Chapter 7: The adventurer exam part:1

In the dungeon, Lucas has been looking over the details of the first floor before the gateway opens, and after spending a good couple of hours his inspection is finally complete and he is ready to see his first visitors.

“Alright that should be everything checked now I just have to wait for the gate to open to see my visitors,” said Lucas in his mind but as he was waiting he suddenly thought of a question.

“Hey, system can you please answer a question of mine about can the challengers of my dungeon destroy my core,” asked Lucas to the system with uncertainty as whenever he asked this new system for answers it would not answer him.

[Query received]

[Checking if the query is valid]

[Ding, the query has been deemed valid showing the answer to the host]

[No, the living beings who challenge the host's dungeon cannot destroy the core as the core is under normal circumstances located in an isolated part of the dungeon space which is separated from the main dungeon by the void]

“Phew that's a relief then I won't have to worry about being killed if the challengers conquer my dungeon though what actually happens if a challenger conquers my dungeon,” asked Lucas with curiosity.

[Query received]

[Ding, valid query showing the answer to the host]

[When a living being who challenges the dungeon manages to conquer it they will receive a unique skill as the reward for the dungeon clear though it only happens when it's the first time they have cleared the dungeon and it only happens once per dungeon as re-conquering the same dungeon won't give a new unique skill to the living being.]

“Hmm so the challenger will receive a unique skill huh but what's a unique skill?”

[Ding, the query has been deemed as an invalid query]

“Huh, looks like this is as much info as I am gonna get from the system today. Well then since it looks like it doesn't want to answer anymore I guess waiting it is” said Lucas in his mind but just after waiting for a couple of hours he received a system notification.

[Ding, interference from an unknown source from the real world has been detected]

“huh, what outside interference from the real world? What's happening?” asked Lucas to the system.

[Analysing the interfering outside force]

[Ding, analysis completed the interference force has been determined]

“Oh system, have you already figured out what's interfering with the dungeon?” asked Lucas.

[Query received]

[Query valid showing the answer to the host]

[Yes, it has been determined that a magic artifact was being used on the dungeon gateway in the real world which accelerated the gateway stabilisation process and also allowed the living beings in the real world to analyse how many floors the dungeon of the host has and also the potential of the host's dungeon]

“Wait, you are saying that the gateway stabilisation process is accelerated but by how much did it accelerate?” asked Lucas with a hopeful tone.

[Remaining time until gateway stabilisation: 2 hours]

“Oh thank God it's reduced by a lot because it was really difficult to wait alone like this without anyone to talk to and without anything to do,” said Lucas with relief.

“Now I just have to wait two more hours,” said Lucas then as he continued to wait elsewhere.

In Ashfall city, dungeon gateway.

There many people including Miles party had gathered to take the adventurer exam.

“Alright guys, I can't wait to start the exam” said Miles with excitement.

“Hey hot head, did you already forget the warning Armog gave us?” asked Robin.

“Oh c'mon guys you can't still be thinking about that” said Miles.

“Afterall as long as we are all together we will be completely fine.” assured Miles.

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“Well that's our Miles for ya” said Rebecca.

After this small chat the mood of the party lightened greatly and then a Muscular but handsome man came up on the stage.

“Hello everyone, I am the leader of the platinum adventurer party hollow hearts Armog the hollow fist and I will be serving as the examiner for this adventurer exam” said Armog from the stage to the people.

“Alright newbies, are you ready for the adventurer exam? If not then you can still quit by raising your hand” said Armog.

After saying that Armog waited a couple minutes before speaking.

“Alright it looks like no one here is a pussy at the very least now for this adventurer exam you newbies are going to clear the first floor of this new dungeon as your exam” said Armog.

“Also newbies be extra cautious as no one knows what might happen in the dungeon and don't feel relaxed just because I am the examiner as I am not gonna save you if you end up in danger” said Armog.

“Now all of you who want to participate in the exam step into the gateway one party at a time and those who want to quit just stay behind” said Armog.

As he finished speaking the people gathered started to one party at a time enter the gateway.

