When the party entered the dungeon, it had a similar feeling like entering a portal. It was similar in that it felt like moving through a layer of jelly but different because it was much thinner than the portal. It was like the difference of an inch to half a foot, similar, but it easier to push through to the dungeon. When they completely passed though the entrance they went straight into a defensive formation. Gaia immediately pushed out her Mana Field and was struck by the ability to sense everything within her field.
She could sense everything from the floor of the area to the ceiling and every single little thing in it. She could essentially see everything, or at least the outline of it all. It was the second time she’d ever been able “see” like this. It was her first look at Stephanie too. Stephanie was a little under a foot shorter than Fergus while being much more muscular. She had long curly hair and small pointy ears with a few earrings. Her face was beautiful if a bit wide and she appeared to have a nose ring.
Gaia could also see the armor Stephanie used. It was thick and made from heavy, sturdy metal. She looked like she was wearing a full set of plate mail. It covered every part of her body but she was currently holding her helmet. It was a full great helm that could cover her entire head. When she finished looking at Stephanie she was about to go back to checking the surroundings but a screen appeared in front of her. The same one also seemed to appear in front of the rest of the party as well.
Quest: Defeat the Dungeon Boss 0/1
Reward: Unique Title and Class Improvement (Item or Skill)
It seemed like everything had mana which allowed her to sense it, where as when she was outside of the dungeon she couldn’t sense the trees or ground. She could see every contour on the floor and every leaf on the plants. They were in a large cavern like space. There were multiple stalagmites and stalactites, some of which had grown together to create pillars. There was a small creek that ran from right by the entrance to a small tunnel leading downward at the back. There were many plants some which appeared to be moss and others she didn’t know.
Granted she had never really been someone to explore caves and didn’t know what would be normal plant life in one aside from moss. She was fascinated by the environment since she could actually sense it all and somewhat see it. Her attention was brought to the three monsters at the far side of the room though. She could sense the usual flame and it radiated like usual but she could sense the difference in mana from the ambient mana to the monsters mana.
The monsters were giant centipedes. They had large mandibles in the front and back ends with hundreds of legs and had thick chitinous shells. The centipedes also had small hair like protrusions across their entire body which gave Gaia a bad feeling. She tried analyzing them and a screen appeared.
Name – Giant Dungeon Centipede
Rank – Stone
Level – 30
The monsters weren’t overly strong but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was off. She warned the others as they all prepared to engage the monsters, which had noticed their pretense and were moving towards them. The battle started with Fergus growing his vine bow and firing a few arrows at the incoming centipedes. All of them bounced off the monsters hard carapaces aside from one that struck between one of the plates of the monster. This one also caused vines to sprout from the arrow and bind the monster in place. Stephanie followed up with a musket shot at the closet monster which cracked the plate covering its head.
Griff sprinted in and struck the last with a shoulder charge while Malachite hit it with a shell bash. Liv was starting to bind the closest centipede with her webs while Gaia used her chaos pathways to strengthen her vines and cause it to hemorrhage. Antonio was firing some Phantasmal spikes at the one bound in vines and Shadow was running in out slashing with her claws. All of the monsters were slowly being stacked with Gaia’s Spiritual Toxin conditions while another was being bled. Antonio’s spikes were starting to effect on the first monster as it started to thrash about.
Stephanie had run forward and used her great hammer to crush the closest centipedes head while Griff killed the other with his gauntlets and a charged Palm strike. The last was slowly dying from Antonio’s condition and Gaia’s poison. Fergus fired a few more arrows to deal some more damage to it and it died a minute later from the conditions. The group looked around the room for any other hostiles while Gaia surveyed the entire room with her Mana Field. She didn’t sense any other monsters and relayed such to the others.
They started towards the tunnel at the back of the room where the creek continued downwards. The tunnel was about ten feet tall and just wide enough for two people to walk side by side. They walked down the tunnel for about ten minutes before Gaia sensed it widen into another large cavern. She couldn’t sense much from where they were but could sense some plants and what seemed to be some kind of slime monster on the ceiling by the tunnels exit.
They continued cautiously and when they reached the exit of the tunnel they stopped for Gaia to check the area ahead. She could sense around five slime monsters on the ceiling outside of the tunnel. It was around twenty tall at the exit of the tunnel. She could also sense a few more monsters a bit farther in the next cavern that were in the ceiling. From what she could sense they felt like some bat monsters.
