One, two, three, four, five. Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Mithril. Coins have many types of value. The mana that they contain has value, the way they conduct mana has value, the mass they have has value. All of these are ways in which the coins always have value, regardless of the society. Yet coins also have other ways in which they are precious, they hold value because people believe they do. A good currency has either real value as an object or has value as a representative of trade; A great currency has both.

* An excerpt from ‘The Basics of Money’ by Royal Treasurer Duke Marnix

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Z POV

I panned my gaze around the supposedly empty boss arena, my eyes examining every tiny detail for discrepancies. Whoever entered the room after the seal ended were likely the same people who I detected following us back on the previous layers of the floor. They’re quite good at evading my senses, but their group is clearly too big for the number of stealth specialists they have.

I know for a fact that there are at least four individuals. I was able to detect three separate people each time that they slipped out of range of a stealth skill for too long. Which means that there’s at least four, because whoever has the stealth skill is never out of their own aura effect.

Normally I wouldn’t be so confident in dealing with four people by myself, but this situation is unique. Not only am I unconcerned since the third floor has no adventurer vs adventurer fighting allowed, but I also have a teleporter that will take me back to the town on the second floor behind me.

It’s taking too long for these guys to reveal themselves, so I charge up my best escape skills before speaking out loud to them.

“Whoever you are, just come out already. Your stealth is good, but not that good. If you're here to secretly kill me you’ve already failed so you might as well have a chat before I kill you.” I call out in a confident and cocky tone. It’s best to make them underestimate me from the start.

“Alright kid, fine. No need to fight, we’re just here to have a chat after all.” A rough baritone voice says as four men step out from their hiding position.

The man speaking is barely six feet tall, and he’s the tallest of the group. Their height along with the slight accent of the speaker implies that they’re from the Aquine Kingdom. However the way that they wear their belts and the gait they use to walk implies that they’re local. The speaker has the best guise, he’s slightly altering his movements and he made an attempt at wearing the belt the correct way, but the style is out of date.

“What does the Thieves Guild want with me?” I ask in a deadpan voice. I don’t want to deal with their deceptions at the moment, I care far more about resolving this quickly and returning to my friends.

The speakers’ eye twitches slightly, barely a tell. The man’s carefully controlled expressions mean nothing thanks to the complete lack of control in his three friends, each of them have surprised looks on their faces. It’s clear to who I now assume is the boss that his ruse is up, the man heaves an exhausted sigh and stops acting like an Aquin.

“Damn, you’re just as good as they say huh? The famed Shadow Whisper, the best thief in eastern Vicrost and a Silver Coin of the Thieves Guild. All while being completely unascended. A little zero star who stole from the most powerful and wealthy people around.” The man says in a tone that seems to drift between mocking and respectful. Perhaps he’s simply not sure which of the two to feel more.

“Sure, that’s who I was. Now who are you?” I ask dismissively.

“I am called Bal. Just a merc looking to pay off debts and amass his fortune.” The man says with an overexaggerated bow.

“You won’t live long enough to amass a fortune working for the Thieves Guild. A bunch of lowlife scum that lot, they’ll betray you just to recoup costs.” I say in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Maybe you should worry less about me and more about yourself. The Guild knows you're alive and Boss Rike wants his favorite Silver Coin back. You should just come with us peacefully, you of all people should know what they’ll do if you say no to them.” Bal explains in a calm voice with a slight sneer on his face. Or perhaps it's simply his scars twisting his normal smile into one, hard to tell.

“I also know what the Thieves Guild does to traitors, so I think I’ll pass.” I reply blandly

“Don’t make this difficult, you may have picked up a few tricks but you can’t win a four on one against people higher level than you.” Bal says his expression becomes annoyed and his tone more aggressive.

“Being a high level means nothing if your opponent is better than you. Haven’t you heard the saying "Rank over Level”?” I say with a slight mocking tone. I can tell that my blasé attitude towards him and his team was getting to him. A little push and he would slip.

