Grant PoV

What a horrible day. Today is probably the day Kelion falls.

After the dungeon vanished we sent out many investigators but none could find any trace of it in the last month.

Because of this the nobles who hated me since I kept them from expanding their workings with the crime lord spoke lies to the king and a finally he succumbed. He fired me from my position with several of the higher members who had similar morals that I had. We were replaced with some men the nobles suggested.

Because of that more of the younger guards quit since they only see him as a fraud.

As I clean out my office of personal objects I find my father's heirloom sword. It was a strange sword he got when he was an adventurer in his youth. The sword was a masterpiece from the eastern lands of the continent.

The reason it's strange was because the sword was thin with a single cutting edge. It was about the length of my arm, very light and the strangest feature; it had a strange curve the further it went up.

When I inherited this I tried using it but it's a really complex sword to use. Father told me that those in the eastern kingdoms train nearly twenty years to use this. With the sword my father gained a scroll with the forms to use this sword. The scroll was with the blade.

I open the scroll and stare at the forms. It was like a picture book showing each movement. As I imagine the form, I see it's a rather elegant form which relies on speed and skill over strength which we use.

I look at the blade then at the belt where my blade used to rest. It was a standard guard’s long sword I would use with a shield.

I was already in regular leather armor I got. It was like a new guard’s armor. The men at the stock didn't want me leaving unarmed so he gave me the leather gear but my sword i needed to leave as well.

I am thankful to him since I don't know how I would start out. I am old already and besides being a trainer I don't know what to do.

I hear the door open and see Julius in simple leather armor different from the studded leather gear he normally had.

Julius: 'Are you leaving sir?'

Grant: 'I was fired so yes.'

Julius: 'May I come with you sir?'

Grant: 'What can this old man do for a kid like you?'

Julius: 'Finish my training you began.'

I stare at the determined boy who reminded me of myself in my youth. This boy would undoubtedly hurt himself if left alone.

Grant: 'I have no job so I would need to charge.'

Julius: 'Let’s just make an adventurers party. We can make money of dungeon diving and requests.'

Grant: Smart little brat huh. He must have thought up several alternatives like mercenary or vigilante. 'And do you think these old bones can handle adventuring?' Let’s see how he reacts.

Julius: 'Honestly. I would grade the commander as a B rank but taking age and into consideration the guild might start you off as C rank and test the waters.'

I just stare at him with a blank expression. He was really smart for his young age. He already understands some of the basic workings of the adventurer’s guild. I can't really deny him that the plan works well.

I start laughing after a little while then look at the boy grinning.

Grant: ‘Fine, let’s go join the adventurer’s guild. It will give me a good reason and a good place to learn these sword arts my father left behind.’

The boy looked at the sword and slightly tilted his head seeing the strange sword.

Julius: ‘Strange sword. Is it useful? It looks weak.’

Grant: ‘Well i have long since had it appraised and it's a sword made specifically for slashing but it can do piercing. It’s a sword made for the highest noble warriors of the eastern kingdoms. My father got it when he was young.’

Julius: ‘Wow! He must have been one impressive swordsman to get the sword of the best warrior's.’

Grant: ‘Nah, compared to skill the warriors were better but my father was a speed fighter who used duel swords and trained under Philip Shin, the first guild master of the dungeon research guild.’

Julius: ‘Hmm...Your life is pretty mixed up with that guild huh.’

Grant: ‘I guess. My father asked not to join, though i never did want to anyway. They focus on dungeon diving for research and not adventure like i wanted to but i ended up becoming a warrior and guard. Well shall we go. Not much here that was personal anyway. Still it’s good to at least have a quality sword.’

I put the sword in the sword belt and grab the bag i had with my things.

We leave the barracks and i was shocked to find all the guards in front of the building. Once they saw me they all saluted.

Guard: ‘SIR! WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE AND WE WILL NEVER FORGET WHAT WE LEARNED! ISN’T THAT RIGHT BOYS!’

All: ‘SIR YES SIR!’

I grin seeing all the men i drilled hard. Many have whined about the pain and exhausting but because of it they are able to fight against the hardened criminals of this city. I walk up to the highest ranking officer that remained that i knew. I shake his hand and pull him close.

Grant: ”Don’t let this city fall completely. But if it does don’t leave your friends behind. Leave the city with family and the guards that you trust. Live a better life.”

Man: ‘Yes sir!’

I tap him on the shoulder. The man had bloodshot eyes from holding the tears in. The men had become family with all the training. By sharing life and death moments we built a bond so to leave like this was probably hard.

We leave with the men standing and saluting but some already had tears falling for losing their commander. I’m sure those bastards that got in through the nobles help will have hell to pay for taking me out.