They decided to have Griff and Malachite run under the slime monsters for them to fall and have the others attack them. The monsters were already being poisoned by Gaia’s field which caused them to be agitated. They needed to move quickly before the bat monsters decided to join the fight. Griff and Malachite sprinted out under the slimes and they fell to the floor with a few loud splats. Stephanie started by firing her silenced musket at one of the slimes while Fergus fired three arrows at once. Every strike struck the slimes. Shadow ran out slashing the one Stephanie had hit while Griff and Malachite sprinted back in and hit the other two. One was moving towards Gaia by causing one section of it to spread towards her and the liquid inside streaming into it. She watched in fascination for a moment before Liv fired a few poison shots into it causing it to dissolve.
The slimes were all dead in a matter of seconds and the bats were far enough away they hadn’t noticed them yet. They were starting to wake up and fly due to the noise and condition Gaia put on them with her Mana Field. The group waited until two of the bats discovered them and started moving towards them. Fergus and Stephanie killed the two bats in seconds with a single shot each. Then a horde of the bat monsters came surging down from a tube above the cavern.
Gaia sensed them as they entered her field and was shocked by the number of them. She suggested they move back to the tunnel for the smaller area but the bats were upon them in moments. Gaia, Stephanie and Fergus were the only ones in the tunnels entrance since they all fought from a distance. Liv had changed Gaia’s armor to cover Antonio when the bats started approaching.
The group started firing arrows and musket balls up into the colony of bats. Gaia used her vines and chaos pathways to strengthen the strikes to bleed the bats. Antonio and Liv were firing Phantasmal spikes and poison shots into the mass of bats. Griff was extremely accurate with his punches and kicks each of which landing on a bat and killing it. Shadow was slashing with her claws and biting completely through a few. Malachite was less effective with his strikes. He was firing water shots into the bats after being unable to strike them with physical hits. The bats were dropping as the groups strikes hit.
There were just hundreds more to take the fallen monsters places. The group continued to fight the bats as Griff, Malachite, and Shadow slowly moved towards the rest of the group. They connected with the others a minute later, thankfully by this point the bats had been within Gaia’s field for a while. The bats started dropping from her poison condition while others were dying from bleeding. The group just needed to last for a little while longer before the bats would either die from Gaia’s poison or the groups collective strikes.
After another twenty minutes the bats were either dead or had flown away from the group. They were all a bit bruised and cut from the bats bites and scratches. A few of them had even used some wind blades which were annoying but weren’t strong enough to do more than cause some deep cuts. A few had even used some kind of sonic attack that had caused Shadow and Gaia to be stunned for a few seconds and caused them to be deafened for a while.
Those had been the ones that caused the most problems. The two were highly reliant on their hearing making that a major weakness. The group sat down to rest for a bit after the bats flew away. Gaia and Shadow weren’t able to hear until about fifteen minutes had passed from the fight. Gaia’s best guess for why it lasted so long was that the last one to use a sonic attack had been right beside them.
After about thirty minutes the group got up to continue through the cavern. Gaia had her field out to the maximum she could which was a little over a hundred feet. She could sense most of this caverns area. There was a large hole in the ceiling, where she assumed the bats had gone, that she could only see a little bit of. The cavern they were currently in was a large straight crevasse with high walls. There was the small creek still running through the center from where they’d entered the new cavern. They’d come across a few more of the centipedes and slimes, but the bats seemed to have been a one time thing so far. They hoped the bats were, at least from the sheer number there had been.
The group walked along the crevice for a few hours while dealing with the occasional group of monsters. Most of the monsters had been some kind of modified cave dwelling creature. Most were large insects while a few had been creatures that could blend in with the environment. They’d come across a mimic shaped like a rock which they’d only noticed due to Gaia being able to sense it in her Mana Field. Another was a large salamander that had jumped out at them from a deeper section of the small waterway.
Most of the creatures only attacked when they got close to them aside from the insectoid monsters. After around four hours of walking along the crevasse they stopped to rest and eat. They’d fought quite a few monsters by this point but none had been above level thirty. They’d even come across a few normal rank monsters. These were usually in groups with the stone rank versions of themselves but were odd to see.