“That hardly matters if you don’t fight. Your old master remembers where he picked you up from, it’d be such a shame if something were to happen to those poor orphans and their caretakers.” The man says, his true meaning made clear by his tone.

“Oh please, like that hasn’t been used before. Go ahead, I’d love to see what the thieves guild will do to an orphanage inside Krom’s territory. Do you even know what that man did the last time he caught people messing with children in his jurisdiction?” I say with a scoff, if this was all they had to reign me in I would be done soon.

The man with the stealth skill, their scout if I had to guess, twitches slightly at my mention of Krom and what he does to those who harm children. I notice the fear in his eyes and the slight movement of his body making him appear like a rabbit ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. I see it as a chance to further break down the professional facade of these mercenaries and find out what it is my old boss is after.

I simply don’t believe that that old dog would send people after me for no reason other than the fact that I’m alive. He has likely known that I’m alive for a while and simply decided that going after me wasn’t worth pissing off the Adventurers Guild. Which means that he needs me now for something specific, probably a job, maybe as a fall guy. Either way he can’t kidnap me without Guildmaster Tor or one of the other two star adventurers tearing apart whoever he sends. He needs me to come willingly, or at least appear to come willingly.

“Hey boss, I don’t think this is a good idea anymore. Krom’s punishments are no joke, last time he found a group of child traffickers he had them tortured for weeks and then crucified at the edge of the Primal Forest.” The scout whispers in a low fearful voice to Bal.

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“Quiet Grimsby, we aren’t the ones in charge of that. We just have to get the kid, so don’t worry.” Bal says to him, trying to calm his subordinate down.

“Listen here kid” Bal says, turning back to me, his tone serious. “This is your last chance to come with us peacefully. We ain’t afraid of your little Guildmaster, our associates can occupy him while we leave with you. We got a good healer back at base and we won’t hold back if it comes to blows. You might as well just follow us and spare yourself the pain.”

I stare at him for a moment, locking with his eyes in search of anything I can use. After several seconds of silence from my ability I realize that I have no chance against this guy. He’s clearly well trained and has a high mental fortitude. They underestimated my combat ability, but I underestimated their mental ability. He was clearly informed of what my ability does and how it works.

I heave out a resigned sigh causing Bal to smile.

“And here I hoped to actually learn something. A shame. Hey, when you lot respawn do me a favor and tell your boss that if he wants my help with something, he should come find me himself. Kneel in front of me. And beg.” I say, causing Bal’s eye to twitch at every pause, and everyone in his little group inhales sharply on my last demand. None of them notice as my leg brushes up against the stone platform.

Do you wish to return to the World Tree Hub on the Second Floor?

Y/N.

I give them a small salute and then affirm the system notification. I leave with a smile on my face as I watch the boss finish respawning directly behind the completely baffled group of mercenaries. I feel a sense of satisfaction and pride, I know for a fact that my old master will demand to know exactly what happened. Which means that telling them to tell him something is as good as telling that old bastard himself. Plus Ava can’t get mad at me for being reckless because I left before it turned to a fight. This was an absolute win in my book.

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Eternal Dungeon POV

Making a set of dungeon rules that would properly restrict people outside of my level range turned out to be more nuanced than I thought it would be. An extra layer of challenge was added by the simple fact of how ranks worked. A Superior ranked adventurer could be worth five greater ranked ones while at the same level. This translated to a huge issue where the lower your rank was the more levels you needed to deal with higher ranked threats. I had a lot of high ranked threats.

I had just assumed that anything Superior or under was perfectly fine as a challenge and only really reserved Legendary rank for boss monsters and Mythical rank for my special dungeon creatures like Bellator and Aika. Turns out I’m not exactly wrong.

Most adventurers do have Superior classes, they just only really get them by one star. Zero star is the time when people are doing resets and increasing their ranks which means that the overall rank quality is way lower and more unstable than in the higher star adventurers who have, for the most part, settled into whatever rank they ascended with.

