Chương 50: The 200th decennial dungeon games!

Adventurers weekly is proud to announce our special issue on the weirdest loot items ever*! We have interviewed all across the great dungeon belt finding 100s of unique items across thousands of adventurers and dungeons. The full results can be found in the special issue but the most important "Top 10" voted on by our very experienced staff and put in a random order is as follows. #10. Bag of Moulding.

Any item placed inside this incredibly detailed bag quickly ages and grows mould no matter what material it was made of – have a knife you want rusted and governed in black fuzz? Stick it in the bag for a few minutes. The actual reason anyone would want this item is unknown. Maybe some weird mould mana class? I've never heard of that before. #9. Perfect Chair. Common drop in one of the stranger dungeons near the tip of the belt these chairs are... well just chairs.

They are incredibly comfy despite being made of nothing but wood and some strange bouncy material for the seat cushion – they can even be sold for quite a nice price... The only strange thing about them is that they exist. Why does the dungeon drop them? I'm sure adventurers would like all sorts of things more than chairs. #8. Farting rocks. Useless loot dropped by an otherwise normal dungeon, these rocks have no practical use other than for pranks.

The worst part is these rocks have a strange hypnotic effect that makes people want to pick them up and carry them around – despite them just being a rock that makes obscene sounds every once in a while. #7. Ball and chain. A strange item that when activated locks someone in place with the ball unmoving until deactivated. It appears similar to something you might put on a prisoner but has an even stranger requirement that it must be put on with consent - something prisoners don't have a lot of. Use is unknown.

Mike from sales thinks it's a sex thing. #6. Unbreaking thumb-sized shield. An incredible item made stronger than anything anyone has ever known this shield is effectively invincible. It can block a dragon's breath in a 20mm diameter circle. Unable to be altered or combined into a more useful form it remains a useless oddity. #5. Rat petting aid. A swirling ball of lights designed to attract rats so that you may pet them. If any action other than petting is taken the rats are incensed to attack.

Why would anyone want to pet vermin??? #4. Book of plagiarism. A tome that steals words and ideas from other nearby books and has low utility. Would be useful to steal knowledge from hidden libraries if it weren't for the fact that it lies 50% of the time and doesn't like displaying useful information. #3. Regular Banana. Non-magical mundane fruit. Strange due to being found in a lightning dungeon and even more so because there doesn't seem to be a good climate for it. #2. A murders mercy.

A knife that is incredibly sharp and can pierce through even the strongest of defences while heightening the reflexes and speed of those who wield it – this appears to be a useful item at first glance. The knife causes anyone who cuts another to feel immense guilt however and causes anyone who tries to fight with it immense mental torture as they start to cry for the monsters they slay. #1. My personal favourite. Sunhats.

A mundane magical item given through the dungeon of shades this hat blocks all harmful light causing even the lowest of levelled adventurers to stare directly at the sun without harm. Useful. Practical. But also not. Who actually wants to look at the sun? When have you as an adventurer found it too bright to see? *As decided by adventurers weekly. Your new favourite source of news and fun tidbits. Sold at stores all across the continent. Thanks for reading as always.

This list was fun to research and there are many more strange or useless loot items found over the years. For a full list of the top 500 please see our expanded issue. Excerpt from issue 74 of adventurers weekly. Abyss: Hey I try not to talk in here, but I felt like it would be rude of me not to give you all a hint. The games are starting in a few days and you should make sure to stockpile cores. That's all. What?? Innearth was thrown for a bit of a loop as he read the message from Abyss to the group chat.

Abyss: Oh! Also somewhat happy news but my levels reached 97. That's…. well it means the games might just be enough to push me over the hump to rank 4. Abyss: One of you needs to be Tier 6 before that happens otherwise you can't inherit the group owner position and your group chat will fall apart. Abyss: Good luck! All of you are… well your advancing at quite tremendous speeds. Making me feel a bit inadequate anyways but I believe in you guys! Amy: Wait what! The chat's in danger of being lost?

