Hello everyone here is chapter 20. Got someone who sent me an picture of dungeon crystal. Feel free to sent me these as I'll post one in each chapter (assuming I get any =P) unless i feel like they can be used in the story down the line which then I'll hold it until then. If you do sent me anything just give me a name to credit and link if you want me to link to your site/page or something. FYI I haven't really decided on what Sage's Dungeon core looks like so if anyone want to draw it just do what you think looks nice might be the one i decide to use =P

By: Waffie

Also 2 spot away from top 5 weekly ^_^ The dream!

It now was already the night of the second day since the girls left and they have yet to return. Sage was getting increasingly worried by the minute as following their original plan they would have registered on the day they arrived and at the latest returned by noon of the next day. However now it was already night and they still hadn’t come back yet.

“Could they have been caught by those people chasing Sigrid? No that shouldn’t be possible with the concealing technique. Maybe someone wanted to kidnap Alice and attacked them? No with Sigrid’s current strength it shouldn’t be too much of a problem.” These kinds of thoughts filled Sage’s head and for the entire day he did nothing but think about this.

Finally when he was reaching his limit he suddenly felt something hit his crystal body and was startled. He quickly looked around to find the mimic slime hitting him as if it was slapping him away. Sage was confused for a bit and then suddenly realized something and laughed bitterly .

“It has been a long time since I cared about anyone that I almost lost myself again. I should believe in them a bit more, after all Sigrid was personally trained by me.” With that thought in mind Sage calmed down a lot and once again he entered a state of enlightenment. He was once again able to fully observe himself and ignore everything else that is going on outside.

First his soul had recovered a lot compared to before but compared to his original form he was still far away. Second he began to calmly assess the current situation. The chance of Sigrid’s pursuers finding her was very low due to the concealing technique she learned and because she was also hiding her power by focusing on water magic the chance is even lower. Even if she was found with the restriction tokens Sage gave her she should be able to at least escape back here considering how close the city was to here. If it’s not her pursuers than the chances of any random encounter being dangerous for them was even lower as the area was crowded with adventurers and guards due to the dungeon so she should be safe. So if it’s not anyone attacking them then it is most likely an issue with the Adventurer’s Guild due to her background which was something they had expected. They may have had extra requirements Sigrid had to fulfill in order to get registered as an adventurer so he should give them a few days.

After thinking about that clearly he was able to finally put that worry down for now. Next he decided to focus his attention on teaching the Goblin Shamans Alchemy as right now the method of learning was a bit too dangerous. He began to recall all the alchemy books he had read and fused it with all the practical experience he had himself. Then he factored the Goblin Shaman’s capability and limitation and slowly without him knowing a book formed before him. After being in the enlightened state for the entire night he finally regained his senses and noticed a book before him.

He was every excited when he looked at the book because this was a skill book he created by using all his knowledge and then factoring in the limitations of the learner. He had no idea that the skill book creation skill he had was this amazing. Not only did it allow him to create a skill book of things he already knew but allowed him to adjust, mix, and fine tune the skill book to match the user. However he also knew that the current him was far too lacking in his mana control to be able to do it willingly. Only when he reached that enlightened state could he achieve something like this which was why he decided to use this chance on alchemy so that he could recover faster.

He quickly created more skill books for each of the 10 Goblin Shamans and as he expected they were able to learn it. Then he focused the rest of his day on teaching the Goblin Shamans as they practiced and only splitting his focus to judge a trial room or respawn some monsters. And by the end of the day Sage was very happy with the results, none of the Goblin Shamans caused an explosion that killed themselves.

On the 5th day after Alice and Sigrid left Sage just happened to be looking around the dungeon and heard the adventurers talking about something interesting.

“Man did you guys see that rookie in basic training? She was so beautiful just like a princess.”

“She probably is the daughter of some rich and powerful family. Did you see what she had on her shoulder? A Fairy! She has a fairy for a pet, only a rich and powerful family can afford that.”

“No way! Now I wish I had stayed until the last day of basic training to see her fight against the vice guild master!”

“I do too but I already accepted the request so I had to come here to finish it in time.”

“Don’t worry too much about it guys, I was in the Guild hall when she came to register. I heard she wanted to come to this dungeon which is why she signed up as an adventurer. Once basic training is done in 4 days she will be on her way here.”