Because of this reason i leave with a smile and with Julius behind me with simple leather armor and a short sword at the ready.

We head to the adventurers guild which was a three story building. The first floor had stone walls on the outside but the other two floors were wood and each was smaller than the one below as the uses became more exclusive.

The commotion of us leaving was left behind at the barracks. So when we arrived it was calm.

The coming and going of adventurers was slower than normal.

We both enter the building.

Most guild houses are all built the same. The first floor is built like a tavern and has a bar like feel. Near the stairs is the counter where both orders are asked as well as being the guild register.

A cute young girl who looks to be in her early teens was the attendant. With her hair tied in a ponytail she and another young boy took the orders.

We walked up and waited our turn. After a while and attracting quite a bit of attention since i was the guard commander for so long, our turn came up.

Girl: 'Is there something you need Commander Grant.'

Grant: 'Not commander miss. I was fired so now i want to register as an adventurer with my apprentice.'

I pat Julius and draw her attention to the boy. She nods and then goes about getting several things. First was a registration documents we needed to sign and write our information like age, name and other basic information’s.

When done she put it under a magic item. It began to glow and the documents vanished and were replaced by a small iron plate.

Girl: 'Just place a small drop of blood on the back and the guild card will register you. I'm sure you know guild color ranking right?'

Grant: 'Yes. From F to S, Violet, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red and Black.'

The girl nodded and produced a small dagger so we can extract some blood.

I poke myself first and drip the blood on the plate. It glowed bright and then stopped. The color stabilized at Yellow which was B rank. I was quite surprised i was graded directly to B rank.

Julius went next and poked his finger. When the blood hit the guild card it began glowing. When it stopped glowing, it was blue which was E rank. I was expecting it. E rank is above the strength of a regular commoner but still in training.

Girl: 'Well with that the registration is done. Do you know what you will be doing now?'

Grant: 'I was thinking of taking some requests to make money and get some equipment.'

Girl: 'Well the town itself doesn't have much since there are regular subjections around here so unless you want to travel a lot then you won't find work. Many of the adventurers left for the frontier because of that.'

Julius: 'Oh i heard about it. The Port town Nepot right. They say the goblin dungeon that the village was surviving from suddenly underwent a change and it’s like a totally new dungeon with much more besides goblin based monsters.'

Grant: 'What kind of monsters exactly?'

Girl: 'goblin, Wild cats, aggressive rats are some of the first floor monsters. Seven color bat, vampire bat, devil hounds, gremlin are some of the second floor. Third and fourth floor have troll, gargoyles and some others i don't remember.'

Grant: 'Shouldn't a dungeon like that be conquered quickly?'

Girl: 'I said the same thing but it seems this dungeon is different somehow. The guild is sending some members out there to build a branch and figure out the difference because to enter you need to pay in magic power and have a strange seal put on your body. They say you are teleported out of the dungeon if you are about to die because of that seal that is what the villagers who enter say.'

I quickly felt something from this. The faces of the entire Dungeon Research Guild appear in my head.

Grant: 'Thank You miss. Come Julius, we are going to Nepot it seems the best place to be right now.'

Girl: 'Oh sir. There is a ship with our guild members going there leaving Oreana if you go there and offer yourself as a bodyguard I'm sure you can get on easily.'

(A.N. Yes people i was too lazy to think of a better name. Why bother when i already have a few in D&A ready)

I nod and thank the girl. I quickly go to some stores and buy supplies and head to the port town to catch the boat.

Mavis PoV

The sixth floor is coming along nicely. After i finished setting up the entire place, also took the time to add several small openings for tiny ponds in the corridor and make some small streams which helped make the floor more humid and jungle like.

I began releasing animals. Just normal animals for now. Bug eats, aggressive rats, rabbits, wild cats, normal tigers, normal bears and so on. It was to set up the food chain really and to make a good number of the weaker creatures.

I gave them a day. While we waited for the population to raise i had Dalson take a few bugs we acquired from natural birth inside and those gained from outside and make monsters. Spiders were one of them and we began with a tier 1 monster spider. Like those found outside it was called a Death spider.

During its making we added a unique feature to them which allowed for several growth patterns. Namely when the infants become the big spider it would be able to gain one of several possible features. The main one was to turn the front two legs into some kind of weapon or they spit poison or acid depending on the type.

The death spider itself actually had enhanced intelligence that let it command the other spiders like pawns. The death spider also is the one that can produce spider web with the most precision as well as being able to make several types. They range from thin nearly invisible silk thread to thin but robust thread that can cut like deep wounds.

It was a really scary opponent to fight if you didn't know it’s there.

