Chapter 109 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground” (Patreon)

Pov Tristan

Carl and Anna had been called to the 20th floor; they had found a new raid room that needed 200 people. I have only gone to a few such rooms, but they're always really dangerous and can be really chaotic. I am not strong enough to join the fight, and neither is Anna. She will be outside in the waystation, waiting to help anyone who comes out too injured.

Carl, on the other hand, would be one of the frontline fighters. I have been hearing some people calling him a monster because of how strong he is. I have not enjoyed it whenever I overheard him being called like that.

He has become my best friend, but I can acknowledge how strong he actually is. He will go far and will probably reach gold rank in a year or two.

My plan, if you can call it that, was never to truly get to the gold rank. Have I boasted about that before coming here during a drunken night? Certainly, but I never actually imagined getting even close to this strong.

No, my plan was to make an archaeological discovery, then be a teacher at some university, find a wife, have a few kids, and then die of old age in a century or two.

But I couldn’t do this to my friends. I will push at least to gold rank and see how far I will get into it. Perhaps I will even reach the platinum rank. I involuntarily chuckled a bit at that thought. Me, reaching that far? It seemed ridiculous.

It will all depend on how the 21st floor looks. I wonder how the dungeon will tackle what comes after the silver rank. There is no way it can keep up with expanding the floors like it has been before. If there are 10,000 rooms, I would be honestly surprised.

The line had fortunately moved quite steadily, and I was now in front of the gateway. I selected the one for the 15th-floor hub station. As I entered, I found myself in a huge market square where the gateway station was in the middle.

I had just come from the 19th floor's first hub station. While the 15th one was the most populous and had the largest central city, the best market had currently moved to the 19th floor's first hub station.

I started to walk towards my destination while looking around this market. It was filled with stuff for the silver adventurer ready to start challenging the lower floors. Perfect for fresh delvers, but for me, this market was useless.

Every once in a while, the so-called best market moves downwards, where you can find the best items to challenge the latest floors and where most of the high-end auctions take place. There, you can find the absolute best and rarest drops that people are willing to sell.

This city seems to be better at one thing: comfort. The deeper you go, the more utilitarian things are. Also, the headquarters for some of the largest shadow guilds are still in this city. Moving them constantly would be too time-consuming and expensive. It also took me a good 30 minutes to get to the outer edge of the city so I could find my destination.

Here, the buildings were a bit more spread apart, and the area was dominated by different workshops for crafters who were starting to establish themselves.

Normally, the buildings here were quite well taken care of, and I could see guards and people constantly working in whatever craft they were pursuing. My target, however, was a lot different from the surrounding buildings.

It was a lot more rundown, and from the looks of it, at one point, half of it had burned down, but the damage seemed quite old and was pretty well repaired. The building didn't have any windows, but there also didn’t appear to be anyone here. This was supposed to be the location of the person Anna said we could find to solve this frustrating puzzle.

I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, but as I did so, the door swung open a little bit. A glance at the lock revealed it to be broken. I pushed the door open to find a really narrow corridor that ended in what could be called a counter, behind which was another door.

This was kind of creepy. I walked to the counter and knocked loudly on it, but there was no answer. I did, however, hear noises coming from behind the door.

I continued to wait, but nothing happened, and I even knocked a few more times. The counter turned out to be on hinges, and I could lift it up. Doing so allowed me access to the door behind it.

The lock wasn't broken, but it also wasn’t locked, so I could open the door. When I swung it open, I found a room filled with stuff, but there seemed to be a crazy sort of organization to this entire place. There were definitely clear pathways where you could walk.

"Excuse me, is there anyone here?" Whatever noise had been going on stopped when I spoke. Then I heard someone approaching.

A dirty-looking young girl came out from behind one of the piles. "If you want to steal anything, go ahead, but there is nothing really valuable here," her words made me hesitate. "I’m not here to steal anything. I have a problem that I think you can help solve."

The wary look disappeared from her face, replaced by an eager and happy one. "Well, welcome then. Sorry for the wait. My name is Ziiipe; that starts with Z, has three I’s, and a silent E at the end. What can I help you with?"

Her words were filled with way too much energy, and I felt if I were to be around her for too long, I would just get tired from listening to her speak.

"I have this puzzle," I pulled out the device and showed it to her. "I can’t seem to figure it out and was hoping you could help." Before my words ended, she had snatched the device out of my hand and started to play with it.

"Uuu, that's nice. Well, that wasn’t logical, but I can see how it works. This seems to be an interesting yet unconventional puzzle; just give me a few more moments."

I looked in amazement as she mumbled while getting past the first section of the puzzle in a few seconds, something that I hadn’t been able to do in months. Her hands were moving so fast it was hard to follow, but the puzzle just kept being solved at a rapid speed.

Then, with a click, the puzzle opened up, revealing what looked like a gateway access stone. "That's wonderful! Well done." She did it so fast, and now we would be able to continue the quest.

There was already an updated quest text waiting for me. Now I just need to find out where the gateway access stone goes, and we can continue.

"Why was I just given a quest?" she asked with a glint in her eyes. "Oh no, did she get the same one as me?"

Pov Dungeon Core

I had just settled in to watch the ants trying to establish themselves for the third time on the desert floor when I was interrupted by Tristan getting past the first puzzle of the device.

It would take the ants a little bit to get going, so I shouldn’t miss anything even if I fully focused on Tristan. Before I could focus on him, I was informed that the second puzzle of the device was also solved.

Now, I immediately found him, and saw that he was not in their own base. Instead, he was on the 15th-floor hub station, and he was not the one who was solving the device.

That was a clever decision by Tristan to admit that he needed help solving this thing. I mean, I purposely made it so that solely relying on logic would not be enough to actually solve any of the puzzles.

This woman, or perhaps girl because she seemed one of the younger ones to actually be delving, was solving the puzzle faster than I ever expected anyone to do. And in less than a minute, she had completely solved the puzzle and revealed what was inside.

Anyone who was present during the opening would get the next stage of the quest, even if they hadn’t completed the previous ones because I thought that would be kind of fun to see what would happen.

This girl, however, seems weird but in a good way. I do kinda remember something about her. Thinking back, I remember that she was really young when she started to delve. Other than that, there isn’t much that I can remember.

Keeping track of so many adventurers is a lot of work, and unlike with my creatures, watching adventurers takes a lot more off my mind. If I wanted to watch everyone as closely as I watched Carl and a few others, I would not be able to do anything else. I did flag the young girl as a higher priority but then focused back on the ants.