Chapter 72 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

Almost immediately after Ace left, I decided to expand the 17th-floor dungeon room's underwater section. I felt that it might be a mean thing to do, but for some reason, I find it incredibly satisfying whenever Ace gets frustrated.

Now, hopefully, he will bring me the plants and creatures I want before he discovers what I have done. But just in case, I did make this an out-of-the-way section and made sure no one actually needed to do this if they didn't want to.

For the creatures, I was going to use larger versions of fish than was normal for their species. I was quite proud of realizing this. Making them larger but not increasing their strength by a lot made them a lot slower while still keeping the danger when they got too close.

This way, I should be able to balance the challenge to be in line with the rest of the dungeon, of course, taking away the equation of needing to breathe. If I kept that in, the challenge would be immensely larger, but I have seen the gadgets the adventurers have access to. This should not really be any problem if they prepared properly.

After that, things got into a comfortable routine. Just in case, I always kept my eye on the dungeon cores above me, but they didn’t seem to move after they were set up. There was still a lot of small things to fix on the 16th floor and, of course, constantly monitoring the sub-dungeons. Building the 17th floor took quite a lot of concentration, but I made sure to have plenty to spare for interesting events going on.

My favorite being the duo of Carl and Tristan. When they found the end of the first quest and figured out the backstory that the original site was a burial chamber for a champion who saved a nation that will forever be grateful to her. They were quite surprised that it was actually she.

There was a small reward for them, but the biggest thing to happen was after Tristan continued to search through the ruins. He was trying to decipher the language there when he stumbled upon the next part of the quest.

They were once again quite excited, but Tristan took a while to properly examine the ruins, and Carl had his own goals to continue to get stronger. The next quest went quite well, but this time they just found a broken tablet that was clearly split into three parts.

When the quest popped up to find the two missing parts, they slowly started to understand that this was not just about fighting; they were discovering something new.

It was amusing because the two missing parts were not easy or fast to find. I knew that I needed to decrease the amount of quests given to find a part of another quest, as it seems that too many started to become annoying.

As I continued to observe, I also found that if there was a reward or meaning, even in the connecting quests, they were enjoyed a lot more. It seems that I need to balance the difficulty, time taken, and enjoyment, as otherwise adventurers who were less determined might give up.

I think for some quests, it should be like that; only the most determined should be able to complete them, but the rewards should reflect that. I’ve wondered how they feel. Do they know that they are test subjects?

From my understanding, usually no one likes to be a test subject. That made me question the other creatures in my dungeon. Were they also just test subjects, or were they something more?

It was a line of thinking that caught me off guard. Was it right for me to do what I was doing? I never thought to question it before. After thinking for quite a while, I came to the realization that it was in my nature to be like this, and I did very much enjoy seeing how the creatures inside of me lived. No, I didn’t just enjoy it; if I couldn’t do this, I don’t think I would want to be a dungeon core.

My mind cleared after thinking about it, and I felt refreshed. Time continued to march forward, and I was thoroughly enjoying every single moment. Then I was once again flooded with the desire to consume.

It seems that the second person had arrived, the one the annoying person was talking about. Speaking of the annoying person, I hadn’t really gotten that many new creatures. One that I liked quite a lot was the flying squirrel; they were quite interesting.

One thing that was good was that I was slowly filling up my different environments with plants and creatures. I even got a few more sea plants and a few more small fish that could live inside an ocean.

It was wonderful to see more life in an otherwise empty ocean. Honestly, I couldn’t wait until I got more creatures, and then hopefully soon I will also get evolved creatures from outside, like the ones described in the books, the ones that terrorize their environments. Like owlbears and creatures like that.

Tristan and Carl were progressing nicely, and after a bit over five years after they truly started to tackle their quest, they were finally at the end of it. They were in a completely separate room, only accessible through a barely working gateway, and even then they needed to spend quite a while getting the pieces to make it work.

Now inside, they found themselves in an underground ruin. The room they ended up in was quite large. There were tall pillars holding up the ceiling, but three of the 20 had collapsed, and dirt piles that were quite high and blocked off a lot of the space there.

The architecture was unknown to them, but it was definitely not human-made, that Tristan was sure of. It was interesting how they communicated with each other whenever they were in an unknown place. Tristan seemed to be in charge, always giving information to Carl, but as soon as danger was detected, it was immediately clear to everyone that Carl was in charge and Tristan followed. It was so seamless that I really didn’t understand how they were doing it.

They slowly made their way out of the large room, only to find that the corridors were not square, but instead they were round, and while the main corridor was large enough that they could easily walk upright, there were smaller corridors connecting to it that seemed more like plumbing. Tristan seemed to be quite confused about this, and if it wasn't for the room they appeared in, he would have guessed that they were in the sewers.

It will take them a while to figure this place out, there were some monsters in the form of large insects like beetles and centipedes. It took them a while to understand that they weren’t native to this place but had broken in from places where the stone structure of the ruins had failed.

Eventually, they found their way upwards, but there they started to see a different kind of inhabitation, and it didn't take them long to understand that orcs were now living inside the ruins, correctly assuming they were just occupying someone else's home.

Tristan, by the standards of my dungeon, wasn't a good fighter, but he was okay, which meant that he could actually help Carl. They started to slowly and very carefully clear out the monsters they found.

Up until this point, they had been exploring the ruins for almost a month, and normally they would have turned around and come back to resupply, but we had anticipated this problem, so a special drop was made that would drop from the orcs. They were packs of supplies with fresh water and food, and although the food wasn’t the best, it was still edible, so they continued.

It took them two weeks, and after having killed every orc except for the final boss, they were gearing up to face it. It was more powerful than the floor guardian of the 16th floor and would be only a bit stronger than the 17th floor guardian that I was yet to make.

Even Carl was going to have trouble with it, but it is partly their fault because, like with every other request, except if it's specifically stated, five people were the recommended number to complete the quest with. So, I was quite nervous but excited for the battle that would follow.