Chương 79: B2—Chapter 11: Dungeoneering 101

In the morning, I experimented with the snake meat for breakfast. I cut it into small cubes, seasoned it with paprika, garlic powder, and oregano, and fried it before adding it to an omelet. The first omelet was so good that I ended up cooking over two kilograms of meat with eggs, knowing it would disappear in no time. As I cooked, I seriously considered asking Lis to search for more of those scary snakes, regretting that I hadn't neutralized the poison from the "damaged goods" snake.

It didn't matter that I had over 100 kilograms of this meat. It was just too good to pass up. Breakfast was a hit, and Rue, not one to miss out, demanded even more meat. He got his own giant steak, which he devoured with gusto. When we finished eating, I got up to clear the table, but Lis grabbed my hand.

"Since this is your first dungeon," he said, "there are a few things you need to know." I sat back down.

"The first and most important one: never, ever take the core of a regulated dungeon. Doesn't matter what the circumstances are. In about twenty percent of worlds, that earns you a prison sentence. In the other eighty, it's a death sentence. Mana level doesn't matter." That definitely got my attention.

"What about unregulated dungeons?" Lis nodded once, like he had been waiting for that.

"That's different." He lowered his hands to the table.

"If you find a wild dungeon and clear it, take everything. And I do mean everything. Rocks, trees, plants, whatever's in there." I frowned.

"Why?"

"Because dungeons are not what they appear. They're manifestations of mana. Everything inside is essentially a construct, and there's a market for that." He ticked points off on his fingers.

"Earth Mages or Architects will buy the stone. Wood Artisans," he nodded toward Mahya, "will want the wood. Enchanters or Blacksmiths will pay for metals. Alchemists will buy the plants."

"I take all the wood," Mahya said.

"Normally," Lis continued, "no one bothers with the monsters since they dissipate. But since you can harvest them into crystals, you actually take everything in your case."

"So in regulated dungeons, they tell you what you can and can't take?" I asked.

"Exactly." Lis nodded.

"Most regulated dungeons serve two purposes. Combat, either for training or leveling, and resource harvesting. Which one you book usually sets the price. In some places, if all you want is levels, you can even take paid work clearing dungeons so the harvest teams can come in afterward." He leaned forward with his elbows on the table.

"With wild dungeons, you've got a few options. First thing to understand is that most dungeons aren't all that exciting, resource-wise." He made a vague, dismissive gesture.

"A few plants, loose stone, maybe some trees. Nothing rare or special." He looked at me.

"In those cases, you go in, take everything that isn't nailed down, and then take the core and collapse the dungeon." He lifted a finger in warning.

"The core alone is worth a lot of money. But it also paints a target on your back. People will try to steal it. Some will kill for it. So you need to be very careful how you sell one."

"Second option," Mahya cut in, leaning forward.

"That's when the dungeon itself is valuable." Lis inclined his head, letting her continue.

"If the dungeon produces good ores, rare plants, or other valuable materials," she said, "or if the final reward is something special or hard to find, you don't take the core." She tapped the table lightly.

"You harvest everything you can, leave the core intact, and sell the dungeon's location."

"Usually, to an adventurers' guild," Lis said.

"The price depends on how fast it regenerates. If you bring the buyer back and it's already full again, you get more. If it's still half-empty and just starting to recover, you get less." Mahya picked up the thread.

"Another option is not going inside at all. You sell the dungeon as-is." She shrugged.

"The value depends on the quality of what it can produce and how fast it regenerates, but in that case, you have to wait with the buyer while they check everything out." I shifted in my seat, fingers tightening around my cup as I turned it over in my head. Standing around while someone inspected a dungeon I had found felt strange and boring, but the logic was hard to argue with. Lis added, "And if you're thinking long-term, you can buy the land around it before anyone else notices and charge admission.

That's how a lot of Travelers end up with kingdoms." I stared at him.

