using that particular skill.

Teleporting short ranges, especially visual range, is incredibly easy and something that happens constantly inside my dungeon whenever a person with that skill fights. Going above 100 kilometers, now that's going to be a hell of a lot more difficult, and the distance our teleportation mage can go would put her in the top 50 of this world.

In fact, there are only 116 recorded individuals who are currently alive who could do what I would call true long-range teleportation. Most of them, once again, don't do this as it's simply too dangerous, and the only reason they have done it in the past is to get the title and the recognition that comes with that achievement. A few things are in common with all of those people, and fortunately, our mage has all those aspects.

She was hatched about 38 years ago and was selected to become a queen of her colony. She rejected her destined future almost immediately and chose to become a champion. Her rise was fast, and when the opportunity came, she was one of the first to attend the Academy. There she started to learn more about the outside world and magic.

She is an absolute genius, but that wouldn’t be enough for her to do what she does now. She has incredibly fine control of mana with a storage capability that would make almost anyone envious.

She has something that adventurers call spatial memory, which makes her incredibly good at remembering everything to do with spatial information. Not only that, but she also has savant syndrome, making her incredibly good at mathematics.

Everything combined makes it possible for her to do what she does, and without her, it would have taken us most likely a few decades to get the presence we have in the underwater world that we currently have.

Finally, I received a signal that everything was ready. I searched out, looking for the beacon at the gateway in the underwater capital. It took a bit of time, but I finally was able to see it and connect to the gateway.

I prepared myself, and after connecting to it, I tried to activate it. Immediately, I could feel the enormous amount of mana needed, but that wasn't a problem for me.

My mind went into overdrive, and quickly I portioned out quite a big portion to do all the calculations and stabilizations needed for such a long travel. Yet just before the connection was completed, I figured out that I needed to do another thing.

Inside my dungeon, that was trivial to do because I was in absolute control of my space. Even the tests we did didn't require much, but I hadn’t expected it to be so difficult to forge a connection between the two gateways. I started to take full control of the pathway between the gateways, but I was stopped by something. The next moment, I felt something enormous look my way.

Immediately, what took me 10 minutes, it was able to assess in a moment after having looked at the space I claimed for the pathway to connect both of the gateways. It then relinquished control of that area and started to fade from my consciousness.

I did not know what that was, but when I started to relax a bit, its attention was directed solely to my core. Fortunately, it was already so faded, but it still felt like I was a small bug ready to be crushed.

Yet, like the ants, I didn’t just submit. I was ready for my death, but I wasn’t going to go out without a fight. I was completely shocked when I felt something like an amused huff, and all of a sudden, I couldn’t feel this overwhelming being anymore.

“The connection is stable. Do we proceed with the first step?” I finally heard someone say, and after having replayed my memory, it was the fifth time they asked. I quickly answered yes, and they proceeded to test the connection that had been formed.

What was that? It was so much beyond me, but what was that? The test was successful, and fortunately, it seems that the pathway I claimed between the gateways remained clear. But one thing was sure: I wasn’t going to make connections to new gateways anytime soon.

I was distracted for quite a while, as we needed to change our current plans quite a lot in the underwater world with us having a permanent connection to it.

Everything was still a bit hazy, and only after a month did I finally shake off the feeling I had felt. Now that my mind was clear once again, there were some things that I was able to figure out, which made me feel a whole lot better.

While whoever that was could deny my gateway connections, I am quite certain that it couldn’t actually harm me, and all that it did was intimidate, most likely to test my response. Whatever it was, it came from below, and I was already wary of delving too deep. This just affirmed my decision, at least until I figured out more.

It was another thing to add to an incredibly long list of things I needed to figure out, but fortunately, I had my academy and the people inside of it, along with my advisors and design team, to help me figure out the things I didn’t know.

Time continued to pass, and it was time to start properly making the 29th-floor playroom. It was going to be a fun project as I would be able to witness, for the first time, a properly strong environment with every creature and plant interacting with each other.

Once again, I was distracted as it seemed like the creature I have an interesting connection with, the one I think the pixies were talking about, would be my proper core guardian, has finally decided to take the path northwards, following the same connection I feel towards him.

His life has not been easy and has been full of hardship. But as of late, his troubles have been more that of his own kind, humans, who don't accept him whenever they find out who he actually is.

In some ways, they are correct. He is no longer just human, as his body is made out of so many other creatures' features. He's able to control his body to a scary degree, so most of the time he looks entirely human, but there are mishaps when he loses control and reverts to what he calls his battle form.

That’s quite a scary sight with different kinds of strong scales and tufts of fur. His ears change so he could hear better, so do his eyes, and the overall shape of his body as well, becoming even better proportioned so he could get as much power and speed from his body as possible.

When he doesn't have a weapon available to him, he could simply make his nails grow out into incredibly strong claws, and sometimes he even makes horns for himself. Whenever this form of his is discovered, it doesn’t take long for someone to try to kill him or drive him away from their community.

Just a bit ago, he was driven away from the most northern human settlement, and now he only has a few months' journey to reach the gateway that would take him to me. I made that quite a while ago, and ever since then, he had been drawn to it.

Up until this point, his desire to connect with his own kind had been stronger in him than our connection, which I was perfectly fine with, as I wasn’t entirely certain what our connection was, but it seems like we are going to find out quite soon.