Chapter 20

Warley groaned. He looked down at the letter again, seeing if it had maybe changed since the last time he read it. But no, it still remained a missive informing Warley of the impending visit to the dungeon by the King of Khal.

Of all the things a burgeoning town did not need, it did not need the intrigues surrounding the current monarch of Khal the most. Warley could not figure out why, on the eve of an Ilsanian invasion, the King had decided to come visit a dungeon on nearly the opposite side of the country from the border with Ilsan.

Even worse was who he was bringing. It seemed Duke Hallowedlash and his son, Anatole, would be returning to the dungeon. It was going to fall to him to inform Kiera. Sighing, he walked out of the guild hall and over to the tavern to see if Kiera's party was still there, or if they had left to dive in the dungeon.

Walking into the tavern, Warley nodded at the elven innkeeper. He still wasn't used to an intelligent, dungeon-created sentient. It was just strange.

So was the person sitting with Kiera. He must be someone new to the dungeon, as Warley would have remembered meeting someone this distinctive before.

Walking over, Warley greeted Kiera. Then he turned to Dorn, saying, “Hello, I'm Warley, head of Khal's adventuring guild. Are you new to the dungeon?”

“Yes, but I've heard a lot about it from Kiera. I'm Dorn,” he responded.

“Ah, so you're this mysterious benefactor who's been giving Kiera her fancy equipment and cultivation techniques. Pardon me for asking, but you have the presence of a high-rank chi cultivator, but I can't help but notice that you're only a C5 rank practitioner.”

Dorn replied, “That is correct. I was injured greatly in a battle a while ago, and recently lost most of my chi. I am quickly regaining strength, however. I am a wandering migrant from the Central Fantisan continent.”

“Oh, you've come a long ways to end up here in our little dungeon. Quite the coincidence.”

“By that logic, anywhere I go is a coincidence. And calling this a little dungeon is not exactly apt. Anyways, was there anything I can do to help you?”

Warley said, “Oh right, I almost forgot why I came over here in the first place. Kiera, I needed to tell you that the King is coming to visit the dungeon, and he's bringing Duke Hallowedlash and his son along with him. I thought you might want to take a trip to the Dry Canyon while they're here.”

Kiera looked annoyed all of a sudden. And Dorn looked pissed. That's strange, but I guess if he's her benefactor, she might have told him about the Earl.

“So I have to leave, just to make it more comfortable for that fucking Duke?” asked Kiera.

“I thought it would be more comfortable for you, not being around the Earl,” said Warley.

Dorn finally spoke, saying, “Come, Kiera, let's go to the canyon floor and just wait for the king and company to leave.” To Warley, he asked, “Do you know when the king is arriving and how long he'll be staying?”

“He'll be arriving in three days, and I have no idea how long he'll be staying. I'm sorry that there's nothing I can do. Stay safe,” said Warley, before turning and leaving the inn.

Returning to the adventurer's guild, he asked one of his spies to try to keep an eye on this Dorn. Warley didn't know how this benefactor fit into Kiera's secrets, but he knew Dorn played a part. Warley had never met anyone who had been injured seriously enough to lose cultivation levels who also happened to look completely fine, with no paralysis or disfigurement.

***

As Dorn and Kiera were walking towards the entrance to the dungeon proper, he started laughing.

Kiera said, “What's funny about this situation? I basically have to run away because of those noble assholes. Why are you laughing?”

Dorn said, “Oh no, I'm not laughing about that. I'm laughing at the B-ranked adventurer who's following us.”

“What?” Kiera asked, looking around.

“Clearly, Warley didn't completely believe our story, and he's sent someone to snoop around.”

“What a dick,” said Kiera.

“Indeed; anyways, don't worry about him; he'll be hopelessly confused when we disappear from all the floors that are currently accessible to adventurers.”

“Heh, okay, that is a little funny. Think he's going to go running around the canyon looking for us?”

“One can always hope,” replied Dorn

They stepped up to the teleportation glyph and thought, Floor 11. They showed up in the large meadow of the C-Housing floor. Wow, it's beautiful, thought Kiera. To Dorn, however, she said, “It's alright.”

