Mike now had a day to kill, and he already knew what he wanted to spend that time doing. It had been a while since he had spoken from Martin, and lately he’d heard more and more people around the village talking about the dungeon that the man was creating. He leapt from the top of the village's outer wall, which was in the process of being expanded. He used several successive blast steps to launch himself higher into the air, wanting to try and make it to the spider cave in a single glide.
He made it without much trouble, but needed to land a hundred feet from the entrance when he saw the lines of people waiting outside of the dungeon. Signs littered the area, marking various caves, their difficulty, recommended party strength, and length of each of the dungeon sections. As he walked over to get a better look at a few of them, Martin ran over from one of the entrances to greet Mike.
“Hey man, been a while since I last saw you!” The dungeon master said. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been good. Getting stronger and richer every day.” Mike said, happy to see his friend again. “What have you been up to?”
“Just expanding the dungeon a bit. I added a small entrance fee after hearing that currency was added to the village. I gotta tell you, getting stronger and richer is awesome.”
“How much is the entrance fee?”
“Oh it's not that much. It gets more expensive when you pick the longer or harder dungeons. The most expensive one is 10 silver per party member.”
Mike sucked in a breath hearing that. “That seems very expensive.”
“It’s not really. People often spend several days in the longer tunnels, and often come out with enough materials to make a profit.”
“I guess that's fair. So how difficult are they?”
“Why don't you come take a look? My profession gives some nifty spells to let me see how participants are doing.”
Mike followed Martin down a side tunnel that led into a large open room with multiple magical screens covering the walls. On the screens, Mike could see the outside of the caves where the lines were waiting, inside of some caves where parties were fighting monsters or in some cases just sneaking around them.
“So that's how you knew when I showed up.” Mike muttered. “How did you figure out how to make these?”
“I didn't. I got the heroic skill when I reached level 50 as a dungeon master, which was only yesterday.”
Mike’s gaze shot over to the man, identifying him.
Human (level 40)
“Looks like your class has really fallen behind.” He said, still surprised at the high profession level.
“It has. I tried doing a runthrough of my dungeon with Kenny to try and get those numbers up, but that sadly didn't work since I own the monsters I am fighting. I need to go hunting with him and some of my other tames.”
“Speaking of the little fluff ball, where is he? I imagine he wouldn't like being stuffed in a cave for weeks at a time.”
“He is out hunting all on his own right now. I don't get class levels from it though because I am not present. I haven't seen him for a few days, but last I saw him he had just reached level 43.”
“Is he still getting bigger?” Mike asked.
“Yeah, he is absolutely massive at this point. You could put him toe to toe with a tank and he would probably be bigger. He does have some skill to shrink his size though, which is what keeps him from being stuck outside of the caves.”
“Oh now I have to see that.” Mike said. He had seen some large enemies, but the thought of a comically large rabbit just sounded hilarious to him.
“He should be back soon.” Martin said. “In the meantime, how about we watch a few groups run through the dungeon. We can start by watching the weakest group finish the shortest dungeon, then we can move on to watching the strongest group fight the strongest boss. They have been going through the caves for a few days and are nearly at the end.”
“Alright, let’s see what all your hard work has accomplished.”
One of the screens on the wall expanded to triple its previous size, and Mike watched as a group of 5 people entered the dungeon.
“This is the weakest group so far, with none of them being over level 10. I have yet to see any of them here before, so I am not sure how well they will do.”
On instinct, Mike tried casting identify on one of the mages in the party, and was surprised when the screen briefly flashed and he got a result.
Human (level 8)
“I don’t understand how you can even be at such a low level after all this time.” Mike muttered, identifying everyone else and seeing them all to be of a similar level.
“There are more like them than you would think.” Martin explained. “Some people are just now accepting the reality that they need to get stronger to really do much in this new world. These people we are looking at came from another nearby settlement that made the mistake of pandering its inhabitants, which kept them very weak. A night raid nearly wiped them out, but luckily a level 30 warrior from our village was visiting and was able to solo the raid.”
“That sounds horrible.” Mike said. “Say, I haven't seen a single child or heard anyone talking about being separated from their children. Do you know why that is?”
“I have heard people talk about that while watching them through the screens, and thankfully the children of our world are still fine for the most part. All children and their guardians were placed into the very middle of the safe zone, as far from the mana barriers as possible. It has also resulted in them having a ridiculously large population settlement, with tens of millions of people working together to build it. From what I have heard, they still haven’t figured out a currency yet, which is holding them back from becoming a village.”
“It wouldn't just be holding them back from becoming a village.” Mike said, watching the weak party fight a few spiders. “My village menu lets me know that the two requirements we need to rank up past a village is to have 100000 people, plus having 3 vassals. We already have the vassals, that being two settlements and Dune, so now we just need to wait for more people to move here.”
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“So they may be the first to surpass the village rank, if they could just make some money. Why don't we bring our currency to them, that way we have a unified economy?”
“Fuck that.” Mike said. “No way in hell am I going to spend all that time infusing enough coins for all of those people.”
“How long would that take?”
“How many people did you say lived there?”
“About 30 million from what I have heard.”
Mike did some fast mental math, his wisdom and intelligence stats working as a mental calculator. “So I would need to infuse coins for 75 hours straight if I used the regeneration boost from the idol of Surya in Dune.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Martin said.
“You haven’t spent a full day sitting and doing nothing but expend mana have you?”
“I have spent a day straight watching people go through my dungeon.” Martin said. “Though I guess that isn’t as bad.”
Mike thought about it for a second, then sighed. “I will try and get in contact with them whenever I get the chance. Right now there is just too much going on to spare that much time.”
