Chapter 47 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Ace

When I made it to the dungeon entrance, I was expecting the worst, but what I saw made me stop and breathe out a sigh of relief. The mother was holding her baby and crying, but the people around her had smiles on their faces.

The guild master turned to me, "No sign of any dungeon mark. It didn't claim the child or even attempt to do it?" Those words made me refocus. That was weird. Was it because of the contract? Because usually, nothing could stop a dungeon, not even a contract, from claiming adventurers who were born inside it.

I looked towards the guild master, but he shook his head, probably realizing what I wanted to know. If it wasn’t the contract we had with it, then why? My mind was having a hard time understanding anything, so it took me way too long to figure out what was going on, and I was one of the last as everyone had quieted down. The guild master was walking towards the dungeon entrance. I wanted to rush towards him and yell out to him, but he stopped just before he entered without me having to do anything.

Damn, my heart can't take this. "Guild master, since everything here is settled, we should really get back to our meeting." There was a moment when no one even breathed. And then he turned around and started walking back. Holy shit that was close.

There was one reaction every dungeon had when someone so strong walked inside: they went absolutely mad and tried everything they could to keep themselves alive. It was a natural reaction because while we couldn't feel how strong the guild master was and how dominating, the dungeon could, and every action would just be instinct on its part.

I somehow made it back to the meeting room, but I scared myself once when I walked past a mirror as I thought I'd seen a ghost. I tried to center myself, but it just didn't work, and I believe I was having a panic attack.

I was trying to handle it and get through it, but it was hard. It took a little bit, but eventually, the report continued. However, I wasn't really listening until a piece of information jolted me out of my state and brought me back.

"Can you repeat that?" the guild master said, barely holding back his laughter. "Yes, at first we didn't believe it either, but if you get over 5 kills, the only loot you might occasionally get are the dicks of the monsters you've fought."

He had to repeat it two more times and show evidence before all of us believed him. If you complete the ‘kill someone inside a waystation’ quest five or more times, then it turns out the only loot from this dungeon you will ever receive are monster parts.

I mean, that was the only loot drop we weren't willing to buy, and to my knowledge, it hadn't dropped for quite a while since all of them were left where they fell. I guess the dungeon got the message and made this undesirable drop a part of its punishment.

The findings will be published tomorrow, so every adventurer will know exactly what happens. We were quite certain that it will reduce the killings even further. They still occur, but thanks to the dungeon, the incidents have decreased by more than 90%.

I was still pondering why the dungeon hadn’t taken that baby, but I didn't really want to go and ask as I didn't want to draw attention to it. Still, I needed to blow off some steam, and fighting a bit on the 15th floor sounded appealing.

I really should do this more often. Thankfully, it's not as time-consuming as it used to be because I can simply use the waystation gates to get in and out quickly if needed. Just imagining the fights helped calm me down from the recent chaos.

POV Dungeon Core

I watched in delight as one of the individuals who kept causing trouble in my waystations finally realized that the only drops he would be receiving were monster dicks. The look of horror on his face was priceless. While I still haven't figured out why adventurers don't appreciate that particular cut of meat, I can certainly make use of it.

The troublesome person is currently battling on the 15th floor, so it seems that the baby incident didn't cause any repercussions for me. I was relieved, as I really didn't want extra core ache that another incident might bring.

There was so much to do and so much to manage that I was a bit annoyed I wasn’t able to do it all the way I wanted. However, this feeling wasn't going to last long because there wasn't much left to do in the 15th-floor playroom which will free up some of my active mind.

I did decide to go with creatures that didn’t make it on the other floors and give them another chance here, except for water creatures. I used every pattern and every variation I had and placed them into the many rivers and lakes on this floor. I wondered how long it would take until some of them start adapting to the salt water, but it shouldn’t be too fast.

With the decision made, I now didn't need to concentrate so much on that task, and I could move on to the dungeon rooms. It was going to take a little while longer, but I was getting close to finishing this floor.

Fortunately, we decided to push back the territory system until the next floor, as it felt better to start there. This was the 15th floor with the boss room, and the next floors would be for silver-rank adventurers—the rank where you could truly start calling yourself an adventurer. Just felt like a better starting point.

That being said, I still wanted to make this floor a bit more special, so I was going to create my first giant waystation. It was going to be the place that connected the first section that the adventurers currently had access to and the rest of the sections.

It was also going to be the first big hub for my dungeon. It was a circular area with a diameter of 100km. That should provide plenty of room for building up a large town, farming, and raising animals, as that was what adventurers did when they didn’t adventure. At least that’s what my collected knowledge indicates.

This wasn't the only new feature for this floor. There were also three raid rooms, as we now call them. They all had a similar scenario: a goblin war party encountering adventurers. These rooms will also be the first test of the territory devices that will be placed in every waystation.

While they are slightly modified and won't have the territory features enabled, they will work with the necklaces to inform the adventurers about what they need to do in these rooms and how to obtain the proper rewards.

We figured that if we wanted adventurers to act in a specific way, the best approach would be to offer the greatest reward for that behavior. So, with the quest system, adventurers will know that 30 people are required to participate in the fight to gain the best rewards, and these rewards are quite substantial.

The scenario is that the war party has recently defeated a powerful monster and is carrying its most valuable part with them as they continue searching for more monsters to slay or villages to raid.

We believe adventurers will be motivated by the best rewards, and we think this approach will work. We aren't 100% sure, which is why only three of these rooms will be on this floor to test things out.

However, those rooms can't reset as frequently as the rest of the dungeon; otherwise, the entire place would be flooded with high-quality materials. Therefore, these rooms will only reset once a week. It will also be fascinating to see how adventurers decide who gets to participate in these raid challenges.