Hello everyone here is chapter 9! Can't believe it's 9 chapter already ^_^ I hope you are all enjoying the ride. We reaching the middle part of book 1!

*In Sage’s chamber after Jake and Ardryll entered the dungeon*

Sage and Alice watched as the scout duo easily cleared out the first and second rooms of the dungeon.

“This is so unfair, who sends rank C adventurers for a floor 1 dungeon scouting mission! This group is powerful enough to do a full dungeon evaluation run if they’re careful!” Alice had been grumbling this whole time.

“Is it really that bad?” Sage asked.

“Yes it is. Normal scouting parties for floor 1 is just a Rank F and G. Even dungeon evaluation missions normally only have a rank D in charge and yet here we have two rank C’s. And from the look of their age they aren’t some washed up adventurers who have hit their limit, they’re people who’ll move up to at least rank B or higher. How did we end up having these types of people already.” Alice complained.

Sage could only helplessly smile and say, “We can only see how it goes.”

They watched as the duo cleaned up the second room and proceed down the left tunnel.

“What? That mage is cheating! They can detect all the traps…” Alice cried out. She looked like she was about to start crying at any moment.

However when the duo got ambushed by the kobold Alice instantly cheered up and shouted, “That serves them right for cheating! How did the kobolds manage to sneak up on on them though?”

“That’s simple, I just taught them a technique that would help hide their presence. I figured since they like ambushing I’d teach them this technique but they’re very bad at it still. The only reason they managed to get close is because the mage is relying too much on the dungeon’s mana rather than her own. The monsters are made from this dungeon’s mana so it was much easier to hide from her. If it was someone who wasn’t relying on the dungeon’s mana then this technique would be quite useless until they reached a higher mastery of it.” Sage replied.

“Look Sage they are turning back! Oh Sage I’m so proud of you, a new dungeon was able to force two rank C adventurer to back off. We should put up a sign telling everyone!” Alice became so excited that she hugged Sage, or tried to hug sage but just kind of pressed herself against his crystal body.

They continued to watch as the duo returned to the second room and went down the tunnel to the right. There they watched the duo clear out the first and second wave of goblins. During the second wave Alice proudly said, “Hmph, so what if they are rank C adventurers. Look at how much they are struggled against our goblins. Hehe, Sage your training is really effective.”

“No they aren’t struggling against them at all.” Sage helplessly said, “That fighter is completely toying with them to test their abilities. He is very good to be able to notice the slight difference in strength of these goblins. Normally when someone is much stronger they don’t notice the difference between things weaker than they are.”

“Umm Sage, it might have to do with the fact that the goblins are fighting as a team.” Alice suddenly said.

“What?” Sage was confused.

“I mean the fact that the goblins are fighting as a group like this is probably what made that guy so careful. Normally goblins have too low intelligence to have that kind of team work without an elite goblin or goblin lord leading them.” Alice replied.

Sage was startled, he honestly didn’t think that these creatures were considered this dumb.

After the duo played around with the second group of goblins for a while they finished them off and continued to the 3rd room. However right as they got close to the 3rd room the elf stopped the fighter and they begin to whisper among themselves. Then to Alice’s dismay they turned around and left.

“Why did they leave? It was just going to get to the good part! There were kobolds waiting in ambush and the traps and then goblins archers... Arggg!” Alice screamed.

Sage however seem to be lost in his own thoughts as he recall what has happened and couldn’t help but mutter “I think there is a big problem with our dungeon…”

When Alice heard this she thought Sage was depressed at how easily everything was cleared so she quickly said “Oh Sage don’t be so sad. Honestly, you’ve done better than what most dungeons have done. Those were two rank C adventurers and could have easily cleared a newly born dungeon.”

“Huh? I’m not worried about those two clearing it too easily, I know they were way too strong for what we we had prepared. In fact if they weren’t so cautious they could have easily made it to the boss room. What I’m worried about is the huge flaw I noticed with our dungeon.” Sage answered.

“What flaw?” Now Alice was curious too.

“Our main goal is to attract as many people as possible to enter our dungeon so that we can absorb mana from them to evolve. The current dungeon isn’t fit for a lot of people to enter. At most we have two teams moving down the two paths and even then it’s not ideal as the two paths are more of a barrier to the boss so new adventurers don’t really stand a chance. When I built this I was too focused on preventing them from getting here that I forgot to make the dungeon more attractive for people to come in.” Sage explained.

“Hahahahaha! That’s what you are worried about?” Alice burst out laughing, “I thought it was something seriously wrong with the dungeon. Hahahahaha!”

Sage was getting used to Alice’s personality so he just patiently waiting for her to calm down and explain herself.

