"Master, this core is fluctuating again" We are in the Scale Temple Dungeon on the sky isle of dragon's peak. This is a rare type of dungeon the only dungeon that spawns dragons. My teacher is an expert in rare and unique dungeons. We have been studying this dungeon for 3 years now and, with the help of the adventurers, mapped out the fluctuations of the dungeon.
"Let me see!" Master said pushing me aside from the screen of the measuring device attached to the core with cords and suctioned onto the core's surface. "This is exactly what we needed!" Master exclaimed. Master is an aged man 58 years old, wrinkles are plentiful on his face and his complexion is sickly pale. Master's hair is thinning and bald on top, what hair he does have is grey. Master wears the R&D uniform of the guild, a crimson coat, and black shirt, with navy blue Pants. He has a guild badge sewn to his right arm on his coat that identifies him as a dungeonologist.
"A Floor Boss respawned?"
"Not just a floor boss, the floor boss of the 3rd floor!" master explained. "The fluctuations are slight so much so that a lesser piece of equipment wouldn't pick up on it! But with this latest tech, we can finally pick up on them." Master navigated through the screen options and brought up a previous recording for a side by side comparison. The recordings show a line that spikes up or drops down, it measures the activity of the core. "See how this one from the first floor is less intense than the one from the third floor? The difference is only 0.003% but a consistent difference, also the intensity difference is predictable! A 0.002% for the second floor and a 0.004% for the fourth floor and so on!"
"This is a great discovery, we could invent items that can communicate this to the guild and other adventurers!"
"And this is why I chose you as my student, you apply your mind and the things you learn to practical applications"
The fluctuating readings from the core happen every time a monster is slain, respawned, adventurer enters and leaves, treasure is looted and spawns, and so on everything that happens in this dungeon is recorded by the core; the only thing is, we don't know how. How is it being recorded by the core? How are the monsters being created? It's not using magic, not psychic power, not martial energy. The most widely accepted theory nowadays is that the core is using divine energy which some have problems with the implications of that, namely, it would technically make the cores gods or at the very least make them a holy site.
The previous theory was that the gods themselves were responsible for the creation of the monsters but criticisms were that if that was the case then there'd be no need for the core and doesn't explain why monsters stop spawning once destroyed. Now it's thought that the core taps into the nearest holy site for divinity, the only other source of divine energy other than gods, but our instruments aren't sensitive enough to detect this link, this theory is criticised because the guardians have not reported a decrease of divinity in their holy land.
A holy site was created before the gods were, this is known because the guardians of the holy lands are older by their own admission and by the admission of the gods themselves which is evidence of a creator god but not even the guardians know of a creator, they've never seen nor felt the divine power of such a being even while the world was still being created.
"Lets pack up" Master suddenly said.
"Why?! We have so much more to learn!"
"We made a great breakthrough, Sidlone, it is important to take breaks every now and then, besides, the core will still be here. I've seen many great Dungeonologists snap under the pressure and stress" Master went over to our things. We camped in the dungeon core's room, monsters don't spawn here but sometimes there are traps in core rooms though not in this dungeon. "Start packing up that instrument, and be careful! that is the only one of it's kind." I do as he commanded, but I wanted to stay and take more measurements.
Every time we take a break I think just another day! We could find the secret to the power source, just another day. Finding the power source to a dungeon core is worth a prestigious prize and the notoriety for proving right or wrong our current theories if one does so they surely land a spot in the history books.
Every time we come back we have to hire top-tier adventurers to get us here, a very expensive thing and more so if a floor boss has to be defeated to proceed further and carrying all this equipment also requires hiring more people, but we don't dare leave them here in case of theft.
"When will we come back?" I ask as master is rolling up our sleeping bags.
"After the defeat of the 3rd-floor boss, we will report to the guild hall about it's respawning" It's not a coincidence that Master chose now to go back, a report reward for the respawn of the floor boss would helpus if only a little.
We take a teleportation circle spell from a scroll back to town. We haven't been outside in months, our pale skin is evidence of that. We still had 3 weeks of rations left but I guess now's a good of a time to return as any. I am weighed down by the heavy equipment and master is carrying other equiptment. We left the food and sleeping bags as since even if those are stolen it's not as expensive, we only took the equiptment and since we came back early no one is here to help us carry everything.
clouds drifted overhead as well as below, the reason this island is called Dragon's Peak is that there are no islands above it. We walked down the stone path that led to town from the dungeon which has little traffic, the Scale Temple dungeon being one of the highest level, it's lowest level monster being level 68 and highest non-boss 112, only level 70s and higher are allowed in the dungeon and there's not a lot of them.
