Nate was beginning to yawn as the timer for the new Dungeon Core neared completion. He was used to being asleep by this point, and his teenage body liked getting a certain amount of sleep each day.

Still, he wanted to be awake to watch as this new dungeon came into being.

Then, as soon as he could, he would hop into the place in his avatar for some exploring. If he was lucky, or unlucky, depending on your viewpoint, he might even encounter a few blighted elves for some fun.

Aura had been doing her best to keep him awake as the last few minutes ticked down. Finally, it was time, and the new dungeon came into being.

In a mirror of the first dungeon’s creation, somewhere out in the world, the second dungeon was creeping up from the ground. Over the course of a minute, it solidified into the same shape as the first building that had protected the dungeon. It had a lone door and wide walls, where Nate could place signs in the future.

For now, the portal had been completely cut off from the rest of the area.

Inside the building, the layout of the dungeon was already in place. All that remained was for the traps to be built, something that started as soon as the last stone in the floor settled into place.

Before the first blighted elf came through the portal moments later, everything was in place and Nate was ready to enter with his avatar.

Unfortunately, they still hadn’t figured out how Aura was meant to transfer between the two dungeons. All she could do was keep busy in the first dungeon until they figured something out. Her own abilities didn’t extend outside of any single dungeon that she was currently inside.

Once he was inside the dungeon, the first thing Nate noticed was how humid the air was. He was used to the unbearably dry air of the mountains where he lived. Here though, there was moisture, not enough to be clammy or leave a film on his skin, but it was pleasant. He hadn’t even realized how much he missed having some decent humidity in the air until that moment.

Along with the water content, came a perceptible chill that reminded him they were getting along in the fall season. It would soon be Halloween, all hallows eve. Though calling it Samhain, the day when the veil between worlds was at its thinnest felt strangely more appropriate for him this time around.

There was still a week or two before that day arrived. He had seen the date circled on the calendar, but he didn’t know if it was for Halloween or something else. There were a few things that had changed simply due to the lack of constant worldwide commerce and commingling that had been happening on his Old Earth.

It was possible that Halloween was one such casualty, and it was instead being celebrated in its older, more proper forms. Either way, it didn’t matter to him, as it was merely a passing thought that the cold had reminded him of.

Monitoring the screens, he witnessed the first of the blighted elves come through the portal. Unlike in the first dungeon, here they could come through in a group of five. After that first group, however, no more of them appeared. It seemed that there was still a timer on how often the portal could be used.

The five pale elves looked around in confusion, their eyes squinting against what was to them a harsh glare. The dungeon was not what they had been expecting to find on the other side of the portal. Yet now that they were there, it was too late to turn back. There was no going back after you had gone through the portal, not for a while at least. Your body had to adjust to the new world you found yourself in before you could return.

Nate continued to watch as the first group poked around the initial room for a few minutes. It was only after they were joined by a second group of five that they opened one of the three doors and left the portal room behind.

The door they had chosen opened into a long, twisting corridor that led to a trapped room that he was rather proud of. The trap would only activate once someone had walked through at least one-third of the room. Then a simple three-layered laser beam would activate on the far side of the room and begin moving toward them. Meanwhile, behind them, a fully completed grid laser would be covering the door. If they wanted to leave, they would need to do so in diced chunks, just like in a certain Resident Evil movie.

It was possible they could dive through the initial three-layered laser, but that was what made it interesting.

Nate wasn’t trying to stop the blighted elves wholesale. Not yet, at least. He didn’t know enough about them. For the next few days, he would be concentrating on learning what worked against them and what didn’t. Then, as soon as possible, he would upgrade the Dungeon Core to its second level. He had learned how important having the additional functionality it provided was with the last dungeon.

The ten elves moved slowly down the corridor, their hands poking at and feeling the stone walls as they walked.

He couldn’t hear them, and even if he could, it was doubtful that he could have understood them. However, it was clear that they were talking about the dungeon and where they had ended up.

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Watching them closely, he could see that their eyes had adjusted to the light a small amount. Not a lot considering how the brightness kept changing, but even with that, they still weren’t squinting quite as much as when they had first arrived.

In other words, their reported weakness really wasn’t that much of a weakness after all, just like he had thought. They were sensitive to light, but it wasn’t debilitating by any means.

They kept moving forward and a few minutes later; they crept into the first of the trapped rooms.

Back at the portal, another group of five blighted elves appeared. Checking the clock in the bottom corner of his wrist computer, Nate quickly figured out that there was a group coming through every fifteen minutes.