With that next message, Innearth was thrown more into confusion. He tried to imagine what the games were and started to move towards checking the market for a guide when a final message was sent. Abyss: Oh! And I know I just told you to stockpile cores, but the games are slightly better if you don't research them first! Your first games are the best and they feel more special if you just enjoy the surprise. Good luck! Abe: hey m8. you gotta give us more than that.

you can't just say "don't look", that makes me want to look even more. Fated Eternal Design: Mystery for mysteries sake is important sometimes Abe. I trust the core. He's never led us astray before. … what was the point in that? … stockpile cores? Okay… well let's see. Innearth Level 52 2899/3286 exp to next level. System Access Level 5 0/2 requirements met to advance. -0/50 sapient delves. -Level 64+ Stats Mana Regeneration 81. 82 personal unit/min Mana concentration 2. 69 AMU / personal unit Mana Storage 8837.

30/8837. 30 AMU Physical Storage 60% Capacity Age 894 days (2 years) Distance underground 293 meters Number of floors 13 floors Titles. Earth Mana Specialization, Crystal Mana Specialization, Void mana Specialization. With Innearth's current stats he could make… well a tier 1 core roughly every 55s. He could make roughly 1584 tier 1 cores a day if he stopped all operations and started working on nothing but pumping those out… That was… quite a bit higher than when he was younger.

All the materials he had seen that were hundreds of cores now seemed easily within reach. All he had to do was spend a day or so and they could be within his grasp. What happened! … but he didn't want to stop all operations just to churn out cores endlessly. He still had to remake monsters when they died, and he didn't want to have them stop their skirmishes. He also – and this was important – didn't want to just sit there making cores and nothing else. That sounded incredibly boring.

What he could do was pump cores out while designing stuff in the system panel. That didn't take any mana until it printed and was a good distractor. Besides. If we were given such short notice it couldn't be that important right? Deciding on using around two thirds of his mana on making cores and the rest on keeping everything running smoothly, Innearth added roughly 1k cores a day to his emergency stockpile. While that was happening, he spent time planning out monsters for the ice caverns.

The most popular ice schematic being sold was the "snowman". Three balls of ice roughed up and covered in the snow that naturally appeared once enough of an ice biome was set up, they were the bread and butter of ice floors. There was even a specific supply chain going where certain cores supplied buttons, or carrots, or woolly scarves that they claimed "needed to be included for it to be a proper snowman". They were relatively cheap but incredibly expensive for decorations…

and Innearth did not want to rely on them for potentially hundreds to thousands of snowmen over the years. The snowmen were however designed for ice floors set a wee bit easier than where Innearth had his located. There were instructions on turning the tier 4 core in the middle ball into a tier 8 core for a linear increase in strength…

but well, while Innearth could theoretically do that– Theoretically, because higher and higher tiered cores were harder to make in anything other than a single "make as fast as you can and hope for the best" manner (mana leaked everywhere otherwise and decayed while Cores were waiting for their mana to regenerate). And, as a tier 8 core was 7200AMU to Innearth's current max pool of 8837AMU. It was now "theoretically" something he could make.

The main reason Innearth didn't like that linear increase in strength was that the snowmen's tier 4 core was already drastically underused. With circuits and a tier 4 core the snowmen should have been powerhouses each deserving of being a boss! Not bouncing mages that shot (admittedly hard and fast) Icicles or flung bits of the environment around. It was also 7200mana instead of the 2000 mana of a tier 4 core!??? For only a bit more than double the strength? No, that was wasteful.

Instead, Innearth took each ball of the snowmen schematic and started "fixing" them. A center tier 4 core on the bottom ball. A center tier 3 core in the middle ball. A center tier 2 core on the top. Each of the 3 balls were going to be completely separate monsters that could jump away or return with small interlocking connections of short-range gravity mana. They were all "Linked" using the link tool and then Innearth set about designing circuits for all of them.

The only way to make the expensive ball fulfill its full potential was to give it a lot of hints towards affinities for their spells. A tier 4 purecore was kind of disappointing and almost weak while a tier 4 elemental core was strong and exciting but limited to forcing the monster into only using that mana type in its body and spells. A tier 4 purecore and then a weaker tier 4 "non-purecore" could make a good spellcasting monster… but a tier 4 purecore and 50 small nodes of a whole bunch of different affinities?

