"Ack! The flowers!"

Expanding the dungeon made it shake violently, so Uru waved its arms around, not knowing what to do. Seeing that, Kang Oh smiled and looked over his system messages.

[You have used 100 repel points to expand the dungeon.]

[The dungeon now has a maintenance fee. The maintenance fee is 100 repel points a month.]

[You can add another entrance to the dungeon.]

[The dungeon's monsters have become stronger. Applicable Monsters: Mekradin, Tentacle Hunter.]

[Bomb Bugs will now spawn in the dungeon. Bomb Bugs remain dormant in the ground or the walls until someone approaches. When someone approaches them, they explode.]

[Two new types of medicinal herbs can be gathered from the dungeon.]

"Wow!"

Once the earthquake ended, Uru did a 180 and leapt around. Expanding the dungeon had increased the size of Furon's Nest, so it could house more plants and flowers now.

"Let's see here..." Kang Oh examined the new dungeon rewards.

[Dungeon Rewards (Monthly Payment)]

1,500 gold.

15 Silver Lavender Seed.

10 Bronze Herb Leaf.

5 High Quality Green Tea. (New)

1 Gold Bean.

The gold increased from 800 to 1,500 gold. The dungeon would also give him green tea every month, and his previous rewards had increased as well.

Unfortunately, expanding the dungeon hadn't increased the number of Gold Beans. Gold Beans were an ingredient necessary to creating the legendary potion, Elixium, so the more he had, the better.

'Tch. Hopefully, my next expansion yields more Gold Beans.'

"Uru, give me my dungeon rewards," Kang Oh said.

"Ok." Uru slowly raised its hands. Then, a giant dirt bowl popped out of the ground.

The bowl was filled with shining gold coins. He could also smell the faint, pleasant odor of the herbs inside. Of course, the lavender seeds and the green tea were in there.

'Is this it?' Kang Oh put his hand into the bowl, pulling out a bean as large as his fist.

Unlike its name, however, it was closer to yellow than gold, like a Forsythia flower. It didn't shimmer like actual gold either.

[Gold Bean]

A bean as precious as gold, hence its name. It has nothing to do with gold.

It is excellent at curing diseases, detoxification, and dispelling curses. Also, eating a Gold Bean will randomly increase one of your main stats by 3.

Material Rank: S.

'Nice.' Kang Oh placed the Gold Bean into his inventory first. Then, he placed the gold and the materials inside.

"I'll be back later." Kang Oh waved his hand.

"Take care." Uru waved both its hands. It was quite a cute look.

Kang Oh couldn't help but smile. However, he didn't have time to play with Uru anymore. He had so much to do.

"Yeah." Kang Oh stepped onto the corner magic circle. Then, he clearly said, "Beast's Room!"

* * *

The Beast's Tower, which resided in the western grasslands, belonged to Kang Oh. The Beast's Room was Violf's room.

Whir.

Once the light dissipated from the transfer magic circle, Kang Oh walked out. However, Kang Oh could clearly hear...

Kuheong!

Loud snoring. The snores belonged to none other than the Platinum Lion, Violf.

Violf was laying on its back, revealing its belly for the whole world to see, and was drooling as it slept. Its normal majestic form had completely disappeared.

Kuheong!

Violf's snores resounded throughout the room again.

'He sure is sleeping well.' Kang Oh approached Violf.

"Hey, Violf." Kang Oh pulled out Blood and poked Violf. "Hey! Hey, wake up already!"

'I've been busy out of mind, sleeping only 4 hours a day. Yet here you are, sleeping without care in the world!' he thought, making him wake Violf even more violently than before.

Kuhaaahk!

Violf let out a fierce cry, and opened its eyes. It gave him a threatening look. 'How dare you interrupt my nap!?' or something to that effect.

"It's me," Kang Oh said, hurriedly hiding Blood behind his back.

Upon seeing Kang Oh, Violf's expression relaxed. Then, it righted itself and sported a solemn expression.

"Master, you've come." Violf also lowered its voice, making it sound more dignified.

"Hey, you have some drool on your mouth." Kang Oh pointed at Violf's mouth.

