Hey, I decided to include a word count for every chapter so you can gauge how long it will be beforehand. Enjoy :)

2658 Words

Cog began to hate the rain. As if it wasn't enough that he had to travel again just the day after he had finally returned, the weather also turned to the worse. It was supposed to be close to summer now but somehow nothing could be felt of that. He was also aware that he dragged the others speed down because of his weak cultivation, but that was not his fault. Everyone started weak some time. Another minus was that Grom would travel with the second group. In a dry wagon. Lucky bastard.

But there was also hope to be had. He was now an inner disciple and they were just a few hours away from finally arriving at the dungeon. He was also traveling with the and a few seniors and elders.

When they finally arrived Torian was relieved and worried all at once. There was no sign of a camp. That was a relief as it meant that the other factions nearby either weren't aware of the dungeon or not aware for long as it only took a few days to reach them from here. What worried him though, were the footprints and claw marks that clearly belonged to a hunting group. That was until a clearly exhausted goblin emerged from the ark, with an ugly laughter.

A quick shut the disgusting thing up. So the probably knew something now. They often send someone back to report when facing anything new, a trait which had kept them alive in the until now as every forward camp that the sect had established in the mountains was compromised for a certainty as soon as they were attacked by scouts. And the little pests had bred like bunnies in that relative safety. He wouldn't be astonished if they would have to go to war with them in a couple of years.

But that wasn't important now. First the camp had to established.

"Clean up the mess and set up a camp. When you are done disciple Seth from the scholar division will inform all of us about important dungeon knowledge. For those of you who don't already know, he is the disciple with the most knowledge on dungeons in the sect and has read more books and written theories about them then even the anyone else in the sect.

Since the dungeon just survived a goblin hunting party entry is strictly forbidden for the next few days. Disciple Seth with inform us about the specific time period. That is all. Now get to clearing the rubble and corpse first."

Torians speech wasn't very detailed or extensive, but every man and woman he brought were very experienced and already knew what to do even without him saying anything. Still it paid off to never take any chances and get everyone on the same page.

With a levitation spell from elder Sue the rubble was soon in a neatly stacked pile next to the and the corpse of the unlucky goblin was disposed of deep into the woods. It was really luck that the grassy slope before the portal was not that steep and you could comfortably build a camp so close by.

"Disciple Karl, please take nine helpers and set up a perimeter around the camp and keep watch, but don't engage potential enemies. We have enough elders here that you just have to inform that a threat is coming and they will handle it. Disciple Seth will fill you in on the information on the dungeon later."

Two hours later the camp was finally completed and the watch was spread out. The 41 remaining people gathered in the middle of the camp, 10 elders and the rest experienced inner disciples.

"Now then disciple Seth. Now is your time to shine. I read a bit about dungeons on our trip here, but I am by no means an expert on the topic. Until we have a better grasp on the dungeon you will be the one whose information will be the basis for every decision we make."

"Way to not put pressure on me. Thanks elder." Were Seth's only thoughts before he began to compose himself. He had to be confident and make a lasting impression on the gathered elders. This was his time to make a lasting impression and set himself up to be invaluable in the future. If he got promoted to elder status when the second group arrived he had a very good possibility to be put in charge of the place or at least have some say in the development. If this went well he was set for life.

"Well then. It difficult to find a good starting point so I will first explain what you can see here. The portal is hanging suspended in the air, not because it is levitating or something. It is just anchored there in space itself. The stone around it is a border to limit the size of the portal. It will grow naturally with the dungeon. The material tells us the interior of the first floor. The stone infers that this is a cave type dungeon and that theme will probably continue for quite a few floors. If the portal would be confined between two trees it would have been a forest type dungeon. I think you get the idea.

The reason for the explosion and rubble you see here is another very mysterious phenomenon that is related to space magic. When a dungeon digs itself out of the earth and reaches the surface it will be literally ripped out of the world. Where it ends up no one knows, but you can see what it leaves behind. That would normally be an empty cave system with the same shape it first had when it reached the surface. It seems that in this case the remaining stone was not able to support the sudden and violent ripping out of stone. If one cleared the entrance one could see how the dungeon started out. Since we know when it reached the surface we can infer what category of dungeon we are dealing with.

There are 3 know categories divided by their growth rate. First we have the dungeon who makes new floors every 2 months like normal Mist-Mana cultivators would if they had no bottlenecks.

Those mostly form spoiled, childish personalities and are easily manipulated, but react with violence when they don't get what they want. They need frequent interaction with sentient life ensure their mental health and growth.

Then we have dungeons who grow a floor per month. Those have either timid, childlike or teenager personalities and are harder to handle in the beginning as they don't trust anyone easily. They can handle extended periods of loneliness but if you leave them alone for too long their personalities will get twisted and everyone that enters them will suffer under their insidious ideas and crazy whims. If you can establish a good relationship with them however they will be very loyal and helpful once you have their trust.

The third category are the most mysterious and only one was ever found on the . They grow at an astonishing 2 floors per month in the beginning and have the personality of adults. They can probably survive over a hundred years with most of their personality intact and contain many mysterious objects and secret knowledge. You will have to build a relationship of mutual benefit as they are far too intelligent to be manipulated by someone. The one known dungeon of that category had to be destroyed when he was betrayed by someone he saw as a friend and in response laid waste to the area surrounding the entrance and then plunged the whole continent in war. It took 20 years to put down and the continent is today known as the where the realm of Chaos has found its footing on this world.

