Chapter 114 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground” (Patreon)

Pov Carl

There was already a decent-sized outpost in this quite small room. The gateway was constantly being used as people were coming and going. Different guilds were bringing in materials and supplies to make this a proper village. This was a normal occurrence in way stations and hub stations. But this was just a small room, there was only one of this kind of room per floor.

I kind of don’t remember if the upper floors had such a room, but down here there certainly was one, and for good reason. There were two tunnels that led into this room, but there were no tunnels leading out of it, only a large stone door behind which was the 20th-floor boss room.

The monsters that inhabited that room were fearsome, and while I hadn’t yet entered, I already knew these monsters and had fought with them many times, although I had only fought them separately.

Everything was confirmed about halfway into the 20th floor. Who would have guessed that the dungeon would do a three-floor theme and make a large part of the 20th-floor inaccessible if you couldn't fight against the paired monsters.

To most, they were truly fearsome opponents, but no one, not even me, was confident in beating every one of the pairs, as some seemed to really be good at fighting against certain types of adventurers.

I do not know whether to respect what the dungeon has done or feel bad for my fellow adventurers who will find it almost impossible to make it as far as I have. This floor has certainly taught me one thing: you can never just rely on strength alone. I will admit that I had become a bit too over reliant on it, but this floor has certainly taught me a good lesson.

I was not even close to being the first to reach this far. That was, however, partly because so many gold ranks have come to this dungeon, and if you are in the gold rank, progression is a lot easier than in silver rank floors.

Even then, the statistics for how many gold ranks failed and have even died on this floor are quite ridiculous. Most of them, however, are adventurers who came to this dungeon while they were gold rank.

This place has quickly gained the reputation of being one of the hardest dungeons in the world. Honestly, it doesn't feel like it, but I have never known any other dungeon. While I wouldn’t say no if things were made a bit easier, I’m really grateful for the training I have received.

It has also taken me a long time to actually make it this far. During this floor, I had a child who is growing up way too fast, and I actually have another one coming in a few months.

That one surprised me, but it seems that Anna was quite pleased. In all honesty, I think she wouldn’t even want to continue to dive deeper if it wasn’t for me. I think she would just want to raise a horde of children while helping those injured.

She was truly wonderful, and she even understood I needed and wanted to continue to get stronger and dive deeper. "Carl, you’re up?"

I was brought out of my thoughts by my name being called. I did a last check on my weapon and armor and then headed towards the doors. It was my time to enter. I was going to do this alone, but I will be running this boss for a while as there isn’t a way down to the next floor, and I would need to help Ziiipe get strong enough so we can bring others through this boss room.

The doors opened just enough to let me in, and I found myself in a quite large room that was half forest, half grassland. There were thousands of strategies that everyone swore would work, but I had my own. Some even purposely set the forest on fire, but I would not need such tactics. My opponents were quite good at stealth, but I had learned that they were also proud.

So I walked to the centre of the grassland and yelled as loud as I could, "I challenge you to a fight, let us see who is strongest without any fancy tricks!"

It took less than 5 seconds before two huge mountain lions appeared about 100 meters away from me. I gave them a deep bow, and they returned it. That, however, signified the end of the courtesy as they roared and charged.

They almost immediately split up and started using their movement skills, but neither one went into stealth. I also immediately started to move, as I couldn’t allow them to attack me from opposite directions. They had multiple skills for attack and defense, but more importantly, they help each other. One could make itself weaker while the other became stronger amongst other skills.

Every single attack they made could crush through my defenses, and the only thing that kept me alive was my halberd. With it, I had enough reach that I could divert those devastating attacks enough that they wouldn’t land on me.

Dealing damage was incredibly difficult, but slowly, I was giving them shallow wounds. I needed to use every skill and everything I had learned about fighting in my life. Every moment of this fight, I was at the edge of death, only escaping by the narrowest margins.

I had never felt so alive. The fight just kept on going. We moved all around the room, but they were also trying to herd me into the forest. Fighting out of that corner always cost me and slowly my blood joined the bosses in coloring this room's grass.

When I finally finished killing one of the bosses, the remaining one was breathing heavily and was barely able to keep moving, bleeding all over. I mirrored his image.

We both looked at each other with respect in our eyes. We both took a step towards each other, but we both collapsed. Slowly, I started to get up, and so did he, but while I managed to get up, he collapsed again, finally dying.

I pulled out a healing potion and quickly drank one, as I hadn’t drunk one this entire fight; otherwise, I would not have kept my end of the terms. After that, I allowed myself to collapse in complete exhaustion, with still a large smile on my face. Then I felt it: the rank-up began, and I was going to become a gold-rank adventurer.

It was more difficult to move while you were ranking up, but what also didn't help was that I was still quite injured. Fortunately, I could take my time, as it would take 4 hours before this room resets. I looked over the rewards with a smile on my face. Then I looked at my completely broken armor. Well, at least I now have the materials to replace what was broken.

Then I sat down and started to meditate. It took about an hour before the rank-up finished, and I felt new strength coursing through me. Every rank-up felt amazing, but this one was on a whole new level. I immediately dove into my mind and found the new part that was floating around. It might take me days or weeks to figure out what my talent was, but I was still excited.

When I started to concentrate on the talent, I was surprised as I immediately figured it out, but also, there wasn't much to figure out.

More. That was the essence of my talent; all of it could be explained by one word. However, it was a perfect description. I have always had more and stronger mana than anyone else I know. Now, I just had more of both. When I felt how much more I have, even I was surprised. No wonder I felt so much strength flowing through me.