"Seriously? Like… kingdoms?" Lis chuckled, nodding.

"Yes. You will meet more than a few Traveler kings and queens." He smiled faintly.

"If they're tired from traveling, they usually settle down and build a kingdom or start a school." He glanced off into the distance for a moment.

"Someday, when I get tired of traveling, I will probably start a school myself." I snorted and shook my head.

"Yeah, I really can't see myself as a king. Or a headmaster." Lis gave a small shrug.

"To each his own. Now, about clearing a dungeon." He lifted one finger.

"When you go in, you kill everything. Anything that moves inside is a monster." Mahya snorted.

"Even if it looks like a cute, fluffy bunny." Lis pointed at her.

"Exactly. It probably has razor-sharp teeth and wants you dead. Even ants. The tiny ones. They could be venomous, could paralyze you, or some other horror." He tapped the table.

"There's one simple rule. If it moves, it dies." The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. He waited until I nodded, then continued.

"After you clear a floor, check for a floor guardian. If there is one, the dungeon has more than one floor, and you deal with that too." His hands spread slightly.

"Once the floor is clear, you harvest everything before moving on. A lot of dungeons will seal off earlier floors. If you didn't clean it out, you won't get another chance."

"Can't I just leave and come back?" I asked. Lis shook his head.

"No. The entrance won't work again until the dungeon regenerates. So, clear a floor, strip it bare, move on. Each floor is harder than the last, and the jump isn't subtle. Be ready for it." His expression tightened slightly.

"Final floor's the important one. Whether it's the first or the tenth, there will be a guardian protecting the core. It's much stronger than anything you've met so far, and it won't leave that core." He paused again.

"If you intend to take the core, gather everything before you fight it. Once the guardian goes down, taking the core makes the dungeon collapse. If you leave the core alone, you can harvest afterward." I nodded slowly as I ran the sequence through my head.

"When are we going in?" I asked. Lis smiled, eyes brightening.

"Now's as good a time as any." We headed out, and I had to admit the portal still looked scary as hell. Stepping through it felt like passing through a Gate, like brushing against a thin, almost imperceptible force field. On the other side was a wide, empty clearing bordered by trees. About three hundred meters out, the air blurred into a faint haze in every direction. I squinted at it.

"What's the haze?" Lis followed my gaze.

"Mahya was right. It's a young dungeon." He pointed toward the distortion.

"That's the edge of the pocket dimension. This one is a baby, and the core is probably small."

"If it's that young," I said, "why were there monsters outside?"

"Nobody's cleared it yet." I looked at him.

"And that matters because…?"

"Dungeons absorb mana and process it," Lis said.

"The clean mana becomes the environment. The trash becomes monsters. If a dungeon isn't cleared regularly, the trash builds up and spills out." I smirked.

"That's a very colorful way to put it."

"But accurate," Mahya said. Lis scanned the trees, lips pursed.

"I don't feel like fighting in there." He glanced down at Rue.

"Would you mind helping us bring them out?" Rue gave him a side-eyed, judgmental look.

"You don't have to fight," Lis said quickly.

"Just head to the trees. When they start chasing you, run back here." Rue trotted off and stopped at the treeline, ears pricked. When nothing happened, he tilted his head, then let out a loud howl. Leaves rustled. Rue backed up a few steps and howled again. This time, shapes burst from the trees. A group of toothy cats leapt out and charged. Rue spun and sprinted back, skidding to a stop beside me just as the creatures closed in. Lis's voice stayed calm.

"Rue, try to kill as many as you can. You need the levels." The fight kicked off with Rue charging into the fray, taking on the cats as they poured out of the trees, soon joined by a few lizards. I stayed back, keeping a close eye on everyone, ready to jump in if things got out of hand. It wasn't long before Rue yelped. One cat had sunk its teeth into his hind leg. I dashed over, stomped down hard on the cat's head, and quickly healed Rue's wound.

