Chapter 170 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Vinny

Most of the tunnels were quite dark, some even pitch black, so every time you go into a room, it takes a bit for your eyes to adjust. All of us were blinking away the spots in our eyes as we took in this new room. For a moment, I thought we were in paradise. There were multiple freshwater rivers slowly meandering from the higher elevation towards us.

It was at this point that I noticed that where we currently were was the lowest point; everything else was slowly getting higher in elevation. There was no desert to be seen, but I suspect we can only see it if we continue to walk straight ahead up this gentle hill.

Everything else here—the vegetation, even the birds and some of the animals I could see—would be a perfect environment for us adventurers. Well, not just us, any peoples.

There were plenty of forests I could see, and they seemed to be composed of different types of trees. Immediately, I recognized one of the tree types. They were the same type that grew on my family island and the one so useful for making airship hulls. Because of that, I started to recognize the other trees as well; some of them were even better for airship construction. This place was full of riches.

"Hey, isn't that rope grass?" I heard someone ask and looked towards where they were pointing. It was further away and a bit harder to see, but they were correct. If properly treated, it was one of the strongest ropes that could be mass-produced thanks to how quickly it grew.

"Everyone split apart; we need to scout this entire place," one of the leaders said, but before we could do that, another one spoke up. "Let’s go see that desert together and then we can split apart." It was another leader who said so, and after a quick discussion, it was agreed upon.

The oddity of this room would be the first thing we explore. This meant another run, but fortunately, it didn’t seem to be too long only a bit over 150 kilometers to the edge of the cliff that separated the desert from this living area. We had to almost be at the edge of the cliff to even see the desert that covered the entire horizon.

I did not have eyesight good enough to see the end, not even close, but I guess I could try to use a spell to enhance my eyes. It took me about a minute to finish this spell, which was still way too slow to be used in combat, but I feel like I should be able to get this casting time down quite a lot. It would just take quite a while to master this.

What I saw made me take a step back. "I have eyes on one of the snakes," I said to the others. "It's not like it's quite swimming through the sand, but it's definitely able to go underneath it, possibly for quite a while. I can currently only see a small part of its body, but it's easily as large as the tunnel we went through to get here." There was a moment of silence before Carl spoke a single word, "Shit."

I was not the only one who was staring at the desert. "There are large pillars that look like cliffs quite regularly, but are still quite far away from each other one seems to even have water flowing down it. I don’t, however, see how you could climb such high, sheer cliffs," someone said out loud.

"I saw one of their heads. It could easily swallow five of us without any problem." "I also saw one of their heads. That one only looked like it could swallow one person."

So the snakes weren't the same size. That was irregular. While there were some differences between the sizes of monsters in this dungeon, most of the time they were quite similar. Another oddity, I guess.

Then I noticed how easily the sand was picked up by the winds of this desert. "That looks like quite a strong wind to pick up so much sand," I commented, and others seemed to agree. "The temperature is also quite bad the further away from the cliffs you go. Even gold ranks would need protection."

This was turning out even more dangerous than I predicted. "Is this some sort of barrier so only the worthy can cross?" Caspian asked under his breath.

"It doesn't look too dangerous to me, and I can’t detect any snakes close to the cliff. I’m climbing down," someone announced. It was a man in full plate armor, and it looked like he wouldn’t have any problem climbing down even if the cliff wasn't really meant for it, which was once again weird.

It wouldn't be the first time we would need to climb up or down a cliff to advance, but all of those were meant for climbing, unlike this cliff.

It didn't take long for a few others to join and start to climb down as well. I’m not the best climber, so I wasn’t really looking forward to it if we needed to climb down, but I couldn’t see any reason why we couldn't just make a few 100-meter worth of rope ladder to get down there fast and easy.

My spell was still holding, so I was able to see up close when the first one made it down to the sand. It wasn’t the armored one, but when he jumped to the sand, I could see him sink to his knees. "Well, that's troublesome," I heard someone say, and soon more agreed when their armored man sank nearly to his waist. He also couldn’t move as easily as someone would if it was powdery snow, so he actually needed help to get back on the cliff so they could start climbing back up.

All of us looked at each other in worry. This place looked like it wasn’t meant to be cross. "We haven't been able to explore many of the tunnels and rooms off this floor. Perhaps us thinking that this is the only way forward is wrong?"

Some of us agreed with this statement, but I wasn’t certain. When the others who had climbed down made it back up, they were a bit pale. "When we jumped onto the sand, we got a quest message. It said that the desert was a two-skull zone."

There was quite a bit of cursing after that revelation. We knew that one skull rooms were where mini floor guardians or bosses were. There were some others, but all of them had a similar feature: they were almost as strong as that floor's guardian or boss. It is suspected that if the final room of a floor had a skull rating, it would be 1.5 skulls. That is highly disputed because of the only three-skull area we know, and that's the area just before the core.

We know that area is meant to kill anyone who enters, yet we have never seen a two-skull area before this. Perhaps it means if you go, you are likely to die, but it's not like the dungeon is purposely seeking your death. That kind of felt right, but only time will tell. It took a while as we continued to discuss before we all separated into our parties and went to an assigned area to explore.

"That desert seemed quite dangerous. I don’t think I want to go there," Ziiipe said in a bit more of a serious tone than she normally uses. "It does seem quite unwelcoming," Sandy added.

