A few miles southeast of Pharsha Town. A dungeon that was born out of a cavern. The greenery hid it well but there was already a stone installed there by the adventurer’s guild. This means that it was already mapped.

The old man and the boy arrived at the front of the dungeon, Simon was successful, and they would eat their good share for tonight.

“Good job Simon but before going into the dungeon, you have to follow rules,” the old man said. Simon was celebrating by waving his hands by himself.

“Rules?” Simon then stopped wailing his hands in joy.

“Yup! Rules,-” the old man nodded. “-but before that let’s prepare for the night…”The 2 then began preparing for camp.

The old man already knew how to make Simon’s lessons as much as efficient as he could, it was through food. Whenever he taught Simon when eating it seemed that the boy absorbed it otherwise he would go to sleep almost immediately. He would also use the reward and punishment system but he was feeling nice today.

As the old man rummaged on his pack the boy came back with a stone slab. They had to use some water from the dungeon cavern and then rinse it with their clean water.

The old man laid down meat on the stone slab and he started tenderizing it. He was a good chef that he was (Self-taught).

“Simon, I actually got something for you,” the old man said as he continued his work. The old man took out a knife, made out of obsidian. The one he commissioned from the adventurer’s guild.

Usually, there would be blacksmiths stationed in the adventurer’s guild, they would fix or sharpen weapons and replenish supplies of arrows and such.

It was a small knife.

“This is your Carving Knife, you don’t use it to kill something, it is used to cook food, slice vegetables, carve meat, you know the drill,” The old man had shown Simon as much as he could so he knew that Simon knew what he was talking about.

Simon wondrously took the knife that was sheathed on the same Tugak’s pelt they sold earlier.

“Now follow me, you will now prepare meat with me,” the old man said, Simon excitedly followed the old man, it was his nature to be able to absorb anything in regard to food.

<--->

The two were eating the meat they cooked. The old man watched the boy eating and reminisced a bit. At first, the old man was worried about Simon’s food habits since the boy would always eat too much, but the boy smiled as he began eating the food that he prepared on his own. Not only that, the boy was now eating slowly using the knife he got, it seemed that he was really fond of it.

“Simon… I will now lay down the rules you need to follow… only 3 of them,” the old man said. Simon nodded as he was stuffing his mouth with meat and vegetables cooked from the stone slab.

Rules:

1. Never panic

2. Conserve everything

3. The old man’s words are always right

“I understand… but what is panic?” Simon asked.

The old man looked at Simon… 'Really?' It seemed that he needed to start from that.

“It’s a state where your logical actions and reason turn bad, that’s why we train so that you will not be in a panic for anything,” the old man answered from the very best of his knowledge but still Simon panned his head right, that totally meant he didn’t understand.

“It's much better to show you in the morning… after you eat we will do arms bridges again!!” the old man said and the 2 started really digging into their meal.

<--->

In the morning, as the dew had just begun to drop and the forest still shaded the light, a deer was walking around just a few kilometers to the south of the dungeon, a short distance from the camp. It was curiously looking around, keeping its feet on the ground. Wary of its surroundings, the deer knew that its only way to stay alive was to run as fast as it could if danger arose.

The deer felt the presence of two. The deer was already old enough and its parents had taught it well. It started getting away from the range of them.

“Simon… jump on it and release your blood lust!” a voice of an old man.

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The deer felt one of the presences disappear and a human appeared in front of it. The animal didn’t understand how it went from there to here.

It tried to fight off the momentum the deer already made but as it did its eyes widened. The presence of death ever-growing stopped its knees as it froze. A gentle warm embrace enveloped its body. It was the boy that caught it.

“Let it go boy…” another voice came from an old man and the boy released the deer. The deer upon overcoming its instinct and fear began to run away as its life depended on it.

“I see… too much fear,” Simon said by himself, the boy understood what was panic… he had probably experienced it before when the 2 had just begun training back in the mountains.

“Boy… It's not only fear... it's any kind of feeling that clutters the mind. But it's usually fear... it's okay to feel fear, to feel threatened but never panic… it would lower your chance of survival… lower your thinking process, and freeze up your muscles,” the old man said as he tapped Simon’s shoulders.

“Get ready now we will be going into the dungeon,” the old man then began walking back to their camp.

