Chapter 120 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground” (Patreon)

Pov Carl

I just knew that I wasn’t going to enjoy what would soon happen. At least I would be able to fight and test myself against other adventurers, but I would really rather not fight in front of so many people.

"I have the honor to introduce to you the challengers of the 21st floor's first hub station tournament. We have all seen these challengers fight to earn the right to participate in this tournament, and I do not need to tell you how exciting the last three have been. I am certain that today's tournament will be no different."

I could hear the announcer as he continued to rile up the crowd. This was the 4th tournament, and it seems like they keep happening every month. Two weeks prior, you can sign up, and if there are more than 100 participants, you will need to fight and prove yourself worthy to be included in the tournament.

If you make it this far, you have already been guaranteed some rewards, but I needed to aim for the top ten.

The rewards were quite good, but only the top ten would get rewards that would be really hard, or actually impossible, to get anywhere else in this dungeon. During the first tournament and the 2nd, all the front runners dominated every tournament.

From floor 15 downwards, in every hub station, there were now arenas, and while the tournaments happen on the same day, all the front runners who had interest in the tournament spread out to get the best rewards.

It was quite unfair for the upper floors as the people there couldn’t compete with such powerful adventurers.

A lot of complaints were made to the city lord and, honestly, to the surprise of many, including me, in the next tournament you could only sign up for a tournament on the lowest floor you had reached. This fixed the problem. It also, unfortunately, meant I was up against a lot of powerful people.

When the signal was given, we walked out of the tunnels and into the light, surrounded by cheering people. The sun was particularly bright and hot today, like on every tournament day. Did the dungeon do this to torture us even more? Fighting in such heat was not pleasant. The ground seemed like it was made out of sand, but it wasn't proper sand.

No one knows exactly how it works, but the surface acts like sand, only a little bit, but if you put enough pressure on it, it becomes incredibly stable. There has yet to be anyone who has been able to break through the floor.

There is a 500 gold coin reward quest on the quest board for anyone who can break it. I gave it a try also but didn’t succeed. Now, however, it was time to concentrate.

I had to hold back as I didn’t want to expose the true extent of my power. The problem was that fighting these truly powerful people made me want to go all out.

A part of me just wanted to surrender the first fight and leave, but we needed one of the rewards to continue the large quest we were on. The next part of the quest needed us to make a necklace, and for that, we needed a large, extremely clear white mana crystal.

To buy such a crystal, we would have needed a lot of gold coins. The real problem, however, was that there wasn’t any for sale. The only way to get this kind of reward would be to have enough tournament points to buy it from the reward shop. So here I am, trying to get enough points so we could continue our quest.

I looked towards the stand and located my family. Anne was particularly beautiful this day, and so were the two of our children she brought with her. There are three more currently being watched by Tristan.

Every time I saw or thought about them, an involuntary smile came to my face. For me, it felt like this amount would be enough, but Anne keeps joking about wanting thirty children, and I’m honestly starting to think she’s not kidding.

Finally, they announced the start of the tournament, so I needed to stop thinking about my private life and start worrying about how to fight against the people I quite often clear raid rooms with.

This wasn’t just a fight between unknown people who would only test each other in a contest of a fair fight. No, I know for a fact that some have prepared counters against people they know they couldn't win against without using their opponents' weaknesses against them.

I could see many eyeing me from the corner of their eyes, and I could also see worry in them. That was understandable because, among almost everyone else out here, I was the most well-rounded, with basically no weaknesses. If they only knew the true extent to which I could push my body, it might actually get me some free wins as they might just surrender outright.

The beginning fights were not hard, and my halberd made an easy job of the fight. Some people gave wounds to others as they couldn’t do enough damage. I didn’t have that problem because when my weapon connected, the person I was attacking disappeared, saved by the mechanic of these arenas. There was an unofficial challenge, and that was to win by giving as few wounds as possible.

When we were closing in on the top ten, I was unfortunately not at the top of that list. There were two others in front of me. One was a bow user, the other a mage. I was familiar with both, as they were incredible damage dealers in the raids.

The bow user was better at single-target damage, while the mage was better against multiple enemies. I was going to need to beat one of them to be able to get into the top 10.

I watched in anticipation as it was decided who I was going to fight against. I let out a sigh of relief when it was revealed that I was up against the bow user. I honestly didn’t think I could have won against the mage as he simply was too good at dealing damage to a wide area.

There were two fights before mine, and it was amazing to see such high-level battles, especially knowing that both were going for the kill, yet these persons weren’t going to die.

The fight started with both of us being 50 meters apart. It was the standard distance and, unfortunately, favored a ranged build a bit more. I looked at my opponent while missing nothing she did. It was at least good that she wasn’t using her best gear, but I also wasn’t doing so.

No matter how good the rewards were for this tournament, they weren’t worth the best equipment we had. The best equipment we had consisted of incredibly rare drops that were then made into equipment by the best experts available. This should help me more than her.

As soon as the bell rang, there were immediately three arrows flying towards me. It was easy enough to start sidestepping, allowing me to dodge one, and the other two I blocked with my halberd. She continued to fire arrows towards me; not all of them showed signs of skill usage, but some did, and I bet every single one of them had a different effect.

I could take things cautiously, defend, and slowly close in, hoping she runs out of mana before she could give me a fatal wound. I bet she expected me to do that. Instead, I rushed towards her, as finishing this fight as soon as possible was more important. Whatever her gold rank talent was, it was incredibly versatile, making her arrows have all kinds of different effects.

I rushed towards her, blocking arrows; some exploded, peppering me with shrapnel. Most had some sort of elemental effect, the worst being an arrow that shocked me and actually made me stumble a bit.

She tried to back away, but my movement speed outclassed hers, so it only took me 20 seconds to corner her. During this time, I had taken four arrows, but none of them were close to my vital spots.

It was the first proper attack swing I made, and that also ended the fight. She disappeared, leaving me the winner. It took about 5 seconds, but then I also was teleported out into the healing section of the arena, where healers immediately started to work on me. First, they pulled out the arrows, and then I felt the soothing sensation of healing magic. It took them 30 minutes to heal me completely.

When I was back out and waiting for my next fight, I was a bit more anxious. The next fight was going to be a lot more difficult, and I actually didn’t need to fight it, as we already had the required points we needed for the crystal.

So, when my name was announced and I faced against the mage named Vinny, I surrendered even before the fight began. While I was walking out of the arena, I could see absolutely everyone being stunned, except for Anna, who gave me a sweet smile.