"Ahem." Violf used its front paw to rub the drool off its mouth.

"If you're awake, then give me the soul stone." Kang Oh stretched out his hand, as if saying 'I'm busy, man!'.

"Got it."

Once Kang Oh received the triangular soul stone, he opened the Dungeon Management tab. He started off by looking at the Dungeon Log.

The Beast's Tower was where the western mercenaries took their entrance exam, and was also a place that fast tracked a bronze mercenary to silver rank. Countless non-humans came here in order to either become a mercenary or to improve their rank.

'Things are going well as always.' Kang Oh smiled satisfyingly and looked at his accumulated repel points.

[Repel Points: 891]

[Next Dungeon Expansion: 1,000]

[Dungeon Maintenance Fee: 100]

Unfortunately, he didn't have enough repel points to expand it again. For the time being, that is.

"Tch."

NPCs yielded far less repel points than players. Thus, he hadn't accumulated as many repel points as he expected, even though his guardians and traps were hard at work repelling the countless non-humans that came here.

Kang Oh was briefly lost in thought. Should he save his repel points and expand his dungeon later, or spend his repel points right away and add more guardians and traps to accrue even more repel points?

'Let's add more guardians.'

Expanding a soul dungeon increased its maintenance fee. In other words, it wasn't always a good idea. You first needed to ensure that you had a way of making enough repel points to maintain the dungeon.

Kang Oh used every single repel point he had to buy guardians.

[You have used 200 repel points.]

[The Flame Beast has evolved into Blue Fire Kairos.]

...

The Daily Log had revealed that the Flame Beast had made him a ton of repel points. Thus, he added four more Flame Beast guardians. 800 repel points went into them, so he only had 91 repel points left.

[You have used 300 gold.]

[You have added a trap at the entrance to the 2nd floor, which causes the floor to disappear.]

[You have used 100 gold.]

[You have reinforced the 3rd floor poisonous arrow trap.]

[You have used 100 gold.]

[You have moved the 8th floor's flamethrower to the 1st floor.]

He spent gold instead.

'I want to use the tower's underground area too, but...'

Kang Oh had already expanded the Beast's Tower once before. Back then, the tower had gained a vast underground space that resembled a maze. However, he had no way of using it at the moment.

Building the maze would cost a tremendous amount of repel points. And even if he did, the non-humans that came here wouldn't have an incentive to go inside the underground maze.

'I'll make use of it someday.'

Kang Oh closed the Dungeon Management window, and stared at Violf.

"Give me my rewards."

"Understood."

A bundle of light popped out of Violf's body. It contained 1,500 gold, various beast materials, and Violf's Platinum, which reflected magic back at its source.

He placed everything into his inventory. Now that he was done here, Kang Oh returned the soul stone to Violf and said goodbye.

"I'm going now."

"Take care," Violf quickly said. It clearly wanted Kang Oh to leave ASAP, based on its speech, expression, and actions.

Kang Oh was well aware of the fact that Violf yawned while he was making changes to the dungeon. It clearly wanted him to leave so that it could return to its nap.

"Should I stay?" Kang Oh said, sporting an impish expression.

"No, just go." Violf looked dead serious. 'Just go already!'

"Alright, alright. I'm leaving."

He kind of wanted to give him a hard time, but he was extremely busy. Kang Oh waved his hand and then stepped onto the transfer magic circle.

"Moss Cave!"

Bright light wrapped around his body.

"Yawn." Violf let out a huge yawn and laid down on its back. 1 second later...

Kuheong!

Snores resounded throughout the room. Violf was the type to fall asleep as soon as it laid down.

* * *

Teynos was the busiest among Kang Oh's guardians.

Moss Cave was one of the few dungeons that allowed players to experience underwater combat. Plus, the wrecked ship and the treasure box inside it incentivized people to go underwater.

Not only that, but the Moss Cave yielded a ton of experience and proficiency! And if a player got lucky, then they'd get their hands on a Potion of Explosive Growth.

Lastly, the Moss Cave was widely known as a soul dungeon.

All these reasons were why so many players frequented the Moss Cave. Occasionally, there were players that made it past Kang Oh's guardians and fought Teynos.

