Chapter 173 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Claw

The final piece of equipment that I put down was a large cloak that covered me entirely. Only my eyes were shown. It was a special cloak meant to keep its occupant nice and moist.

While this particular species could survive without it, it would be a bit of an unpleasant feeling when your skin is dry and tight. I left through the secret entrance as I couldn’t be associated with this trading company.

My journey wasn’t a long one as this town wasn’t really that big. There was one caravan that was setting up for their destination, the capital of this region, Coral Rest. I researched every single member of this caravan and knew exactly which one to approach to get my desired outcome. It was one of the people in charge of the sea horses and the fourth highest person in charge in their hierarchy of the caravan.

"Excuse me," I asked in one of the common languages I knew that they didn’t speak. "What was that?" He turned around speaking in another language, something that seemed to be a common occurrence in this culture. The one who had seemingly more authority was the one whose language you were supposed to communicate in, and if you couldn't, it would be a bad mark on your part.

"Hello, is there any chance that you are going to Cliff's Edge?" Now that I spoke his preferred language, he relaxed a bit more. Quickly, he started to shake his head with the accompanying hand gesture for not really. "We are not, and we would not be going anywhere near it." I gave a nod and started to walk away.

"Wait, we are headed to Coral Rest. From there you could take the constant caravans going to Cliff's Edge." I paused and immediately turned around. "I guess that will have to do. How much is a seat to Coral Rest?"

"Well, that depends. Do you have any luggage?" Immediately I shook my head. "Then it will be 3 purple coins." That was a steep price. "Two purple, four blue," I said in return after thinking for a moment.

"Make it five blue and you have a deal." I immediately reached into my coin bags and pulled out the coins the underwater species used. On purpose, I made sure that he could see my hand properly so he wouldn’t doubt that I was of an underwater species. "We will be leaving at high tide. If you’re not there, then you will be left behind." I nodded and didn’t stay around for conversation.

It was about 40 minutes until the caravan left, but I made sure to purchase some foodstuffs that would be good underwater in view of everyone to prepare for the journey ahead. While the cloak I was wearing covered who I was, it most certainly didn’t hide that I was wearing weapons.

That was why I actually got a decent enough price. If I was someone who couldn’t protect myself, the price of the journey would have been over 10 purple coins, which was about 200 gold coins.

There was a good reason why there wasn't almost any metal used by the underwater species, and that’s because it’s really hard to melt metal when you’re under the water.

So, most of their weapons are made from more natural materials, including their coins, which are carved from very specific coral that’s extremely rare and valuable, mostly for making artifacts or potions. Everything that can help you survive their cruel world was really valuable, which made perfect sense.

Making sure I was about 15 minutes early, I watched as they prepared the seahorses, who were already inside the river, for the journey ahead.

Many cultures have different expectations on when you should arrive when a time is given. Underwater species most of the time expect you to be a reasonable amount of time early from the stated time. I myself liked most coming exactly at the same time that was said, but my needs are irrelevant on a mission.

"Everyone have your things with you. Someone will come and guide you to your seat," one of the caravan members yelled. It didn't take long for me to be guided to one of the unprotected pods.

I had expected this, but it would be somewhat annoying having to hold on to the handrails the entire time we were underwater. There was a small screen to make sure that not all the current could hit us while we were moving, but there were, of the 20 pods, seven that were fully protected from the movements of water.

They certainly would have had enough space for me, but class hierarchy was a huge part of their culture. I guess that they would even be willing to carry empty pods rather than let someone who wasn’t high enough in the social structure use them.

The sea horses themselves were fascinating creatures. They didn't have legs and could breathe above water, which was why they were used for this kind of trip that would take them to the surface world.

It didn't take long for us to start moving, but we didn't dive immediately. We moved quite slowly on the surface of the water until we were past the coastline. Before the breaker waves, we finally started to dive.

We were still quite close to the bottom when we got underwater, but we were mostly safe from the strong waves of the surface. At first, it was kind of hard to hold on as the water moving past wanted to drag us with it.

Many of the passengers with us were holding on with two hands. I didn’t need to do so as I wasn’t going to hide my strength. There were no roads under the water, but there were sort of current highways that were used to move fast.

