Chapter 44 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Altogether, it took two years and seven months for the ant war to end, with a total death toll of 3.4 billion ants, totaling 17% of the entire population. It was a staggering figure, but even with the peace agreement to be signed today, there was still one battle ongoing.

It was happening where it all began, at a riverside fortification where the same general was still holding against superior numbers. After their first defeat, the enemies returned, and since then, the battle hasn't ceased; constant bombardments and firefights occurred at all hours.

Only a few of the fortification's walls remained as they were when the war began, but they had been rebuilt so many times and made much tougher that no one could even identify those few original pieces.

Tens of millions had died here, which led to other problems, but even those were eventually resolved. Nothing thrown against the fortress and its commanding general could inflict any lasting damage. The primary reason it still stood was the support from soldiers of the rest of the alliance aiding this nation.

Numerous generals tested their wits against the general holding the fortifications, and all failed. Their failures haunted them, and many joined the attacks on the fortified structures to regain some honor. All who chose this path died, and like the previous generals, the current one was no different.

He knew that if he didn't succeed, he wouldn't have a job, especially since their side was about to lose the war. He planned his strategy well, waiting for the last day and making it appear as if there wouldn't be an attack.

He was aware that there was no chance of victory if the enemy was alert and ready to continue the fight, but he hoped they weren't. Even more, he believed they were unprepared. He had planned everything by himself, so it came as a surprise to every other commander when he began giving orders.

They looked at him as if he were mad, and in a way, they were right. Soldiers who wanted to escape or refused to go were shot, and the rest quickly understood that no matter what they did, their only hope was to be lucky if they wanted to see the next day.

The signals were given, and an ant army started their attack. It was smooth at the beginning, but the general of the fortifications believed that the war was only over when the papers were actually signed, unlike most others who were just waiting out until the war officially ended.

So, it was destined that this last attempt would be marked down in ant history as just another failure of the generals who tried to occupy the waterway fortifications and the final disaster of this disastrous war for all ant kind.

The peace treaty was actually quite reasonable. It didn’t strip the losing side’s authority but did make them more financially responsible for this disaster. It will affect them for many years to come, but it was ensured that it wouldn't be crippling.

It was something that surprised me, but the leaders who arose during this disaster were the best leaders ever in ant history, and all the history I’ve read in the books and memories passed on by my parent.

They recognized that if one side was punished too much, it would just lead to another war that would probably be even worse than this one. So, steps were taken to ensure that didn't happen, and a new organization was formed. Every nation agreed to follow the rules set out by this organization, which would have representatives from every nation, and its purpose was to maintain the ant world’s stability.

How this will function is yet to be decided, but with the peace agreement now signed, they finally have time to figure all of that out. While this will probably not be as interesting as the war was, I was beginning to like politics a little bit more, especially if I didn’t have to interact and could only observe.

With so much of my attention on the ant nations, digging out my 15th-floor playroom has taken quite a while. Of course, one of the problems was the complete redesign of what I wanted to make.

At first, I wanted a cold environment, but one of the adventurers had an interesting book detailing a body of water, not like rivers or lakes, but a lot bigger, something they called an ocean. Apparently, fish could get really big, and other creatures lived in it as well, but unfortunately, if I was brought one of those creatures, I wouldn’t have a place to put it.

So, things needed to be changed. For one thing, apparently, these places could be really deep. I could make it that deep, but the length and width of that floor would be quite small. Now, this book didn’t have everything about the oceans, but I’m guessing only a few parts got that deep; otherwise, they wouldn’t have specifically mentioned it.

I still wanted to make it deeper than 500 metres, and I wanted a coastline too, so I would need space above it as well. So, for the first time in a long while, the length and width of my new floor were smaller than previously, but the height was three times more, at 1500 metres.

That shortened this floor quite a lot, and the 15th floor's length turned out to be just above 4600 kilometres, and its width just above 2500 kilometres. It's still a stupendous amount of space but it was a bit weird having it smaller than the last floor.

Like the book said, I’m making a coastline that will gradually get deeper and deeper, but I will also have a lot of cave systems to fill in the unusable space that otherwise would just be rock. The book didn't mention anything about underwater caves, but it just made sense that there would be some.

Because my floors are oval-shaped, one side would be the coastline, extending about 1000 kilometres in. On average, the land area will be heavy with lakes and rivers that connect to this ocean.

I also made the southern side a lot more humid and warm, while keeping the northern one more temperate. Otherwise, the vegetation and plants on the land were going to be similar to a forested area. I was still undecided about what kind of creatures I wanted, but it will take a while to grow everything out, so I had time to think.

I also wanted islands, so I made quite a few, but I didn’t make them too large. I probably went a little overboard, but it was incredibly fun to make all kinds of different islands. Some only had hard rock, while others were entirely sandy.

Filling this entire place with water took the second half of the ant war, but I made sure that the ocean water was salty. I wondered if that had something to do with how big the creatures in it got, or was it just extra space?

Digging out the entire cave system to cover the entire unused underground space took a lot longer than expected, but that was partly because I wanted to do all kinds of different designs, from large rooms to narrow tunnels and everything in between.

The vegetation for this ocean was going to be a problem, and the only thing I had gotten from the ocean was something called seaweed. Well, at least the ocean will have one inhabitant for the foreseeable future.

The deepest place turned out to be 1,120 metres, and I was fine with that. I was surprised at how much pressure that much water exerted, but I guess water weighs a decent amount, so it made sense.

This time, however, I did run into a problem. For the first time ever, I couldn’t place a dungeon rule because I wasn’t strong enough to do it. I tried to make the ocean have waves, but there was simply too much water to do it properly. I could fake it and simulate waves on top of the ocean, but it wouldn't be the correct environment, and the waves wouldn’t have the power they usually did.

Now that the war was over, I took some time to think of a solution. The only thing that came to mind was to make a skill that would strengthen dungeon rules. It would be silly to create and devote so much to a single skill if I only needed it for this occasion, but I would probably want to make more complex environments later on.

If I wanted to do this, it would require a lot of preparation and experimenting with my dungeon rules, so I would have a clear vision of what the skill needed to do; otherwise, I might end up with a useless skill.

I continued to make dungeon rooms and the 15th-floor playroom while constantly experimenting and pushing my dungeon rules to their limits. For that, I had made special areas and rooms where I could experiment with incredibly high temperatures and everything else I could think of.

About 3 months into this training, something happened that hadn’t occurred for a while: a group of 12 people were approaching my core room. At first, I was immediately ready for a fight and prepared to bring my strongest creatures to defend me, but none of them even had weapons.

I recognized them as some of the strongest adventurers. Not only that, but some I would call mortal enemies, and seeing them around each other without weapons or armour was more unsettling than them actually coming to destroy my core.