That made a boss monster. … I'm not meaning to make a boss. Let's dial this back a bit. Center large core. 6 sub "ice" cores set up in the "up, down, left, right, back, front" directions. Connect all those cores to the center and the 4 nearest ones placing a couple different potentially useful mana types in – water, kinetic, crystal, void… Now! On to the next one. Middle ball gets 4 cores equal distance apart and attached in a cube shape and with similar connections.

Top ball gets 2 ice cores on the left and right and if I make this section clear… The two cores now appeared just below the surface of the icy head. They glowed softly with a blue light and looked like ominous eyes. Yep, that's a good aesthetic for these. A squiggly looking mouth with two icicles like fangs completed the look. This was almost a snowman made of solid ice, but it didn't have any snow attached to it yet. Working on that Innearth found a "cheating" method to make a mostly non magical snow.

He simply had to make a spinning blade that scraped up ice into rough shavings. Donating the material to his schematic he was just finishing packing the shaved ice onto the outside of the monster when he received a notification. Attention. The 200th decenial dungeon games has started! A new event group has been made for any who wish to participate. These games will last a month and are being hosted this year by < Phantasmal Patterns>. Join the event games?

Y/N Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.... Okay?... Welll Nothing is going to happen until I join the games and I was warned of them beforehand. Guess I'll see what this is about. Phantasmal Patterns: Welcome! Welcome! It's time for play! Ehehehehe. I'm your lovely host Phantasmal Patterns! Tier 7. It's my third time participating in the games, and my FIRST time hosting. Thank you! Thank you!

Now as much as I love to talk I'm going to show off a prepared description of the games! Please read this year's packet It will provide just enough information to get you by! - The Dungeon Games are an official system sanctioned event run by dungeon cores for dungeon cores. Nothing that happens in them couldn't happen without the "official" designation but having the system's approval makes the whole thing feel so much more important. Pretend it's the tutorial again.

The very world is conspiring to help you advance. The games are here to pull you forward and scrap any ruts you've found yourself in. The games are a chance to interact and unwind as well as a way of challenging yourself. If you treat these games well and enter all the events you can, you might just learn something new! A simplified way of describing the games are as a string of several "main" events that have been designed and improved over dozens of years by all the cores before you.

The more deserving description is that these games are the most fun you'll have in a decade. Good luck! Finishing the packet Innearth sighed. That... doesn't tell me much does it. Are these games just a bunch of undeserved hype? I'm being told they are fun but... being told something doesn't change my mind a single bit does it? To be honest, being told I'm going to have fun, makes me almost want to not have fun just based on spite...

Grumbling, Innearth waited for the next group wide announcement while slowly losing excitement towards the whole process and considering returning to his ice cavern design. Phantasmal Patterns: There are plenty of events in this year's games both big and small. Plenty of events yes! Phantasmal Patterns: Last time we did this the previous host hyped up the first main game for ages and I HATED IT! This year I'm going START us off with a BANG! Phantasmal Patterns: MONSTER RACES. Yeah monster races are great.

You have 24 hours to read the rules and decide if you are participating. Should give enough time to catch all the late joiners and let you tweak some things. Phantasmal Patterns: I HOPE our first event is PHENOMENAL. Silence as the Core stopped messaging, followed by Innearth moving around the event server. A tacked-on tab listed the rules as well as providing a simple checkmark for if you were joining. Rules: Monster Races. There is time for unique and ascended monsters later.

The monster you enter must be whole, dungeon made and use no unfair random materials. To enter you must add a minimum of 30 cores to a prize pool along with your monster and this agreement which is system binding. Monsters may be designed to harass their opponents however the goal of this event is speed and non completion will result in disqualification. No teleportation-type magic is allowed. No calling it "rift walking" or "shadow stepping" - it's not a loophole, it's cheating.

The monster competing must complete the whole course, moving through every checkpoint to be considered to have "won". No shortcut tunneling monsters either. The maximum amount of mana allowed to be spent on a monster is 7000amu. The monster should be printable for someone of level 48 or above. Final Description and sign-up. Four "races" will be performed against monsters submitted for your tier and rounds will be split into groups of 25 monsters max.

