Mei Blatt was the undisputed best sniper in the entire village. Her capabilities with her elven bow were at odds with her adorable looks. While elves were generally the same height as humans, she was on the short side of the spectrum, about a head shorter than the average man. This, coupled with her lovely grey-blue eyes, short silvery-gold hair, and inherent beauty from her elven heritage made her far more attractive than your average girl. It was also the type of beauty that was soothing to the eyes and calming for the mind, like a gorgeous pond that one could gaze at for hours on end. It would not be an exaggerating to say that even some courtesans and nobles were jealous of her appearance.

But that changed the instant that she was in a serious situation in the field. In an instant she was in her huntress mindset, her soothing aura would melt way and those large eyes would become cold and calculating. Her lips would press firmly and narrow into a stern expression, and her fine eyebrows would angle to give her a more hawk-like expression. While from a distance she would not seem much different, to anyone that was up-close the change was startling.

The change was so suden when Mei changed from a straightforward, warm lady to a cold and calculating sniper with pinpoint accuracy that the militia men under her command were startled. . Each of her arrows zipped through the air, before digging deep into whatever unfortunate target happened to be in her eyesight. More often than not however, her shots served to protect the militia group under her jurisdiction.

Now that winter was starting to release its hold on the village, Ikfes and the king had concocted a plan to strengthen the defences of the village a step further. Now that the watchtowers and town wall were completed and the main roads were in place, what they required was people that could utilize them to their advantage. That meant that the militia had to not only become accustomed to using these things to their advantage, but they also had to improve their skills sufficiently to make the best use of them. As such, Azure Arrow had been contracted by the royal family to train the militia.

And the one that was under the most pressure was Mei, as the king and Ikfes had been quite clear when they said that archery should be the priority. This was, in Mei’s mind, the most logical approach for the situation. While hammers and swords could be quite imposing, at close range, in war, range was an undisputable advantage that could change a battle entirely. It did not matter if you had an enchanted mithril sword clad in flames or a hammer of orichalcum that could smash an ogre’s skull in one hit if you could not reach your opponent. That was the simple truth of the matter.

As such, Mai who not only boasted of elven blood but also an illustrious career as a huntress and sniper, was the most important person in this situation. She was put in charge of training anyone that showed any talent for the bow and arrow, while James and Ella where in charge on teaching those who had any talent in fighting in close quarters. The remaining militia was put under the command of Adder, who trained them in knife-throwing, hit-and-run tactics, and the creation of simple traps.

Sadly, without Ziggurd they had no one that was experienced enough with magic to train anyone that might have been suitable to learn the trade, but according to the guild master, the king had already sent word to the mages guild to find someone appropriate for the task. Not for the first time, Mei regretted not delving into the arcane arts. She was sensitive enough to magic thanks to her elven heritage, and she should have been capable of learning it. However, magic was much more complicated than the bow and arrow, and she found it a tedious and boring idea. Instead, she followed her father’s footsteps and learned the ways of the huntsman. Perhaps she should learn some magic now… specially now that Ziggurd was gone…

“Lady Mei?” The voice of one of the people in her group called out to her, snapping her out of her melancholic thoughts. “Targets in this room have been eliminated.”

Nodding rigidly, Mei released her breath slowly, calming her self before replying. “Good. Now, everyone, I hope you noticed the difference between a single stationary target and multiple moving targets. Despite these rats being the size of cats, they move swiftly even in a confined space. I saw several of you struggling to hit even once in every six or seven arrows. More than that, several of you hesitated so much that I was force d to intervene before they bit you.”

There was a general murmur of disgruntlement at the outcome. Months of training, and yet they could not properly handle some oversized, mildly aggressive rats. They weren’t even that dangerous to begin with, and they were not travelling in packs. For them to struggle this much against such creatures… Naturally some of them were dissatisfied, more so when they had to be protected from a mere rodent by their instructor.

“I’ll repeat myself to those of you who are frustrated.” Mei continued, “These rats are the perfect training for you all. It is not supposed to be easy.”

“But…Would it not be easier to just hit them with a mallet?” Someone grunted out in frustration. “I feel like it would be much faster...”