“You know, I can hear your thoughts, right?” Dorn said with a smirk.

“Gah, stay out of my head you asshole,” said Kiera.

“Here, considering I'm your 'benefactor', let me teach you an exercise in Soul magic.”

Sitting down cross-legged in the meadow, Dorn looked up expectantly at Kiera. Kiera, looking doubtful, sat down and asked, “Why are you being so nice?”

“He's in loooove,” piped up an invisible Emelia.

Dorn waved his hand and smacked the pixie into view, who continued laughing in mid-air. Right, I'll believe that when my shit turns purple and smells like mana crystals. Gods, I need to thank Roderick for that turn of phrase. Meanwhile, Dorn said, “Just ignore the idiot pixie flying around. I'm being 'nice' because I want my minions to at least have a basic level of mental defenses, so they don't go spilling my secrets to the first Soul mage that shows up here.”

“Alright, fine, what's the exercise?” asked Kiera.

“Close your eyes,” said Dorn.

Kiera looked at him suspiciously, before closing her eyes. Then she began imagining things as Dorn spoke. Suddenly, Dorn's voice cut off, before he started coughing. He then said, “Well, that's some image of me you have in your head.”

Kiera was mortified, her cheeks blushing bright red. “Quick, teach me how to shield my thoughts,” said Kiera.

“Alright, imagine that your head is a hollow sphere. This shouldn't be too much of a stretch,” said Dorn with his usual smirk.

Ass, she thought at Dorn.

Becoming more serious, Dorn said, “Push all your thoughts, emotions, and senses inside this sphere. Outside the sphere, let there only be empty void, black like space. Now imagine lining the inner surface of this sphere with a thin layer of mithril. Use your Soul magic to apply this layer of mithril. Yes, use actual Soul magic. Good, now you may open your eyes.”

Kiera looked up, saying, “So, now my thoughts are shielded from you?”

“That's right; it's that simple. Well, at least, it's sort of simple,” Dorn equivocated.

“What do you mean?” Kiera asked.

“You are now shielded from the casual observation of Soul mages. However, if determined, a Soul mage could easily pierce your new mental shield. Like this.”

Kiera suddenly gave a cry. “There's a big hole in my new shield, you jerk.”

“Just patch it up with some more mithril. Now, I'm already gone, but if I were an evil Soul mage, I could have left behind instructions that you would be forced to carry out. This is known as domination. I could have also pillaged all your thoughts and memories. As I said, it's important for every mage to be able to protect their minds; you just happen to have an advantage in the form of a minor affinity for Soul magic. Furthermore, you must learn to keep this shield up all day, every day, even while you sleep. Especially while you sleep, for that is when you are most vulnerable to Soul magic. And you need to make the shield harder and more resilient, so that it's not so easy to pierce.”

Kiera groaned, saying, “That sounds difficult. And besides, you've had 3,000 years of experience in Soul magic, so of course you could pierce my shield.”

“Remember that I'm now a C5-ranked adventurer. Any novice Soul mage could breach your shield as easily as I did. No one said becoming a mage was easy. You do wish to get vengeance, correct? If you want to become strong enough to march into the heart of Ilsan and kill both your brother and the noble who tried to buy you, then you must become strong. If you wish to become rich, then you must become strong. No excuses, no whining, no quitting. You must practice diligently.”

“Yes, yes, I will, I promise.”

It was now Dorn's turn to look at her suspiciously. Then he shrugged his shoulders. It was her problem, not his. Standing up, Dorn said, “Let me show you my Colosseum.”

Standing up, Kiera gave a cheeky grin, saying, “Is that what they call it nowadays?”

Emelia burst out laughing while Dorn just sighed and shook his head back and forth, as if wondering why he was even bothering.

***

“It's certainly large,” said Kiera.

“That's what she said,” said Emelia.

Kiera and Emelia both laughed and high fived. Dorn just stared confused at them both. “Seriously, what does that mean, 'that's what she said'?”

Kiera just laughed harder, before saying, “No, I think it's funnier that you don't get it.”