So you see, dungeons have personalities and emotions like any sentient species. Don't treat them like objects or animals and don't anger them.

Now onto the problem that the has already addressed roughly. I don't know how big hunting or scouting parties are, but I doubt that the went in there alone. Since the is still empty we can assume that the dungeon survived and since only one came out we infer that the dungeon won. If the dungeon had died this place would now be swarming with beasts.

Since we don't know how much damage they did it would be best to wait for 3 days before the first exploration begins. It might feel vulnerable now since it lost a sizable amount of its population or bloodthirsty after a won battle.

In three days it can breed new or place new and calm down again. That is another fascinating point of the dungeon. Any population that is permeated by the dungeons Mana has an insane maturation rate of about 1/10 of the normal time. And that brings me to my next point, that is what to expect once you are inside the dungeon."

"I think that were enough information for the moment disciple Seth."

The calm but somehow loud intervention of the cut him off and interrupted his fervent stream of words. Only now did he realize that he had been too immersed in his explanation to realize that the sky had gone dark and everyone looked tired from the rushed travel.

"My apologies " Was the only thing he could utter.

"No problem. I think everyone could see that you clearly have a deep knowledge of the topic and love for it. We will clean up the rubble tomorrow and cut logs for the huts that we will construct in the next few days. The tree line is entirely too close to the and makes it hard to defend against potential attacks. We will resume your speech tomorrow afternoon. Now let's eat and then rest. We elders fortunately don't need much sleep anymore and take the watch for the night until we have fortified our position."

The night passed without any unwanted visitors and two bored elders even caught a few that had gone off to hunt at dawn in addition to a few deer they had found sleeping at night.

Once everyone was up they had breakfast and then half of the group began clearing the rubble and the other half went to chop wood and clear off the branches. Just an hour before lunch time Seth and two elders began mapping out the 'Dungeon Corpse'.

He was very excited to see one himself and when they emerged back into the open after half an hour his evaluation had everyone excited.

"I think this is a type 3 dungeon.", were his first words when everyone was gathered to eat.

"This dungeon was clearly born intelligent, indicated by the many rooms and branching tunnels. From the size of the cave we can deduct that it opened at around 9-10% cultivation which is the maximum size before it has to open itself to expand further.

I also just this morning remembered to let junior disciple Cog recount his time inside and we can safely say that the dungeon has a functioning ecosystem already. Since he arrived just about two hours after the dungeon opened and there were already many plants and insects the dungeon probably has no or next to no puppets.

Type 1 or 2 dungeons always start with a clear path to their core and place in regular intervals that just stand motionless in the way until someone enters attack range and only the type 3 dungeon is documented to have had a functioning ecosystem from the beginning.

After lunch a basic ladder was constructed to comfortably reach the portal by two disciples while the rest of the group split into a wood cutting and a hunting group and after dinner was another lecture by Seth.

He took a deep breath of cool and fresh evening air with a hint of smoke from the earlier fire they had roasted their dinner on. Then he continued his lecture from the day before.

"Yesterday I didn't get to inform you about what to expect inside the dungeon, so I will do that now. The first and most important info is that you have only one way to communicate with the dungeon and that is through carving something and bringing it in the dungeon or by carving something directly into the dungeon walls.

But since we do not know how the dungeon would react to that it is best we assume that it doesn't like that and wait until it is able to contact us. That will happen when it reaches 10 floors and enters a new stage in development.

In the meantime we can assume that it can see us, but not hear us. You should still be respectful just in case. Every dungeon we know of has access an upgraded form of the magic that can automatically translate every language, spoken and written, to the dungeon, so that is fortunately no hurdle we have to cross.

When you are inside and exploring you should only defend yourselves and not actively search for . You don't want to accidentally wipe out some species that might be vital to the ecosystem. You should also try to map what you see since the dungeon layout won't change and just expand so it doesn't confuse the inhabitants. If you want to harvest plants the same rules apply.

If my assumption is correct the dungeon should have 4-5 floors by now. I suggest that you only travel to the middle of the fourth floor so it doesn't feel threatened.

Another thing to be mindful of while exploring the dungeon is cultivation. Dungeon Mana is different from normal Mana, even if it doesn't seem like that at the first glance. There will be no problems if you just regenerate your Mana in the dungeon after a fight, but you have to thoroughly get rid of it before you start cultivating again as it will be mixed in your cultivation. It will then slowly spread through your whole Mana and that is no problem if you never enter the dungeon again, but if you do it can later on forcibly take control of you then or just ban you from leaving by making you unable to use the exit. That is how the dungeon retains the as well, since they would be able to escape otherwise. In the beginning stage the dungeons hold is very weak and it cant prevent anyone even one stage higher then itself from leaving, but later on even someone a whole realm above can't escape its control forcibly.

When you want to get rid of the dungeon Mana I propose that you do so while still in the dungeon, just before the entrance. The dungeon gains massively by absorbing your much purer and can use that to progress quickly.

But I wouldn't advise that anyone with a higher cultivation then do so, since the force of the Mana could damage it somehow. I think that is all I have to say for now. The last piece of advice would be to not do something you haven't cleared with me or one of the elders, as we have to be very careful to not ruin our relationship with this potential treasure trove and mighty ally.."

"Thank you disciple Seth. I think this is a lot of useful information that everyone should take to heart and think carefully about. If there are any other questions that come up tonight you can ask them before your departure tomorrow. I also haven't decided on an exploration team yet so I will announce that tomorrow as well.

Now you all should get a good nights sleep while we elders take the watch again."