Chapter 158 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Ace

I looked out from my balcony. There was just something so relaxing about viewing the world from so high up. Once again, there was peace as I wasn’t in the middle of a huge city. The location in the mountains where I had my manor built still had a view of the city, which I was appreciative of.

It was a good thing to remind myself why I was doing all of this. It certainly wasn't for myself, not anymore. I already had everything I ever would have wanted and enough of it to last a thousand lifetimes.

It's just that it’s been over 10 years since the Civil War. So many were lost, yet everything recovered so fast. The longest thing to recover was the adventurer population, as many also left after they found out how badly they had been deceived. Even that only took a few years.

Some of my advisors believed that this war would slow down new adventurers from coming here, and they were right, but only for a few months was that true.

We did make a few memorials. They were simple stone monuments. Hopefully, they will never be forgotten. Unfortunately, I knew that wasn’t true.

Just a couple of months ago, we had our first attempt to steal the platinum coins from the Liberation War Memorial. I had ordered executions before, but this was the first one I carried out myself. It was a public affair so that the newcomers would understand our history and what it meant to desecrate it.

From the latest numbers I went over, the number of new people coming to this city was increasing at an alarming rate. It was a good thing that the skeletons of many new cities, towns, and villages were close to being done. We had talked to ETG about this a while ago, but I guess it’s time to finally start making quite a lot of new entrances to the dungeon.

My mind made up, I went to my table and took a stack of papers. My destination was my private dungeon entrance in the basement. It was something that I was glad ETG was willing to do.

I continued to walk, but my mind drifted towards my biggest problem. Over time, a lot of powerful families have risen in my nation. Many of them are trying to use as many favors and influences as they have to become the first nobles of my nation.

It all started when the plans for the new expansions were made public, especially when everyone understood how many settlements would be built. These powerful families wanted control over these territories while still being under me, of course.

Some of my advisors even recommended this action, which meant that I needed to do another cleaning soon enough. They will be banished, but I would give them a decent enough leaving bonus for the work they had done up until this point.

Perhaps they were unhappy that they weren't in the inner circle of advisors, but I wasn’t going to give that position to anyone. The inner advisors knew so many secrets that the only way they could leave would be in a coffin. They all knew this and were even happy about that policy.

I had no interest in giving up power, not because I wanted it, but because I knew that I wasn’t going to abuse it like others would. Perhaps this will lead to another civil war, but I wasn’t going to give those greedy little rats an ounce of true power.

We were currently considering quite a few different options for how to govern these new settlements, but I was leaning towards the best person for the job approach. For that, however, we would need to open up an academy and set up testing standards. There should also probably be a personality evaluation; I wouldn't want some unsavory individual leading anything even if they were smart.

Finally, I reached the dungeon entrance, which wasn’t anything special. It was just a small room with a gateway. When I entered it, I was already on dungeon territory.

"ETG, I have the new data and locations for the new entrances to the settlements that have been built. Please look over them and bring up any concerns you might have." I laid the papers on the ground and watched them disappear a few minutes later.

Then I felt the voice through our connection. "This is acceptable, but the number of new adventurers that are predicted to come. Is that really true?" I gave him the simple answer, which was unfortunately true: "Yes."

There was a moment of pause. "I will be done in a month. I need to add a lot more upper floors. Is this acceptable?" Immediately, I nodded and felt the connection lessen between us as ETG pulled away, probably going back to building its dungeon.

We had expected it to take only a few days, but that meant that I had about a month of free time. Of course, it wasn't going to be completely free, but the current settlement plans were put on hold, which took up a lot of my time. This should allow us enough time to decide how those places will be governed, but more importantly, it should be enough time to hopefully have a wedding.

I was so glad when she said yes, but when I wanted to schedule our wedding for next year, she simply laughed at me. It has been eight years since then, but I couldn’t believe how I forgot how relationships are handled when you have reached gold rank and beyond.

I guess even after so long, I was still a peasant at heart. It’s weird to think that I should have died quite a while ago from old age, but I can see why things are taken so slowly, especially if you want to spend multiple centuries to millennia together with someone. You should really test things out more than just a year or two.

It didn't take me long to reach her study. I opened the door to see that she was currently working on enchanting some spell scrolls while surrounded by servants who were more like friends. She looked at me, not understanding why I was here as this was supposedly her time. "About a month just opened up in my schedule. Are you up for the wedding?"

My words silenced everybody, and it was kind of creepy to see all of the servants snap their heads towards her, wanting to see how she reacted. I was being casual about this, but I was incredibly nervous.

Her family was less than supportive, especially when they figured out that she wasn't just going to start pushing their agendas onto me. Eventually, I saw her thoughtful expression change into a gentle smile. "I guess you don’t have a free month any longer." Then she gave me a teasing smile.

I returned the smile but then immediately closed the door. She wasn't the only one who could tease. Next stop was my office. It was time to start writing some letters to inform people about the celebrations that were about to happen.

The real question was how much we were going to spend on this event. The more I spent, the more money would go into the pockets of my citizens. It would also be a good opportunity to flush out some secret monopolies that I’m certain have already reasserted themselves. Why did it need to be so hard to keep a market free?

Perhaps there are a few more things that we can accomplish with this wedding. It had taken a while for this particular lesson to sink in, but doing just one thing was wholly inefficient. Also, not doing anything for too long that shook up the current status quo was really bad, like truly awful.

The way people gained power and then tried to suppress everyone else from achieving it the same way they did was so common that we have multiple standardized approaches to different kinds of power plays. At least it’s fun to see their faces when they finally understand that they are not above the law.