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Chapter 242 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”
🕑 Added 2024-11-06 14:27:22 +0000 UTC----
To anyone new, I mainly announce when there are no chapters on my discord except when there will be a longer break or I know ahead of time.
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Pov Dungeon Core
I just finished making an exact replica of my core and set a dungeon rule to continue growing the core as if I were going through a breakthrough. It was so hard to concentrate, but I think I managed it. The breakthrough was calling me—my instincts were pushing me to advance. I was so full of mana that it was hurting.
So when I felt that I had done everything I needed to do for the plan to work, I let go and felt the relief of no longer feeling pain, and soon after, I felt the sweetness of the breakthrough. It’s up to you now, my creature.
My mind cleared up, but not fully—it was similar to when I was going through my first gold rank breakthrough. It felt like I was floating, and there was a part of me that wanted to stay in this state longer, but it was time to get to work. I needed to make my boss room. Fortunately, I already knew what I wanted to do and even had prepared the patterns I wanted.
Two of them were still alive in my dungeon, but three of them had passed away. I had seven prospects, but two of them didn’t really work well with others, so I dropped those patterns. So right now, I have a team of five orcs.
Arguably, all of them were the strongest orcs to have lived in my dungeon. It took them a bit, but the versions of them on my core floor have worked quite a while to improve their teamwork and make themselves into a proper party.
They already knew what was ahead of them and relished the idea of being able to fight forever and be the guards to stop anyone unworthy of entering the platinum-ranked floors. They even designed the room themselves, and while I wasn’t too excited about the arena-looking boss room, it was their choice.
There will be different versions of their patterns according to how many adventurers challenge them, but only for the strongest option did I need to boost them up. Otherwise, especially when only a few adventurers challenged them, I actually needed to make them weaker.
During my time as a dungeon, I’ve always had a sense of how difficult a certain floor and its end should be. I don’t know exactly why, but every fifth floor, the difficulty would normally jump up, and whenever a new rank was going to be achieved, that difficulty jumped even more.
The interesting thing is that if I wanted to, I could make every floor a gold rank floor, or now, a platinum. I think this sense of difficulty is what I call ‘learned evolution,’ and I’ve observed it in my creatures many times.
It’s weird to think of myself as just another creature, but in the end, that’s all I was—just another being in this world trying to live. That’s not to say this is a bad thing. I believe there’s a reason why every dungeon does things like this; it seems to be the best way. The problem is that even now, that sense of difficulty progression isn’t so clear anymore.
I think it’s because most dungeons have never reached platinum rank, and I’m pretty sure that in my lineage, no one ever did. It felt great to have achieved something no one from my lineage had achieved before, but I certainly wasn’t the first dungeon to reach platinum, as there were plenty in this world already, not to speak about the diamond-rank dungeons. What I was going to be was the first to reach the end of the diamond rank and see what came afterwards.
As that thought came to an end, I also finished the first part of the breakthrough. Moving on to the second part, the skill selection, the choice was easy. I put everything I had into advancing the skill My World. It was the most mana I’d ever put into a skill. Yet I was still barely able to get it from an E rank to a D rank.
Damn, that skill really was mana-hungry. This time, my breakthrough didn’t end, and I felt myself entering a new phase—or perhaps not. I felt something inside me click, awaken, and I realized it was a trait of mine awakening. So my original one wasn’t boosted; instead, I got a new one.
Then everything went black for a moment. When I woke up, I was back in the real world, having just finished my breakthrough, and I quickly reconnected with my dungeon, relaxing after I found out that I didn’t need to fight another dungeon core for dominion over my own dungeon. What I also noticed was that there was a new diamond rank, and I wasn’t talking about my guardian, who I knew was going to advance.
Immediately, I focused on the dragon world. I would have liked to keep calling all of these places playrooms, but Ismael really didn’t like that name, and it wasn’t like I was too attached to calling every world I made a playroom. Ismael was with the new diamond rank; this new one was trying to shine as brightly as possible. That was why I didn’t recognize her immediately, as up above, she was hiding that shine.
So, she was allowed to come down here during my breakthrough—that was really unfortunate, but at least everything seems to have worked out as I went through all the reports I had been given during my breakthrough and what my lower minds recorded.
I was also graduating Rafe, and unfortunately, I broke him from his meditation of trying to figure out what his talent was; it seems like this one he couldn't figure out immediately. I should also try to do that, but there were some more pressing matters.
"Ah, so you have awakened?" Ismael said, while in his dragon form. The woman, who had been meditating as well, looked towards the huge head of the dragon towering over her. "I wasn’t talking to you, little one, but ETG. Looks like the decider of your fate has awoken."
I then saw Ismael starting to weave the spell he used to communicate with me like Rafe and Ace could. As soon as he finished, and before he started to speak, I spoke to him, as I didn’t have much time to waste.
"I already know what happened. Would you please tell her that she will not be killed, that she should stop trying to signal anyone outside, and focus on improving herself. She will be released when the outside world finds out about me. I hope you are willing to keep her more interesting skills, especially the one that’s trying to signal out, in check?"
Ismael took a few moments before he spoke. “That won’t be a problem, but shouldn’t you be able to do many things at once? Where’s the hurry?”
If only he knew how much I had to do now. I could feel the power coursing through me—I was now so much more powerful, which meant that every inch of dungeon stone was now too weak, and I didn’t like it. Everything needed to be reinforced with my new strength, almost all the dungeon rules remade.
Technically, I could now expand every floor to be even bigger; I could feel it. But I would probably not do it before I reached the end of diamond rank, as I really didn’t have so much mind to give to every little task that wasn’t that important.
“My mind is not infinite; every dungeon has its limits, and I must focus on my new floor. They are crucial for our survival. I must go now,” I said to Ismael, then pulled my presence away, hearing the woman asking some questions. But I’ll look at what she said later. I went through all my dungeon, making sure that nothing was wrong and that no one was here who wasn't supposed to be.
Everything seemed to check out, but I made sure to improve the dungeon rules that monitored everything first. When I felt my dungeon was in a stable state, it was time to look inwards and see what trait I got. What I was disappointed about was that there were no new inherited memories. I think I won’t have any new guidance, and everything I do from now on will be forged by my own will.
When I looked inward, I found a trait that was hidden, but it was also clear in other ways. It was two words, but I didn’t even get a sense of how long those words were. It seems that I need to get stronger and more in line with this trait to figure out what it really does. That didn’t matter at this moment it was time to start expanding the 51st floor, my first platinum-rank floor.
When I put most of my mind to it, I was amazed at how fast I was able to expand. But it wasn’t long before I pulled back; I couldn’t put all my focus on it as I needed to strengthen my outer defenses as well with a few dozen other crucial projects.
Comments
Toto
Thanks for the chapter. I hope you keep on adding more
RottenTangerine
Thanks for the chapter!
