Chapter 144 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

I had already started the mana-gathering process to advance to the next floor. There was a need to be careful because, from the amount of mana I was generating, if I focused on keeping all of it, I would break quite fast from the overload.

I have now done this quite a few times, going over my maximum, but even now I couldn’t store a lot of mana after that, and I really didn’t want to feel the pain of cracking my core once again.

I was distracted near the start of the dangerous time and let myself start leaking out more mana so I could focus on what was happening on the surface.

During the chaotic time during the war, I felt there was a huge presence on the surface, but I simply didn't have the time to check it out. It seems that whatever it was had returned, so I focused on that location.

My sight brought me to a location a little bit further away from the main city. I was quite familiar with this place as this was where three masters lived and where the guild master often visited. What I wasn’t used to was this place being so busy, but after the Pixie incident, they had been bringing over a lot more people.

Normally, I would say that this fortified manor was the most luxurious place on the surface near here, but Ace actually changed that when he upgraded his own palace. This place was still in second place.

What I found funny was that the four masters who were currently discussing something about the Pixies were unaware of the fifth person in the room, the one who was giving off so much power. How did they not notice?

“Did they really try to pressure other leaders to give ETG back to them just because of a rebellion? They are really reaching and probably burned a lot of favors,” one of them said. So, they still tried to take ownership over me when they couldn't do it with force. I wonder why it failed, but fortunately, I didn’t need to wait long for that answer.

"I can't believe that they actually got so many votes. I guess Ace messing with the Cerulean leaders wasn’t a good idea, even if their nations are still in good terms officially.”

“For a moment there, I actually thought that they might win, but then so many darker nations who usually abstain from such political votes suddenly decided to vote in favor of Ace. I didn’t think that the other two would actually help us keep this dungeon," another one of the masters said.

The Guild Master was about to speak, but he was interrupted by the fifth person, who revealed himself. "They did not allow us to do anything. I simply allowed a few of their assassins to start working for me again. I feel like keeping this dungeon is more important than punishing a few children for another few hundred years."

It was quite funny to see all four masters, who are so strong, be taken by surprise and actually seem to show a little bit of fear towards the fifth person who just spoke. All of them got up and greeted the Assassins' Guild Master.

So that's who he was. I had a few who were trying to join the Assassins' Guild in my dungeon, but apparently they weren't good enough and currently were only able to join training guilds for the real Assassins' Guild.

This person seemed to be truly impressive. He was at least twice as strong as the other masters, but his power was so much more refined compared to theirs.

"The Pixies will no longer be a problem. Now, I don’t know exactly why the dungeon didn’t reveal all the details or even confirm that they were Pixies, but it actually helped us. Without a direct conflict recorded, they could not challenge for the dungeon. It is now ours."

I did not like that they called me 'theirs', but what was even more strange was that the other masters didn't seem to be joyous, just contemplating this development. "So, will we take over the management?" The Guild Master asked.

Calling them by their titles was starting to get a little annoying. So from now on, I’m going to label the Adventure Guild Master who has been here the longest 'Greybeard' because of the singular grey hair in his beard. I don’t even think he has noticed that one.

The assassin, I think that's an appropriate name for that particular master, watched Greybeard for a little bit before answering.

"I think that pup Ace is doing well enough. In fact, I think the only thing we should do is keep our presence here noticeable, gather information, but otherwise stay out of the affairs of the dungeon." The rest of the masters seemed pleased with that, which I was glad to see.

After a bit of awkward silence, the assassin started to speak. "There must be a reason why the wild dungeons are the deepest. The Pixies have had the most success in getting dungeons to get deeper, us or the others are even close to that, yet the wild dungeons are the deepest.”

“This is the longest cycle we have had, even if we account for the higher Mana requirements. I was too young to know how things worked in the last cycle. The war followed by the making destroyed almost all records."

"We must be doing something wrong. Perhaps it might be best to let things progress naturally, or as naturally as possible." With those words, the assassin disappeared from the room with the other masters, but I felt him on another mountaintop not too far away.

I focused back on him to see the assassin thoughtfully looking into the distance. Then, to my other surprise, he looked straight towards my point of view.

I reflexively pulled back, but he still kept looking straight from there, even if I moved. "You are truly curious, you know that. I wish that I could come and meet you in person, but I would not want you to go mad.”

“We will, however, meet soon, I believe that. You can keep your secrets, and I will keep you safe, at least from my kind. All I want in return is for you to reach the end, or if failing that, get at least deep enough so I could have a little bit of fun for a while."

With those words, he disappeared, and I could no longer feel him anywhere near me. There was a lot to think about, but one thing was clear: they want me to get to some end point. I didn’t know what they meant by that. I didn’t feel any end point, but what I did feel was the itch to advance and to get deeper. So, it was time to finally advance.

The feeling was so amazing every time, but it was now time to make a floor guardian. This time I simply chose randomly from the patterns that felt properly challenging for this floor. I landed on a snake.

It was incredibly large, 30 meters, and was quite adept at controlling sand. In fact, looking into it more, this pattern was actually quite an old one as currently, that type of sand snake was almost 100 meters long. They were the dominant force currently in the sand seas of the sand floor.

I couldn’t make the entire guardian room into a sand arena; it would simply be too powerful then. However, I didn’t want to put it up against another biome, and from the little testing I did.

This particular creature was able to control even dirt to some degree and absolutely loved water, so that wouldn't work either. The answer was large boulders that went deep into the sand. I suspect I will be able to witness some interesting battles.

Now it was time for the next stage, or more specifically, hopefully add some skills. From watching so many adventurers and creatures who had reached gold rank, one thing became clear: if they were able to store more mana, have stronger mana, or manipulate mana better, they became a lot stronger.

I had been trying to think about my skills and how I should build myself like the adventurers do. The problem was that with all the skills I had learned about, none of them could help with those three things. Only talents or a person’s aptitude could help. Still, just in case, I tried to create those skills, but immediately I started to feel a little pain when I tried to make these skills.

It was distracting. I also felt my breakthrough coming to an end. So quickly, I poured my mana into sub-dungeons and was able to take from B rank to A rank. I still had some advancement mana left, so the rest of it went into creature advancement, which I was able to rank up from rank E to rank D, but just barely.

Coming out of my breakthrough, I quickly started to reconnect with my dungeon and, more importantly, look if I did this breakthrough correctly. I was able to confirm that no one had realized that I had gone through an actual breakthrough.

This was perfect; now, if needed, I could hide whenever I broke through or make fake ones. Most likely, this will not be too useful, but who knows what might happen in the future.