Even if you couldn't get directly to your desired location, it was usually faster to use them to get near the place you wanted to go. There was a reason why Coral Rest was the capital of this region. Many of the currents converged there, combining to form a huge one that would continue almost to the other side of the world.

The only reason it wasn’t an even larger city was because there weren't any of those huge currents coming this way. Apparently, there was a truly huge city somewhere towards the northwest that reportedly had over 100 million inhabitants.

Now, I didn’t know if that was true or not, but apparently, the reason was that there were seven of the world's eight major currents going close by it, making it sort of similar to the Eternal City or the Cerulean Nation in terms of importance for trade and commerce.

Perhaps one day I would actually be able to go and visit it. I would like to know how such a city could function, and the sight of it should be quite magnificent.

Our first destination was a decent-sized town quite close to the coast, which was sort of the final stop if you were heading towards the surface land. While I would have loved to go and explore, as this was the first time I was here, it would be too suspicious to be so unknowing in this kind of small town, as this was a place that I should have been to before.

So I hooked my hand through the holding bar and pretended to sleep. We had three more stops before we made it to the capital, and that would be the first time I would get off this pod if luck held.

Coral Rest was a large city of a few million people, so getting lost there would be easy enough. What was also useful about sleeping was that others would be more willing to speak, and gaining as much information as possible was paramount.

While our surveillance of the underwater species in the town was absolute, there were obviously topics that they were forbidden to talk about on the surface. Hopefully, if there was any important information missing that could jeopardize my mission, I would learn of it on this journey.

It would take us three weeks to make it to our destination, and quite a few times we camped on the bottom of the sea. It was a truly weird experience, but thankfully I am quite used to eating raw food, as unlike the surface species, underwater people obviously needed to eat their food raw, or so I thought.

"Can’t wait to make it back to a proper settlement. Eating raw stuff is quite annoying. Food just tastes better cooked by the waters of a thermal vent." It took me a bit to remember what that was.

In my mind, I pictured the map that we knew of the settlements that were located near here. One of the things that I didn’t understand was the placement of them, as almost all of them simply didn't make any sense. This piece of information helped me fill in the missing pieces.

If you took this knowledge into account, the settlements sometimes being so spread apart yet sometimes quite close together started to make a bit more sense.

While I guess you could call some collections of settlements nations, most of the time each settlement was ruled by the people there. It was almost like every settlement was a city-state, and only some were loosely aligned with the same goals.

After two weeks, we left the final settlement before the capital. I unfortunately needed to go and refill my food supply, where I almost made a mistake and exposed myself. It was stupid of me to not know what the preferred language of the settlement was.

While I could speak it, I still couldn’t read it properly, so I missed the multiple signs indicating what language you should speak in the market. That was something I needed to fix, and hopefully the capital would have the resources required.

Over the journey, I learned many important small details that would help me with my disguise, but for me the biggest piece of information was how deep a settlement was.

Apparently, some of the underwater species could survive deeper down, which made them higher in the caste system of this culture. Most of the time, it seems that settlements were at maximum about 100 meters deep, but apparently some species could even live a few hundred or even a few kilometers deep.

From the way these people talked about those species, it was almost like worship. It was also apparently a reason why adventurers were so well treated in this culture. The stronger you get, the deeper you can go and live.

These were important cultural cornerstones, and I soaked in all the information I could. This information I was gathering could be so important for anyone else who would get an underwater mission to infiltrate some of these settlements.

When our journey was at an end, I was greeted with one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen. Coral Rest was an apt name, as this city was mainly made from coral, all kinds of different species, some that even seemed to glow, giving this city a magical aura. Quickly, I schooled my excitement as this should be a sight I've seen thousands of times, as I was supposed to be from this city.

The city itself was a lot more spread out than I expected it to be, making it seem so much more than it was. The land area covered would mean that on the surface it would be at least a 10-million-inhabitant city, unlike the one to two it currently is.

 It was going to be a tough job getting all of my tasks completed, but the challenge excited me. It was going to be so exciting learning about this new world.