I had thought differently since Wyla had told me that ranking up was something possible regardless of level so long as one was sufficiently prepared and determined. I had simply underestimated how hard it actually was to rank up outside of the ‘free’ ones that the system gave to zero stars in exchange for level resets.

Apparently the ways that one could increase their class rank once beyond zero star were all either difficult to acquire or difficult to do. Which made sense when you take into account that the methods in question don’t reset level. Which makes them massive power increases for anyone who manages it.

The main two methods are well known in Aven. The first was to attempt the rank up during a star ascension, something that already taxed the mind heavily. Most people who attempted this would end up failing at both the ascension and the rank up causing them to reset back to the start of whatever star level they were at. The second was to find a class upgrade book which would have requirements that one needed to fulfill in order to use it. Class upgrade books, and system books in general, were all quite rare during the current time period.

All of the system books left are either made by dungeons or left overs from the previous era when people could still make them. For some reason people have forgotten how to make them so now they have to rely on dungeons if they want more. My current theory is that the system itself phased out letting sapients make them in favor of turning them into dungeon loot or perhaps trying to simply remove them altogether. Wyla disagrees with my theory because of the lack of evidence of direct system intervention along with the fact that we should see the system actively encouraging or discouraging my own use of system books.

While the question of what’s happening with system books is interesting, it also isn’t really super relevant to the task at hand. Which is fixing the problems with my current dungeon rules. The way they are currently causes all sorts of issues with the difficulty range. Parties with at least one to two superior members or all greater members are performing fine, the problem is the much larger population of zero star adventurers that aren’t at that level yet. Not to mention the non-adventurer guild people now entering into the dungeon.

I need to fix up the rules to allow people with lower ranks to enter at higher levels. The problem is not breaking all the rest of the rules I have in place to restrict entry. Either that or I could just say fuck it and stop blocking high level people and get rid of all the rules except for the one limiting.

That’s actually quite tempting.

I mean, it would suck if people just tore through everything, but I could always add a different set of rules that level limits each individual floor and allows higher level people to skip them. Maybe I could even add special challenge floors with high rank monsters to try and offer a challenge to people outside of my level range. The more I think about it the more I like the idea, plus my core is immortal anyways so it's not like a three star shattering me is any concern.

Is that conceited?

I mean I am immortal, but that immortality is only guaranteed by the system. I shouldn’t just fully throw caution to the wind, especially after all the effort I put into creating a disguise for myself as a powerful yet somewhat normal dungeon. I decide that I should consult Wyla about it before making any final decisions on it.

“I think that removing the level limit is reckless and stupid.” Wyla says in a stern tone, causing me to feel a bit foolish.

“That being said, I do think loosening up the restrictions isn’t a bad idea. You should just increase the level limit to allow in anyone within 50 levels of your maximum. That restriction would ensure that more common parties of lower ranks can withstand the dungeon’s high rank monsters. It also minimizes the damage that a high level and high rank person could do since they would need to be within 50 levels. Most people who have good ranks tend to level quite quickly so someone being low enough to fit in that range shouldn’t be common.” She explains her reasoning in a calm serene tone.

“Ok, sounds good to me. Can you make the adjustments? I’m still worried about messing up the web of compounding rules we created.” I ask after quickly agreeing to her suggestion.

“Certainly. While I do that, why don’t you go ahead and start your ascension. We have time now that the latest floor is operational and nothing urgent is happening.”

I pause in consideration for a moment performing a mental checklist of everything that I need to keep up with. After realizing that Wyla can handle everything in the day-to-day I give her my agreement and open up my system window to start my ascension.

You meet all the requirements to Ascend. Do you wish to proceed?

I give the system my assent and feel my consciousness slowly fade as my mind is pulled within myself. Time to figure out what it takes to become one star.