"Haven't seen you guys in a while, made any progress?" The gate guard said welcoming us.
"We made a great breakthrough, these last 3 years have been worth it!" (Master)
"Oh! that's great, you guys do great things" (Guard)
"My student thinks we can apply these findings to make inventions to help the adventurers here" (Master)
"Really?! That's great I retired from being an adventurer once I was level 40 this kinda makes me want to go back to adventuring" (Guard)
"We have to report to the guild hall, our research led us to find out the floor boss of the 3rd floor respawned" (Master)
"Well then don't let me hold you" (Guard)
We headed to the guild hall after that we will go out to have some real food.
Dungeonologist expeditions can be quite expensive such as this one, but not all are, this only is only expensive due to the number of floors and it's high level. Only 3 groups of known adventurers can take us to the core, we obviously don't have the money but our sponsors do, the adventuring guild, they hired us for this job because of master's renown and his successes.
"Welcome back Master Gorton" The guild receptionist said warmly.
"Good to be back, we have good news! We can now know when a floor boss respawns and on what floor" Master struck a pose with his hand on his chin.
"That is great news!" The receptionist said with a charming smile. She was right in my strike range, long silky hair, exotic elvish beauty, her bust not too small nor too large, and defined hips, but agonizingly we aren't allowed to flirt with the guild members. "I also have good news for you"
"Really? Is it a pay raise? Better Instruments?" (Master)
"You're being reassigned!" The receptionist said with a glowing smile.
"..." (Master)
"..." (Me)
"..." (Receptionist, still smiling)
"Oh! good one! Almost thought you were serious, miss, hahaha" (Master)
"I'm not joking, the order came in last night" The receptionist showed us a sealed message from the Guild Master.
"EEEEHH! No, this can't be! to lose such a high profile job like this" Master said disparagingly, sinking to his knees. "Please, we have results! Give us another chance!" Master said springing back up holding the receptionist's hand"
"Sir, you aren't being fired, this is good news you are being sent to a higher priority job" (Receptionist)
"A job more important than this one? What else is there?" (Master)
"A new dungeon appeared, and this one is special" (Receptionist)
"A new one?!" I exclaimed "Master! this could be our chance! All known dungeons have been around before dungeonologists, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the birth of a dungeon!, We might even be able to find it's source of power!"
"Calm down, Sidlone, she said it's special so it must be different in a way never seen before and that's why we are being sent there" Master opened the message and read it a greedy expression like I have never seen before on Master growing on his face as he read it. "Sidlone, we leave in 10 minutes, make sure you have everything"
"What is it, Master"
"This dungeon is more than special, I think it is a whole new classification of dungeon, According to this, it's a multi-type dungeon, and shows signs of learning the tactics of adventurers, not only that but as each day goes by more monsters appear, more bosses, even new classifications of bosses, this is likely the greatest job promotion we will ever have, sidlone" (Master)
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"You guys will be taking our fastest airship to the capital before going through the portal" (Receptionist)
We got in the small magic core powered Airship, it doesn't use a balloon like most cheep airships instead it uses the magical energy from magic cores to power it. The airship took off pressing us to our seats and gluing us to it.
"I'm sorry about that but I've been told to get you there as fast as I can, we'll be making a 2 day trip in 6 hours" (driver)
"Got it" I managed to say unable to move from the acceleration.
"We'll be reaching max speeds in a few seconds" (Driver)
As he finished saying that the acceleration slowed and stopped
I didn't have to ask why we are rushing so much, every day that does past means a day we can't study a maturing dungeon. We don't know how long it takes for a dungeon to fully mature; could take a week, months, or perhaps years, but for this dungeon, master think is a classification on its own, perhaps it's something unique to this dungeon; maybe others are made fully matured. One thing is for sure we have our work cut out for us.
"Why do you think this dungeon is a classification of its own, master?" I ask
"Because I've studied many dungeons and they all have common features so when there is a dungeon that is different in so many ways it's easy to spot them"
"What is the possibility that the guild is wrong about that?"
"The guild gets its information from the adventurers, so most of it is rumors, but if a lot of adventurers are saying the same thing, or maybe a few trusted adventurers then where there's smoke there's fire"
"But it's still rumors"
"The part where the dungeon seems to be learning I believe is wrong, but a dungeon where more monsters appear day after day is easily noticeable by many it being a newly made dungeon is fact, they specifically said "recently appeared" not "recently found". The message also said that it was near a city and something close to a city can't hide for long, not a dungeon anyway."
"So what's the plan? Who will we hire for escorting us to the core?"