Simon looked back at the back of the deer… for some reason something had changed for him…

“I’m not hungry?” Simon said.

“You are always hungry,” the old man said and the old man began walking, the boy followed.

<--->

Conserving food, water, and energy. It was essential for adventurers. Preserving weapons, and equipment and being resourceful was also a must, the adventuring business was a high-risk, high-reward job.

Dungeons were twice as dangerous than traveling on the surface. Multiplied more if it was uncharted. That was the kind of dungeon the Old Man and Simon were going.

Contrary to the first time the old man went to the dungeon for some reason Simon was enjoying it. The boy kept on asking things like…

“Why is it bright here inside the dark?” the old man answered: “Because of the green moss that lights up the walls. “

“Where are the monsters?” the old man tried to answer but monsters began appearing, they were born from the dungeon walls.

The small Tugak was no fight to the two. Simon only needed to punch them and they would die.

“Why are they disappearing?” Simon asked again after slaying the monsters that were in small pieces, their body started to disperse. The old man said that it was because the dungeon needed to recycle them.

“That is so weird,” Simon said.

“Yes…” the old man agreed to that. Then the old man pointed out Simon to take the small magic stones that were left from the dispersion of the monsters. In general, the monsters that Simon blew apart dispersed but some of the monsters that the old man killed didn’t.

“It's much better to hunt for food in the forest than go to a dungeon… can we eat this?” Simon said it like it was his conclusion.

He was right again, the boy was totally right, the old man thought too but there was a reason humans needed to go into dungeons. A dungeon that is left on its own could cause a dungeon overflow… and it was really catastrophic, not only it would introduce new species of monsters, but it would also destroy kingdoms and populations.

To the old man… the dungeon was there to cull humans. An adventurer could gain fame and wealth by going into the dungeon, and at the same time may lose something or their life but those who thrive in dungeons are considered heroes.

The old man smirked, for a long time he had never been able to question anything, it was really weird that the bodies of the defeated monsters dispersed but what’s more weird is that some didn’t. The monsters that dispersed dropped a magic stone while the monsters that didn’t leave its corpse.

On the surface, there was a great difference between a monster and a beast. Both are generally the same, the difference was that the monsters could use magic while the beasts didn’t, to that note monsters would usually have enchanted parts with them that could be used as a catalyst for magic or even weapons.

It’s a rule of thumb for adventurers to hunt first; named monsters on the surface rather than cull the dungeon since the named monsters would just go stronger along with the time it survives learning and adapting while the dungeon would show signs of overflow before it even happened.

The 2 continued their descent after picking up the small magic stone and carving up the small Tugak’s, they got 3 of them. A small magic stone was equivalent to 1 small bronze coin and as the quality of the magic stone and size increased so thus the price.

The cavern dungeon was true to its name, it was a naturally formed cave with slippery parts and water patches everywhere, it was not safe to drink water in the dungeon since dungeons are designed to kill humans. Still boiling makes it possible to be consumed.

Since the dungeon they were diving was not yet charted, the old man would stop sometimes to draw up the dungeon. The caverns and the slants are really well drawn in the map, the old man takes this chance to also show Simon how to do it.

“It's… not like that… we passed this like this and here it will be like this,” Simon said.

The old man raised his eyebrows. “How can you tell?” the old man inquired.

“I can hear it… something like that?-” Then Simon tapped his feet. “-The stronger the sound… the better I feel” and added that.

The old man gave Simon the paper and Simon began drawing the map as the old man had shown him. After walking for a while Simon stopped and tapped his feet or sometimes he would throw a rock if he found some. The boy was doing great at the mapping, it seemed his ability to detect is around 5km.

The old man could tell that Simon was using sound to tell the distance and structure of the cavern but only finite details.

“You could make a fortune for just mapping the dungeon… did you know that?” the old man said.

The 5-year-old boy of course didn’t know what was “Fortune” and he shrugged it off with “I don’t like dungeons”

<--->

Time passed...

The guild master was getting worried… it has been 5 months since the 2 went to the cavern dungeon in the south. He wanted to trust the old man but the odd boy was together with him. The guild master was really getting worried.

“And he said 3 months at the minimum, 3 months minimum my ass” he cursed as he tapped his desk.

He opened up his drawer to make a smoke as he sighed it was in the late weeks of autumn when they left and now it was already winter.