Pov Meriswyn

I looked upon the great entrance to the dungeon called Eternal Training Ground. It looked like something made for a giant, as the pillars were so large and the entrance so tall. The number of people here was staggering, and my skills were having a hard time categorizing everyone, but I was still capable of this volume of information gathering.

So this is the place my mistress is interested in. While it seems like the world is going to tear itself apart, my mistress is doing all she can so she doesn’t have any other commitments and can focus solely on this anomaly. I still remember when I was next to her, and her grandfather came to visit her, asking her to do something. We both thought it was weird and out of character.

He was supposed to be a drunk who liked to speak about times gone past and the great fortress dungeons of ages gone. I would never presume, but I think that’s why my mistress is so interested in dungeons and why she became the most knowledgeable and best researcher in the area of dungeons for our faction. I do not know why she didn’t come with me—something about a better opportunity in the future made possible by her grandfather's influence—but I will do what she told me I need to do.

This dungeon only recently opened up another floor, so it now goes 49 floors deep. One more floor, and after that, it would advance to platinum rank. As a platinum rank myself, I would no longer be able to access the gateways off the 20th floor—that would be off limits to platinum ranks like me, in a similar way that silver rank floors are inaccessible to gold ranks.

It is standard for every dungeon to do that. What isn’t standard is the limit imposed on the other similar rank floors. I got a lot of information from the Adventurers Guild, but I didn’t expect I already needed to fill out my report so thoroughly.

So instead of going inside the dungeon, I found one of the restaurants with a third-story balcony area for eating and took a table there so I could observe everything while filling in my report.

Almost every other dungeon I know of, with a few exceptions—and I guess this one will make that list—allows gold ranks to go to any gold rank floor when they first enter the dungeon. This dungeon does not do that. You only have the option of entering the end of floor 20, and not even floor 21, as you need to beat the floor 20 boss to even get to the gold rank floor. Another oddity.

I suspect it’s because of this that I am sensing so many platinum ranks doing nothing in this city as they are waiting for the 51st floor to open up so they can skip all the gold-rank floors. I can understand why they would do this with this dungeon because the size of it is staggering.

There are dungeons, especially the ones that are much larger than this one, but that's only because they are a lot deeper. I can’t imagine this dungeon being able to keep this size of a floor after it reaches platinum rank. It will shrink quite a bit, but it will build up once again as it gets deeper.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

My first task, however, is to figure out how many adventurers are actually in this dungeon, how many platinum ranks have come here, and how many are being made here. This was the first thing my mistress found questionable, as the numbers didn’t seem to quite add up. Getting reliable data was difficult, as currently, the masters were the ones minding the dungeon lord and the ruler of this nation.

The nation itself seemed quite prosperous and actually quite fair, and I had to give props to him at least for that. He doesn't seem to know how to properly manage a dungeon, however. Nevertheless, that’s not what I need to focus on.

Until floor 50 is opened up, my mistress has ordered me to collect as much data about the movements of adventurers in and out of this dungeon as possible. It is unfortunate that this dungeon has more than one opening, but those other openings are inconsequential compared to this one, and my subordinates should be able to monitor them well enough.

By the time floor 50 opens up, I should have a good idea about the number of adventurers coming and going and their general strength. This should help mistress figure out what is happening in this dungeon and why her grandfather is so interested in it.

It’s also weird because this dungeon feels so much more alive than any other I’ve been to. I wonder if it’s because of the way stations and hub stations, as they seem to have proper living areas with real vegetation and animals.

It’s a brilliant idea instead of the restrooms other dungeons use, and I’m certain that it will be standard dungeon-building practice as soon as my mistress finishes her mission here after gathering everything useful this dungeon has.

It took four years for the 50th floor to be open, and I was glad that I was finally given permission from my mistress to enter this dungeon. I was finally going to be able to see something else besides the dungeon entrance, no matter how grand it was.

I had an entire room filled with crystals full of data I gathered. Only because of my mistress’ wishes I hadn’t released this data, but this dungeon Lord has been lying quite a bit. I do not know how he has managed to twist the numbers so badly, but this dungeon produces platinum and gold ranks in numbers that are scary.

My mistress assured me that this would be fixed soon enough, but the damage this dungeon must have already done to this world is immense. So many high-ranked individuals, and from my understanding, all of them are truly deadly if they have used this dungeon even a little in the way it wants adventurers to use it. I am now more than certain that the huge social instabilities all over the world are solely caused by this dungeon here.

Hopefully, my mistress can fix this, because if this dungeon continues to do what it does at a fraction of its current capabilities on the platinum floors, well, I can’t even imagine the trouble that would follow. This dungeon also seems to have way more mana and life in it than should be possible, and I’m going to find out soon enough why that is.

It took me a bit of time to give orders to my subordinates and pack everything I needed. Floor 50 had been open for a few months now, and it was kind of fascinating to see how the city kind of emptied of adventurers who had come, as they called it, for a vacation on the surface.

While this dungeon was troublesome, I found the culture and society that has built around it quite fascinating and kind of hoped that we wouldn't be destroying it, but we needed to stop the ludicrously high numbers of high-ranked adventurers it was producing.

For the first time since I've been here, I stepped inside the dungeon and felt it properly. It was so alive that I was a little bit overwhelmed, and the large pillars to both my sides didn't help me feel any better, as I felt like a tiny ant stepping into the world of giants. I pushed forward and stood in line at one of the many gateways. As I reached it, I had only one option for a destination, and that was the end of floor 20.

The travel was instantaneous, and I did so love the gateways of the dungeons. I ended up in a large room that had a similar atmosphere to the world outside. Even the sun seemed to be in the same position, yet I could feel so easily that it was all fake, made by dungeon rules, and we were just in a large room made by the dungeon. What wasn’t made by the dungeon was the city itself that was in this room.

As I understand it, most of these kinds of towns and cities that are just before the final boss of a floor are usually named for the boss or floor guardian just beyond it, the only exceptions being this floor, the first floor with this kind of room, and the last one that is constantly being pushed downwards.

This one is simply named The Beginning, as almost everyone agrees that an adventurer’s journey only truly starts when they reach gold rank.