Chapter 99 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

POV Adventurer Guild Master

I looked at the numbers on the paper. It's official: the number of adventurers has now returned to the pre-war amount. From here on, it will simply keep growing.

The city itself still needs some work, but it seems that young fellow Ace is doing an excellent job. I’m always glad to see that he’s willing to spend the coin to fix problems and not just hoard wealth for himself. Today, however, seems to also be an auspicious day.

This morning's meeting was quite extraordinary. It was requested by three adventurers, Tristan, Carl, and Anna. I was expecting that they had found another secret of the dungeon, perhaps to do with the quests that involve the languages inside the dungeon.

While it did have something to do with it, it wasn't the main point. They want to spread new knowledge through the Adventurers' Guild on how to get stronger. It seems to be a truly curious way on how to kind of get stronger.

You must limit your own mana pool size, and in exchange, you basically get passive skills, which otherwise are almost impossible to get. After the meeting, it took me 3 hours to reread everything about 20 times, and after that, I tested one of the tattoos myself.

It's gone now; my hand, free of it, burnt out when I pushed too much mana through it, but it did work. They only have a few tattoos that correctly work, but I could see how they were somewhat similar to skill patterns. When this knowledge goes out, it will bring a revolution, and I would not be surprised if even weaker people could start to get tattoos specially developed for weaker ranks.

All this needs is my wax seal, and then I would send it to the headquarters, and madness would follow. They told me that they hadn’t found any indication that something similar had been in this world before, but I knew better.

At first, I was quite horrified because similar things were used by dark forces to make mad soldiers, but these didn’t have the touch of darkness in them. These are just another way of expressing our power.

I also agreed with their recommendations on who should get tattooed. I should write my own recommendation along with the current papers; that way, most people would find it even more credible.

Using these tattoos only when you have reached your limit, when you truly think that you can't grow anymore, is brilliant. I’m pretty sure that if people do it like this, even if they've reached their limit of growth, they can still be a lot more efficient in whatever they’re trying to do.

The more worrying part about all of this is the dungeon itself. It's not normal in any way, yet I can’t figure out why it’s not normal. It must have something to do with its trait. But everyone thinks it has something to do with space; otherwise, how could it have so many rooms and so many big rooms?

I’m not entirely sure; something just doesn't add up. I might have been able to dismiss most of the claims before today, but I know for certain that no dungeon should have this tattoo knowledge. They also specifically told me that they were able to figure this out thanks to the orc-type monsters using these types of tattoos.

No orc clan has this knowledge, and I wouldn’t even classify these as orcs as we know them. One possibility is that this dungeon seed came from a really old dungeon and only now was able to take root.

Perhaps it even came before the fall, or even a fall before that. It couldn't have been before the making, at least I’m quite sure of that. There are, of course, indicators that this is just a normal dungeon seed because it had coin designs that weren’t that old. Of course, now it has special kinds of coins.

I looked over towards the cabinet I installed. It has some expansion magic in it and it was quite expensive. Still worth every gold coin because inside it held as many coins from this dungeon as I have been able to get ahold of.

My crown jewel of this collection, of course, being my own platinum coin. My contribution points weren’t the highest as I couldn’t participate in the war directly, but I could still help. And to think that I was almost not going to accept the quest. Better not to think about the disappointment I would have felt.

No matter the history or the secrets the dungeon holds, it's behaving excellently and making my job quite easy. Of course, there is the snag of the territorial system, which is annoying, but not because of what it is, but what it represents.

There are now semi-open recruitments for shadow guilds, something that is illegal under the current rules. We have purposely not mentioned any of this because it's honestly too late to try to do anything about it, and if we tried, they'd just leave the adventurers' guild and not leave the dungeon.

There have been similar situations before, but those were easily fixed because other dungeons don’t have these massive way stations or hub stations. They have safe rooms where perhaps 50 people can comfortably rest and feel secure, and then continue to delve deeper.

Here, there are entire villages, towns popping up. Another incredible fact is that the dungeon doesn't claim babies. I don’t know why, but it simply doesn’t. Its control over itself is truly amazing, and I kind of think that it could actually not attack blindly if I were to walk deeper inside of it, but I still don’t want to test it.

The whole situation has grown out of hand. Currently, the larger and non-territorial shadow guilds are holding the recommended path clear so new adventurers can delve deeper without having to deal with organizations that want to keep their territory clear of others. But those large organizations continue to go deeper, and I’m afraid that the earlier floors will be left unmanaged. Change is needed.

I pulled out a fresh piece of parchment, nice and thick, the way I liked it. It was time to change the rule; it was time the adventurer guild took a more active role inside the dungeon, and so that shadow guilds could operate under the adventurers' guild without getting penalized for existing.

Rule of law must return, and not just the rules they make up down there. Change must come; in these changing times, old rules must be changed to fit the needs and wants of this dungeon. Perhaps it truly will bring about the new making.

POV Dungeon Core

I followed Tristan, Carl, and Anna as they went to their meeting with the Adventure Guild Master. I didn’t much like looking at him because every time I did, my instincts started to scream at me about danger. I didn’t need it to do that to understand the absolute monster that this person was.

There were three more like him above me, and I think if things continued, more would follow. I continued to look at this person, as I didn’t even know what rank he was; so above was he, even from the gold rank.

Thankfully, I did keep looking at him; otherwise, I would not have known about the changes that were going to happen. It looks like the era of secrecy will soon be officially over. It will be weird to see people start to make their own shadow guilds and openly recruit, but I was looking forward to it.

I was also glad that so many new adventurers were inside my dungeon. I think I will wait a little longer before I open up the 19th-floor dungeon rooms and advance another floor down. Doing it when this information goes public would fit nicely.

The playroom is magnificent. It instantly fixed all my problems in my other playrooms, as every creature too strong for their environments was sent to this floor, and here they found themselves a new playground in which they weren't so dominant.

Some didn’t like this, but I could see most craving the challenge so they could push themselves even higher. More and more were reaching the gold rank and getting their talents. After this breakthrough, I will only need one more to get my own trait.

The 90,000 dungeon rooms now held the order side of the paired creatures. Some of the smarter adventurers should figure something out, and when I start to make the 20th-floor dungeon rooms, I can finally finish the three-floor design, bringing the paired creatures together, and making every fight so much harder.

I think it would be a good challenge so only adventurers who have learned how to fight and not just rely on strength could finish this floor.