The winner of each bracket will be given the entire prizewinning pool of cores. The main reward however is the knowledge that you are the best. Enter? Y/N? Current participants [38] As Innearth watched the current participant number kept ticking up regularly. 38 -> 40 -> 47. Still unsure as to what exactly was happening Innearth consulted the group. Innearth: Hey, so what's everyone doing? Abe: oh I'm entering this. It sounds fun enough and it's only 30 cores. I make that in like half an hour -not even!

ZeMadDoctor: I'm... I think I'm going to watch the first of these "games" to see what it's about. The description made there out to be many of these competitions to come. I want to see what I'm getting myself into. Amy: most of my friends are competing so I might as well join. I don't have anything that fast out of water but I will see what I can do. Innearth: huh. Well I might as well join as well Innearth: Anyone want to work together? Abe: bruh my only goal is to beat you. I don't care about winning lol.

I bet you 1500g of firmament I can make a monster faster than you. Innearth:... you know what? Deal. You can't make void stuff right? I bet you... uh. I made a new void fire recently. I bet you 1. 5kg of that. Real strong. Small caveat that you'll have to add it directly to a monster that can heal it back so it doesn't burn up. We can work something out. Abe: Hah. This will be easy. Fated Eternal Design:... what. how did that happen so quickly. Did you two rehearse that? And I want in!

Abe: sorry FED: 3 bets already been made. You'll have to join the next one Fated Eternal Design: if I win I'll give... uh. okay I can offer eternal materials? Innearth: I don't want you to feel left out but bro. Me and Abe are offering the good stuff if you want to get in on this you should offer similar. Fated Eternal Design: Okay. I'll offer 10L of cognitive Enhancement potion. Can't find that anywhere else because my cultists made it. Abe: Ha! You didn't have to up the quantity m8. I'm so going to win that.

Pulling back, Innearth joined the race and went to work refining a monster for it. … 24 hours passed in a single moment leaving Innearth panicking as he rushed his design out into the area. 84 Cores were participating in the Tier 5 race – so there were currently four separate races happening simultaneously. Innearth had to sign what Cores were jokingly referring to as a "slave binding" penalty to abide by the rules.

If he broke them he would trade "95% of his regeneration a second" to the host for 10 years – the maximum amount the system would allow as a penalty. Some were even trading mana regeneration in seconds! Not minutes! Essentially trading regeneration was also known as "trading your future" and Innearth started to think some dungeon cores were insane. What could possess someone to think that was a good idea? Sure an extra amount of mana per second would be amazing! But… but losing that is worse than gaining it.

Like okay. If I got 1 extra mana per second I would be able to do nearly twice as much stuff! But if I lost 1 mana per second… I wouldn't even be able to keep my dungeon running! Right now remaking everything and expanding slightly takes over… well roughly 25 mana a minute but that's not steady so it's hard to quantify. Let's see, right now I have 82 mana a minute and 1/s is 60…

I guess with 220/s mana I could tell my snakes and spiders to stop attacking each other and I wouldn't have to remake them constantly – but also! With nothing to do you would be stuck in endless boredom! Without any mana you wouldn't be able to make monsters! Sure I've heard adventurers don't kill cores unless we are considered insane… but what about monsters! No defence! Spiralling for a bit and watching the chat for a bit Innearth couldn't help himself.

He reached out and spoke in a general chat for the first time. MikeTheMagicCore: 3amu/s for 2 years on that fan thing. I've played with fans before I know how good they are. I guarantee that's going to win! I heard from last time a fan thing won? Well, that's a fan thing. ALL HAIL THE FAN! Dunstorm: I'm entering max speed. I'll take you up on that offer if max speed beats it. Dunstorm: Max speed is the wheel monster okay? It has a giant "Max" on the side of it. What do you say sucker?

