Chapter 161 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

The second bug playroom was shaping out to be a true mix of biomes. In fact, this was the first time that I actually made magma caves. It seems that a few species evolved to live in such environments.

My main focus still remained on the large dungeon room that’s meant for the adventurers. While my mind wasn't fully focused on it, it still took me about a month to find the perfect sand grain size and the different mixtures of sand types that would make it a nightmare for anyone who was not adapted to the environment to survive it.

Despite what most deserts were like, mine was going to have quite a lot of heavy rainfall as I needed the sandworms to be able to survive and breed while being able to grow to massive sizes. In fact, I also changed their pattern to make them even lighter, but the main thing was that the rainfall would help small bug communities thrive and multiply, which would be the main food source.

I got the idea from the whales and plankton—simply a brilliant ecological niche. The sand was also very loose, which would make it a lot easier for the sand snakes to move about. If a person were to step on it, they would sink knee-deep.

There were multiple mountain peaks with nice flat tops with water that could be used as resupply stations. They were still quite far apart as the room was 5000 kilometers long and at max 3000 kilometers in width.

Not all of that was sand. There were two large areas bigger than any hub station at the start and end of this room. They were filled with lush forests, plentiful water sources, and many mines for resources. All perfect for making airships.

They were on a mountain ridge that was 400 meters above the sand. There was no easy way below, only climbing, and if they did make it to the sand, they would get the warning that this was a two-skull area.

The sandworms would be a mix of monsters and actual creatures, signaling the change that was happening in the dungeon rooms. It took me quite a while to figure out the proper dungeon rules, but I managed to do what I wanted.

Now, after this massive room, to get the loot, adventurers would need to be able to skin not perfectly, but to a competent degree, and be able to cut out some organs and a few choice pieces of meat before the monster body would disappear, leaving behind the loot.

Not every monster would have a similar need, and they would all be different based on the monster type they were. Now, this wasn’t perfect, but I wasn’t chasing perfection as I already had that in my playrooms.

Most adventurers weren’t ready for that. A perfect example was the one party who were capable of entering a playroom but did so extremely rarely as they knew that there were no rules there like there were in the dungeon rooms meant for adventurers.

It's also time to update the drop table. While before I only had a selection of specific plants and resources, now I started to add all the myriad of different patterns I have collected.

This didn’t mean that I was going to start giving out amazing loot every chance I get; in fact, it was quite the opposite. The rarer the loot, the harder it would be to obtain, as they would now need to extract it themselves before the real loot dropped.

No more easy plant collection by just using a sword and chopping everything down to get the loot they wanted. Now, if they wanted the plants with special effects, they would need to know how to collect them properly to get the best possible rarity loot.

There would also be another category added, mainly meant for quest rewards, but an especially strong monster could drop it. Skill stones will be a good addition. I now believed I had a big enough collection to feel comfortable starting to give those as rewards as I did not want to give the same few skills all the time.

All of those changes would be after the large room; before that, it would be like the rest of the dungeon. When I was done with this room, I already started to launch multiple quests that would start preparing adventurers, as I didn’t want to hear the complaining that was going to happen when everyone found out what was going to happen. Let them have a few years to get used to those changes.

When everything was done, I looked at the room incredibly happily. It was the first room in a long while that was so obvious when you looked at it from the playroom. Most of the dungeon rooms were invisible when you viewed them from the playroom, as they were quite high up and hidden by the sky dungeon rule that faked the sky. It shouldn’t be long before I was done with the 26th floor.

Pov Guild Master

Now I remembered why I didn’t want to know everything; it simply took so much time to go through all the required information. Fortunately, today was a celebration day. It was, if I remember correctly, 1500 years ago when almost all of the diamond ranks at that time, including me, took down the last diamond-rank dragon.

So many were lost that day, but it was the final struggle of the dragon race, and now they are simply hunted for sport before they could ever get so strong. The fact that no matter what we do, we couldn't wipe them out entirely was annoying, but those ants were a similar problem, and they were taken care of long ago.

The celebrations were always awesome, and watching the paper dragons burn at the end of it always brought a smile to my face. The quality of the tea in this city had risen steadily, and finally, it was at the stage where I didn’t need to order from other continents but could come and enjoy a nice cup of tea in a tea house.

This second-story tea house with an open balcony was the best location in the city to view the various celebrations that the city lord finances. The fact that he still isn't a greedy noble is a testament to his willpower. There are some speculations that his talent isn't as simple as originally thought, and perhaps that's helping him. We will see what happens in the future.

"It was a bloody battle, but I’m glad that they still celebrate our sacrifice," I heard someone say from a table over. Instantly, I went into combat mode as I didn’t recognize his voice. I knew every master’s voice who was supposed to be here. Immediately, I looked towards him while getting ready to pull my sword.

The man who had spoken was middle-aged and quite hairy. He chuckled at my reaction. "Don't be so tense. Today is a glorious day not meant for fighting." It took me longer than I wanted to admit, but finally, I figured it out.

"You are with the beasts. What are you doing here?" For the first time, he properly turned towards me while raising one eyebrow. "Am I not allowed to be here? This is a dungeon that isn't claimed by one of the four powers, or am I wrong?"

Damn it, I did not want to handle politics today. We had not claimed this dungeon, even if we had a large presence here. But if I said so, would they want to claim it? That would be troublesome. We could not handle pressure from both the pixies and the beasts. "No, this dungeon isn't claimed."

He smiled at that, and my heart dropped. "Good, that means more of us can come here and enjoy this wonderful dungeon. Perhaps we could set up a few practice duels amongst our young. It was a pleasure to meet you; let’s do this again sometime," he said and disappeared.

I could feel where he went, but I didn’t chase. Duels amongst our young. We had never had duels amongst our young. Yet I could feel that was significant. Perhaps the closest we ever got was in the free dungeons.

Then it hit me—they were bringing more of their young here to train but without trying to claim this dungeon. Were they trying to make this the eighth free dungeon? This was significant. Quickly, I finished my tea in one gulp and rushed to report to the other masters.