The two of them turned their attention back to the screen, sitting in silence. The party that they were viewing reached the last chamber in just an hour, and they had all leveled up at least once. The strongest in the party had even reached level 10, and the group took a brief break for the mage to evolve. One thing Mike had realized while watching them was that every single one of them had chosen the mage class. He guessed it was because they didn't want to get all up in the face of any monsters, but they did need to make weak barriers of mana once or twice when the spiders got too close.
The final boss fight was nothing too exciting, with the evolved member of the party carrying them through the fight with blasts of fire. Shortly after they finished the fight and the rest of the group also reached level 10, Martin got Mike’s attention by making a different screen larger, and on it was the strong party that had been mentioned before. The party consisted of one mage, two warriors, one archer, and a healer.
“Why aren’t there any groups of more than 5?” Mike asked.
“Because anything past that makes level gains quite negligible. Through watching my dungeon I realized that a while back. So now I don’t allow groups of 6 or more.”
The party hid for a few minutes in the tunnel, planning how they would fight the boss. Mike identified each of them, finding that they were all at between level 30 and 33.
“That's the strongest group?” Mike asked. He knew it was a high level for the average person, but he had known enough people who were level 35 or so that he had expected at least one party with higher levels.
“People who tend to fight in groups are at a lower level, but the group is more than just the sum of their parts. Besides, anyone who is at a higher level is usually a solo fighter in some of the easier dungeons or doesn't come to the dungeon to begin with.”
“So no solo fighters come through this section?” Mike asked.
“None so far have completed it.”
“Given that I am now level 42, this dungeon should be at nearly the same level of difficulty it was at when I cleared it right?”
“It is, but very few people fight monsters that are far above their level on their own. Your whole class is based around that, right?”
“I guess. But I mean come on, the matriarch of the hive was the absolute toughest monster I have fought in my life, yet I still came out victorious on my own.” Mike said. The spider really had been his toughest battle, outside of when he had fought Klint. The sand elemental was a close second, but it hadn't been as hard to put down as the spider had been.
They had both been about 20 levels higher than Mike, but each level mattered more when you were at a lower level. The matriarch had been level 45 and had put countless holes in Mike's level 27 body, but he had pushed past it and managed to win. The sand elemental had also gravely injured him, but it had died before it could capitalize on that. If Mike had needed to continue the fight after having the waves of sand crash over him, he likely would have lost.
“You almost died. You have a nearly terrifying tolerance for risk, and next to nobody will throw themselves against those kinds of odds. You are just asking too many people if you are expecting them to be of a similar caliber you are at.”
They once more fell silent as the party approached the matriarch, with the warriors leading the group and the archer, mage, and healer standing at the back. They fought mightily with the matriarch landing several devastating hits, and the mage getting thrown against a wall in a bloody mess.
“Are you going to help him?” Mike asked, getting worried for the mage.
“I can’t.” Martin said, not peeling his eyes from the screen.
“Why not?”
“If I help, then that proves to the system that the participants in my dungeon are not really putting themselves at any kind of risk, which severely hinders their growth, and the growth that anybody will receive by going through my dungeon.”
“So you just let people die here?”
“I do. I don’t like when it happens, but everyone who enters understands the risks they are facing.”
The healer ran over to the mage, bringing him back from the edge of death. After 10 minutes of fighting, the tarantula matriarch fell dead on the ground, its head split open by a desperate strike from one of the warriors.
“I think I would like to give it a try.” Mike said. “I want to see just how much of an improvement the past 15 levels have brought me.”
“You aren’t going to get any levels you know.” Martin said, shaking his head.
“Nothing in there surpasses my level anyways, so I wouldn't level up even if it wasn't my dungeon. I just want to see how much of a difference my improved stats and skills make.”
“Have at it, nobody else is in line at the moment for that section of the dungeon, so you can just go as soon as they are out.”
An hour later, after the group cleared out and the monsters within respawned, Mike stepped into the mouth of the cave, hammer at the ready. He looked down at his hammer, dismissing it into his soul.
“Let's see if I can do this with just my fists.” He said. A voice that sounded like it was coming through a shitty speaker came from nearby, barely recognizable as being Martin.
“So you are going to blast through here and humiliate my poor spiders. Good to hear.” The sarcastic voice rang out. Before Mike began his run, he checked the map in his dungeon menu, memorizing the path downwards. He hopped lightly back and forth for a few seconds.
“Keep a timer.” He said, pointing at the part of the wall that he remembered the screen pointed from.
“On your marks. Get ready. Start.” Martin said, sounding unenthusiastic about what was about to happen.
Mike shot off like a rocket, using blast steps and Empower Self to tear through the tunnels as fast as he possibly could. He ignored any spiders that were not directly in his path, and his fist lashed out to obliterate any that were. He bounced off the walls of the tunnels at each turn, zig zagged through corridors, and double checked his map several times to confirm his path.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but eventually he made it to the matriarchs chamber. He didn't hesitate, using all his momentum to throw out a punch with cleave infused into it. He dumped over half of his mana pool into the single use of the skill, transferring every last bit of his momentum into the spider as his attack landed.
The 30 foot spider flew away from him at breakneck speeds, splattering against the wall on the other side of the chamber. Mike looked at one of the room corners. “What's my final time?”
The very reluctant voice of Martin came from where he was looking. “1 hour 2 minutes and 53 seconds.”
“Damn.” Mike said. “I’ll be back to do this again when I get faster. Next time I’m here, I’ll get under an hour.”
“Please don’t.”