The other kind of but we made was called a Cave Mantis. Ever seen a praying mantis, now imagine that at the size of 120 cm tall with two long scythe like blades on their arms. These aren't really strong but they are quick. Now to overdo things we went ahead and wasn't MP that we had plenty of since we kept taking every day from the slaves.

What we made were named Blade Mantis. These were MUCH more dangerous to then the cave mantis. They are 160 cm tall and look just like the cave mantis but the blades on their arms haves a better cutting edge.

The two races of bugs are quite scary since they have a huge birthrate. Luckily the rats took a liking to them because it’s them who keep swarming them and killing them to keep the population down.

Oh that’s right dad was given a rat man body. Unsurprisingly he was a variant. The difference was rather subtle but enough to make a huge difference as a race.

One he was taller than what i was when i was a feral rat man. Two his face isn't completely a rats head instead it looked like a cross with the extended mouth being pulled back more towards human and his postures was straighter than my hunched back form but the fur was still white but not silver. The difference was a subtle shine off the fur making it sliver.

His muscles were extremely dense and he gained the berserk mode i have. I think it might be something most monsters above tier 4 have.

Then again that might not be right since Milliana, the humans and the elves don't have it. The beast men have something called a frenzy but i never saw it happen before. Not yet at least.

Three days after i first started to populate the sixth floor Rey came to me. He spoke with everyone in the guild and everyone agreed to add the core. They also want me to move the base and connect it to the human village.

We added the base to the village and they moved in.

The humans now weren't so different to how they were before. Though obviously they gained more muscle depending on the MP each had at the time.

What changed was that some strange tattoos appeared on their bodies. It’s not large, mostly on the hands. They are random and change in shape and form from one person to another.

I didn't know what it was until i identified the humans.

They started evolving and that was the first signs. The tattoos are like a physical representation of their magic power channel. As the amount and quality grows the more the tattoos would grow.

Elves shockingly gained physical strength which isn't common to the race. They also gained a lot of darkness affinity which isn't natural for the race.

Now the last thing that changed in these last few days was Dalson’s unhealthy attachment to the slimes. He gathered them and bred them. Slimes are a strange creature in that i don’t even need to create new forms for something new to appear. The reason is because of the description of the slime itself.

Slime

A large amoeba that has grown into a small blob. These creatures can be found anywhere and are considered the most adaptive creature in the world as they can be found in EVERY place all over the world.

Hidden dungeon reference

Inside a dungeon they are the only creature you will never need to create new species because they will naturally adapt to all terrains and situations. Given the massive adaptability they don’t need to be altered but still can be to obtain unique forms and abilities.

It’s because of this description that Dalson has been actively breeding new. He found out their forms depend on their diet. The slimes also have their likes and dislikes amongst themselves so he just let them eat and came to have several species some of which i couldn’t help sigh at and laugh soon after. The types are…

Poison Slime

Acid Slime

Poo slime (yes these are the crap eaters)

Herbal Slime (walking potion)

Water Slime

Rock Slime

Ok then now first off i will start with the two at the bottom. They were naturally born i the dungeon. The Rock slime appeared when one of the slimes i let loose in the upper five floors started to munch on rocks. Soon after the minerals started to build up and it ended up turning into a rock slime. Strangely it’s still soft like a slime but it has the ability to harden itself like a rock to hide. Considering the advantages this held breeding these for ambush was more the worth it.

The water ones appeared both in the fourth floor and sixth floor near the water sources present there. The slimes that became water slimes actually fell into the water and survived long enough to get out of the water. After that they could more easily move around in the water without dissolving for a short period of time. Soon after they evolved and became like a small perfectly circular bubble of water.

Still these guys are surprisingly dangerous. They have a knack for finding the few sources of precious metals in the dirt and dig it out and soon they built a small metal core next to their nucleus and through that metal magic power gathered inside. It gave them magic power to use magic with and they started to use basic level water magic. To what i know it’s called water blade where they shoot out a high speed bullet of water or a slashing blade. It’s unusually strange and the ones on the sixth floor seem to be stronger since the magic power is more concentrated there.

Next the Poo slime appeared in all the floors because of the obvious large amount of crap that isn’t collected by dung beetles and those creatures. Besides that they also eat a lot of any kind of trash and waste left behind like leaves and drops that aren’t picked up. These have a huge split rat but they are also docile not attacking any living beings.

Acid and Poison slimes appeared by eating bugs that held the respective substance and are the main combat slimes we have.

I say combat but then again what kind of Ruin floor wouldn’t have its good traps right. I filled made my first traps, which were simple pits with sockets where the slimes hid their nucleus and had the acid slimes fill the pit to a certain point and stay there. The poison slimes were put in front of an arrow trap that was on the wall. Like the acid slimes the nucleus stayed in a socket below them safe from danger while the arrows rapidly shot through their bodies getting covered in poison.

