Chapter 156 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Everyone started to slowly vacate the room that the bug guy was in. He would still need a little bit of time to properly recover, but it was now only a question of time before he was fully recovered.

I kind of wanted to hear his story, as there were a few things that I didn't understand. Now I could ask those questions by communicating what I wanted to ask to my creatures or monsters, but I wanted to be more direct.

I knew there were skills that would allow me to make a complete avatar that I could use to interact like adventurers do with the world, but it sounded so limiting to me. So, I don't know if I ever want to get that skill or not.

What I could do was make a mouthpiece monster. It wouldn't have any memories of its own. I would make it look like an adventurer, a human. It would be a little bit awkward, but with it, I should basically be able to communicate with only a little bit of lag that only I would experience.

I made my mouthpiece's skin have patches of crystal. That way, it would be distinct from everyone else. I ordered it to go to the room the bug guy was in. All of the creatures understood almost immediately what this meant, and they were completely surprised by it. Was it really so rare for me to communicate with others?

Well, I guess I could understand. For me, I speak with my creatures pretty consistently, but there are so many of them. When I look back, sometimes it's really only once per lifetime for one community.

For a moment, I thought that perhaps I should change that. I already have so little extra time, and this would take a lot of it. I will perhaps revisit this at a later date, but if things continue like this, it’s more likely that I would have even more creatures compared to my current mind's capability and creature ratio.

The bug guy looked at me in confusion when I walked in. "Hello there, my name is ETG. I’m the dungeon. Well, not precisely; this is just a monster I made into a mouthpiece. What is your name? I don't actually know your real name; I only know you as the bug guy." I watched as he displayed almost every facial expression I knew to express shock. He then looked a bit sheepish before he answered.

"If it's fine with you, I would actually like to be known and called bug guy. It used to be an insult that cut me deep, but now it's something that truly brings me joy." I made my mouthpiece slightly bow to him. "As you wish, bug guy. I am quite curious as to what happened to you, so can I ask a few questions?" He immediately nodded his head.

"If I remember correctly, you left quite soon after the liberation war. You were quite close to gold rank, but you still haven't reached it. That is quite strange from what I understand of the world. Would you mind explaining this to me?" He thought for a moment about the question but then started to answer.

"It was my fault. I do not know why, but there was a reason why I was so low-ranked. Most of the time, I was outside of dungeons looking for new bugs or observing how they lived. Being in the wilderness, I needed to fight pretty often but I never ranked up as fast as everyone else. I thought there was something wrong with me, but when I started to train here, that problem was fixed.”

“I thought that I had finally managed to fix my problem and forgot about it as I wanted to look forward and not backward. When I was getting close to gold rank, I figured that I could go out and continue to rank up in a relatively short while.”

“It’s a bit embarrassing how long it took me to figure out that I wasn’t advancing like I did when I was here. But even more embarrassing was how long it took me to figure out that I needed to be inside dungeons to progress normally."

For a moment, he had a vacant look in his eyes like he was remembering something bad. "I was only able to use that knowledge a little bit to advance before I made the worst decision of my life."

Then he looked towards me, thinking a bit before he started to speak again. "Before I tell you about that, perhaps we can start by getting you informed about all the bugs I got you. I hope you are already testing them?"

I shook my head. "They are all still in their bags as I wanted to wait until you were fixed." For some reason, he started to panic. "No, no, where are the bags? They need to be supplied with mana or the bugs will die!"

He started to get up, but I laid my hand on his shoulder and pushed him back down. "Do not worry, my friend. The bags are being supplied with ample mana. In fact, they should be arriving soon."

It took him a few moments to calm down, and by that time a few of my monsters brought the bags that they had been supplying with mana. This time, I let him get up as he started to examine the bags.

He let out a relieved sigh. "They’re all fine. I had written about every single one of these species, but during my travels a lot of the books got damaged or destroyed, especially in the last bit. Do I need to leave this place, or can I stay here and rewrite the books?"

Immediately I answered, "Of course you can, and perhaps later we might talk about a job I might want to offer you. But right now, let’s focus on these wonderful patterns."

There was a moment of silence before he asked me a question. "What are patterns?" I quickly explained them to him, and he was completely enraptured by what I could do. "Can every dungeon do this? This is amazing!" I gave him a nod and could basically feel his brain going into overtime thinking about all the possibilities.

"You are right, let's focus on right now. All of these should be new species to you, although a lot of them have overlap between themselves and the ones that I have brought you before. Still, there are some really unique ones that I have been able to track down. Right now, these bags contain a bit under 4 million different species of bugs."

He continued to talk, but I froze for a moment. Quickly, I replayed what he said until I caught up to the current time. "Most of these are not really that special, but I’m estimating that about 30% of all the bug species in the world are currently in these bags or I have bought before.”

