Chapter 124 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

There was so much happening in my dungeon, and I couldn’t have been happier. There was so much happening with the ants.

It had been quite a while since they got the new floor, but it seems that many were waiting for it. I would have thought that the largest nations would have been the happiest, but they were barely ready for the added floor.

No smaller groups, some who even prepared for generations, were ready for the opening of a new floor. They had secretly gathered resources so they could rush the new floor and start building their own nations.

There were a lot of these groups, and with ants, if they had a few queens, they could quite quickly build up a large population and take ownership of the nearby land.

Things wouldn't have worked out for them on currently occupied floors, as the larger nations would quickly shut them down. On the new floor, however, even the outer edge of the huge island was incredibly large.

If they grew large enough, they could join the ant governing body, which would declare them a full nation, and going to war after that would be a lot more difficult.

It wasn't easy for them on the new floor, as there were plenty of dangers, and many such groups failed, but many also succeeded, having prepared properly, and of course, a little bit of luck didn't hurt.

Many new nations were born, but no one had yet to venture deeper into the island, into the mountains. I kinda hope that they will not take too long to expand towards there.

The ants weren’t, however, the only ones building nations. In many locations in the 22nd playroom, humans and dwarves were harvesting their first crops.

These were not the small patches that a few tribe members planted in hopes of getting some easy food. No, these were proper fields worked by many people. It even came as a surprise to me how fast some of the tribes combined and started forming proper villages and towns.

Dwarves did it slower, as they wanted to mine out the area where they lived, but with the knowledge they had and were getting from the quest system, it didn't take long for nations, even if they were technically city-states, to be born.

It amazed me how much effort they put into small details like what flag their nations would fly and what their national animal would be.

There was still a spark missing, but they were imitating proper adventures incredibly well. I think raising the small ones helped with that a lot. It seems to bring out nurturing instincts even in monsters.

These two floors, however, weren’t the only ones with new nations. On the bee floor, there was a lot of war and nation-building as well.

When I transported out all the truly dangerous fruit flies, it didn't take long for the bees to conquer the floor. It also didn't take them long to start disagreeing on how they should proceed, and soon the big nation that formed to defend itself against a common enemy broke apart, and many new nations were born.

The orcs still had their one nation, but there were some new clans that have emerged. There was, however, one more playroom, where finally, true nations were starting to be made.

The Arden goblins had finally reached the stage where their city-states could finally be called nations. It was a huge event but, at the current moment, not unique in my dungeon.

I had done this a while ago for the ants, but it was time to do this for my entire dungeon. I declared for all to hear, except the adventurers, that the new age of nations had arrived.

It was so rare when all could hear me. I wondered how some of the other creatures reacted and how it would affect them in the future, the ones who didn’t know anything about civilizations or nations.

It was a wonderful time, and I made sure to record everything. It's so interesting how certain resources or different terrain changes how civilization develops.

There were many places where not even 50 kilometers separated a group of people, yet they were already diverging enormously from one another. Just the fact that I would be able to see that development over the generations made my core vibrate with excitement.

What surprised me the most were some of the dwarves. Mostly, I tried to find them hilly or mountainous locations, but I couldn’t make an entire continent like that; it would be too devoid of plants and animals.

However, I would have never guessed that so many dwarves would start to develop more towards the sea. It seems that they quite liked fish and the boats that they were making. In this aspect, they were quite similar to the humans who were on the other continent.

Overall, there was a lot in common with civilizations, from ants to humans and everything else in between. Of course, there were differences, sometimes huge differences, but that made the similarities stick out even more.

The adventurers had reached the end of the 21st floor a while ago now, and I was starting to get tired of the talks that perhaps this is as far as I would go. I mean, it's been about a year and a half since they reached the end, and they're already complaining.

Sometimes adventurers didn't make sense; not even 20% of the current adventurers on the 21st floor had reached the end, but already most were complaining.

Perhaps it was a way for them to influence me. It seems that I might want to make a few changes to the next floor. When they understand why those changes were made, perhaps they would understand that they should only complain about true grievances and not about inconvenience. It didn't take too long to make the changes, but finally, it was the proper time to advance.

It didn't take me long to get to my absolute maximum mana. It would have taken longer if I hadn’t consumed some of my high mana-density materials. Having 20 million new monsters actually impacted my regeneration. However, it was an investment that would soon pay off. When I was full, I triggered the advancement.

This floor's guardian is going to be an interesting creature. It was a large turtle, quite gigantic compared to its original size. What truly set it apart from the others, however, was its myriad of skills that allowed it to control air, water, and earth. It was a true menace and, I think, a worthy opponent for any adventurer who would think getting past the 22nd floor would be easy.

It would also be the first floor-guardian room that would feature a lot of water. The fire-oriented mages were certainly going to hate this one.

When I was done with this part of the breakthrough, I moved on to the skill part, which was an important one this time. I was going to make a new skill, but before that, I would need to upgrade another.

I tested out creature making, but unfortunately, 10% was simply not enough to raise its rank. I couldn’t afford to add more as I needed the rest of it to start a new skill.

So, outer vision would be the skill I would be upgrading this time. It was able to go from rank D to C+. It will be nice to better see how things worked outside my dungeon.

For the new skill, I sank into the idea of it. I needed a skill that would make my mind be more. It needed to expand my capability of keeping information and make it accessible faster. As I triggered the end of the breakthrough, all that occupied my mind was this new skill and how it should work.

I do not know how long I was out, but finally, the breakthrough ended. Once again, as I was reconnecting with my dungeon, I felt the changes that had occurred during the six days I was gone.

Basically, nothing important happened, and I immediately started to flex my new power to get used to it. When I felt comfortable and in control once again, I looked at my skill to see what I got.

Ever-expanding mind matrix rank D.

That name sounded grand. I tried to understand more about it and found it to be more like a passive skill. It seems that as I focused mana into it, it would slowly help expand my current mental capabilities, mostly towards being able to keep more information but also access it faster.

It was not exactly what I was looking for, but perhaps in the long run, it would be better. It was good enough for my needs. It's time to start on the 23rd floor. Now, what am I going to do with you?