“This has to do with the treaties the sentient races made with the mother dungeon, thousands of years ago.”

“Who? I don’t understand, what sentient races and what mother dungeon? What are you talking about?”

Art exhaled, then said, “It's quite complicated. Do you remember what the dungeon said before we got kicked out?”

“Yeah, it said something about a treaty breach,” I answered.

“Exactly, this is the same treaty made with the mother dungeon.”

“Wait, wait, what is a mother dungeon?”

“I'm getting there. The mother dungeon is the only SSS-Rank dungeon. You see, all dungeons are the offspring of this dungeon, or to be more precise dungeons are created by the mother dungeon. When sentient races found the mother dungeon, millennia ago, we made a treaty with her. The treaty was: we would spread her children across the world and teach them, in return, they would refine our Lio,” Art answered with a low voice.

My mouth was hung open with the chewed fish still inside.

‘I think I might have been living under a rock.’

But Art wasn’t done speaking, “Spreading dungeons across the world wasn’t hard, but teaching them was. Dungeons lived for millennia and no sentient creature, who could teach them, lived that long, so the mother dungeon made a plan. Dungeons would only give us refined Lio if we cleared their challenges, and, through said challenges, dungeons could learn from us. They also got to keep our bodies and equipment if we died inside their worlds, furthering their knowledge by inspecting our dead bodies and equipment.”

“Does that mean the dungeon took my hand to learn from it?” I asked, horrified.

“No, the dungeon took your hand as a deterrent so you don’t enter it again,” Art replied.

“Why? I thought Dungeons wanted us to come to them. Didn’t you say they wanted to learn from us?” I asked, confused.

“The dungeon wants weak humans to enter, not strong ones. Dungeons don’t value your flesh they value your knowledge. When you die inside the illusionary world, you are theirs to keep. They access your brain for information. But, when you’re alive, they can’t get into your head as that would break the treaty. That is why they prefer knowledge from weak adventurers, it may be less valuable but it's easier to get.”

‘I’m not entering a dungeon again in my life,’ I thought, horrified at what Art said.

“What about the filth? Why did it vanish?”

“There are two reasons: the first one is, filth isn’t a strong deterrent. The second one is that dungeons can’t create matter out of nowhere. If they want to get you filthy, they would need to have filth stored. The same thing doesn’t apply to your arm injury as they can imitate the same injury you got in the illusionary world on your real body, and they wouldn’t be breaching the treaty by doing that. Also, that is why we need food inside dungeons as they won't create food for us, but if we eat inside of them, they will feed us from the food storage we brought” After saying that Art started eating again.

I took a bite of the fish too, not wanting the food to go cold as we talked. Fin had already finished his food and was listening to our conversation.

“What if the dungeon decides to kill me while I’m inside of it? Actually, now that I think about it, where does my real body go when I enter the dungeon’s illusionary world,” I asked, scared at the idea of being at the mercy of the dungeon.

“Don’t worry, the dungeon can’t kill you, the treaty prevents it. And your body goes to a mini dimension created by the dungeon.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“A mini dimension! That is crazy.”

“Yeah, dungeons are magical things. They have high affinities in all magic types, including space.”

“Can’t dungeons break the treaty like we did?” I asked after remembering how the dungeon shouted into my head about us breaching the treaty.

“Yes, they can, but they won’t as every dungeon that broke it before got destroyed.”

‘It seems no one wants rouge dungeons, which is for the better.’

“Have you entered the world of the mother dungeon before?” I asked, wanting to know more about her.

“No, there is no access point throughout the Empire, and I have never been outside the Empire. But I wish to enter her world one day,” Art said, hopeful.

“Do you know what it looks like inside?”

“I have read books and heard stories. They say there is an entire world, with many quests and adventures. You can find forests, oceans, and deserts inside, even impossible terrains like floating islands. Also, many real-world nations have set up colonies inside the mother dungeon. It's an amazing place full of riches and opportunities,” Art said with sparkly eyes.

My brain started to go crazy with ideas of adventure and fun.

‘One day I’ll make my own adventuring party and venture into the mother dungeon, one day for sure,’ I thought with excitement.

I didn’t ask any more questions. My mind was occupied with imagining how beautiful the mother dungeon would be.

‘Floating islands! That must be amazing.’

We finished the food shortly after that. Fin paid for us like Art said he would.

After the hot spring, we went to the inn. Edger was reading a book in our shared room. Art and Fin went to play their card game. They asked me if I wanted to join, but I rejected them because I wanted to train on how to use my Awareness Shaper skill skillfully.

I summoned the sphere in front of me and then tried to shape it like a cube, which ended horribly. The sphere resisted the change and eventually turned into a bad-looking cylinder. I tried giving the upper cylinder circle angles, and one angle worked, but when I tried making another angle, the first one turned back into a curved line.

‘I have to make eight angles, but I can barely make one! This is going to be hard.’

I trained for two hours and in the end, I managed to hold two angles at the same time. My brain started to hurt me, but thankfully, there was no mana drain. I noticed that the skill only drained mana when I asked it to point me at a certain target, but if I was just playing with its shape in the air, it didn’t need mana.

I decided to have some fun after the training so I went to Edger.

“Hey,” I waved at Edger. He looked up from his book at me for a second then ignored me and continued reading.

‘What is it with this whole party being jerks?’

“Can I borrow a book from you?” I asked nicely as I wanted to read the book Art suggested.

Edger looked at me this time with interest and said, “Which book?”

“Observations over the Millennia by mage Fabian,” I said eagerly.

Edger seemed to lose all interest as he said, “The fictitious book?”

“Y-yes,” I replied, unsure why he would call the book fiction.

Edger rummage through the bag next to him. I looked inside to find it full of books.

‘The man must really like his books.’

“I want it back by the end of the week,” Edger said handing me a book.

I took the book and went to my bed.

The book’s cover was beautifully designed, with flowing golden lines. On the front cover was a drawing depicting a blue ball, and above it was the book's name.

I opened the book and started reading…

………

I spent a lot of time reading, managing to read half the book which was around 300 pages.

The book spoke about different historical events, most of them boring. But I found an interesting story about the times before the treaty with the mother dungeon.

Apparently, at that time, unrefined Lio was found on the surface, unlike now, where it’s underground. The surface Lio made the world dangerous as animals drank it, confusing it with water. When animals drank unrefined Lio it poisoned them, killing them. But sometimes the animal wouldn’t die, these surviving animals were called mana touched.

A mana-touched animal loses its instinct and becomes crazy, basically turning into a monster. But these monsters weren’t simple, they also mutated, growing fangs and new limbs, becoming more muscular, but more importantly, they got a mana core, and with it came abilities.

The mana-touched monsters almost drove the sentient creatures into extinction, until they found the mother dungeon. After finding her they made a treaty with her that benefited both sides, the sentient creatures managed to stop the source of the mana touched which was the unrefined Lio, and the mother dungeon got to benefit her children.

‘I think the Seezeek we fought was also mana-touched. If humans had to fight such creatures without abilities… no wonder they almost got extinct,’ I thought, happy about being born in such peaceful times.

‘I think I should get some sleep. Everyone has already slept.’ I thought as I blew out the torch I was using to read.

‘I hope humans have never to face such dark times again,’ that was my final thought before I drifted to sleep.