Mei sighed internally, and looked at the woman with a calm, and firm stare. She understood why she was frustrated, but she needed to understand that this was part of training. “You have lost track of the purpose of this. We are not here to exterminate rats, Abbigail, we are here to train. No, I see you are dissatisfied, so let me explain in detail.”

Mei coughed, and looked around to make sure that all eyes were on her before she began to explain. “First, most living things will move, therefore the stationary targets you have been using so far wont be as useful. Second, there is no guarantee that all your targets will be human sized or larger. Moreover, if you are ever in a situation where you have to defend yourselves and those around you, you will be experiencing a different level of stress than leisurely looking at a bullseye target.”

Mei said this calmly but clearly. She hated having to chew out the information for them and hand-feed them in such a way, but perhaps it was better that they had this clear to reduce their discontent. “You are all not ready to experience real combat yet. Without the new defensive walls, I am sure that at least half of you would hit any frontline militia at some point due to stress, and more than half would panic completely if the enemy penetrated our defences and were met with a danger at closer ranges. In other words, you are not ready for real combat.”

Mei continued her small monologue, preventing them from talking or objecting with her penetrating stare as she did so. “Therefore, you all must gain some semblance of familiarity with real combat. That is why we are here. The rats on the first floor of this dungeon are not particularly dangerous on their own or in small groups. They are not particularly intelligent or dangerously aggressive, and as far as we can tell they are not toxic on have any particularly dangerous diseases. However, they are swift and will most certainly attack you if you are seen as a threat. As long as you slay them from the distance, they will most likely either scatter in confusion or stand on their hind legs and look for a source of danger. In other words, they are as close to the ideal training partners for you all as we can get right now.”

She paused for a moment, taking her time to scan the crowd before adding. “This is the level you are at. Let me remind you the militia is only about a hundred men. Out of those, only seven were proper hunters that could passably use a bow before the dungeon appeared. You thirty are not a part of them. Until you can hit these rats at least half of the time, do not consider yourself proper bowmen. Right now, all of you are barely passable as a line of defence for Nam.”

Those were harsh words, but they were true and they needed to hear them. After an entire quiet winter with plenty of supplies, some of her students were getting arrogant. Now that they hit their stationary target with nearly every shot, they boasted about their skills and how the town would be impregnable under their watch. Utter foolishness. Hitting a large round target at 40 paces was fine and all, but they still rarely hit the bullseye with any consistency, and it hardly was comparable to real combat. Specially against a more dangerous opponents like those that Klax was leading.

This training was not only necessary to push them to improve, but it was also necessary to humble them. To force them to realize that they were boasting over minor successes and becoming sloppy. It was all fine and good to celebrate improvement, but they had to be fully aware of the extent of their true capabilities at the same time, lest they get killed due to their carelessness.

Her words were met with silence and resentment, but no body dared to disagree. They were all faced with the reality that they were still mere students that had taken their first steps in the journey to become strong. This was their level at the moment. They were being outdone by overgrown rats. While some of them still wanted to complain that this was too sudden of a change in training and that they could not possibly be expected to perform well in their first attempt, they kept their silence. They could not talk back to one of the heroes that had fought beside the king, specially when she was doing this for their sake. They just swallowed their words and accepted the cold hard truth.

As her gaze washed over the militia under her care, examining their expressions. The great majority seemed to be at least contemplating her words, if not outright looking disappointed or upset. Good. It seemed that her words had made an impact.

“Now then.” Mei said after a moment. “Time to move. We will clear one more room before calling it a day. Do your best.”

“Yes!” Her students said loudly, their eyes more fierce than before. Good. This attitude was much better. Be it because she had injured their pride or because they had realized how weak they still were, their attitude had changed. Even if it was because they resented her words and wanted to prove her wrong, there was no downside to getting them fired up to do better. Sighing with a small smile, Mei allowed herself to chuckle lightly as the group turned away from her and started to head down the stone hallway that led to the next room.