From what Gaia recalled from the training camp, dungeons were areas where something called a core was created. A core was a physical mass of concentrated mana that effected the world around it. Dungeons could form over long periods of time or be created within a night. A core was created in two ways. The first way is mana concentration in area drastically changing and was absorbed by a monster or sentient being. The other is by one of the chaos gods creating a core and placing it somewhere in the world. The one they were in was one of the former, from the information they’d been given.
Dungeons created from mana concentration could create any kind of ecosystem within them. It just depended on what monster or being became the core. Most dungeons after forming had a restriction on them. This limited who or what could challenge them. The limit on natural dungeons was the strength of the monster when they became the core. This was because they couldn’t leave the dungeon to level or rank up. For dungeons formed from a core created by a god, this was based on the boss monster’s level and rank. This allowed for the hunters to have a challenge when exploring it but not wipe everything out instantly. No one knew why these rules were in place but they’d discovered them through years of research.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
Dungeons were different from portals by one major factor. Dungeons were part of the world they were created on. The caves and tunnels they were currently in had become a natural part of the world. Dungeons would disappear after its core was destroyed no matter what kind it was. These were usually guarded by a boss monster or were inside the monster that had created the dungeon. When the dungeon’s core was destroyed the tunnels and caves that had been changed by the dungeons creation would remain. The monsters they found here would spawn naturally as the mana concentration within would be higher than the surroundings. This would dissipate over a long period of time until the mana’s concentration had evened out with the surrounding world.
Some dungeons absorbed more mana than they could contain and caused monsters to spawn unnaturally fast breaking the barrier that held them within. This caused monsters to spawn continuously until the mana concentration had dropped back to normal. When monsters spawned like this it caused them to be able to leave the dungeon and created what was known as a Monster Tide. This phenomenon was more likely to happen during a Mana Torrent as the ambient mana levels rose.
Most dungeons were destroyed soon after they were found since they were dangerous. This was due to the possibility of a Monster Tide if left alone. The area would naturally spawn monsters similar to the rank the dungeon had been until it dissipated. When one destroyed a core they were always given a title and sometimes an item or skill. The item or skill were usually related to a persons class. If a party destroyed the dungeon they would all receive the rewards. This fact was proven by the screen that had appeared when they entered the dungeon.
The party was willing to do this request even with the unknown dangers because of this reason. They also were confident in their ability to deal with traps because of Gaia’s Mana Field. The monsters were a bit weaker than they were expecting but guessed there might be stronger ones farther in. They weren’t even sure how big or how many floors the dungeon had. They’d already been in the dungeon for five or six hours and had only gotten to what they assumed was the second floor. This floor had been massive so far and they still hadn’t found the way down yet.
Gaia was brought from her thoughts by the rest of the group getting ready to continue. They continued for another hour before they finally found a tunnel that led downwards. The creek that had run through the center of the crevasse continued down this tunnel but it grew wider the further down they went. Eventually the entire tunnel’s floor had water running down it but the center was much deeper than before. From what Gaia could feel the tunnel had widened to about twenty feet wide a couple hundred feet from where they’d entered.
The waterway the creek had run through had deepened to about seven feet while the water filled it and flowed with strong current. The water had started flowing quicker and quicker as they continued and the water started to flow over the edges of the bank. By the time they reached the next floor the water was up to their shins. It also had a small current that made it harder for them to keep their balance.
When they exited the tunnel to the third floor Gaia realized there was now a problem. The floor was slanted down until the water was about four feet deep. This was mainly a problem for her since it would be above her head and she couldn’t swim. Thankfully, Malachite would be able to swim while carrying her which solved that problem. The main one was that the others would be slow in the water while the monsters would likely be aquatic giving them an advantage.
The group stopped to assess the situation but continued after a quick deliberation. Gaia was on Malachite’s shell in her throne with Live and Antonio. She constantly had her Mana Field up and was able to sense anything that would be in the water although it was all a bit distorted. The water seemed to have some mana but not enough to completely block her field. They continued for a bit before they came across their first monster on the floor.
