As the Storm Blood Mana Leechling shot away from the dead adventurer's corpse back into the swamp, two black boxes appeared in the Core's mind.
Level Up!
Level: 14 🠂 16
Maximum Mana Capacity: 730 🠂 830
Maximum Integrity: 170 🠂 190
Intelligence: 44 🠂 52
Wisdom: 22 🠂 26
Luck: 11 🠂 12
Maximum Dungeon Size: 25 🠂 26
Congratulations! For reaching level 15, monsters automatically generated by floors may now evolve, though with significantly increased evolution conditions than normally created monsters.
The Core was relieved to finally be able to continue leveling up, and opened its status.
N/A's Status Location: N/A's Dungeon Name: N/A Age: 1 Month Old Race: Sacrilegious Rogue Dungeon Level: 16 Integrity: 173/190 Mana: 770/830 Intelligence: 52 Wisdom: 26 Luck: 12 Dungeon Size: 19.39/26 Floors: 2/3 Floor Themes: Isolation Caves, Parasitic Swamp, Atrocious Halls, Withering Forest, Elemental Dunes, Atrocious Heavenly Tower, Plains of Lunacy, Unholy Cathedral, Flooded Leech Hollow, Wild Jungle of Exuberance, Grove of Forgotten Beasts. Current Integrity Status: Great, Mana Overburdening has begun to set in! Abilities: Appraisal, Mana Sense, Mana Sight, Mana Shaping, Mana Drain, Limited Telepathy, Matter Assimilation, Floor Creation, Baleful Aura. Skills: Mana Discharge. Available Monsters: Tiny Lesser Mana Leechling (L-R), Pixie (G-R), Storm Hide Bear (UC), Shade Wing Bat (L-C), Vitriolic Leeching Abomination ®, Black Cave Bear (L-C), Dungeon-Kin, Common Cave Grob (L-C), Cloud Stepping Ram (L-UC). Servants: Cie. Titles: Pixie Slayer, Mana Drainer, Mana Wielder, Bat Slayer, Challenger of Evolution, Caretaker of a Nifilim, Architect of Life, Leech-Kindred. Achievements: Solo Dungeon, Leeching Core, Rare Beginning, Divine Assimilator, Monster Progenitor, Novice Trapper, Skill Creator, Abomination Core, Intellectual Core, Theme Virtuoso, Going Against Nature, Loving First.
The Core slowly looked over its status, delighted that its Mana capacity was once again increasing. As it finished, it noticed the sapients retrieving orbs that seemed incredibly similar to the one the human called Silfus had used to escape.
"Cie, what are those orbs the sapients are using?" Cie bobbed in glee as it reminisced over the death of the adventurers while answering the Core's question. "Master, those are translocation orbs. They are strenuously created by high-level translocation enchanters. The orbs this group is using likely do not belong to themselves, and were probably given out to them by the guild for their assessment." The Core's curiosity was piqued as to how high a level was required to make such mystical objects, and Cie didn't miss the Core's curiosity. "Master, these orbs are made by Rank-Y enchanters, so they are completely out of reach for those who lack immense wealth, but the guild has its own supply constantly replenished by the co-founder of the guild. However, that does not mean they give them out often. They generally do so only for assessments, and during times of emergency, as their supply is limited, and crafting these orbs takes an immense amount of Mana and time."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The Core was growing more intrigued by the sapients the more it learned about them, "How strong can sapients grow to be, and what are these rankings they have?" Cie's bobbing came to an end as the last of the adventurers translocated away.
"Master, sapients can grow tremendously powerful. At their lowest, they are level-0, but at their highest? Well... that is not known yet, as they have constantly been growing stronger and have adjusted their rankings to match their growth. However, some sapients can never level up, why is unknown. The only thing that is known is that they cannot earn experience from killing or working. The Farisian Guild, guides, manages, and regulates those who can level up; they also issue quests, tasks, requests, exploration notices, and many other jobs for adventurers to complete. However, the Farisian Guild isn't the only one around, but they are the leading authority in the region on those who can level up due to their affiliation with God of Wind Farisian, the founder of the guild, and the one its named after.