This new group was just as confused as the other two had been. However, when they saw that there was no one around, they quickly chose an exit and left the portal behind. Unlike the first two groups, they were more decisive in their decision-making abilities. They also chose a different exit from the others and headed in a different direction.

Now, Nate had two groups to keep his eyes on.

A moment later, the portal flashed again. It was much too soon for a new group of blighted elves to already be coming through.

Aura stepped through the portal and stretched, her four-tails flicking every which way.

The next second, a message appeared in front of Nate. “I figured out how to switch between the dungeons. I use the portals! When I tried to enter the second floor, it offered me a choice. Did I want to come over here or go to the second floor?”

“That… actually makes a lot of sense. I can’t believe we didn’t think of that being a possibility earlier.” He admitted wryly. “I’m glad you made it over. I could use the help monitoring them. There are two groups in the dungeon right now.”

Aura burst into motion, her nose guiding her directly toward the second group. “These are different traps than the ones you used last time around.”

That reminded him that he still needed to set the Dungeon Core to researching the technology inside the blackboxed traps. That could wait until later. First, they needed to find out how well each of the traps actually worked.

The two continued talking back and forth as he described the new traps and what each of them did.

In the room with the group of ten blighted elves, they had at last gone inside far enough to activate the traps.

Now, one of the things movies tended to do was make lasers visible whenever they were used. Which is not how light worked. You didn’t notice light until it reached its destination, unless there was something to interfere with it in some way. So, while that scene in the Resident Evil movie was sort of cool, it was also absolutely unrealistic. They never would have seen the lasers coming. The only hints they would have had were the dots they made on the walls.

That meant that Nate had been forced to create something that would make the lasers visible. Otherwise, the lasers would be too effective and well, he supposed that was fine, but it would lose some of the sportingness to it all.

Nate wasn’t trying to massacre them, or rather, he was, but he was trying to give them a chance of survival at the same time. It was complicated. Perhaps in the future that would all change, but for now, at least this is how he wanted to do things.

He was still interested in learning about the inhabitants of the other worlds and watching them. Fighting them, training against them.

He wasn’t delusional; all it would take to change his mind was losing someone close to him to an attack. Or something else of that nature. It was almost a certainty that it would happen at some point, given the state of the world. It might even be why he was so interested in learning from them while he could. Because he knew that interest likely wouldn’t last.

Regardless, each room of the dungeon had some form of visual indicator they could use. Wisps of smoke rising up from the floor, or fog that fell from the ceiling. There was always something there that they could use to see the lasers. They simply had to understand what it was all for first.

He wasn’t going to hold their hand on everything.

Sure, they might lose a few people before they learned each time, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He was nice like that.

In the room, the ten blighted elves were twitching as their heads swiveled from one spot to the next. Each area they focused on was where the laser line was showing through particularly well.

One of the elves took the lead, drawing his needle-thin sword, and waved it through one of the blue laser beams. The top of the stabbing sword separated from the half he was holding without the slightest hint of resistance. There was no telltale wisp of burning smoke or heated metal, nothing. It was simply cut in an instant.

Behind him, the other elves jumped back in shocked surprise.

Unfortunately, not all of them were as far inside the room as they should have been. One elf in particular had been staying consistently at the back of the group.

Nate watched in horrified fascination as that particular elf jumped back in fright. The leap carried them back into the door and through the lasers they obviously hadn’t realized were behind them.

The sound of wet, diced chunks of meat falling to the ground behind them fixed that problem for them.

Turning around, they quickly spotted the diced, blood-soaked remains of their companion before the dungeon absorbed the pieces.

He felt his brows rising toward the ceiling at how well the lasers had performed. He had always thought they would be powerful, but he hadn’t realized it would be to this degree. These blighted elves were still cultivators, even if they were a fairly low realm. Getting hit by a laser was instant death for them.

Nate smiled and flicked his eyes to the resources counter in the corner. The smile promptly fled from his face as a feeling of panic came over him instead.

At that moment, there were fourteen elves inside the second dungeon that he was getting energy from. Then there was also everyone from the first dungeon. However, even with all of that, his energy was still slowly going down.

It might have been because he hadn’t yet had the Dungeon Core research anything, or because the lasers were using blue light which required more energy. It was both likely.

At the moment, all it meant was that he quickly needed to disable most of the laser traps he had put into the dungeon. Later, he could switch out the diodes for red instead of blue, which would use less energy.

He would also need to focus on other traps. It had been a possibility; it was why he had made sure to include plenty of other traps when he made the dungeon. He just hadn’t realized it would be this bad.