We continued to work while Ziiipe took notes of the area. A few hours later, Carl interrupted a conversation we were having about this room. "What's that weird hole?" he said, pointing towards what looked like a cave opening.

We approached and watched as Carl entered. It didn't take long for him to come back out. "It's a crystal mine, looks like one of the blue types." Immediately, I rushed in.

There were many nodes, but I recognized the crystals immediately. They were the same ones we had back on our island. These were one of the best crystals to levitate airships. "This is going to be worth a lot," I said out loud as others joined me inside the cave.

Our exploration continued, and we found two more mines, this time for iron and copper. When we made it back to the gathering spot, we were directed towards where the settlement had been decided to be built, at least the first one.

It was going to be near the only entrance tunnel to this place that we had found. That was also quite odd, as usually, there should be multiple entrance tunnels to a hub station, but I guess this wasn’t one or at least not the normal one.

When we made it to the location, we saw that the ground had already been leveled out by the few builders that had come with us. I also saw a couple of people heading towards the forest with axes on their shoulders.

"I’m going to join them," I said to the others, pointing at the people going towards the forest. "I’ll join you," Carl said, while the others continued so they could give our report on the area we explored.

We didn't hurry, so when we made it to the edge of the forest, they had already felled one of the trees. I noticed a weird phenomenon when the tree fell; it was almost like for a moment it wasn't there and then it was.

It seemed like I was the only one to notice. I was distracted when I made it closer as this large tree was basically perfect for ship-making. The center of it was strong and straight, and even some of the larger branches could be used.

"They are some magnificent examples of trees, aren't they?" one of the lumberjacks asked. "In that, you are correct." "Timber!" someone yelled, and we quickly looked towards the sound.

Of course, these people were professionals, so the tree didn’t fall anywhere near us. Yet when the tree should have hit the ground, it sort of stopped for a moment and then disappeared without a trace.

All of us stood there in complete shock. "So that was one of the dungeon trees. Usually, every tree in a hub station is real," the lumberjack who had felled the tree said. "And I could have sworn it was a real one."

This was curious, but perhaps this actually isn't a hub station but something else entirely. When another one fell, the same thing happened, and then with the next one. "Did you guys just get lucky with the first one?" Carl asked, but no one had an answer for him.

When the seventh tree was cut down, to all of our surprise, our quest necklaces beeped. Quickly, I opened the new notification:

Resource node heavily depleted. Continuing to harvest would irreparably damage this resource node.

"What in the hell does that mean?" another lumberjack said. That was a damned good question. I closed my eyes and tried to use my other senses, especially my magical one. They continued to argue, but I tuned them out.

It took a while, but slowly I started to sense the world of mana. As always, it was chaotic, but inside this dungeon it was a lot clearer than in the real world. Thanks to that, I was slowly able to get an understanding of what was happening.

To confirm, I walked further into the forest to notice the nodes that their quest notification was talking about. It seemed like about 12 trees were connected somehow, like they shared the same mana signature. But when I looked even closer, there were actually 2 very similar signatures where there should be 12, one for every tree.

When I walked back, they were still arguing. I explained to them what I figured out, and quickly they tested it when I pointed out the different nodes. Not every time did they get a tree on the first try, but it was the majority.

Just to test it out, we cut 2 nodes down completely, and the last tree of the node was also real. From what the quest notification said, and what we agreed on, over time—most likely a lot faster than it should be possible—these nodes would be filled, and you could get a proper tree as loot, unlike the other hub stations where every tree was real.

We quickly went and notified everyone else as well. Quickly, everyone who had come back from their exploration mission was sent out once again to test this theory.

"How much do you want to bet that absolutely every resource that’s useful is like this in this room?" Carl asked me as we were going to go and test the rope grass. "Why would I take a bet when I’m quite certain that you are correct?" He just shrugged his shoulders. "Fine, one gold as usual?" That made him smile and nod quite happily.

After three days, it was confirmed that absolutely every even minutely useful resource worked like that. No one had expected it to work like that, but it wasn't unique, as some of the herbalists and miners said; this was quite regular in other rooms as well where there were resources.

It was another indication that this might not be a hub station at all. There were a decent amount of gateways, but once again there wasn't a huge collection of them like there were in every other hub station.

So, it was decided that we weren’t going to call it one, but no one knew what to actually call this, so right now there wasn't a name for this place. Everyone was also busy trying to figure out how to get across the desert as every test made it even clearer that it would be a death sentence to try to cross it on foot.

"I am so stupid," I said out loud and out of nowhere as we were relaxing around the campfire. I got questioning looks. "How did it take you so long to figure it out?" Carl asked in complete seriousness.

"What, you already knew what we need to do to cross the desert?" "Nope," he said while barely keeping back his laughter. That son of a bitch.  I threw a small waterfall at his face, which made the others laugh, and only then did I start explaining.

"This place is full of resources that will never run out, at least not anytime soon, and almost all of these resources are basically perfect for making airships." It took only a moment before the others understood. "You want to make an airship?" Sandy asked, disbelieving.

"It makes so much sense, doesn't it? The desert being so dangerous, yet we don't see any flying enemies. There are pillar-like structures in the desert that are high up where it's confirmed that at least one of them has water. We are high up from the desert, perfect for making airship ports. This is literally the point of this place and the only way to cross it without death."

"So this isn't a hub station, it’s more like a puzzle room?" Ziiipe added and after a moment to think I had to agree.