Chapter 118 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground” (Patreon)

Pov Dungeon Core

Thanks to dungeon modifications being rank S, everything was easier. While it still took time to do everything, being able to do those things a couple of times faster than before was amazing. However, there was one unfortunate fact: it would take me a while to be able to get deep enough to get my skills to SS rank in a reasonable amount of time.

I should probably work on getting my current skills to S rank, and then perhaps I should figure out new skills to add to my current ones. I’m sure if I put my mind to it, I can figure out what skills would be best for me, but currently, there was no need to think about this too much as it would take quite a few breakthroughs before I reached that stage in my skill development.

I also spent some time trying to figure out the last part of my trait. I felt I was closer to figuring it out, but it was still out of reach. Perhaps after the next breakthrough, it will become clear. Right now, however, I have a lot of work to do on my 22nd floor. Like always, I claimed new land in the real world and then started expanding it.

It still took months, but when I was done, I was left with a length of a little bit over 10,000 kilometers and a width of almost 8,500 kilometers. The height was now 1,700 meters, which was slowly getting to a respectable number. It was finally time to figure out the playroom itself.

What I currently needed was not another floor where my creatures could continue to grow stronger at an accelerated rate. No, I needed another floor like the goblin floor, where intelligent creatures could slowly build civilizations. While currently, I don’t have any creatures that could inhabit this floor, I think when I’m done with it, I should have access to the human pattern.

That being said, I did have some candidates among my current creatures that could perhaps be intelligent enough that they could make their own civilizations.

Currently, their most limiting factor is the danger posed in their environment. It seems that when you're busy surviving, it doesn't leave a lot of extra time to develop other pursuits. I didn’t think you could call a species only surviving a proper civilization.

It seems that I also have plans for my next playroom. I didn’t want to put these promising creatures into the 22nd floor's playroom; otherwise, I felt it would be a little too crowded. My current plan was to make four large continents with plenty of water in between them and a few large islands fitting in between those continents.

Every species would get an individual land mass. Humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings will get the continents. Those were the patterns I have been able to piece together the most, and currently, the islands will remain empty until I’m able to get the patterns for the adventurer species that are not that frequent in my dungeon.

Every species will get a land mass that’s more suited to them. So, the humans will get more grassland-type environments. There will be a lot more mountains for the dwarven continent. The elves will get a lot of old forests, while the halflings will get a mix of everything. It should be quite fun to design almost perfect environments for the adventure species.

I also started to work on the 22nd-floor dungeon rooms. This time we needed to make 220,000 of them. It was a lot of rooms, but fortunately, not all of them were big ones.

This time we were going to use the stacking method, while using the tunnels that connect the rooms, to make it seem like it was a larger area than it actually was. Making it this way saved on completion time.

In all honesty, I suspect I would have long ago run out of ideas if it wasn't for all the creatures helping me come up with new ones. I was also borrowing ideas from the adventurers themselves, who certainly love to talk about things that they wanted to see and hoped that they didn’t see. Usually, I took a mix of both.

It was always funny to see when their horror filled faces when they ran into those rooms. The cursing was usually quite colourful.

The elven adventurers were the worst at cursing, then came humans. The top spot for the most colourful cursing was between dwarves and halflings. Both had their own flares, so I guess I would need to wait and hope that one of them would eventually beat out the other.

Now it was time to get comfortable and continue my regular work while watching as the ants, adventurers, and every other creature in my dungeon lived. There was so much to see, as there was always something interesting going on.

I felt that I was overflowing with life. It was a wonderful feeling that made me want to work faster so there would be even more life and more things happening inside of me.

There were also many plans to be made. It was quite possible that the safe arena project would be finished during this floor, which would mean I would need to add arenas to the current hub stations. It was also clear that I needed some more variety for my raid rooms. It seems that the list of projects just kept expanding. What a wonderful time to be a dungeon core.

Pov Vinny

There was an appetizing meal in front of me, but it was getting cold as I was playing with a token. It looked like any ordinary token, but it held the power to change the course of my life.

I heard someone sitting across from me. I looked up to see one of my cousins. "Has it happened?" I asked her. She, however, didn’t even need to answer; it was all over her face. I still listened as I felt she needed to express herself.

"Why did this happen now? We just got into the council, and just a month later, they decided that everyone who delves into the dungeon could no longer be a part of the council. I mean, what nonsense is this? And that excuse that there would be too many in the council if things continued as they currently are. They’re just afraid that us younger ones would get the majority vote, aren’t they?"

"Of course, they’re afraid; it's what would have happened. They don't want to lose the power they currently have, even if it's worth so much less in this place. How are you finding the 21st floor?" I asked her, hoping to take her mind off this useless topic. This did brighten her up a bit, but then she sagged once again.

"It’s incredibly difficult; we could really use your help. Would you really not consider joining us once again?" I immediately shook my head. We have had this argument quite a few times, and I really wasn’t in the mood today.

"Fine then, fight alone, you crazy maniac. Or have you finally found yourself a party? I suspect that you would be quite highly sought after."

I smiled at that. There were a few offers like that being made, but I didn’t feel like they were a good fit, and joining a shadow guild seemed too limiting.

"Did you hear? There is an estimate out on how large this floor is going to be." I immediately focused on her again. This was a hot topic absolutely everywhere, so this news must have been released just before she got here.

"You know how everyone was expecting this floor to be smaller, but the number of rooms just keeps expanding as we push deeper. Well, the city-state released a statement just before I got down here. They are expecting there to be 150,000 rooms."

Immediately, I felt my mouth drop open. I quickly noticed that I wasn’t the only one; some other people seemed to have been listening in on the last part of our conversation.

Immediately, some people rushed off, it only took a few moments before someone inside the tavern yelled, "Confirmed! It's freaking true; they're estimating over 150,000 rooms!"

The noise level of the place rose immediately. I suspect similar scenes were happening all over the place. This meant that this floor by itself would probably be one of the best places for a new gold rank to train and advance in rank.

The news will take some time to spread throughout the world, but this dungeon will soon become flooded with every gold-rank adventurer who is stuck because there simply aren’t enough available resources for them to advance.

I looked down at the token in my hands. It was an invitation to clear a raid room. The more important thing was that it was offered by the frontrunners.

Those adventurers were the ones who pushed into the unknown, and slowly I had caught up with them, and they noticed. If I accept, it means I would get so many new contacts and opportunities.

It will also mean that I would be recognized as one of the frontrunners, one of the more influential groups in this dungeon.

It was even obvious to me that mulling over this decision was stupid. I loved the challenge this dungeon provided, and now I could push myself even harder so I could develop my magic even more.