“There are a few places left in the world with more unique bugs, but I’m too weak for those places. Still, I’ve been able to get every major monster bug even if I had to buy a few of them."

"So do you want to start absorbing them, or how does this work?" I kind of wanted my mouthpiece to hug the bug guy, but I refrained, as usually that’s only done by people who are close to each other.

"They will be brought to specific places in the dungeon and released. I will have to focus a bit more on them, but I will be able to get every pattern when they are killed."

As soon as I finished saying that, the monsters started to leave. I was about to ask him to explain a little bit about the bugs as I asked him about them when they were released, but to my surprise, he grabbed one of the smaller bags before it could be taken out of here. I raised an eyebrow, as I knew some adventurers did that to ask a silent question.

"This contains a very unique bug. They are the reasons for why I was hurt like that." Now I was intrigued, but I let him have his moment as it seemed it was hard for him to talk about what had happened.

"I am incredibly glad I was able to get this species to you, but if anyone knew, I would be killed 1000 times over. I never actually expected to get this to you. I most likely used up all my luck to acquire these specimens, but be truly careful. These are the most dangerous bug species in the world."

"Whenever they pop up, and they do so quite rarely, everyone gold rank and above is required to answer the call to exterminate them. They are an ant species, but they are well, closer to what I saw the healer be. They are, however, savage and not intelligent, not like us at least. This time, one of their older queens was an actual platinum rank, and the colony was mostly only a decade or two old."

I was completely enraptured, so I indicated for him to show me. He pulled out three glass jars that were heavily enchanted, with the bugs floating near the center.

The bugs inside still seemed to be slowly getting closer to the glass, and from the look the bug guy was giving right now, I was certain that if they reached the glass, they would be able to destroy it and escape. To my senses, they seemed odd.

I took one of the jars and examined it closer. The ant inside kind of looked like a regular ant, but I could feel the potential of the body.

These were really young ones just out of their cocoons, but they were already hand-sized. They were around bronze rank, but as I continued to study them, I was so shocked that if I actually controlled my mouthpiece's body completely, I might have accidentally dropped the jar.

These ants had a similar body to the pixies. It was simply better on a fundamental level, the same way as a gold rank is stronger than a silver rank.

There was one clear and obvious difference. These ants didn’t have the same protections as the pixies did, nor did they have similar protections like the adventurers did. They were exactly like every other animal or monster out there, which meant that I could easily get this pattern.

Immediately, I opened the jar to the complete horror of the bug guy. This body I was commanding wasn't a simple one, as I wasn’t going to make my mouthpiece a weak monster. It grabbed the ant and crushed it while I was fully focused on it. Immediately, the pattern bloomed in my mind, revealing all of its secrets. Just in case it wasn’t a full pattern, I did the same to the other two ants.

I was correct; it wasn’t the full pattern. Although I could have made this monster, the body itself would not have been quite strong with only one ant killed.

I still only needed two to get the full pattern, but just in case, the third one died as well, as I didn’t actually have anything else to do with it. I was so focused on examining the pattern that it took the bug guy multiple tries to get my attention.

"Sorry, it's just this pattern is so unique. I truly thank you for bringing this to me. It might help me more than you know." That brought a smile to his face.

The next two days I spent asking him questions about the literally millions of new species of bugs I got. About 80% of them I didn’t need any information about, as I had quite similar ones already, but that still left 20%, which was amazing. I felt kind bad that I wanted to get this over with, as I wanted to fully focus on the new pattern.

"That was the last one," I informed the bug guy, who had a huge smile on his face even if he was a bit tired. "Now I think I can help you in multiple ways. One, your case of not being able to properly advance outside a dungeon is not unique. I have observed a few such individuals as they have talked about the same problem amongst themselves."

"They are, in fact, quite similar to you in some ways. I’m guessing that you know you are quite good at fighting as it comes quite naturally to you?" He immediately nodded.

"Well, there are others with such natural talents. I am quite certain that you are similar to those individuals I referenced. You see, they are of all sorts of adventurer races, but one thing is in common amongst all of them, and that is what talent they will get."

"What do you mean, aren’t talents random?" When I looked at him like he was stupid, he stopped talking. "Of course not, why would you ever think that? Anyways, just know that there is a reason for your limitations. Would you like me to reveal what kind of talent you will get?" He took a few moments to think about it before he nodded.

"Very well then. While I would not know exactly what you can transform into, all of the people with the same problems as you and with the same advantages have been able to, once they reach gold rank, transform into a beast of some sort, like a mountain lion or a wolf." The news seemed to shock him, and he mumbled under his breath, "I didn’t even know that could be a possibility."

"Now, the second thing I wanted to talk to you about. Would you like a job in this academy teaching my creatures how to survive the outside world and bring back new patterns for me?" The way his head snapped to me—I had been certain that I knew how intense his stare could be, but it seems that I was mistaken. With no hesitation, he said simply one word: "Yes."