After a while Alice calmed herself down and said, “You’re thinking too far ahead silly. Remember that you’re a brand new dungeon and if anyone knew how little time it took you to build this big of an first floor they would all faint. Don’t worry too much about it. Once people start entering you’ll have more resources to expand the dungeon.”

“Still since I am capable I might as well fix this problem so we can have more people coming in.” Sage said. It has been a long time since he hit level 10 and have been unable to advance. Those two rank C adventurers gave him a lot of mana to help him level but they were only there for a very short period of time, “So what is going to happen next Alice?”

Alice thought for a bit and replied, “Since the scout team got here so quickly that means the city isn’t too far off. They’ll report their findings and the Adventurer’s Guild will announce them. Once that’s done we should start getting adventurers coming into the dungeon. Then once the team they called to evaluate the dungeon is here they’ll come and clear through the first floor. Depending on the rating they give, a settlement might be built near us.” What Alice didn’t expect is that before the dungeon evaluation went underway the settlement near them has already been confirmed.

“Even more reason to upgrade the dungeon then so we can get a better evaluation.” Sage quickly added.

“I suppose you can but like I said before what you have is already beyond what a dungeon normally would have. Besides we still got that skill book, with that even if the dungeon was just one room it will still be evaluated as a very important dungeon.” Alice replied while circling Sage.

Sage pondered for a bit and decided to expand the dungeon. He resummoned the monsters that were killed and began digging. His plan was to add some side rooms to the first two rooms for fresh adventurers or show who came in by themselves. He looped the tunnels a bit so that people would have to keep track of where they were or they might end up going in circles.

Next he planned to add rooms to the side of the two sections and in between them. The room in the middle can be accessed from both sides and allowed people to cross to the other section. Once all the changes were done the dungeon’s size would double!

As Sage started out the plans Alice quickly said “Hold on Sage, you can expand the dungeon now but don’t connect them yet or at least don’t connect the side rooms and tunnels to the first two rooms. Right now they’ve already mapped part of the dungeon and if you suddenly changed those areas it would cause too much attention.”

“What do you mean cause too much attention and isn’t that a good thing?” Sage asked.

“Attention that would draws adventurers to come to our dungeon is good but attention that would draw people to come study you is bad. You are a newly born dungeon that almost no one has been to yet. If you suddenly expand for no reason that would raise too many questions. Even though a dungeon’s resources are important, if they find out you can gather mana at this speed they will do whatever it takes to control you.” Alice expression became very serious. “It’s fine to add those rooms that are going to connect to places they haven’t mapped yet but for the other areas just don’t connect them.”

Sage was shocked by the information and felt very grateful for Alice. Although she can be a bit annoying at times Sage felt that she had always been looking out for him.

Time slowly passed and a week went by without anyone else entering the dungeon however Alice did sneak out and found that a fairly large camp was set up near the dungeon. That meant it was only a matter of time before people started to come and explore.

After a week, adventurers started to come in and, as Sage had worried due to the current structure of the cave, only one party was exploring the dungeon at a time. Alice snuck out and found that the Adventurer’s Guild had set up an office there and adventurers had to sign up to come inside. This was very common with newly born dungeons as they are simply too small to allow everyone to enter as they please. In order to get the most out of the dungeon the Adventurer’s Guild controlled entry until the dungeon had expanded enough.

Sage continued his expansion while re-summoning all the monsters that were wiped out at the end of the day. Soon another week had passed and Sage finished his expansion. After he finished he began to populate them with monsters and traps. He even attempted to create restrictions for more complicated forms of traps. However due to the fact he could only rely on his monsters to set them up, most of them ended in failure.

“Finally, a restriction simple enough for them to set up!” Sage shouted without realizing it.

“A what now?” Alice asked.

“It’s a trap that will trigger when someone walks on it and bind them to that spot for a certain period of time. Because the restriction setup is so crude it won’t take much force to break out of them but would still keep a rank C adventurer like the two scouts still for about 1 second.” Sage explained “Adding to that, I also created a few that will release a bright light to blind their vision.” Sage happily explained all the new addition he add to the dungeon.

“Sage this is all really nice and all but is there really a need for all of this? I mean they will definitely give us a better evaluation but considering the skill book these won’t matter too much.” Alice said.

“What do you mean?” Sage was startled at Alice’s words.

“Well as of now no one has made is this far and most likely will not make it this far until the dungeon evaluation party arrives and clears the dungeon. That means the first people that will come here are the dungeon evaluation party and it is their job to explore every part of the dungeon. With their strength they will easily clear out everything you have set up…” Alice begin talking softer and softer.

Sage fell silent, after a while he could help but let out a big sigh and said, “So I have just been preparing to be defeated?”

Edited by: mossclaw64

Edited by: The super secret and mysterious masked editor... from space!