Chapter 48 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

I had finished with my dungeon rooms. Normally, I would start preparing for my breakthrough, but I needed more data, especially on the raid rooms. Since all of those rooms and a large portion of the 15th floor were still inaccessible, I decided to wait a bit longer before actually breaking through.

It would also take the delvers some time to reach the actual end of my dungeon. There were some fast teams, but even they should take around four months to reach the end, simply because of the extra complexity we added. This time, we also made sure that the main path wasn't so clear to everyone. They will need to explore more this time.

I wasn’t in a hurry to go deeper, and I did want more creatures and plants for my future floors. While I had gotten a few, none were particularly amazing. Honestly, I was somewhat disappointed at how few I had received. The contract still felt firm. I just had to hope they wouldn't take too long setting up whatever they needed to get me more interesting creatures and plants faster.

I opened up the tunnel that led to the huge waystation and made the gateway, which was beside that tunnel and led to my core room, disappear. For a moment, my connection to the outside world vanished. It felt like I needed to hold my breath, but as every gateway connected and the tunnels started to circulate my mana, I felt the rest of the 15th floor's dungeon rooms fully connect.

They became not just a part of me, but a living part of me. It felt great being bigger once again. I took a short while adjusting everything so it would work perfectly and be ready for the adventurers who would surely be rushing towards here.

It didn't take long, as there were always people watching my core gateway to report back any changes. They were purposely positioned far away so I wouldn’t be interrupted by their presence, allowing me to make any changes I wanted.

It was like a disturbed anthill. Messages began to fly between the different adventurers. I watched in fascination as the information network spread the news. Soon, gate travel to this specific waystation was so backed up that some gateways required an hour before someone could walk through them safely.

The first people rushed towards the tunnel, fighting each other but not seriously, as they didn't know where the tunnel led, and no one wanted to accidentally complete the waystation quest. They wondered if it was a short tunnel leading to a gateway to a different section or just an additional area for this section.

The adventurers were quite disappointed to find out that it seemed to be just another additional area; they were hoping for something bigger. The ones who made it there first received the claim to explore this area first, and they quickly started to go through the different rooms.

As soon as the cooldown was reached and the monsters started to reappear, the next team went in. This continued until the second team, by sheer luck, reached the end ahead of anyone else. At first, they thought nothing of it, just another waystation. Yet, it didn’t take them long to understand that something was off.

The false sky seemed higher than normal. Since they were surrounded by a forest, they couldn't see the full scope of the room. The ranger quickly started to climb a tree to get a better view, but even before he was halfway up, they noticed a strange structure.

It was circular in design, slightly raised from the ground, with stone pillars supporting a stone roof. And inside, plain for everyone to see, was a gateway. The adventurers took a moment to question if this was truly a waystation or one of the bigger rooms that had started to appear in the dungeon.

They quickly looked back towards the tunnel to see the waystation markings covering the tunnel entrance. While the rest of the adventurers started to argue about what to do next, the ranger decided to climb higher to see if he could learn anything more.

I watched as his mouth opened in slow motion, and I felt so good. It was a great feeling, making adventurers mesmerized by me. He didn't see the edges of the room that well, as the terrain had some height variations, but he was a professional.

From the room's wall curvature, he quickly started to piece things together. "It must be at least 100 kilometres to the other side," he said, quietly and in complete disbelief. He remained in that state until his team members noticed.

What followed was quite amusing. All of them wanted to climb and see because they simply didn't believe. However, one of them wasn't that good at climbing and slipped, falling three times before he also made it up there.

They came up with the idea that it might be an illusion, which wasn't a bad explanation. So, before they reported back, they decided to go through the gazebo gateway. When they went through it, they found an area where the ground was made of large stone bricks, and there were many more of those gazebo gateways.

What followed was them madly dashing toward the gateways. They found that there were 17 tunnels leading from this waystation, and all those tunnels were connected with the gateway gazebos to the central area of this waystation. They also discovered that these gateways weren’t recorded into their necklaces, except for the six most central gateways in the centre of the waystation. "It’s a goddamned hub, and a real one not like the ones up above."

Now, if a lot of adventurers were already moving because of the new area, then with this discovery, the entire adventurer population started to mobilise. It wasn't instant, but news spread rapidly. It didn't take long for many more people to start showing up in my dungeon. Anyone who was up top found their way inside, as this was going to change everything. The 15th floor was now completely open, and they had a proper hub to explore and start developing.

It would take a little while before they reached those raid rooms, but I had plenty to watch in the meantime. The goblins were progressing well, though a bit slower than I expected. I suppose building a civilization takes longer than evolving through constant combat.

The ants were doing quite well as a whole, but. ‘Determined’, ‘industrialist’, and ‘warlike’ could be used to describe the Ant nations especially the last one so it already looked like war was coming. However, this time, even if nations fought, it wouldn't lead to a massive war like before. Now, wars were being mediated, with set rules of engagement decided before any major conflict occurred.

I found it interesting that they decided not to abolish war altogether. As the current ruling entity that had say over every nation, could have done it. But I guess they understood what they truly were a lot better than I thought.

They knew that war was going to be inevitable, so why not make it less devastating? I also found that they were missing something. While I did have spawners that made predators, they weren't really a challenge anymore. What they truly needed were dungeons, so the strongest of them would have a place to divert their attention to.

But that would be impossible. No other dungeon could be inside of me, and if we ever touched, it was going to be a battle to the death. That was something that my inherited memories told me and I believed them.

That being said, why couldn't I make smaller dungeons myself and run them? It felt wrong, but that was just my instincts giving their opinion. Technically, I was already doing a dungeon inside a dungeon with my playrooms and dungeon rooms. So why not play with that concept a little bit and see what happens?