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Now that winter was ending and spring approached quickly, Smit had began to notice changes in the behaviour of the area around the Dungeon, more specifically, the frequency with which he was receiving visitors had increased. While the temperature was still often still cold, it seemed like every other day there would be a group or two of people venturing into the first or second floor of his dungeon. Each group had their own distinct approaches of attack, and each group focused on different enemies. The archers targeted rats mostly, while the shield bearers would fight their way through the first floor with maces and axes and march down to the second floor as quickly as possible, where they would try to withstand the hall of boobytrapped pillars before heading back. The group with swords and spears would focus on dodging snake strikes and fighting the pack of wolves that respawned on the first floor. The last group focused on setting ambushes or identifying traps within the first floor of the dungeon.

All in all, it was an interesting operation that pushed all the members of the units who entered his dungeon, specially considering that only a single person in each group was a proper adventurer who guided the rest of the group. Honestly it could be a bit annoying considering that it sometimes interrupted with the development of his newest projects, but they did not pose any serious threat so he left them alone while he focused on his new projects.

Being the busybody that he was, Smit had several projects running in parallel to each other. For starters, he was starting to expand the eleventh floor, creating an entirely different landscape than what he had done before. Then he also decided on the evolutionary paths for some of his existing Kobolds and wanted to test their abilities. He also had to supervise the evolutionary progress of the animals themselves, and furthermore, he wanted to oversee the creation of new traps.

There was much for him to do, but he decided to start with the most large-scale project of them all: expanding his dungeon. As he had planed beforehand, he would try to create a terrain that provided advantages to his creations a priority this time, and then try to work with it in such a way that he could still create a masterpiece worthy of his name. This would elevate the level of difficulty for him, but he felt like the results would be worth the challenge. Moreover, as a craftsman of his caliber, the idea of a challenge stimulated him and got his blood pumping in excitement… figuratively, of course, as his body did not have any blood within it.

To begin with, he had to consider his new species, and the species that he was trying to create in the future. Amongst these creations the Oni and the Fair goblins were the ones that had most recently been added to his ensemble of creations. Since their creation, he had confirmed their abilities sufficiently that he felt confident in his ability to fully utilize their potential. Oni were large and strong creatures that could smack around most creatures with relative ease. However, their size and nature of their behaviour made it difficult for them to work well in large groups without extensive training. On the other hand, fair goblins were the opposite. They were dextrous, small creatures that worked in teams with surprising efficiency, but their strength was quite lacking compared to most creatures.

Furthermore, he was hoping to create long range unit from the kobolds, as well as new types of kobolds from the existing warrior and shaman types. The sheer diversity of these species meant that he needed a dynamic environment that allowed creatures to display their advantages respectively. Therein lied the key to his success.

Smit thus spent three days deliberating on the advantages and disadvantages of different layouts for his dungeon, scrapping idea after idea until the fourth day. On the fourth day he finally concluded that he could not just create a single floor to meet all these criteria. Instead, he would combine multiple floors together and link them as a single ‘map’ so to speak. With this in mind he changed his way of thinking entirely and began to plan from the start once again. Two days later, he finally created a floor design he was happy with.

The floor design was a full nine floors joined together that would create the deepest single ‘map’ in the dungeon to date. The plan was quite odd to say the least. It consisted of ‘floating islands’ that were joined to each other and to the walls of the chasm by bridges and columns. Thus, these ‘islands’ were not truly floating but rather they supported each other thanks to the complex network of bridges and columns composed of dungeon stone that he had reinforced through his mana. To do this, the islands could not be as thick as the floors he had created before, rather, the thinner they were the more easily the structure would be able to support its own weight. As such, none of the islands were to be thicker than three meters vertically, though their widths and lengths would vary greatly.

As a matter of fact, the deeper down the structure one delved, the smaller the islands would become and the longer the bridges separating them would be. Thus, it was a structure that provided lots of room for strategy and failure. From top to bottom, the structure would measure nearly a hundred meters in length once it was completed, easily making it one of the most dangerous maps by the simple virtue that falling off the edge of the islands or the bridges connecting them had a high chance of ending in death. This was not like any simple pitfalls or narrowing holes that could get covered by gravel if you slipped. This was a structure that would drop you at minimum six meters down to the next island or bridge if you were lucky, and at worst, it would let you free fall nearly a hundred meters down to the bottom of a rocky chasm if nothing interrupted your fall.