"First we'll interview the adventurers and weed out unlikely rumors from probable ones, that is also where we'll scout for good adventurers to hire"
"How many floors does it have?"
"Unknown, the message didn't go into too much detail. I figure that it was made to entice us and left out details that could be applied to other dungeons" Master answered
"Hmm, so the message pointed out all the things different, and that's how you knew it was different from all the others"
"Yes, there has never, not even once been a multi-type dungeon. There has never been in recorded history where more monsters keep appearing differently from respawning, although this is unverified as new dungeons weren't documented so we simply don't know if that's normal or not; And as for bosses the message said there were multi-types as well, which suggests other bosses aside from floor bosses which is also unprecedented"
"So from the multi-type monsters and bosses, you hypothesize that it's a new classification"
"Yes, those simply don't happen"
"I wonder about it being a different classification..."
"Want to bet?" Master challenged
"I'll take you on, 100 gold sounds good?"
"Pffft, just that? Our last escort cost the guild 3000 gold"
"Need I remind you that 100 gold is still a lot?"
"Can't blame me for trying to raise the stakes when it's guaranteed money for me"
"I wonder about that"
We arrived in the capital and made our way to the Portal. The portal could more accurately be called a nexus, it was a massive tower of a jade colored indestructible stone with intricate designs. At the top of the tower was a brightly shining briolette cut Emerald the size of a house slowly rotating, the flat sides casting ten light beams across the darkening sky like a lighthouse. Some cultures call this the god's Lighthouse, others do in fact call it the Nexus, most have come to call it the portals.
It's not my first time using the portals. Master showed the guards his pass and submitted our things for inspection, the portals has a wall with several entrances for guards to inspect for contraband built around it, a fee is usually required to use the portals but master's pass exempts us from it.
We made our way to a free portal terminal and Master began entering the coordinates in the dialing device.
"1-947285637801 1-74993057261" Master said each number as he inputs the coordinates from the message we had received. "It'll be daytime there, morning in fact"
"And it's getting late here, looks like we'll miss some sleep" I observed
"You can sleep on the way to the city from the trade city there"
The portal appeared with twisting lines of jade energy. We entered the portal and like stepping through a door we walk into the next city, the sun is bright out and people are bustling about. We passed through inspections and rented a carriage to Crystal lake city, the city named after the holy site that it was built near. Crystal Lake city was a large tourist city because of the holy site and carriages to that city is frequent but now it looks like they have another reason for an influx of people, a dungeon. It'll take three days to get there but at least we'll have company. In our carriage I saw a young Catkin girl dressed like an adventurer, using my inspection skill which I boast to have level 5 in I see that her class is Rouge. Her level is nothing to be proud of for an adventurer being level 6.
The girl has wavy, brown, hair that reached to her shoulders. A long, short-haired tail, with enchanting yellow eyes, and daggers sheathed on her belt. her petite body has yet to develop fully but from what I see she'll develop into a fine young woman.
"Going to Crystal lake city for the view?" I ask.
"No, I hear that there is a low-level new dungeon" She replied
"Sorry miss but even low-level dungeon start at level 10 don't you think you're a little low level for it?" (master)
"I-I heard that it was even lower! I thought that maybe..." (Catkin)
"I wouldn't believe every rumor you hear, there has never been a dungeon that low before" (Master)
"Master, there might be a little credit to those rumors" I say
"I know but even so it's a risky thing to do that could get her killed" As master said that the catkin girl's ears drooped
"I-I know I'm weak, b-but I want to get stronger!" (Catkin)
"I am Sidlone, and this is my Master, Gorton, pleased to meet you"
I already knew her name from peeking at her stats but it's polite to let her introduce herself
"Ah, I am Nayil, nice to meet you"
"We'll be traveling for the next few days, let's enjoy each other's company" There were others and we introduced ourselves, they were tourists as most probably are.
We talked about what we do which the others found very interesting, the others, well, their stories weren't. The only one who had a semi-interesting story was Nayil, who was recently orphaned but instead of going to an orphanage she took up adventuring. Nayil's father died working in the mines and her mother recently died from illness, she came from nothing and has nothing. I wanted to donate some money to her as the others riding with us did but master stopped me saying "If you give money to every old sob story you'd wind up poor yourself, only you'll find that people won't give you money", he was implying that only cons make up those sob stories. I want to believe Nayil and the glares from the other passenger gave master showed that they believe her story.
We arrived at the city Heading straight for the guild hall, if anything, Master takes his job seriously and with a possible time sensitive job every second counts.
"Welcome! are you here to put in a quest?" The receptionist greeted.