Still think some weak-looking moving wall can beat the SPEED. MikeTheMagicCore: duh. I've researched previous years. There's going to be a water section in the course. That little wheel is going to sink. Fans for the win! 3amu/s final offer. Or are you nothing but a cowardly little pebble? Innearth: What are you doing? How can you even think trading that much mana per second is fun? MikeTheMagicCore:??? Dunstorm: Oh. I'm so scared. MikeTheMagicCore: Hey don't worry "Innearth".

I've researched everyone entering I'm going to win! Think of what I could do with all that extra mana! No point in imagining what would happen when I lose when it's a given the fan will win. Dunstorm: Screw off slag. I'm bored. What else is there to do? I've waited 10 years for this event to happen again – what's 2 years in the face of that? Besides. Without a good bet or two how else will you find this fun? Innearth: can't you have fun with smaller bets? Kingmaker: oh let them be.

The only dumb thing they are doing is wasting all their time on the race. True connoisseurs save their big bets for the battle royal. Hands down the best event. Pulling away from the chat, Innearth still felt like there was something wrong with some of the Cores in it. That has to count as madness right? Gambling your life away??? Waiting for the event to start Innearth watched as monsters appeared suddenly one by one into nearly invisible force cages. The final count was 83 tier 5 cores participating in his Tier.

That meant there were 4 groups of roughly 21 monsters being sent through the course. And for some reason, despite being split into 4 groups they were being sent through nearly identical courses simultaneously. The last kilometer of the track combined the 4 separate groups and Innearth spent the next few minutes watching monsters blip in and wondering how "Phantasmal patterns" had known to make 4 tracks when they had mentioned it was split in 25. Did they just guess the number of participants?

What was the point in splitting up groups if we are all going to join together at the end? These dungeon games seem dumb. Finally the last of the bets rolled in and their host started to narrate. Phantasmal Patterns: Are YOU ready! Yes you. Ehehhehe. Enough of those bad decisions made? Any last second entries? no? Phantasmal Patterns: Then GO. Without a countdown or warning, the cages dissolved and the monsters were off. The initial send-off was a chaotic mess.

Abe was in Innearth's group and had designed a thin vaguely bazooka-shaped "monkey".

"Monkey" being an incredibly generous description for the tube shaped mess of fur and parts. A roar of fire and power resounded out before a bubble of time magic extended down its whole length and the back of the bazooka exploded. It exploded and continued exploding repeatedly – the time magic blending the explosions together into a single flickering ball of orange fire behind it. A few of the other monsters had initially pulled ahead but Abe's monster shot past them – all less than 5 seconds into the race.

The initial mess of hallways twisted off into a couple different paths each supposedly the same length... but most of the friend group's monsters seemed to pick the same middle route. Innearth's altered Kinetic enhanced steam horse took some time to get up to max speed. Its length was quite a bit different than it had looked initially – no longer containing a sort of "steam engine" aesthetic. Nine legs had been upped to twelve and set in bent shapes that reduced their range of movement, but helped aim forwards.

A wild scream was let out by a long-legged gaunt creature that swiped back and forth at the group as it ran, two praying mantis-like arms lopping off limbs from the monsters beside it. A small worm-like monster had jumped onto another and burrowed into it as soon as the race started. Slowly working its way through the running monster and then appearing out the tip of its front like a horn... Maybe it expected to be counted as finishing first by being that much further ahead?

Another monster had hundreds of stacked propellers in a giant squarish shape all spinning constantly as it moved forward and clipped a 4 legged wolflike shape grinding forward in a spray of black spongy slices of yet another unknown material. Laughing the Cores sent dozens of variations on the "GO GO GO GO. GOGOGOGOGOGOOGOGOG" aimless cheer as they rooted for either their own monster or a one they had bet their livelihood on. While the first few minutes were chaotic the next few started to balance out.

The straight "boring" long hallway that had started the racing monsters off quickly descended into a jagged mess of interlocking sharp-walled hallways. One path became a dozen and as the group progressed, obstacles started to appear. The ground fell away occasionally to pits full of sharp-looking iron spikes, while swinging giant metal balls flung past – and occasionally clipped and flung and squished monsters into the walls.

Abe's exploding rocket of a monster kept pulling ahead of Innearth's galloping steam horse and the only thing keeping them roughly in line was the constant twists and turns. To be frank both monsters sucked at turning. With wider turns the horse was slightly stronger, simply moving its legs and sending bursts of kinetic mana into different sections.