This was the ideal structure for his creations as it would allow creatures such as fair goblins and kobolds who were too weak to face any adventurer who had survived an encounter with Ziggurd or the petrified wood golems to attack from the distance or assist stronger creatures from a safe location. It also allowed strong creatures (such as golems or oni) that faired better in single combat or with less opponents to funnel their opponents through the use of the bridges to increase their chances of success. On top of that, large groups of adventurers that relied on numbers for successful tactics would be forced to into a situation where they could not utilize their normal tactics effectively, further increasing the survivability of his own creatures.

To make matters more complicated, the only way for anyone to progress deeper down the structure safely they would need find one of the few hollow pillars at each floor that would allow them to proceed safely down a flight a stairs to the island below them. Either that, or they would have to try to climb down while fending off his numerous creations. Either way, it was not an easy situation for anyone trying to proceed down the structure.

Satisfied with the rough design of his new floor levels, Smit smiled and nodded to himself. This would work. He could beautify and organize the islands as he wished, decorating and reshaping them to his will to create the perfect environment that suited his taste. It was a shame that he could not create true floating islands to make this design beautiful, but at the very least it would be an awe inspiring piece of architecture that would be only possible due to the strength of his reinforced dungeon stone.

Thus, Smit set himself to work diligently. First he carved out a massive chasm that reached a hundred meters in depth, storing the excess stone in his pocket dimension as always. The chasm was slightly conical in shape, starting with a surface area of forty-five square kilometers at the top, and reaching an impressive fifty-five square kilometers at the bottom. At the bottom of the chasm, he erected three large pillars that would help support the entire structure, while the rest of the bottom of the chasm was filled with large jagged rocks that would ensure that anyone falling would receive extreme amounts of damage, if not being killed outright.

Then he started to build upon these pillars, building outwards from them. As he started with the deepest floor first, some of the islands were no larger twenty square meters, scarcely large enough for having a proper camping site, let alone having a large scaled fight. The bridges on the other hand hanged from a mere dozen meters to nearly fifty meters distance, and since they were only wide enough to allow three men to walk side by side, it was clearly quite risky to fight on it.

Then he attached some islands to the walls of the chasm and allowed them to help support part of the weight of the structure, before moving up to work on the next floor. Each level went up he increased the size of the islands and connected them to each other with bridges, before connecting three of them to the islands below with hollow pillars. Again and again he repeated this process slowly, arranging the islands in very specific shapes and sizes as he moved up. Finally, the top floor consisted of only a dozen islands before he allowed himself to analyse his progress.

If one looked at it floor by floor, it looked like a story told by individual pictures. A story that told showed how the earth spilt apart and divided itself into smaller parts. Honestly, that in itself was beautiful, but it was far from enough for Smit. He then started to add the appropriate details and information to each part of his design. First, he worked on the top of the islands, where people would walk and fight. He carved gentle hills and valleys in the top floors, dotting them with real trees and bushes that would provide cover for his creatures. Then he started to work on one of the most complicated details of the entire floor: the waterfalls.

The waterfalls were an integral part of the floor, which would help define the entire atmosphere and difficulty of the floor. The waterfalls were meant to be rather small, and the water that flowed from each waterfall would flow in such a way that it would skip at least one floor on its way down before it reached landed upon a different floating island. In other words, each waterfall would at least be falling fifteen meters before coming into contact with another surface. The largest of these waterfalls was nearly a forty-meter drop, falling from the central island on the first floor all the way down an island on the fourth flour of his chasm.

To create such waterfalls, he had to be careful with their placement, ensuring that these waterfalls worked in such a way as to hinder the enemy while being beautiful in appearance. Each pool that gave rise to a waterfall was rather shallow, being no more than a meter in depth. Then, he would create a ‘chain’ of waterfalls, where the water from one waterfall would accumulate in a pool at a lower island, and then that pool would give rise to a separate waterfall. This patter would repeat itself over and over again until the water finally reached the bottom of the chasm, it would accumulate at the bottom of the chasm until the entire surface of the chasm was covered by a couple of centimeters of water.