"Yes and no" Master showed her his guild identification. everyone associated with the guild has a guild identification, mostly it's adventurers but like us guild researchers have one as well. Not all dungeonologists associate with the guild; some are hired by kings and nobles, others by an adventurer guild equivalent organization.
"Oh, you're one of the researchers that was coming! follow me, the guild hall president wants to speak with you" (Receptionist)
Leading us out of the lobby we followed the girl to the guild president's office, the hallway was minimally decorated but does have paintings of famous adventurers. The receptionist knocked on the door.
"Come in" The president said.
The receptionist opened the door, bowed and let us in.
"Good, you're here. Take a seat" The president waved to several seats. "I don't want to repeat myself but we know that this dungeon is constantly changing and we need to study it as soon as we can, you're just one of three teams. This dungeon appeared just outside of the city walls late at night, our investigations determined the time of appearance at midnight, the turn of the day. the lord sealed off the dungeon for a week until we could get a suitable adventurer team to safely investigate the dungeon and determine if a rampage would be dangerous or not." The president took a sip from his cup. then continued. "The level of monsters is low enough even the city guards can handle a rampage, an average of level 5, but recently, reports that level increases further in as normal dungeons. There are reported slayings of "Room masters" "Sector lords" and "Floor Guardians" the Blue slayers even suggest there might be a Dungeon Boss at some point, they have killed each of the bosses and reported the level too; tens for room bosses, twenties for sector bosses, thirties for floor bosses"
"What are sectors?" I ask
"They are zones, each sector has a type of monster, insects or slimes and the like."
"How many floors?" Master asked.
"two for sure, unknown if more, but not likely. (President)"
"We'd like to interview some of the adventurers and ask who would be the best for an escort" (Master)
"I'd recommend the Blue Slayers, they led the assault on the Floor boss, also for interviewing I'd recommend the Crimson Divers, blue slayers, Darkblades, and Sun warriors as well as a few other lower level groups" (President)
"Alright we'll interview them and then start the job" (Master)
We went out to the lobby and waited for a messenger to contact the groups. Meanwhile, we talked with random adventurers.
"I've never been to a dungeon so when I heard that there was one for my level I jumped on it, the first day was rough, we kept getting ambushed by large swarms of monsters, we barely made it out alive" (Adventurer A)
"The traps seem pretty basic, but if you're not careful you could fall for them. My stupid brother fell for a simple razor tripwire and we had to evacuate to heal his foot, it was pretty bad we weren't sure if he could walk again but the healers said he got lucky and the wire didn't cut all the way through his tendon" (Adventurer B)
"I wasn't here for the first few days, got here yesterday myself, I checked out the dungeon and it was fairly standard. Hmm? Was I ambushed? Nah all the monsters wouldn't leave their rooms." (Adventurer C)
"We saw some monsters roaming around, we'd have fought them but one of them was a boss" (Adventurer D)
after talking with the adventurers Blue Slayers came with the messenger.
"I'm sorry I can't contact Crimson Divers and Sun Warriors, Darkblade has left the city on a mission." (Messenger)
"So you're the Dungeonologists they hired" A lady who seemed to be their leader stepped forward. My eyes were drawn to her large bust.
"Nice to meet you, I am Gorton, and this is my Student, Sidlone" Master introduced us.
"I am Astra, this is Ken, Corvon, Clar, Thera, Keera, and Cain" Astra introduced us to her party.
"I heard that you think there will be a Dungeon Boss, a boss of all bosses for this dungeon, or something like that"
"That is correct, it seems logical when we first entered the dungeon there was no sector boss, only room bosses, or as the Inspection skill reveals a Room Master. The next day there was a Sector boss, then the next a floor boss, and it was reported that an unexpected roaming boss was spotted a day after that." (Astra)
"I heard conflicting rumors, saying that monsters would gather and ambush, but others say that they won't leave their rooms, which is it?"(Master)
"Both, The first days they would but something changed and on the day of the floor boss raid monsters wouldn't even leave their rooms, but the next day something changed again and roaming monsters and even a roaming boss was spawned. Also, I don't know how the core can see us but it once threw all it had against the Crimson Divers but the monsters were all blasted in one spell. When it came to us the monsters came in waves and even retreated when we were chanting a powerful AOE spell. It is highly likely that the core learned from its past mistakes" (Astra)
"All cores I've studied can observe everything that happens within the dungeon, as for it learning, I wouldn't believe that without more evidence. Well, there is only one thing left to do, and that is to go into the dungeon and investigate all these things. Blue slayers, we will need your cooperation with these studies." (Master)
"How much are you willing to pay?" (Astra)
"Talk that over with my employer, the guild president" (Master)