“I wonder why such a pretty girl want to come to a dungeon…”

“She probably had some disagreement with her family so she ran away and became an adventurer for fun after hearing about the new dungeon. Well this gives us a chance to get close by offering our service as guides. Hehehe.”

“You idiot! You think you got a chance to be on the same team as her? All the top teams here will probably want to invite her once she arrives. And ignoring her looks she is also a water mage who can heal, who doesn’t want that on their team? I also seen her skills and she good enough to be rank F so some of the rank D teams might even offer her a spot.”

“Man why you gotta ruin a man’s dream?”

“Forget your stupid dreams and focus on the mission! We’re still in a dungeon you know.”

Sage immediately found weights gone from his heart. Even though he was able to calm himself down the lack of news from Sigrid and Alice has weighted heavily on his heart but now that he knows what was going on and roughly knows when they will be back he felt at ease. However he didn’t like how one of the adventurers were having ideas on Sigrid and decided to make that team’s time inside the dungeon fairly miserable.

However after doing so he was suddenly shocked at his own actions. Why did he act so childishly? Those thoughts were fairly common among men when they talk about a beautiful woman and since they haven’t acted why did he felt the urge to punish them? This feeling Sage is feeling right now is so strange and foreign to him.

“Maybe this is just another side effect of the damage to my soul….”

He quickly forgot about his own childish actions and went back to work on expanding floor 3 and teaching the Goblin Shamans. By the time the week was over the first batch of pills the Goblin Shaman had been making was done. This was supposed to be some basic qi recovery pill, well, mana recover pill now in this world but something odd happened. The Goblin Shamans in the end weren’t skilled enough to make the medication into pills but instead created some sort of alcohol instead. This puzzled Sage greatly as he has had alcohol with special properties like recovery or even increase in cultivation but those were only made by cultivators who truly enjoys alcohol.

However for some odd reason because the Goblin Shaman failed to condense the medication into a pill the failed condensing process ended up fermenting the brew into alcohol. Curious Sage had the different monsters of his dungeon test this alcohol and the result was surprising. The effect was twice as strong as a normal basic qi/mana recovery pill but if you have a low mana pool you are also more likely to get drunk. The goblins and kobolds were completely drunk after a small sip while the elites were only a bit tipsy after one small cup. The orcs and the elementary white tigers could hold a few cups before becoming drunk while the Kobold Lord could drink a whole jug without even feeling it.

The Kobold Lord had probably grown the most aside from Sigrid in his dungeon. It right now was reaching the peak of mid tier rank D and inching toward high tier rank D. Sage decided that since the Kobold Lord was still the only dungeon boss he could show right now that he equipped the Kobold Lord with two gourds of this Mana Ale allowing the Kobold Lord to recover during a fight.

This was the first type of mana recovery consumable he has made and he knew that in order to train a batch of powerful disciples they would need a lot of resources. He quickly increased the production to 20 Goblin Shaman so there could be a steady supply of this Mana Ale to help his elite troops get stronger. He also decided to release 5 medium jug of this Mana Ale per day as drop in his dungeon. Soon the first adventurers got hold of a jug of this Mana Ale…

*The City of Dawn, morning of the first day of basic training*

Alice and Sigrid got up early the next day to head over the Adventurer’s Guild for basic training. As for the talk the night before there wasn’t much to say. Sigrid was raised by her mother and then she disappeared more than 10 years ago telling her that she couldn’t leave the snowy mountain until she was rank S. Not much details to go upon as her mother didn’t say much to her. Also her mother was also an Ice Maiden while Dawn was known as a light mage so there was also a chance they just looked very similar. In the end nothing came of it and Alice didn’t pursue the matter any further.

After a hearty breakfast at the Fairy Roost Inn before heading out to the Adventurer’s Guild. Sigrid had now changed to simpler cloth compared to the blue dress she wore before to attract less attention but even so there were a lot of heads turning. They waited in the lobby for half an hour before everyone arrived and the vice guild master came out.

The vice guild master was a tough yet beautiful looking woman in her early 30s. She would be very pretty if it wasn’t for the frown that’s on her face.

“Alright trainees, my name is Shannon but you will all call me teacher! Today you will begin basic training to become an adventurer. I know many of you think you know what it means to be an adventurer but I’ll tell you now you don’t!.” She suddenly released her aura and everyone is being crushed under her power “All of you will listen to exactly what I say for the next 7 days and on the final day I’ll rank you all on your performance. Does everyone here understand?”