It was a large crayfish monster known as a dual shelled crayfish. It had two layers of shells making them extremely durable and had serrated edges on their claws. Fergus attempted to fire an arrow at it which fell flat when he let the bowstring go and the arrow just went a few feet due to the resistance of the water. Griff moved forward but was slowed down greatly by the water. His palm strike hit but dealt much less damage due to the water draining the strikes momentum. Stephanie pulled her great hammer from her back and swung it from over her head at the monster. Her strike seemed to speed up as it fell, most of the momentum slowed when it hit the waters surface but sped up slightly afterward. Antonio fired a few Phantasmal spikes at it which hit easily and were unhindered by the liquid.
Shadow had been incorporeal since they entered the water allowing her to move unhindered but would switch back to block attacks before reverting. When Stephanie’s hammer struck the monster its outer shell shattered revealing the sturdy second shell it had. The party slowly hit it with strikes until it died. Fergus had needed to pull his sword out in order to hurt it at all. After this, the party decided to move forward slowly so they wouldn’t get overwhelmed by monsters in the water. They came across a few other aquatic monsters through this floor. These were mainly a few fish monsters, salamanders, and a giant water snake.
The last was the most difficult to deal with as it was nearly thirty feet long and could move through the water effortlessly. It was also stronger than anything they’d fought so far in the dungeon being level forty. It had two large scythe like fangs and had sharp spikes along its scales. The monster had been fast enough that it had sped from the edge of Gaias range to the group within a few seconds
It was fast enough that they couldn’t land a real hit against it and had needed to have Shadow block its attacks when she could. The group was slowed by the water while the monster was accustomed to it making the fight much longer and more dangerous than it would be otherwise. They’d needed to have Gaia’s and Antonio’s conditions to wear it down. When it had a lot of injuries it had tried to flee but had swam to the surface where Stephanie and Fergus were able to shoot it. The projectiles had been the last attacks that were needed and it went limp in the water before dissolving.
After another two hours on this floor they found the way down when Gaia heard the sound of a massive waterfall. When they got within what Gaia guessed was a few hundred feet from the cliff it fell off, they felt the current become much stronger.
They found a small outcropping before the current grew too strong for them and rested there before continuing. The group checked their status and realized they’d leveled up during their last fight. Gaia had felt Antonio growing slightly as he leveled up but hadn’t really noticed him getting much bigger. When they were resting Gaia finally checked Antonio’s status and noticed he could rank up. She selected yes when the screen asking her to allow his rank up appeared. A few moments later she felt warmth from the floor in front if her where he was. She quickly analyzed him.
Name – Antonio
Race – Agony Soldier Ant (Stone Mandible)
Rank - Stone
Level - 1
Title:
Core Hatched
Skills:
Bite
Phantasmal Spike
Psychic Sting – Creates an psychic stinger that can be shot up to fifty feet. When struck target is dealt medium damage. Renews inflicted curses.
First Aid – Uses mana to suppress pain and slightly heal small injuries.
Healing shot
Abilities:
Ants Constitution
Healer – Increases healing effects on others. Decreases healing effects on self unless self cast.
Strength – 110 (Agony)
Resistance – 51 (Radiation)
Recovery – 110
Reflex – 11 (Chaos)
Spirit – 51 (Poison)
Gaia read the information and was ecstatic. He had gotten two new skills and an ability. She decided to copy his Healer ability since it seemed useful. She could heal her teammates as long as they were in her Mana Field, and this would make her healing shots stronger on them. It would allow her to be a pseudo healer whenever they needed it. After copying his ability, she put her hand down for him to climb up and noticed he’d changed quite a bit. He was now about six inches long and had a much larger head than before. His mandibles had grown to be about an inch long each and he was much heavier than before as well. He wasn’t super heavy but felt like he weighed a few pounds.
When she felt his carapace, it felt like stone with cracks throughout that radiated heat. She could also feel a rapid heartbeat from the cracks in his shell. She was worried it might be something bad, but he seemed fine. He was able to send her basic feelings now. She was so focused on Antonio that she hadn’t noticed a second screen had appeared.
Tamer Quest: Raise Bond Antonio to Stone Rank 1/1
Reward: Bonds growth rate is increased.
Hidden Quest: Have four bonds reach stone rank.