Like right now.

Players were fighting Teynos, which looked like it came straight out of a monster movie.

"Die!"

"Haahp!"

The party consisted of a Warrior, an Assassin, an Archer, a Mage, a Priest and a Druid. The party's leader was named Pantheon; he was a famous middle ranker. The rest of his party consisted of rankers (top 10,000 players).

Pantheon's axe and the assassin's dagger bashed on Teyno's tough body. The archer and mage shot arrows and spells at it from behind.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

In exchange for its overwhelming defense, Teynos couldn't move. After all, its name was Immovable Teynos! It was forced to take everything.

However, Kang Oh had given it a special ability. It was called Returning Pain! This ability would return 5% of the damage dealt to it onto its attacker!

At first, players weren't knowledgeable about its special ability. Thus, they would bash on it again and again, and then run away when they realized they would die.

Bam! Bam!

Shards of light burst from Pantheon and the assassin's body. Of course, the same went for the archer and mage too.

However, knowledge of its ability was widespread now, so Pantheon and his party had prepared for this beforehand.

Holy Light!

Mother Nature's Breath!

The priest and druid simultaneously cast healing spells, recovering much of Pantheon's HP. It was due to the fact that a party of six had as much as two healers.

If they only had one healer, then the healer would have run out of MP before Teynos died.

"Good. Keep going!"

"Go!"

Pantheon's party had prepared a way to deal with Teyno's defense, as well as a way to prevent it from healing.

Crush Wall!

Single Point Breakthrough!

Seal Healing!

The best Teynos could do was stretch out its neck and attempt to bite them. However, it wasn't very threatening.

1 hour passed.

"Hoo, you sure are tough." Pantheon groaned.

They'd attacked Teynos for an hour now, yet it still hadn't gone down. However, Pantheon's party was sure of their victory. Due to their thorough preparation, Teyno's HP was gradually dropping.

At that moment...

The transfer magic circle, which sat at a corner of Teyno's Nest, glowed with dim light, and out came Kang Oh.

"Master!" Teynos yelled happily. 'Please help me!'

"What?"

"The dungeon's master has shown up."

Pantheon's party momentarily panicked. However, they soon stared at Kang Oh with a cold gaze.

It was the era of soul dungeons. Soul dungeons were stolen from their original masters all the time. Obviously, there were often battles between the dungeon's master and those who sought to take their dungeon. Not a Sacred Duel, but simply a dungeon's master fighting to protect their dungeon.

"Nice. Let's kill the dungeon's master instead," the Assassin said.

There was no way Teyno's master would sit back and watch as its guardian was attacked. If that's the case, then attacking him first was a better move.

"Ok!"

"Yeah!"

The assassin rushed at Kang Oh, the archer notched an arrow, and the mage began chanting a spell.

Kang Oh pulled out Demon Sword Ubist and Demon Sword Blood. It was a fight he had no reason to refuse!

Stab!

The assassin's dagger pierced Kang Oh's body.

At that moment...

"W-Wait!" Pantheon, who'd seen Kang Oh's sword, yelled urgently. However, it was already too late.

[You have been attacked.]

[This counts as self-defense!]

That was why Kang Oh had taken the attack, even though he could have just as easily dodged it.

Festival of Blood!

Mad Wind's Sword!

Blood was coated in red energy, and then his twin demon swords flew through the air.

Swish, slash, swish, slash, swish!

Shards of light fell from the assassin's body like a waterfall. They were uncountable, as so many had fallen at once.

"S-Shit." The assassin's face turned gray, his eyes wide open. Game Over!

The priest and druid hadn't even had the time to save him.

"What happened?"

"Mr. Jack died?"

The archer and mage were confused. Only Pantheon understood what deep shit they were in.

"That's Kang Oh! Numbers Kang Oh! Damn it. I didn't think this dungeon belonged to the Predator. Everyone, run!" Pantheon yelled.

"I just stepped on shit!"

"Run!"

Kang Oh wasn't so kind that he'd let them leave when they attacked him first.

"Where do you think you're going!?" Kang Oh kicked off the floor.