“Yes Ma’am!”

Only few people along with Sigrid out of this group of roughy 40 people weren’t completely suppressed by Shannon’s aura. For Sigrid it wasn’t a big deal, afterall she herself used to be rank A as well so even though she currently only has the power of a mid tier rank D she wasn’t going to get shocked by the aura of a high tier rank A. The vice guild leader also let out a quick but faint smile when she notice the 3 people who were able to withstand her aura. However that was quickly replaced by shock as she notice Sigrid who wasn’t even affected at all, it was as if this girl wasn’t in her aura range.

“Not bad, it seems like there are indeed some good seeds this time. Max you old bastard, you owe me for making me do your hobby as a job.” With those thoughts in mind she withdrew her aura and lead the group into one of the large training halls of the Adventurer’s Guild.

“Ok we’ll start with some general information about being an adventurer. You all have registered as an adventurer of the Adventurer’s Guild, this gives you access to the guild’s resources but in return you are to fulfill requests given by the Adventurer’s Guild. For Adventurers at rank G you must complete at least 1 request a week or your status as a member will be evoked and can’t rejoin for half a year. Rank F adventurers also have to complete at least 1 request a week or else they will be demoted to rnake G. Rank D and C adventurers need to complete a request of at least difficulty D or higher every month or they will be demoted as well. Rank B adventurers must complete at least 1 rank B requests every year or they will be demoted. Once you have reached Rank A or above you won’t have to complete any requests to maintain your rank but should any disaster happens the guild has the right to conscript you to help. Once you have helped once the guild can’t force you to help again for 10 years.” The crowd of trainees all keenly listened to Vice Guild Leader Shannon’s speech. Sigrid was paying extra attention as this was the main purpose of her mission.

“Now in order to raise up in rank you must complete requests posted by the guild or obtain some sort of achievement. A good example would be discovering something new in a dungeon and be the first to reported back to the Adventurer’s Guild. Each request you take will be worth certain amount of points and once you have enough you may request for a promotion exam. The lower level promotion exam only requires you to fight a trainer but for rank B and higher you will be ask to complete mission along with being tested by us. And for those of your dreaming of rank S or higher well let’s just say even if you complete requests for 1000 years you still won’t be a rank S.”

Hearing this a lot of people such in a deep breezed and began to talk among each other. Shannon let the chatter go for a bit before releasing her aura to shut everyone up. “You all can worry about rank S once you manage to reach rank A. Now the basic training will include a test of your strength to see if you are even worthy of a rank G adventurer. Then you will be taught basic skills to survive in the wild. Followed by dungeon exploration guides and practice on how to work with people you have just met. The final day of basic training each of you will fight me with all you got. Your performance may allow you to skip ranks but be warned I’m very picky. Alright everyone break up into 4 groups of 10 and follow one of these 4 trainers here.”

With that everyone’s attention turned to the 4 people that had entered the training ground while most of them were focused on the lesson. Everyone quickly broke up into 4 groups and went to different training halls. Nothing too interesting happened after that as Sigrid breathed through all the training. This training was mainly used to get brand new adventurer up to speed as quickly as possible but was completely useless for someone like Sigrid. However due to the circumstances she had to do this but she enjoyed herself as she learned a lot of things she never had before and got to interact with a lot more people.

Soon 6 days of basic training passed. The entire city is excited as they knew that tomorrow there will be a show at the Adventurer’s Guild. Tomorrow will the last day of this basic training session meaning that today the rookies will be fighting the Vice Guild Master. Everyone in the city had turned this into some sort of event and there were even illegal betting rings to bet on how far each trainee made it. Currently there are 3 other crowd favorites beside Sigrid who were all able to withstand the Vice Guild Master’s aura. But none of those three can compare to Sigrid in terms of popularity that had been nicknamed The Jade Water Fairy.

Sigrid had a pretty easy time and wasn’t really nervous for the battle exam tomorrow at all. She and Alice enjoyed a nice dinner at the Fairy Roost Inn as they planned to head back right as the battle exam was over because they didn’t want to worry Sage too much.

Soon the final day of basic training arrived...

Edited by: Nova