Dorn just sighed and brought Kiera into the interior of the Colosseum, right in the middle of the stage. “What do you think? It'd be exciting to fight here, wouldn't it?” he asked.

“Depends. What's the reward for fighting? Also, who or what am I fighting?” asked Kiera.

“Good questions. I waffled back and forth between having sentients fight each other or just having sentients fight monsters. I decided to go with the latter; while encouraging people to kill each other would be immediately beneficial for me, it might lead to people hating me, instead of the mutually beneficial relationship we currently have. So, the way it will work is, a person or a party can sign up to compete in the arena. When a person or a party signs up to fight, they will have to make a choice: monster or devil. If they choose to fight a monster, and win, they will receive money as a reward. If they fight a devil, they will receive both money and something I am calling Devil Points.”

Kiera said, “Okay, two questions. How do you determine the strength of the monster each group will fight? And what are Devil Points?”

“I struggled with the first question before finding the answer. When each group signs up, they will choose a difficulty level, from one through three. One will be slightly below the person or party's strength and three will be slightly above. The payouts will leap precipitously at difficulty level three,” answered Dorn.

“So you're molding the monsters to the standards of each person or party? Isn't that difficult?” asked Kiera.

“Not really; if it's just a single person, I'll use chi level and gear as an indicator. As for groups, well, I have a pretty good eye for what a group can manage based on composition, chi levels, and gear. It's all stuff I've shunted over into my subconscious.”

“Okay, so explain Devil Points,” said Kiera.

“Ah, glad you asked,” said Dorn, before handing her a book.

“Seriously? It's this complicated?” asked Kiera.

“No, you dimwit, this is a list of how many points various monsters are worth, as well as the rewards that you can get with varying amounts of Devil Points, as well as explanations of said rewards,” Dorn said with some scorn.

Kiera feverishly opened the book, starting to look through the possible rewards.

“Holy shit,” she muttered upon seeing the first page.

Rewards

Chi Styles

Page 2

Martial Applications

Page 5

Affinity Applications

Page 10

Weapons

Page 15

Armor

Page 30

Accessories

Page 40

Enchanted Items

Page 50

Alchemy

Page 55

Resources

Page 60

Rules of the Colosseum

Page 75

Demons & Devils Glossary

Page 80

She feverishly turned through the first few pages, looking immediately at the bottom of the list. There it was, the unabridged version of Dragon Cultivation, an SS-ranked cultivation method costing…

“Is 1,000,000 Devil Points a lot?” asked Kiera.

“Heh, let's just say that you would have to kill 1,000,000 lesser imps. Or a single Prince of Hell.”

“Fuck. You made it too difficult,” Kiera whined and looked at him with puppy eyes.

“Yeah, you can whine all you want, I won't be giving you anything for free,” Dorn said with a stern face.

“Can I keep the book?” she asked.

“Of course; when I connect up this floor and the Colosseum, I will be dropping off hundreds of copies at the inns, so that every person can take one,” said Dorn.

“You're going to get a massive amount of traffic, especially on day one,” Kiera said.

“Yeah, it will be awesome. All the money I've made from the inns and all the money I'll make from charging admission to the Colosseum will determine the payouts to the champions who fight. Plus, I'll be setting up a large betting station, for people to waste even more money.”

“So, who are you putting in charge?” asked Kiera.

“Ah, your best question yet. Say hello to Jerry5,” said Dorn

An elf who looked identical to all the other Jerrys came out and said, “Hello miss.”

“Okay, it's kind of creepy that all your elf slaves look the same, and that they are all called Jerry,” said Kiera.

“Just a fun joke on my part. Anyways, now that you've seen everything, let's go look at the town,” Dorn said before teleporting them over to the human's village.

Dorn proceeded to lead her on a tour of the village. She was particularly excited when they arrived at the bath houses, demanding to use it immediately. Thirty minutes later, she came out shivering, asking why the water was so cold. Dorn just told her to wait for the B-level floors, when the baths would be heated. She looked angry, saying, “Put in a place where people can manually heat it.”