As I finished, a few more cats tried their luck, lunging at me with surprising speed. I swung my staff and swatted them toward Rue, who made quick work of them. We fell into a rhythm. I was the batter, Rue was the eliminator, and I stepped in when needed. Smooth and efficient. After about ten minutes, the onslaught stopped. There were no more cats, lizards, or anything else. Lis patted Rue's head.

"Your challenge was very effective. Want to give it another go?" Rue walked back toward the trees, and I turned to Lis and Mahya.

"Do either of you need healing?" Mahya looked offended.

"From level three and four monsters? Don't joke like that!" I opened and closed the system notification just to get rid of the annoying red blinking light, without bothering to read it. Who cared what those monsters were called? Rue's second attempt to draw out more monsters didn't yield any results. Lis began piling the monsters in one spot.

"You can start on the crystals." As I worked to turn them into crystals, I noticed the process was harder than it was outside. The monsters dissipated much slower, forcing me to "help" them break down. I looked up at Lis.

"Why are they dissipating slower?"

"We're in a dungeon," Lis said, as if that answered anything.

"So?"

"Monsters dissipate more slowly in a dungeon."

"Why?" He spread his hands.

"There are some theories, but no conclusive answer." As I continued working, Rue paced back and forth in front of the trees, howling occasionally but with no success. Once I finished, we moved on to the trees, which Mahya inspected.

"Too young," she said, shaking her head.

"So we're not taking them?" I asked.

"Of course, we'll take them," Mahya said with a grin.

"Remember what Lis said, we take everything. I just meant they're too young for my project, but they'll be perfect for staves, wands, enchanted arrows, and the like." It took us hours to cut down all the trees and gather the other plants. As I worked, I could sense their abundance of mana and understood Lis's earlier statement that the dungeon's interior wasn't real. The plants, though they looked natural, were more like lumps of condensed nature mana.

Lis and Mahya assured me they were highly valuable to Alchemists, especially since they were pure. We took everything—trees, plants, rocks, sticks, even fallen leaves—leaving nothing behind. Eventually, after we cut all the trees, we spotted a small cave entrance. Lis insisted on doing one last sweep to ensure we had missed nothing, and after he returned, we entered the cave. Inside, a large cat prowled back and forth in front of a small gold ball hovering in the air at about knee height.

The ball was maybe three centimeters in diameter.

"Want to take care of it, Rue?" Lis asked, his voice calm. Rue sprang into action, and within seconds, the cat was no more. I harvested it as a crystal, and then we all touched the core. A wooden ring materialized for each of us. Fountain of Health +2% Constitution I turned to Lis.

"This whole thing feels kind of… underwhelming. Was I expecting too much?"

"No," Lis said.

"This dungeon is too young—only a month or two old. We should have brought Lyura and let her clear it on her own. She's the only one who could have really benefited from such a young dungeon."

"Yeah," I agreed, "judging by the mana level of this world, I was expecting a much bigger challenge."

"Well," Lis said, "in six months, those cats would have been bigger than Rue."

"That big of a difference?"

"Yes. This core began as a grain of mana. It processes mana and grows; as it grows, it can process more mana, and the monsters grow with it. In a world with this much mana, a core can reach this size in just a couple of months. In a medium-mana world, it would take a few years." Lis took the core and stored it, and I immediately felt the air shift. The surrounding mana turned unstable, and we rushed for the exit. We didn't make it. Before we reached it, the dungeon spat us out.

It's the only way to describe the sensation—a sudden, forceful expulsion, like being squeezed and shot out in one violent push.

"If this was such a young dungeon, would I be able to feel the difference in an older one?" I asked.

"If it's open, you can usually tell by the size," Lis explained.

"If it's more cave-like, it's harder to judge." Well, at least I could now call myself a dungeoneer, and I'd ended up with a ridiculous amount of wood. What to do with it was another question entirely. With a shrug, I followed them to Lis's house.