Hello everyone here is chapter 25! Getting closer and closer to end of book 1 ^_^ Enjoy!

After Sigrid’s group left, Sage went back to observing the other adventurers inside the dungeon. He needed to see how they controlled mana here and refine his own control using them as an example. This was pretty easy on rank G adventurers but on rank F and even some of the higher rank G it was difficult. The new rank G adventurers didn’t know to put up an mana barrier to prevent Sage from scanning them but all the adventurers that had been to a dungeon for a while learned this little trick. Of course if Sage got stronger, then those barriers would mean nothing but right now they were proving to be a hassle.

Sage thought he could just avoid those people for now but then realized that soon he wouldn’t be able to advance anymore from just observing the rookie rank G adventurers, forcing him to move up. This caused Sage to end up spending the rest of the day observing the adventurer’s mana barrier rather than how they controlled mana. By the time all the adventurers left Sage had managed to figure out a possible angle. He noticed that the barrier formed by these rank G and F adventurers wasn’t very stable, filled with small openings. If he could control his mana to leak into them then he could be able to observe them and bypass the barrier but the problem was that he lacked the fine mana control to do this. However this didn’t discourage him as he decided that all adventurers in the dungeon would become his tools to practice his mana control.

That night Alice returned and informed Sage of taking George as a possible candidate for Sigrid’s adventurer party. Sage recalled to earlier today and agreed, while that entire group was pretty good, George really stood out to him due to George’s precise mana control. Sage told Alice to keep on the lookout for potential candidates and hopefully form an official team within a few months. Once Sage had reached 10 floors then he would have enough defenses to protect himself and thus allowing Sigrid to explore the rest of the kingdom. This had to be done because Sage’s growth would slow down the further it went and he wouldn’t be able to provide the needed missions to rank Sigrid up so they had to go to other parts of the kingdom and visit the older dungeons.

Things slowly fell into a routine as Sigrid and Alice continued their adventurer life while Sage focused his time on expanding the dungeon and training his mana control. He tried asking Sigrid about it but sadly Sigrid was an Ice Maiden who was born with naturally high control over mana so she had no way of explaining how to improve. Thus Sage could only take it one step at a time.

Week One.

*First Floor*

“Hey you heard about the brand new rank E adventurer that arrived?”

“Dude who hasn’t heard of her?”

“Pretty amazing if I do say so myself, her first time entering the dungeon and she finds the passage to the 3rd floor. Now even more adventurers are allowed in and there are new herbs and monsters down there!”

“Man you can’t even deal with an elite goblin, anything is amazing to you.”

“Shut up!”

“She is someone who managed to trap the Vice Guild master for a while, she is going places unlike us.”

“I hope we can get teamed up with her.”

“I wish, that team that went with her got credit for discovering the third floor as well. Lucky bastards…”

“Cut the chatter we got monsters.”

“Oh relax oh mighty leader there is only goblins here, nothing to worry about.”

“Goblins that still kick your ass if you fight it on your own hahaha.”

“Not like you do any better!”

“I said quiet! Battle formations!”

“See it’s a group of goblins… why is that one blue?”

“Whatever it’s a goblin none the less so it can’t be hard.”

“Maybe it’s a rare mob, dibs!”

“No wait don’t jump….”

“Ahhhhhh! Help it’s a slime!”

“Damn it, get him out of there!”

“Noooooooo! There’s slimes falling from the ceiling!”

“This isn’t supposedd to happen! This is only the first floor!”

“Damn it! Run! Ru….Ahhhh…..”

....

“Good job guys, now goblins bring those bodies back to my chamber and Blue you come as well it seems like it’s time to teach you as well. Oh leave when you guys get to the third floor drop that guy’s ring at the entrance, to give this group’s “disappearance” a valid reason.”

That night Penny noticed that out of all the teams that entered the dungeon today one didn’t report back. If this was a normal dungeon no one would care because no one would even keep track of who entered, in some of the larger dungeons adventurers had stayed for extended period in the dungeons. However this was a new dungeon that was heavily monitored and because most people going inside were rookies the guild was taking extra care of them. Again this was only the case with a small kingdom like this where one extra rank A adventurer meant a lot for the kingdom so they did their best to help the rookies grow.