With sharper and narrower turns Innearth's monster couldn't turn in time and would bounce off the walls – its attempt at scaling up the wall just resulted in them losing speed. With Doc's "transferring" Kinetic materials I bet I could make a better horse. They could alter their course much better and… well the one weakness I'm seeing would be fixed. The track turned a corner and suddenly opened out into a 40m wide and 2km long roughly smooth room.

The walls and floors were covered in a checkered pattern that reminded Innearth vaguely of his old core rooms decorations – but done to an extreme scale. This room actually made something obvious. Innearths steam monster was slower than Abe's time and explosion magic monster… but faster than all the other monsters in his group.

Pulling ahead further and further Abe's monster stuttered and then with a solid hiccuping jolt shot forwards even faster – its speed bubble interacting with the world in a strange way as the periodic traps were warped and deflected in its passing. Cheering his monster on, Innearth found himself almost reaching the same frenzied state as the other Cores. He actually started to get invested as he watched his best efforts fail against Abe.

There was a brief hiccup as the end of the expanse was reached for a solid line of a sickly green poisonous liquid rained down in the direct path. Abe's shuttle-like monster passed through the poisonous waterfall and stuttered as its flame went out – skidding on the floor for a few meters before relighting and continuing on. Innearth was ¾ of the way through the expanse when he noticed two things. He wasn't going to win. And the rest of the monsters were only now entering the expanse. … what's happening?

Why is everyone so slow? Watching slightly confused, Innearth followed Abe's monster as it burst into the final kilometer stretch, a spiralling almost hypnotic path full of strange cubby holes that furry monsters peeked out of. One other monster reached this section of the hallway before Innearth, a long worm-like monster with 20 wheels that flowed over the ground as it moved. Its body bent over bumps and seemed to glide with a weird unnatural flowing motion. Inevitable. Endless.

The steam horse burst out behind the wheeled snake and started catching up just as Abe's torpedo crossed the spinning gold ring that represented the finish line and promptly exploded in a huge ball of fast-moving fire mana. Nudging ever forward, the steam horse got closer and closer to the "flowing wheeled snake" while checkered squares popped up – shooting liquid or flipping anything on it upwards.

Innearth reached a strange divided state of mind where he focused with what felt like every ounce of his attention watching the race and simultaneously split off and started studying the obstacles. Oh! Those sort of leaping jolting squares are made with kinetic mana. I bet they set them up using launch pads that had little latches that popped off when pressed down. I could make those… then anyone that stepped on them could be flung through the air!

I could make them cross big chasm-like holes or send them into lava or spikes using those… A pounding excitement filled Innearth the moment his horse galloped past the snake and, despite coming second, he started cheering when his horse passed the spinning ring. YES! Not bad for 24 hours of effort!!!! FED's Monster had entered the final stretch late but had a massive entrance.

Every monster within a kilometre of the flying air-spun mask was slowed and every monster within a 100m was nearly frozen as the mask flew forwards. Its speed was abysmal in comparison to Abe and Innearth, but within a 5-minute span the mask passed over 20 monsters that were slowed and then nearly frozen in place.

Despite being only a few meters away from the finish line, the "stacked fans" monster was frozen in time and watched helplessly as the almost slow-moving mask rushed forwards and passed it – coming in 4 th place. Immediately upon crossing the finish line the extended field of frozen time weakened and was disabled – as if someone had pressed play, everything resumed its regular movement. The fan passed in 5 th place while a large group of monsters passed by a few minutes later.

Innearth turned away from the event and back to his safe friend group. Fated Eternal Design: ASASFLK. Okay. Well then. You have bested my finest warrior. We didn't make a binding contract… but a promise is a promise between friends. I shall have your reward soon Abe. Fated Eternal Design: Not trying to take away from your deserved win but I just want to say if we started in the same group I would have won. My inevitable mask would have frozen your rocket and I would be the victor.

Innearth: is it just me or was this just a race between the three of us? Abe: Eh. Best not to think of it lol. Now about those rewards…