Chapter 142 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Pov Dungeon Core

When I was finally able to destroy the fake core, I could actually relax. That was way too dangerous, yet it was necessary. Seeing the panicking pixies was so satisfying, but this could have been so much worse if it wasn't for a little bit of luck. I wouldn’t have even got a lucky break if I hadn’t been so interested in using adventurers to gather information.

It was quite a while ago when one of the adventurers stole an interesting piece of information from the surface. I wouldn’t have put it together, but the adventurer was diligent enough to leave notes on the things he found. At first, when he mentioned that there might be a civil war between adventurers, I was not entirely sure if it was a bad or good thing.

That was when I realized how big it actually was. Many of the bigger guilds sometimes used what I now know were coded messages. At first, I just thought it might be a language that I didn’t know, but I should have figured something was up when I couldn't make sense of this language.

It was truly starting to get annoying when some of the biggest guilds began to use these kinds of coded messages more. I do not know how long it would have taken me to figure things out, but it would certainly have been too long if I didn’t use my team of advisors and attorneys to help me decipher these coded messages.

The picture was not pretty, but something was still wrong. It was when I started to look at the main guilds’ surface compounds who was organizing everything did I really realize what was going on.

They were pixies in disguise who wanted to take control of me. I almost wanted to attack them and destroy every single one of them, but I agreed with my advisors that it would be a bad idea.

Still, the fact that every single one of them wore a disguised ring made it easy to identify them all. I even wanted to slowly kill them off in dungeon accidents, but it would simply take too long if I wanted to go unnoticed.

Those bastards were ready to attack as soon as I went into a breakthrough. The good thing was that I could prolong a breakthrough however long I wanted to so I could get properly ready.

Everything would have been harder if at that time I hadn’t just started to observe my sub-dungeons to figure out how to mask a breakthrough. If I knew how to mask it, I could also fake it.

That left the last piece of the puzzle: how to make sure that they never even came close to my actual core. The fact that they had something they called dungeon melters made me shiver but it also made me determined.

Making the fake core was a risk. If I lost control even for a moment it would spark with life and would try to start fight me to take control of my dungeon. It would have been better if I could have made it smaller but to properly deceive the Pixies it needed to be big enough so I could cycle enough mana through it to make it look like the real thing.

After a lot of planning, we figured that timing was incredibly important. Still, it turned out I needed to start perhaps not at the optimal time but at a perfect time that made Ace’s survival most likely.

There have been plenty of platinums inside my dungeon over the years, but that woman that was with Ace was the strongest. So, triggering the fake breakthrough while Ace was with her was the best course of action.

This, however, meant that a lot of good adventurers were going to die. That was truly unfortunate. It was hard to watch their struggle, but I helped them as much as possible.

I teleported as many human and dwarven monsters into the dungeon rooms as possible. They were the ones who acted most like adventurers. Their added support helped keep down the deaths of my supporters.

I also made sure to disperse these monsters after the battles and take them away so they wouldn't be noticed. Everything went according to plan, and then of course, Ace had to mess about.

Fortunately, he didn't die. During that time, it was also nice to test out my aquatic monsters. They would need some work, but I was surprised at how effective they could be. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the truly peak aquatic monster spawn as the rooms were simply too small.

I was incredibly proud of my guardians. They did much better than I ever expected. It was a true pleasure watching them fight, and best of all, I made sure to make a full copy of their patterns before they died so the next time I made them, they would have all that experience. Then those stupid Pixies started talking about fake guardians, and I was getting quite mad.

After they used their first melter, I gained some clarity from the pain. I would need to think about this true guardian thing a bit more, but that didn't matter right now.

The next melter was more painful, but the one after that didn't feel as bad. During the last one, I was also able to conduct an experiment. One brave ant that wasn’t a monster volunteered to test the beam out.

It was an incredibly brave thing to do, as normally the beam melted everything and left nothing of the monsters. The ant also had a large ball of regular dirt from outside the dungeon. The pixies missed this particular small ant.

While it reported pain, it wasn't actually hurt and was still a part of me. The real dirt also wasn't affected; in fact, the opposite happened. There was a shadow too small to normally notice, but it actually blocked the beam and stopped the effect of the melter from happening behind them.

This meant that there was a way to protect myself against this devastating device. My mind refocused on the scene of the pixies dying in darkness. They were so afraid and blinded that a lot of them died because they attacked their own kind.

Some of them tried to run, but in doing so, ended up entering the labyrinth. I pulled back the direct attack from those ones as it was a good opportunity to test out the labyrinth against proper invaders.

They had caused me so much headache, pain, and harmed so many adventurers—my adventure. It was good to see them dying one after another.

The leader survived longer than I expected, but a burrowing bug finally landed on him, and before he could do anything, it was inside of him. It started spreading its poison and starting to eat the nerves, which was its favorite food. His end was not a pretty one.

All of the pixies waiting outside my core floor were already dead. The war off to adventure was also slowing down. The fact that so many adventurers who were with the pixies actually turned against them when they felt the melter made me more lenient towards them. Slowly, I pulled out all of the adventurer monsters as they were no longer needed.

I still think it will take a month for the fighting to properly end as there were some fortified locations where loyalists were well-organized and supplied. This would be good training for the adventurers. Then, of course, there was the case of Carl and his group. I was glad that they survived, but I was even more excited that they finally used their teleportation device.

They were currently on the 19th floor trying to survive. I was not so glad about the two newcomers as I wasn’t too sure about them, but Vinny was good. There was no doubt in my mind that they would survive, but the question is how long it will take them to escape.

The quest was originally designed for about 6 months, but all five of them were geniuses in their own ways. They should be able to get back sooner; then the question becomes what will they do with their new information.