Chapter 125 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Before I truly started to think about what I will do with the 23rd floor, I wanted to check up on how the adventurers were doing on the 22nd floor. It was then that I realized I hadn’t actually opened it up.

How could I have forgotten to do that? Well, whatever. I opened up the pathway so the adventurers could now delve deeper. This also meant that I would have more time to think about what I wanted to do with the next floor as I wanted to see some of their reactions.

On the 22nd floor, it was the first time that I actually had proper classifications for some of the stronger monsters. They were now called guardians.

They were what the adventurers were referring to as sub-bosses or sub floor-guardians. There was, however, a new type. A guardian that would travel throughout a certain area.

Now, I still made it so that the tunnels the adventurers used would be safe from monsters, but eventually, I will change that. But I want to be deeper before I make things even harder.

This traveling guardian will use different pathways and, while it was already something added to this floor, now it also serves a new purpose.

It took a bit of time before some of the adventurers made it deep enough to have a chance at encountering this new type of guardian. Whenever adventurers were in the same room as this guardian, they would get a quest.

I anxiously waited until a party, who was currently fighting monsters in an otherwise ordinary room, heard their necklaces make a sound that was similar to the sound when they accepted a quest.

One of their rangers disengaged to quickly check out what was happening.

Quest received: A dangerous guardian is nearby.

A guardian who roams the many rooms of this floor in search of a worthy challenge and the ones who displeased the dungeon is approaching. The guardian will attack any he sees but will be especially brutal towards any who have displeased the dungeon.

I saw the Ranger swallow in fear. "There is a fucking guardian in this room; we must escape now!" he immediately acted quickly firing some arrows that entangled some of the monsters they were fighting. While still watching his surroundings

"What’s a guardian?" one of the others asked. Then they heard a deep bellow that, by the end, turned whistly. "Oh no, that sounds exactly like one of the sub-bosses on the 20th floor. RUN!"

I was impressed that they recognized the monster; however, it was not the same one that was on the 20th floor. They were lucky that they were in a rocky and hilly room; otherwise, the large and terrifying crocodile would have had less trouble catching them.

It had some battle damage when I made it a pattern. That creature has actually survived until this point in one of the playrooms. Because of that damage, it actually had a recognizable bellow that almost every adventurer knew. It also seems like this time, that recognition helped these adventurers escape with their lives.

The fun part, however, was just starting. It didn’t take the adventurers long to report back what they found, and to the surprise and horror of a lot of people, they found themselves having a mark that indicated they were disliked by the dungeon. When the adventurer figured out why they got the mark, I was able to capture a lot more images for new coins.

I also have left them a way out. If they sincerely and out loud apologized the mark would go away, but it needed to be sincere and would only work one time. That'll teach them to try to influence me.

Now, however, it was time to do something with the 23rd floor. I could turn this into a new floor for the new creature patterns I have gotten, but I kind of wanted to wait a little bit longer before I made such a floor as I wanted some more patterns.

There was an interesting phenomenon that I kind of wanted to test some more. There have been two occasions in my dungeon where creatures have started to adapt from a land-based living to a more water-based one. There is also one occasion where the opposite has happened. This was really interesting to me, and I kind of wanted to delve deeper into this.

So, what if I made this entire floor covered in land types, mixing two different environments? What if I included swamps and marshes, places that get flooded periodically, and anything else in between?

This should force a lot of the creatures to adapt in interesting ways. It should be an interesting challenge. Before I get started. I would actually need to start expanding the floor so I could fit everything into it.

Before that. I went into myself and looked at my trait to see if I could finally see all of it. Slowly, when I concentrated on it, it did start to reveal more words.

Intelligence leaning evolution and enhanced. Enhanced, what? I guess I will need to wait until another breakthrough. The rest of the words were so close, but they were still out of reach.

Pov Faris

It was hard to control my rage. This dungeon was beyond frustrating. We were currently using mind crystals so we could communicate without the dungeon finding out what was going on. Just in case, we were also on the surface, but I wanted to break the one I was currently holding. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, master, the dungeon listener is quite certain that it was a mistake on the dungeon's part. He was able to get a clearer image of the dungeon’s thoughts thanks to it only focusing on this one thing. It simply forgot to open up the new floor before it broke through."

If we were only ready, this would have been the perfect opportunity. Not only could we have used our forces, but also everyone else we have recruited.

This way, we would have spent a lot less going through the water rooms, and all of the losses would have been outsiders, not dungeon fairies. We only had two dungeon melters, and that was simply too low to guarantee that we would reach the core in five days.

Hopefully, it will make the same mistake in the next breakthrough as well. We should be ready by then. "Tell me more about your suspicions about the contract," I asked one of my other subordinates.

"Yes, master, we have yet to feel any instability in the contract. It's our opinion that they purposely broke their contract and made a new one when they were both gold rank."

This was a troubling fact but also something that, in some ways, simplified things. This dungeon has plenty of mana regeneration to spare. “We will chain it. It will not be optimal, but if everything goes right, Ace will never know that we are in control of the dungeon. We will need even more people, just in case the dungeon makes this mistake again. I want us to expand our current plans by another 30%.”

"Master, that's a lot more budget than we currently have access to. The chain will already break us."

I hate it when they talk back to me. “To succeed, we need more. Put my name as collateral if needed, but if that’s the only way to increase the budget then tell them that I will get a larger percentage of the future profits from this dungeon.”

Immediately, they started with ‘master this’ and ‘master that.’ Bootlicking weaklings. At least they could follow directions.

You will be mine, dungeon. I will make sure of it. This human body is already making me sick; it's too big and ugly. I will, however, endure. During the next breakthrough, which should be in about six years, it will finally be over.