“Sir it seems a team of five rank G adventurers have gone missing today in the dungeon. This is the first time that an entire group disappeared.” Penny frowned, “Do you think something has changed?”

The guild master continued to look out the window, “Penny, nothing has changed. It is natural instinct for dungeons to want to kill the adventurers inside for their mana, this is nothing new. This dungeon’s floor has honestly been very kind to the adventurers.” He suddenly turned toward Penny, “Have you studied the detailed maps of the dungeon?”

Penny was startled by the guild master’s action, “Yes… Yes sir! I have looked at and memorized the entire map.”

The guild master shook his head, “I asked if you studied it, not if you memorized it.”

Penny crooked her head in confusion, “Sir, I’m not sure I understand you.”

The guild master let out a sigh, “Penny you have talent that matches Alex’s group and I trained you well but you need to start thinking beyond the surface. Now recall floor one and all the monster positions. Then look at every single possible encounter spot and tell me what you find in common.”

Penny was a bit startled by the sudden request but she complied anyways. After being with the guild master for so long, you got used to this kind of thing. The map and monster position quickly appeared in her head and she began to run analysis of each possible combat location. After checking 3 spots she suddenly froze.

“It can’t be…” She quickly checked more spots and her voice became louder, “No, no, no, no, no! This shouldn’t be possible! How?”

“Hahaha, why is it not possible?” The guild master’s grin grew even wider “It’s right there in front of you, if you don’t believe it check the second floor.”

Penny quickly recalled the floor two in her memory and checked every single possible combat location. After finishing all of it she sat down on a chair because she couldn’t stand due to the shock she just received.

“See, not everything is always as simple as it seems. You realized it too these floors are built optimally for training. Every floor is build for people of certain strength, on that floor they will face battles that will push them but if they are smart there is always an way out. This is the perfect way to find the rough gems and polish them, the design is simply amazing.” The guild master let out a sigh as he looked out the window again.

Penny finally regained her sense and looked at the guild master, “Sir… shouldn’t we be reporting this?”

The guild master didn’t look at her but shook his head, “No, this dungeon is already special enough. Any more and it would draw… unwanted attention towards it. With the dangers to come this dungeon is a vital resource we need to have.”

Penny stood there thinking before finally nodding, “Yes sir, I understand.”

The guild master smiled and looked toward Penny, “Good, now post a mission for any information regarding the missing party.”

“Yes sir!”

The next day every party that went inside the dungeon payed extra attention to their surrounding. This was the first time an entire group has gone missing like that and it was making everyone nervous. However this all disappeared at the end of the day when a group of rank F adventurers that went down to floor 3 found a ring that belonged to one of the missing people. The conclusion was that they went over their heads and went into the third floor. Now that everyone realized the group died to their own stupidity rather than the dungeon they all returned to normal.

*Secret Location in Dungeon Town*

“Sir, the report from the guild says, that that group went to the third floor and died.”

“Hmmm, likely story but still feels wrong to me.”

“But their belongings were found on the third floor sir.”

“That doesn’t matter, the dungeon has the ability to take everything. Doesn’t matter, they were only a few rank G adventurers. Even if he ate all the rank G adventurer’s here it wouldn’t help him much!”

*Sage’s Chamber*

The goblins returned with the bodies of the 5 adventurers. Sage ordered the goblins to return to their training and then turned towards Blue. Blue was the name of the slime, Alice named it Blue because it was so Blue. Sage didn’t really care but he enjoyed the company of the slime, “Ok Blue devour them all, then you should be able to transform into a human.”

Blue jiggled happily at all the food given to him and he jumped on them. Because Blue had been around Sage so much, it had absorbed way more purified mana than anyone here in the dungeon, even more than Alice. This allowed him to grow rapidly and it even gained a bit of intelligence. It took it half the day but Blue devoured all 5 bodies and then it stopped moving. Sage knew this was normal as when he allowed Blue to devour goblins the same thing happened. It took Blue time to process all the information gained from the body it ate and then create a matching form. The goblins took a whole day so humans might take a lot longer. With the start of the experiment going so well Sage happily went back to training his mana control,

Week Two.

“Buying rank F trial room token! Best price out there!”

“Buying rank F trial token! Willing to pay 100 silver coins!”

“Willing escort in floor 3 for rank F token!”

