Chapter 51 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

A man stood on a balcony, looking out on the huge city, the capital of his kingdom. Behind him was an opulent meeting room where many people were currently collecting their papers and things, leaving the chambers.

The king stood there, contemplating the latest reports. Those were mundane problems; he was keeping his mind busy until everyone, except for two people besides himself, left the meeting room. Both of them were his childhood friends, but now one was his adviser and the other his personal guard, who also functioned as an adviser.

When the room was finally empty, he didn't move from his spot, yet the two people approached him and started to speak. "The trial is finally over, and my spy was able to learn a lot more than we expected." There was a moment of silence before the adviser continued.

"The pixie who was in charge of making the contract with dungeon 48487, now known as the Eternal Training Ground, has been sentenced to life in prison for lying about what happened and giving away ownership of the dungeon to keep what happened a secret."

The adviser paused, giving his king a chance to think about what he said and, if needed, ask a question. The king, however, stayed silent, and even though they had been friends for a century, he still couldn’t completely read him.

"It turns out that the dungeon was more independent than normal and was somehow capable of enough reasoning to change the contract completely and threaten the pixie's life. He agreed to sign the modified contract to avoid death. That wasn’t his mistake. I believe they would have let him off with a small fine if he hadn’t lied about it."

"Are they planning on reclaiming the dungeon?" the king asked after thinking for a little bit. "No," the adviser answered. It was at this point that the third person, the bodyguard, spoke up.

"They might have given up claiming ownership, but that doesn't mean they won't try to destroy it." His words made sense to the other two men in the room, as the Dungeon Pixie Guild rarely accepted giving away control of dungeons.

"We would have a great opportunity to gain another dungeon that we can control, like the one here in the capital," the bodyguard spoke up, but the king started to shake his head. "There is too much pressure from the other powers. It would be too politically dangerous to claim this dungeon fully. Besides, another free dungeon would help the world quite a lot."

The last sentence confused the other two men who didn’t fully understand their king's reasoning. The king picked up on their confusion and started to chuckle a bit. "The Screaming Rain, Hollow Night, Withering Jungle, Bloody Ice, and a few more dungeons that are free of influence. There is one thing in common with them all.”

“They are the most dangerous dungeons in this world. And while none are past level 65, an adventurer who can conquer it can usually defeat an adventurer who, for example, can conquer our level 75 dungeon."

"Now, you might think that's dangerous, and you are correct, but this world is dangerous. Just take the airships; they are so expensive to run, yet they are necessary because we can't even keep the land safe within our own borders from the constant monsters who roam it.”

“We must appease the other powers, but we should take as much as possible from this dungeon while we still can. It was Ace who is currently in charge, if I remember correctly. Tell me more about him."

POV Ace

For some reason, a shiver ran down my neck. I had a bad feeling, but since I was in a meeting discussing the dungeon, that wasn't too unusual. It was a smaller, more private meeting, as the things we discussed here shouldn't be known by everyone.

The person in charge of this meeting was one of the nobles who had figured out how to get accurate intel about what’s going on in the dungeon. It has been two and a half months since the dungeon made the 15th-floor boss room and a way down to the 16th.

Thinking about that boss made me remember the fight I had with it. I had a few nightmares about that monster, but two more fights after the first helped me overcome that fear. In the regular meeting that ended not long ago, the main topic was why the dungeon was making rooms so slowly, but I’m pretty sure it’s because we have given it so few creatures and plants. It’s just that this entire operation we are working on is taking a lot longer simply because of the secrecy we must maintain.

"The operation 'Dungeon Intel' has gone surprisingly well. As we all know, this operation became necessary because so few adventurers were returning to the surface," one of the other nobles interjected. "Couldn't we just locate a Guild crystal inside the dungeon and make everyone refresh their tattoos to keep them oath-bound?" It was the guildmaster who answered, "The same way the dungeon mana erodes the tattoo, it will do the same to the crystal and its complicated matrix."

The first noble continued, "And that is why a more old-fashioned way of gathering information was needed. Now that the spy network I have built is large enough, we are getting a good view of the situation down there. I will be frank; it's better in some ways and a lot worse in others.”

“The good news is that everyone down there still thinks of themselves as part of a Guild of adventurers, although they now have other allegiances, something they call 'shadow guilds', which comprises about 40% of the adventurers down there. Although that number fluctuates a lot based on what you would classify as a shadow guild."

"Funnily enough, the three strongest entities down there, I wouldn’t actually classify as shadow guilds. The solos, the speed runners, and the explorers are a lot more individualistic than the shadow guilds, yet they show incredible cooperation if called for.”

“A perfect example is the speed runners, a group of individuals who pride themselves on how fast they can complete a floor. There are two instances where it has been shown that they are not just individuals with the same interest."

This was all new to me, and I couldn’t quite comprehend how complex things down there really were. After the noble who was giving the report drank some water, he continued, "About four months ago, everyone who called themselves speed runners pooled their resources to order a set of extremely complex devices from the gnome capital. These devices can be connected with other smaller devices to keep perfect time of the floor runs up to three decimal points smaller than a second."

Basically, everyone raised their eyebrows at that. "It came as a complete surprise to me as well that you could track time smaller than a second, but I guess it makes sense as to why they would need that. I honestly don’t know.”

“The second incident happened two weeks ago. As it turns out, not everyone takes the same shortest path because now fights actually take time, and some might be better at specific fights that allow them to move faster. While the shadow guilds usually stay away from the speed runners, this time they didn't."

I was so certain that I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say. "Apparently, there was quite a coveted area for item drops, and the shadow guild wanted to occupy that area." The guildmaster scoffed at that, as he had made it clear that he didn't like the idea that someone could claim an area of a dungeon.

"To make the long story short, the shadow guild was kicked out of the territory by the combined forces of the speed runners, and since they are composed of some of the strongest fighters in the dungeon, the victory was swift and brutal."

"The speed runners are also one of the main contributors to our understanding of the 14th and 15th-floor guardians and the boss 21+ challenges. While they did lose members in fights, they were able to actually win and report back to us about how dangerous these fights actually are.”

“As you know, we've already classified them as 'skull' as in 'don't go there or you will die', but the boss of the 15th floor is a bit more particular. We actually believe that the dungeon has a limited event 21 plus challenge, so somehow, somewhere in that dungeon, there should be a monster that’s even more powerful than the current most powerful monster we have run into."

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. This shouldn't really be possible. Where would it keep such a monster, and how was it able to become so much stronger? I still remember those wind slashes and can’t even comprehend how they could become more dangerous.

I looked up to see what the others were thinking about this when I noticed the guild leader looking towards the dungeon through the building. "No, stop that right now," I said in a firm tone, and everyone immediately looked up to see that I had addressed the guildmaster, who actually looked a bit guilty. "Sorry, it's just that the unknown is making my back itch."