“Oh man I can't believe that I am gonna go through a real dungeon gateway” said Miles with immense excitement.

“Alright everybody, be cautious and don't get distracted because we are about to enter the dungeon” said Rebecca to the party with a serious tone.

While they were talking their parties' turn came and they entered the gateway. As soon as they entered they all felt as if all light disappeared for an instant and the next instant they appeared in a forest with many lush trees and vegetation.

After they went through the gateway for a few seconds they were in a confused state after which they started to look at their surroundings.

“Wow, this is so beautiful,” said Rebecca.

“Whoa this is not how I had imagined a dungeon would be like” remarked Miles.

“Hey everyone, snap out of it don't forget that we are inside of a dungeon” reminded Robin.

“Oh right, Luna and Robin, can you guys scout the area ahead and try to find a way out of this forest but be extremely cautious because we don't know what monsters there are here.” said Rebecca.

“Also Miles and Luke you guys stay with me, we will wait here for a while as they scout.” said Rebecca.

As soon as Rebecca gave the orders Luna and Robin went off in different directions to try and scout while Miles and Luke got in defensive formation and started scanning for any monsters who might attack them.

While Miles, Luke and Rebecca were waiting and Luna was scouting in the opposite direction of Robin. Robin was jumping from one tree to another while using plant magic to conceal his tracks and sounds he came across a lone storm rabbit eating grass after searching for a while.

“Hmm, that looks like a storm rabbit. Does that mean this dungeon is a wind type dungeon?” wondered Robin before coming to a conclusion.

“I should inform the others about it” said Robin before going back to the way he came from.

While Robin was coming back Luna had also discovered a forest guard wolf pack which was sleeping and wondered if this dungeon was an earth type dungeon before deciding to inform the others about it first and was also coming back.

After the both of them came back and informed the others about what they found.

“Hmm, this is strange. Normally there wouldn't be two different types of monsters so close to each other in the first floor of the dungeon,” said Rebecca.

“And it also looks like this dungeon has multiple types of monsters than just its primary element monsters which makes it harder to determine what element is its primary element type” said Rebecca.

As they were discussing among themselves Miles noticed that they were being surrounded by forest guard wolves which had apparently followed Luna back to their party.

“Hey guys it's not the time to talk because we are currently being surrounded by wolves” said Miles with urgency.

“What, no way these are the same wolves I had seen but they were sleeping when I saw them and I had also checked if they were following me when I came back so how did they get here.” said Luna with surprise.

“You can think about that later, first it's time to fight,” said Rebecca.

Immediately all the party members started activating their skills and as soon as the first wolf jumped at them to attack Luke used his skill “freeze” to make a ice spike to attack the wolf but the wolf saw that and immediately shifted its position as much as it could in mid-air to avoid being impaled but still ended up being pierced in the stomach.

As the wolf struggled to free itself Miles used his skill to finish it while Robin used his skill to restrict the wolves who had rushed to help the impaled wolf after which Luna used her skill “shadow step” to cut the wolves necks while they were restricted.

After this exchange three of the forest guard wolves had been killed and seeing their opponents strength the remaining four forest guard wolves started using wood magic to shoot wooden chips from the surrounding trees at them while also using it to grow roots out of the ground to trip the party members.

When Rebecca saw an attack coming she used her skill “light shield” to defend against the wood chips while Luke and Miles used their skills to attack the wolves while Robin used his skill to override the forest guard wolves magic and remove the roots and Luna used her “shadow step” skill to close the distance and attack the wolves from behind while Luke and Miles attacked from front.

Seeing this attack the three of the wolves lunged at Luke and Miles while the other tried to lunge at Luna to attack but Miles just used his skill to cover himself in fire and then pummelled the wolf who lunged at him while Luke used his skill to make an ice shield to deflect the attack and then used his skill to freeze the two wolves who had lunged at him and Luna had used her second skill “shadow exchange” to temporarily make her shadow take the damage done to her body and then used her daggers to pierce the wolf's neck and kill it.

After this battle was over all them had been exhausted from using their skills too much and rested while also harvesting the wolf corpses for anything valuable.