She looked so angry, that Dorn just gave into her demand, creating a place where wood could be burned to heat the baths. Other than that, she seemed to like the village a lot.

Dorn said, “Okay, I'm going to connect the boss floor, the C-Housing, and the C-Mining floors now. Go collect your team and pretend to go through the boss floor for the first time.”

He escorted Kiera back to the teleportation glyph, sending her on her way. He then turned around, talking to Emelia, saying, “Alright, it's time to implement the plan I had for the first of my C-ranked floors so long ago.”

***

“Finally, we're here,” said Jeromy. “And why does it look like the first floor of the dungeon proper again? I swear, this dungeon is bipolar.”

Thalia was busy reading the rules, of course. She said, “Hey guys, look at this stele. The rules here are pretty strict.”

“Yeah, yeah, no enchantments, no alchemy, and you can forfeit five times. Seems simple enough to me,” said Vossan.

“That's because you have a simple mind, sir Dwarf,” Thalia responded.

“Thanks,” said Vossan.

Jeromy bumped his elbow into Vossan, saying, “Hey, that wasn't a compliment.”

Vossan then scowled. He headed over to the 'tank' door and walked through.

Thalia said, “I suggest we all do as the dwarf has done, and take our own respective tests.”

Stepping through, Kiera ended up at the second entrance teleportation glyph, the one right before the boss room. Damn, I was hoping he would let me go through that part twice, since he's letting me come to this floor at all.

“I already gave you the standard healer's outfit to sell,” said Dorn.

I thought you couldn't hear my thoughts if I didn't project them towards you.

“I didn't hear your thoughts; I just read your face,” he said.

Ignoring Dorn, she just waited quietly until Vossan came out. He was decked in new gear.

“Check out my awesome new armor,” said Vossan.

Kiera made proper amazed sounds, boosting Vossan's pride. A minute later, both Jeromy and Thalia made it through.

“Well, that wasn't very difficult. A bit skimpy on the rewards though,” Jeromy said.

“That's because you're a B-ranked adventurer, you idiot,” Kiera said.

“Oh well, let's just go take care of the second half of the floor. I wonder what monster we'll be facing.”

“I bet it's kobolds,” Kiera muttered.

***

Standing over the dead kobolds, Jeromy said, “Well, your guess was right, Kiera. What made you think kobolds? I would have guessed goblins, due to the ninth floor.”

Panicking slightly, Kiera said, “Oh it was just that odd kobold in the jungle floor that seemed so out of place. Made me think that more might be coming later.”

They then checked the treasure chest, finding a weapon for each of them. Vossan and Thalia were happy with their shield and bow, respectively. Jeromy already had better daggers than what he received, and Kiera preferred her mana battery staff over the new healing staff she received (it would slightly increase the potency of her heals). She already had a cloak which gave the same function. Both Jeromy and Kiera decided to just sell all their new equipment the next time they were in D-Housing.

“Alright guys, let's go check out the C-Housing floor. Should be a step nicer than D-Housing. At least there will be fewer D-ranked adventurers getting under foot there,” said Jeromy.

Thalia rolled her eyes, saying, “There won't be any D-ranked adventurers on the floor, ever.”

Thinking about the children running around on the D-Housing floor, Kiera said, “I wonder what the policy is for children being able to live with their parents?”

Dorn suddenly spoke in her head, “Children under eighteen can live with their parents on whatever floor. After their 18th birthday, however, they are ejected back to D-Housing and must work their way down.”

Thalia said, “That's a good question. Maybe families with children will simply have to live on the D-Housing floor, even though they are qualified to live on the nicer floors.”

Kiera, not knowing how to 'guess' what the answer really was, just said, “Uh huh, that makes sense. Anyways, let's go see what the housing floor looks like.”

Vossan said, “Screw that, I'm going straight to the mining floor. I'll meet you guys later in the inn, if there is one.”

He then teleported off without saying goodbye, with that same manic look in his eye.

Rolling his eyes at Vossan's antics, Jeromy said, “Alright, let's go see what's in store for us.”

They stepped into the teleportation glyph, thinking floor eleven, before a flash of white light surrounded them.