As I explained, Lydia’s look of concern shifted to one of exasperation. When I finished, she just shook her head, chuckled and punched me gently on the shoulder.

“Stop worrying me. I’m not supposed to get gray hair until my 200s.”

I hadn’t asked how old Lydia was. She looked like she was in her twenties, but I knew that elves could live thousands of years, depending on the setting.

“Lydia, what is the lifespan of elves in this world?”

“About 300 years. However, with the proper leveling and evolutions, we can hit sleeper territory.”

“... are you making vague references because you're mad at me?”

“How dare you! I would never,” Lydia said, grinning ear to ear.

She let out an exaggerated huff. “Fine, if you must know, depending on what evolutionary path is taken, people's life spans can catapult. Particularly after a second evolution.”

“Okay, but what's a sleeper?”

“Well, the longer people live, the more power they accumulate, and for a time, this resulted in the tyranny of dragons: an entire species composed of high level evolved beings dominating the planet. They ran the world for millennia until King Joshua eradicated them.”

“He beat the combined might of the entire species? How did he get all of them at once?”

“Species may have been an exaggeration. There were 32 dragon overlords. Regardless, the length of their lives compared to the lives of other races meant that the dragons could really only develop hatred for each other. Now, there is far more to it, but the short version is that Joshua and his companions exploited that rift, engaged in guerilla warfare, and slaughtered them all.”

The gears in my head turned. “So… if Joshua was that strong, what happened to him?”

“And that's where sleepers come into it. After reigning for a thousand years, he and his companions retired. They passed the reigns of power to a new generation and went into seclusion. Now, whenever anyone hits one thousand and thirty years old, the sleepers ‘wake up’ en masse and put the person to a choice—retire or die.”

“I suppose that's one way of preventing a gerontocracy.”

“Indeed.” Lydia studied my figure, appraising me.

“Anyway, you’re feeling alright?” She asked.

“Feeling great. Also, I’ve got some good news for you. Your essence channels are all clear. So… time to do some leveling.”

Lydia’s face nearly exploded with glee.

“Just one catch,” I quickly added.

As I began to explain, her expression plummeted.

************************

A long while later, I finished describing my plan.

“So you want to use me as a test subject?” Lydia asked.

She seemed less than thrilled that I wanted to set up experiments to document what happened as she leveled and skilled.

“In my defense, you already want to be a lab rat for my abilities, this would just help me make sure we are doing it safely.”

“True… and I get it from context, but what is a lab rat?”

“In my world, we performed experiments in labs on animals known as rats.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Why?”

“To learn things like that when you feed a rat its own body weight of artificial sugar, it gets cancer.”

“And this is helpful information?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

I steered the conversation back to its main point. Now that I had Lydia’s permission, we needed to find a private place to train. I had no desire to explain how we moved thousands of pounds of diagnostic equipment into a combat zone. Fortunately, since this had to do with fighting, Lydia was able to provide an immediate solution.

Dibella’s rise as the world’s center of sport and combat was fueled by its proximity to an abnormally large quantity of an important natural resource: dungeons. Rather than merely being places where monsters congregated, dungeons were living organisms. At the heart of each dungeon was an intelligent crystal, whose mana allowed it to interact with the world. It could spawn monsters, shape rooms, and devise traps. And as time passed, the strength and complexity grew accordingly.

Furthermore, this growth wasn’t haphazard. Each dungeon upgraded along a unique, but calculated path. Some focused their growth on strengthening an element in its confines (apparently ice dungeons were the bane of adventuring parties). Some were seemingly obsessed with riddles and ever changing puzzles. And some, like the one Lydia suggested, were instanced, providing a separate pocket dimension for each group of people who entered.

Because of these differences, Lydia explained, it was theorized that the cores had access to the system, allowing them to level up. There was even more debate as to if they possessed consciousness, but the tests that had been done proved inconclusive. Whatever the mechanism, as the dungeons grew, they provided greater and greater boons to the kingdoms that possessed them: higher level cores, advanced crafting materials, magic items, and more.

For that reason, dungeon growth was viewed as a positive, but it could lead to a major problem—outbreaks. The dungeons all had a “final boss room” that contained the dungeon’s core. If the final boss wasn’t killed at regular intervals, the dungeon could, but did not always, empty its monsters into the outside world before vanishing into thin air.

So, it was a balancing act. The dungeons were renewable resources that kingdoms and private businesses could exploit for wealth and power, but if they let it go too far, the results could be disastrous. However, most kingdoms pushed their luck as far as they could, hoping for a dungeon to evolve into the most coveted of all prizes--a labyrinth.

Labyrinths were massive scale dungeons that did not break. They simply grew deeper and more powerful. The treasure trove these represented was such that kingdoms rose and fell based on their possession. Seventy percent of the world’s A and ninety nine percent of the world’s S ranked cores were farmed, at great cost of human life, in labyrinths. As such, some of this world's bloodiest wars were fought over their possession.

While Dibella did not have a labyrinth, it did have many many dungeons. Of these, one was relatively famous for new adventurers. It was low level and instanced, so we had all the time we needed with minimal spotlight.

**********************

“They’ll just let us enter? We don’t need to register with a guild or anything like that?” I asked while we waited in line to enter the dungeon.

“No. All we have to do is give our names at the door. For instanced and colossal sized dungeons, there is no concern about low level or otherwise incompetent adventurers slowing resource production, so the empire has a laissez faire attitude towards it. As long as you pay the entrance fee and taxes, risking your life is your own business.”

‘I guess that makes sense. It would maximize the extracted resources at no cost to the empire.’

We arrived at the front of the line. A bored looking guard greeted us without looking up from his clipboard.

“Welcome to the dungeon. This is a Rank D instanced dungeon. There will be an entry fee of 1 GSU, or the equivalent thereto in any other currency. The tax rate is set at 50 percent of the value of anything found inside the dungeon payable in mana cores or items if you harvest insufficient mana cores to cover the full tax. This fee must be paid immediately upon exiting the dungeon.”

“Stop! Wait! I can explain!” a man to our left screamed as he and his party were dragged off by guards.

“As you can see, attempts to avoid these taxes are punishable by a fine, imprisonment, slavery, or execution, depending on the scale of the avoidance perpetrated. All spatial rings and bags must be declared at the time of entry and will be subject to search on the way out. Failure to declare spatial items will be considered an attempt to avoid taxes and you will be subject to punishment.

‘Finally, any intentional damage to the dungeon core will be considered high treason against the Ishtarian Empire, and you will be subject to punishment accordingly. Do you understand the conditions as they have been read and agree with them?”

“Yes.” Lydia and I said in unison.

“Please sign this non-magical contract reflecting that you have been informed of and understand the terms.” He shoved the paper at us, looking up for the first time.

We signed.

“Thank you for your cooperation, and may you have a profitable visit.”

He extended his hand, and pointed us to the door.

“Half a league, Half a league, Half a league onward,” I muttered.

“What?” Lydia asked.

“Don’t worry about it.”