“Hey, what is going on here? Why is everyone looking for a rank F token?”

“You didn’t know? Where have you been? Under a rock? Everyone knows what happened yesterday!”

“I went back to Dawn to visit family and just got back here, come on tell me what happened.”

“Oh, well you missed out so yesterday a rank F trial room was discovered on the third floor. Someone who had a token went inside. Instead of fighting the normal elite goblin or elite kobold he faced a blue elite goblin.”

“What? A blue elite goblin? Is that even possible?”

“Well no one knows, the adventurer that went in got his ass kicked and knocked out without being able to put up much of a fight. Now the guild is offering big for information on that creatures so everyone wants rank F token to see if they will face it. Also the rumor going around is that it is a special challenge set by the dungeon, if you defeat it you will get a skill book!”

“Is that true?”

“Well it is only rumor and speculation but enough to drive most of this town crazy.”

*Sage’s Chamber*

Blue finished his assimilation at the beginning of the week. Why he? Because, well, the form he took, was that of a 10 year old boy. Sage was pretty confused at first because he assumed Blue would take the form of the people he devoured. According to the description of a mimic slime they copied appearances but somehow Blue copied the species but kept his own identity. Sadly Sage knew far too little about the creatures of this world to make any progress so he decided to leave it for later, at least Blue was created by him so he doesn’t need to worry about being betrayed.

“Well this is still a problem.” Sage stared at Blue thinking very hard, “You are still blue after you morph, there is no way for you to blend in with the humans at all right now… Wait I might just have the perfect cultivation technique for you.” A ball of light appeared before Sage and once the light faded a book appeared within. “The 49 Form Cultivation Method, master this method and you shall be able to take 49 different shapes. With this you should be able to fix the one flaw in your transformation.”

Blue happily accepted the book and learned it. “Remember Blue you’re not allowed to show your human form to anyone unless I told you to. Not even Alice or Sigrid! You are going to be my insurance.” Blue didn’t seem to understand what Sage really meant but as long as Sage told him to do something he would do it.

“Now let’s get you started on your cultivation, I’ll also have you transform into elite goblin or elite kobold so you can get some combat practice inside the trial rooms. Train hard Blue, because I’ll be depending on you in the future.”

Sage also took this chance to study mana control as well because Blue was like a child learning from the start. He hoped, that through Blue’s growth, he would gain more insight into how creatures of this world controlled mana. Everything was set but all of it would need time to complete and Sage just hoped he had enough.

Soon anyone who managed to get a rank F badge either sold it for quick money or used it to enter the rank F trial room in hope of facing that Blue Goblin. The results were varied.

“What? I spend 100 silver just to face a normal elite goblin! Die!”

“Dude what happened? Why is there blood?”

“I.. I killed the elite goblin inside…”

“You moron now you’re banned for a week! Someone else would have defeated it long before then.”

“I…”

….

“Yes! It’s the blue goblin! Now come to pap...Ahhhhh!” *Thud*

“...ow my head, what happened? Where the blue goblin go?...Nooooooo! I spent so much to get that token!”

…

“What is this a blue kobold? Another rare monster? My lucky day then!”

“Damn this one is a tough bastard! Take this!”

“What! How did it block that hit? No no no no.. Arggg….”

…

“Damn it not the blue one…”

…

“Yes! It’s my luc… Ahhhhhhh…”

…

“Yes I defeated it! Now come here skill book… What? Only a gourd of mana ale? Where is my skill book! Ahhhhhhhhh!”

…

...

…

“Sir from the reports that came in this week, there is a new type of goblin and kobold that is blue. This monster appears to be a powerful elite monster that can easily defeat rank G adventurers. As for the rank F adventurer only the medium tier can beat it, the low tier ones can put up a fight but all end up losing even though they felt the monster was weaker.” Penny moved her gaze from the paper in her hand to the guild master “Sir…”

The guild master raised his hand, “It’s fine as it is, this is good training for all the adventurers too.”

“But Sir…”

“You need to look at the bigger picture Penny, the dungeon needs its own protection as well. You won’t be as naive to think that he would really trust in our protection?”

“....Yes sir.”

“Now little dungeon core, what are you preparing for the coming battle? I’m looking forward to it.”

Edited by: Nova