Reward: Bonded Body – Ability. Bonded monsters can enter a subspace within the tamer’s body becoming tattoos. Bonds within the subspace will heal quicker but absorb fewer souls while inside. Bond’s mana within the subspace can be shared.
She stared at the reward wondering what it meant. It could mean they’d grow in size faster or level up faster or even their mental growth would increase. It could even mean all three would increase. She wasn’t sure which it would be so she would just have to find out when they leveled up. As for the other reward she didn’t know what to think about it. It was an interesting ability but didn’t really seem useful at the moment. She checked with her bonds if she could try it and they agreed so she tried it with all of them to the sudden shock of her party. They stared at her as her bonds just suddenly disappeared.
“What just happened?” Griff asked worriedly.
“A new ability I got. I can apparently create a tattoo of them on me that works as a subspace for them.” She stated a bit shyly. She’d honestly not thought about where they were before using the ability.
“Really, another ability? Do you know what they look like?” Fergus asked as he shook his head.
“Nope, but I can bring them right back out.” Gaia replied as her bonds reappeared around her.
“You never cease to amaze, do you?” Stephanie asked.
“I guess not?” Gaia said questioningly.
“It’s always something new at random times. I should be used to this. I’ve been in this party for months now.” Griff grumbled.
The group finished resting about ten minutes later when Griff’s grumbling stopped. They prepared to go to the next floor which appeared to require them to go down the waterfall. None of them wanted to just jump off so they tried to figure out how to get down without anyone getting hurt. Luckily, Malachite had grown a bit more after his last level up and Gaia added some more of her webs to his armor when he grew to his current full size.
He wasn’t overly massive yet but he’d grown enough that they could all fit on his shell. From what Gaia could sense in her field he’d grown to be a bit smaller than an SUV being nine feet long and about seven feet tall. After she finished making the webs needed to adjust his armor they climbed on his shell which now had two large seats. They appeared to be the size of loveseats but were in the throne-like shape her chair usually took.
As they all climbed on Shadow jumped on and laid down in between the two seats. One faced back while the other faced forward. Gaia took the front seat that faced backwards, Fergus shared it, while Griff and Stephanie took the other. When they were all on and seated Malachite swam forward with the current until he was airborne and used his Telekinesis to lower them all down slowly. He was struggling with all the weight so Gaia had Shadow enter her tattoo which helped a little. They slowly lowered down and were saved from being buffeted by the falling water thanks to a small canopy that had been made with the seats.
When they were about a hundred feet from the bottom Gaia finally had sense for the areas layout. There was a large pool of water of which she couldn’t feel the bottom and the walls of the cave were just within her field. When they got closer to the bottom, she could feel that there was a ring of dry stone along the edge of the room and about thirty feet into the water it dropped off into a underwater tunnel. Malachite slowly took them down to the ring of dry stone.
When they reached the bottom, they all got off his shell and let him rest for a bit. She also let Shadow out of the Tattoo. Gaia couldn’t sense a boss monster, but she also couldn’t sense a tunnel leading to another floor. The only way down she could sense was the massive hole in the center of the room filled entirely with water. She was not going to go in there. She already had a fear of deep water and the situation she was in did not alleviate it in the slightest. Thankfully, or rather horrifically the boss monster solved this dilemma. At least she hoped this being was the boss monster.
She suddenly sensed something massive rapidly coming up the flooded tunnel. She only sensed it for a moment and barely had time to say anything before it breached the surface. The monster was massive, she could sense it down for about seventy feet before her field ended and couldn’t see its end. This creature was terrifying as it seemed to take every disturbing part of a sea creature and cram it all into one massive monstrosity.
It was extremely long and similar to a worm in body shape. That was where the similarities ended. It had tentacles coming up from the water all around it that were dozens of feet long and had barbs, along with suckers, down their length. At the end of each tentacle was a large jagged jaw similar to a Bobbit worm. Its head was at least fifty feet wide and had two massive eye shaped holes where there seemed to be nothing aside from odd stocks that were a dozen feet long and stuck straight out like barbels. Its mouth had massive teeth that were so large it couldn’t close it. There were a few lamprey like tongues that wiggled around within the open maw. Gaia was horrified by the monster’s visage and almost forgot to analyze it.
Name – Abyssal Chimera (Boss)
Level – 55