The Farisian Guild are also the ones who set-up the sapients' current ranking system, starting at Rank-F all the way up to Rank-Z. Those at Rank-Z, Master, I pray you never encounter. Rank-Z adventurers can fight the Wyrm one-on-one and triumph. The top Rank-Z to date sits around level 10000, and is the highest sapients have managed to reach, as going higher takes an excessive amount of time and experience. Each of their ranks has two stages that each add a plus after the rank; The greatest Rank-Z has reached Rank-Z++, and if they grow beyond level 11000 a new rank will be created accordingly. However, Rank-Zs are incredibly rare, and those that reach such a rank generally are not very active in the guild; instead, they pick areas with powerful monsters and hunt them to level up, or if it is a working type job, then they find a quiet place to work until they can level up. There are some who have given up their journey to the heights of power after their long struggle just to enjoy the luxury their overwhelming power can bring them. Although there are things which can affect the difficulty of leveling up, generally only classes and race do this. More rarely, there are curses that can slow down experience gain, and blessings that can increase it.
The sapients that are performing the current assessment are at maximum Rank-C+ and at the lowest Rank-D++. But Master, while that may sound low, the truth is that out of hundreds of thousands of sapients, only two might reach Rank-X. Even less will reach Rank-Y and Z, in fact, C ranked guild members make up the bulk of adventurers. Nonetheless, this does not mean there are not many B to S rank adventurers; it is simply that they do not find Dungeon Assessments to be worth the time it can take to complete them when they could be leveling up instead."
The Core was happy to learn about the sapients and their rankings, though it wasn't eager to meet higher ranking adventurers like B ranks or above. It still couldn't really get a sense of how powerful its monsters were, but it was clear that Rank-C adventurers were going to have a tough time dealing with them. It was also still not certain of the Progenitor's strength, but, it guessed its power to be at around Rank-B. The Core also decided to ask Cie about something the adventurers had been murmuring nervously about. "Cie, what are trials?" Cie seemed to have been expecting this question.
"Master, trials are found in Dungeons, either upon entering or after a designated point or location has been reached within the Dungeon floors. These trials are found in all Dungeons with only one known exception that I know of; you, Master. You are the only Dungeon so far to seemingly not have the ability to make trials, and I can guess, Master, that it has to do with your lack of a link with a Pixie. Another thing you lack is treasures, but I am not talking about placed materials or valuable plants like you have currently. Other Dungeons seem to be able to set rewards for completing trials, and these rewards are commonly things the Dungeon would have no way of knowing how to make via Mana Shaping, so it must be another ability granted by their links. But, Master, you possess what other Dungeons do not have; freedom. You are unlinked, unbound by their laws and rules, free from the management of Pixies, and most of all, you have an object beyond all value that other Dungeons would only dream of, a Titan core."
The Core was pleased to learn its unlinked status likely didn't make it miss out on powerful abilities, and while creating trials and treasure might sound amazing, the Core could care less about benefiting sapients. At least, beyond how much it currently did, anyway. It was annoyed that Cie still hadn't explained what trials actually were, however.
"Master, please be more patient. I will explain what they are. Trials after being activated by sapients entering the Dungeon, or reaching a certain location on the Dungeon floor; send a notification to the sapients who have activated it, informing them of what they must do to complete the trial and what they may earn if they succeed. Trials have a wide variety of completion methods, ranging from simply killing monsters, surviving a specific amount of time, enduring hazards created by the floors, or solving a variety of cryptic puzzles. These trials also almost always open the entrance to the next floor as well, so that is the reason the adventurers were getting nervous from not receiving any. It is usually especially easy to trigger the trial for the first floor, as everything is normally much simpler at the start of a Dungeon, but they weren't outright concerned because some trials only trigger upon entering specific areas on the Dungeon's floor, or after reaching a certain distance within the floor. The trials' notifications are shown the same way that your status is displayed, but the color of the box is different for everyone. Why this is has become a heavily debated topic among sapients."
The Core could understand from what Cie was telling it that its own floors were much harder for sapients to complete due to there being no hint in the form of a notification to be found on its floors. They will need to figure everything out about and solve the floors themselves without help from trials. It also had no intention of changing this, as like Cie said before, the difference in itself compared to other Dungeons would surely draw attention from the sapients even if they didn't get far into it.
The Core turned its attention away from Cie, as it had no more questions for now, and headed towards the outside, wondering what the adventurers were up to now that they had translocated away.