Thus, when viewed from the top floors, one could appreciate what looked like a natural wonder as water flowed seemingly endlessly from island to island. However, the true beauty of the water became apparent in the bottom floors, when one could look up and witness the seemingly endless chain of waterfalls, decorated by the lush greenery of moss and trees around the waterfalls. Yet, this was not the end of the wonderous design created by smit. He took it even further, by ensuring that the system would forever main itself running thanks to water and wind spirits.

He created a cycle such that a constant amount of water would be evaporated from the bottom of the chasm and carried back up to the top of it, back into the first pools that fed the entire system. This ensured that the water constantly remained cleaned and cycling endlessly through the system, with the water and wind spirits regulating the total volume of water available at all times. Thus, the most beautiful and yet most deceivingly dangerous inanimate part of the system was set in place. While the waterfalls were indeed beautiful, they created a fine mist around them that ensured that any bridges they passed and any island they landed upon was covered permanently moist and slick.

Normally, this would be nothing more than an inconvenience that could be avoided by progressing I an slow and careful manner, but it became an entirely different matter when one was doing battle with monsters in narrow bridges and running in uneven platforms. All it would take was one misstep, one wrong dodge, or a small lapse in the focus of an adventurer, and they could slip of the edge of the floating islands down to their painful end at the bottom of the chasm. This was also much more likely to occur when being swatted aside by a powerful creature such as an oni or a petrified wood golem, as a single, well placed blow might send an adventurer sliding over the edge without a chance to retaliate.

On the bright side however, if they fell, they would have the absolute best view of one of his most beautiful creations.

Still not satisfied with his creation, smit continued to improve on his design. The next step was to provide the right lighting for his masterpiece, the problem lied in the architecture itself. If he had a singular source of light, then the islands would cast despairing shadows that would make it difficult to appreciate the entire grandeur of his masterpiece. He agonized over the best method of lighting for a whole day, simply playing with different types of light he could utilize to obtain the best possible solution. Finally, he decided on an unorthodox method of lighting.

He began by making ceiling of the chasm have a smooth, polished look as if it were polished porcelain, and he followed it up by summoning many spirits of light and attaching them to the ceiling. He continued to do so until it looked like the first floor of his islands were lit by the sun itself on a slightly cloudy day. Then he moved down below the floating islands, and below each of them he utilized his newest ability, or rather, his latest upgraded ability: ore creation.

Now that he had access to rarer ores, he rubbed his hands with a grin and stretched out his hands before him and carefully, slowly, he began to work. He wanted to give each island a natural look, but still he needed the ores to be placed right to refract the light in the right way. And so, from the bottom of each island, crystals began to grow. Different varieties of clear quartz began to grow out of each island separately, some of the crystals being as large as a child.

He decorated each individual island with one kind of such ore. White quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, onyx, agate, blue quartz, citrine, jasper, rose quartz, carnelian, chalcedony, and heliotrope were a few of the beautiful variants of quartz that he used to dress his islands, carefully locating them in the right direction to either diffract or redirect light. And every level he added a few more light spirits attached to the underside of the islands, but he added less and less the deeper down the chasm one went. Such that by the time one had reached the deepest part of it all, where the ninth layer of islands was to be found, if anyone was to look up it would seem like one was looking up at a tapestry of crystals at dusk, with the light reflecting off crystals under the soothing atmosphere of vegetation and waterfalls. The air would be fresh and alive with the gentle scent of nature, and the droplets of water off the waterfalls would create subtle rainbows if looked at just the right way, refracting light in a thousand wonderous directions. Add to that the effect of the gentle mist that rained down slowly from the upper floors and the effect was outstandingly beautiful.