The last one was something Dalson made for the intelligent species. He found several slimes that liked plants and began feeding them several types of herbs. Some herbs paralyze but if he fed them with a herb that healed the slime would soon become a herbal slime that ate healing and paralyzing potions. The most interesting part about these slimes was that if you ordered them to, they would squeeze out 80% of their juices and then go drink water to regain that weight before going off to find herbs to eat. The slime juice was a heavily concentrated potion of whatever type of herbs they ate. These slimes were about 30 cm in diameter and when they squeezed out their juices they would produce a small cook pot full of potion. When diluted you could easily fill 60 bottles of high quality potions that could heal even the deadliest of the death spider poisons which was quite impressive to say the least.

Because of this little guy the slimes were accepted openly.

Later on i want to drop these guys inside a lava pit and wait for a lava slime to come out. Something like that would make a really strong slime.

Anyway the last thing that was done before i rested up and let the sixth floor grow was add mineral ores. Iron, copper and tin to be more specific. The reason was that the intelligent races would need these metals because the danger of the dungeon was getting large. I told everyone about it and i dropped several iron pickaxes for all the races and led each of them to the closest vein inside the labyrinth surrounding the great forest.

They started mining and returning with stone, copper, iron and tin. The blacksmith hobgoblin was already an ogre but he turned into a variant which caused him to be slimmer but smarter.

He dominated the human language which helped out a lot. He helped all the races build a smithy and took up some disciples to pass what he knew.

I finally lay back to rest as i watch things in my own little world.

With a week passing i simply watch the dungeon and from my spot up here on this little cliff i could see the ocean even from far away. From far i can see a rather large ship arriving. Considering the time it would take for the village goods to travel then return it would give time for nearly three ships to have gone and returned. That means this was one of two things. A trade ship, or the adventurer’s guild ship and they came to set up a branch.

If it was i need to set up things quickly. With 300k remaining i wonder how i should get magic power from them.

Mavis: I wonder, can i make the a permanent gate for my dungeon?

Help: Your last floor can’t be connected to the world. Also making a gate would create what is known as an outpost. You would need to create a complete copy of your dungeon besides your last floor to make an outpost which would be kept stable by an empty dungeon heart. The new heart would be connected to you so it wouldn’t form a new conscious.

Mavis: Completely copy the dungeon. FUCK! I need a few days to gather the magic power for that. How many floors can i make a perfect copy?

Help: Current power allows 3 floors to be copied.

Mavis: So 100k for each floor. Considering the amount of MP i get from the slaves then if i simply let the adventures enter i would kill them but if i give them the seals then i can “kill” them all i want without actually killing them off and they won’t even know it. Still if they simply stay and build the branch then it would buy me time to make this outpost. Then again i could always ask for the guys to feed me some magic power. Ya its best to get that done now.

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example of human tattoos

http://www.wall321.com/thumbnails/detail/20120825/tattoos%20luis%20royo%20fantasy%20art%20girls%20with%20swords%201152x864%20wallpaper_www.wall321.com_99.jpg

Dungeon Name:Mavis ShinDungeon rankTDungeon TypeLabyrinthMagic Power300000Number of levels7Number of Rooms350Number of Biologicals6317*Number of Native Species*78Number of Non-Biologicals186Dungeon skills4

Food source

Moss eater bugs (fly, beetle, bee)

Bug eater (bat, rat, lizard)Animals

Wild cat, Wild dog, Mongrel, Lizardling, Tiger

Rabbit, Bird, Bear, Wolf, RaptorMonstersTier 1

7-color Bat, Man eater bat, Aggressive Rat, Green Goblin

Stupid Goblin, Dungeon Lizard, Skeleton, Dungeon Raptor,

Hind Bear, Black Wolf, Armored Raccoon, Horned Rabbit,

Hare, Demon Fox, Slime, Cave Mantis, Infant SpiderTier 2

Feral Rat, Vampire Bat, Saber Tooth Wild Cat, Devil Hound, Gremlin,

Kobold, Hobgoblin, Imp, Black Imp, Knight Skeleton, Drake, Wyvern,

Saurus, Onikuma, Bicorn Rabbit, Blade Rabbit, Black Wolf Leader,

Slime (Poison, Acid, Poo, Herbal, Water, Rock), Blade Mantis

Spider (Death, Gladius, Acid, Poison, etc)Tier 3

Feral Marsupial Rat, Saber Tooth Ape Tiger, Death Bat

Ogre, Troll, Red Troll, Orc, Goblin Shaman, Gargoyle,Tier 4

Death KnightTier 5

Witch

Human

Beast man (Wolf, Rabbit, Cat)

Elf (Dark)