Chapter 79 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

POV Enn

I looked upon my colony members. We were once just individual champions, kicked out of our old colonies or some who even left on their own to pursue their own dreams. We used to be individuals who no longer had the purpose of a colony. Now instead, we had discovered our own purpose.

Ants weren’t meant to be like that. That’s why we now have a new colony, one of our very own. We didn't have a lot of members, but we were strong, and we had a common purpose that we were about to fulfill.

We were already getting signals that some of the nearby nations' representatives were heading this way. "Hurry, we need to get this done before they get here," I communicated to everyone, but we were already working as fast as possible. Moving large stones with the fixed carvings was hard work, and normally it would have needed hundreds of ants. But we were strong, and we had purpose.

When the last stone was pushed into place, we felt the mana pulse, and the markings on the circular structure started to emit blue light that was getting stronger and pulsing faster. "It sort of feels like a gateway," one of my colony members communicated. When I went into my mind and looked at the necklace quest I got so long ago, it finally said completed.

‘You have successfully rebuilt an ancient gateway, but it seems that it's continuing its last directive. It will transport anything on it to the gateway it's connected to and then self-destruct like it had before. Will you step onto the gateway and see what lies beyond, or will you let it destroy itself, knowing there is no other power core that could once again bring it to life?’

That was the description the quest completion notification said. I quickly told everyone else, and already two of the more eager champions walked into the center of the gateway. A quick discussion followed on what we should do, and we even had to clear the pheromones from the air with a few skills; otherwise, things just got too messy. Fortunately, we were efficient as always, and the plan quickly formed.

We had a few experts on this type of gateway construction, and half would stay behind to fix the gateway once again. Even if the power core was broken, it should still be able to receive us from the other side.

We just had to hope that the other gateway would be able to get us back, but because of that, the rest of the experts were coming with us. The rest of the team consisted of some of our best fighters and Champions, who had incredible utility with their skills.

We could only fit 12 of us into the gateway with the supplies we were bringing. We were all nervous as the blue light was getting stronger and stronger. For the self-destruct to destroy as little as possible, I gave the signal to trigger the gateway activation immediately.

The very next moment, the familiar surroundings that had come to be like our new home disappeared, and we were suddenly in a forest filled with strange sounds and ruins that were even more destroyed.

Quickly, we started to move and established a perimeter. I was told that there was no power core, so we couldn’t get back, but otherwise, the gateway seemed intact. I went back into my mind and connected with the necklace to see another quest.

'Finding Your Way Back Home. You are stranded in an unfamiliar location. Find some clues from this outpost and try to find the lost city where there still are a few functioning power cores.' I told everyone what was written in the quest, but I was surprised that everyone else got the quest as well.

It didn't take us long to find the clue, and it seems that we needed to head towards that large mountain. The journey, however, was likely to be quite difficult as we could hear mammals that sounded to be quite large and ferocious.

We were certain that we were no longer on our own floor, but we did not know where we ended up and how long it was going to take to get back, but we were all still excited as no ant had ever reached this far.

POV Dungeon Core

I couldn’t believe that I was able to witness Enn and her colony actually figuring out how to activate the gateway. The symbols were actually just locks that you needed to put in the right way, and they would make a blue glow, making it seem like a different version of the gateway, while it wasn't.

Their journey was going to be exciting to watch, but they were not on a hard floor, so to speak, but it also wasn't an easy floor. They would have plenty of fights, but if they were careful, I think they would succeed and return. If they did, they would be able to fix the gateway and be forever connected to this place.

Now, I made sure that the gateway could only bring so much and it would have a cooldown after every use. This way, it would take them a while to make a proper beachhead, and I would be interested to see how they would interact with creatures much stronger than them.

Would they try to colonize this new place, conquer it all, or just use champions to come here and collect valuable resources? So much potential, yet so much danger.

I couldn’t keep my full attention on them for too long, as I really needed to continue working on the 18th floor. I must say, making so much sand was starting to get annoying. Because of that, I decided to use a few dungeon rules and spawners that continuously made sand.

They were like waterfalls that came out of nowhere high up in the sky and deposited sand down below. It was actually quite beautiful to see, but it did take a lot more mana than just making sand myself.

However, I had plenty of mana, and it was actually more important to conserve time because when I wasn’t making sand, I could do other things. It was an interesting dilemma, and of course, I could make sand faster, but I felt it was a good compromise.

There was also a lot of monster designs I needed to make, as this floor's dungeon rooms would finally start the three-floor spanning theme. The inspiration came from the twin mountain lions that were currently one of the core floor boss creatures.

They were individually strong, but together they were greater than their individual parts. It was magnificent to watch them battle the other core floor boss creatures. So many of the creatures that have similar partnerships will be the monsters you fight on these floors, but on the 18th and 19th, they will be separated, and on the 20th, they will finally be together.

Of course, not every monster in every room will be like that. There will still be a lot of normal rooms, but I wonder if any of the adventurers will figure things out, and I wonder how these strong pairs of monsters will change how adventurers progress through my dungeon.

We still had a lot of things to work out, as this theme sometimes made rooms a lot easier than they should be, but the rooms with these monsters would be mirrored throughout the three floors, so adventurers should figure it out before the 20th floor.

It was really exciting to do something so different, but at the same time, I liked that it was still grounded because after the 20th floor, it was only five more floors until it was time to make a floor for gold-rank adventurers, arguably the rank when adventurers arguably became proper adventurers. After that things will start getting truly unreal.