Then Smit added the finishing touch: Decorating the walls of the chasm. With such a gorgeous atmosphere, the walls of the chasm were surprisingly bare. While that rugged look suited the area, smit only needed to add luscious beds of moss, trees that hanged off the walls, dripping rivulets of water, and a few vines here and there, dot a few outcrops of lovely quartz in a few locations and the transformation was complete. Now what used to be a slightly conical chasm of dreary death had been transformed into an outstanding image that seemed like it had come straight form another world.

Best of all, the deeper one delved, the more outstanding it was. Each layer one reached allowed for a new perspective, a new sight, a more wonderous view than the last. It was the most beautiful warzone that the world had ever seen, if Smit said so himself.

Now that the stage was set, Smit set himself to place his children in these islands of his. On the top floors where there was the most space, Kobolds and wolves were the dominant species, with a few oni scattered about along with some brute wooden golems and willow golems. Amongst the wolves, a new variant had appeared, the saber fang wolf, as a direct result of an evolution from his bloody evolution. They were somewhat larger than the average wolf, but their fangs were large enough to protrude from their upper lip, and their bite strength was twice greater than that of a regular wolf. Modified sparrows habituated the trees of the upper floors, and colorful fishes delved on the largest pools available on these floors.

The middle floors were dominated by hind bears, wild boars, and wolves, with a few colonies of fair goblins scattered about in the greenery to set up ambushes and support the few oni that had made their home near some of the bridges. Snakes made their reappearance in these middle levels, including a new variant: Giant Green Boa. This species was only available now that the only snake that survive Klax’s invasion had evolved into it. It was a superior species of snake that was about four meters in length, more than long enough to coil around a human from head to toe and strangle it to death with its powerful grip.

And finally, the lower floors were dominated by oni, hind bears, kobolds, and blue magpies. The magpies were aggressive birds when one approached their nests. With a wingspan of nearly a meter, and long beaks, they were swift aerial enemies that could surprise and knock down an enemy of the ledge of an island if they were careless. It was in these floors that the new species of Kobold would make their debut. The warrior kobolds had given rise to the champion kobold, who was more sturdy and as large a s normal man. Its ability with the spear was far greater than the standard kobold warrior. The shaman kobold on the other hand had given rise to the elementalist kobold, who specialized in elemental attacks of a single type. Most of Smit’s elementalist kobolds favoured the water attribute. And last but not least, the common kobolds sporting their crossbows were also present.

Moreover, a new type of hind bear had appeared here as well, the horned hind bear. Much like the name suggested, they were a higher species of bear above that of a common hind bear. They were physically about the same size and had the same physical strength of a normal hind bear, however, much like their name suggested, their head sported ram-like horns and they had a powerful charging ability that made full use of their thicker skull and ram like horns. Moreover, they had improved balance, giving them an edge in more precarious terrain such as the ones in the lower floors of his chasm.

Only once all of this was done did Smit finally stop and behold his entire creation with a wide smile on his face. While on the surface it looked much less dangerous than the Elusive forest, this was undoubtedly the most treacherous setting he had ever created, simply because the chance of survival if you happened to make a mistake was far lower than any other floor before it. The beauty of it all was that the entirety of the chasm was a trap onto itself. Smooth wet surfaces, treacherous narrow bridges without railings, monsters that were capable of tossing most adventurers aside with a well places swing, dangerous chasms that ended in deadly rocks, fair goblins that set their own traps independent of Smit’s placements… all in all, it was the most gorgeous death trap on the entire continent in all likelihood.

It was a sight that would be consider right out of a fairy tale, and the profit that could be made from just the magically charged gemstones was significant, if you could reach them of course. Not to mention that Smit had hidden three chests across the chasm, which could provide additional rewards, the danger was well worth risk. Smit would not say it out loud, but he was so proud of this work that he was certain that some people would be willing to pay top gold for the privilege of just witnessing his marvelous work from the last layer of the chasm.

Satisfied, Smit returned to the bottom of the chasm, between the three great hollow pillars that supported the entire structure. There, between those great pillars, Smit had set his core room temporarily, until he decided what to do with for what should have been his twentieth floor. Sighing with relief, Smit looked up one more time at his creation and smiled. It was perfect. And it had only taken him thirty-three days to create.

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