“Congratulations trainee, you have completed the training program, you can now exit the training room. Your achievement will be reported to the emperor, go forth and spread the glory of the Ludwig Empire.”

Finally after all this time I had completed the training program. All that time spent trapped here had finally been fruitful. I could now go out and start to live again.

“Omni could you please open the portal to the outside now?” I asked, vibrating with energy. Excited to see and experience the new world that I had been seeing through the screen. The mana had started to infuse the world again 500 years ago. The view that I saw was vastly different than what I had been accustomed to in my time period.

Cities and towns were clustered together with really tall buildings made out of glass and metal as their centerpieces. The people moved around in horseless carriages, these machines produced loud sounds and smoke. There was a distinct lack of demi-humans in the world at first but as the mana density began to increase the people started to mutate.

The mutation expressed itself as features that were distinct to the demi-human features I knew, like pointed ears, horns, tails ect. Their number had started to increase as the years went by.

“Hey Mark why don’t you use the regeneration chamber and wear a new set of clothes before going out there?” after watching me for a bit.

“Why?”

Instead of answering me she turned one of the walls into a mirror. The mirror showed an old man with long white hair and beard. The man’s face was all wrinkly with liver spots on his hands and body. He was wearing rags that barely covered his private parts and nothing more. Even though the man looked old his body was fit as a 25 year old, with well defined muscles and toned skin. That man was me.

I did not feel as old as I looked in the mirror. I could beat anyone I wanted and live for another 500 years easily. I had in my long stay here learned to augment my life span with the use of mana like the elves and demons of old.

“It would be earlier for you to integrate with the new society if you looked younger. Also it would be easier to explain why you are in the wilderness as a young man than an old geezer that looks like he would croak at a stiff wind.”

“Ok then.” I said as I stepped inside the regeneration chamber. Feeling its goo flowing over me for what would be the last time.

[Few days later]

“Goodbye Omni it has been a pleasure spending time with you. Thank you for your companionship for the last 5000 years without you I would have gone insane a long time ago. I will visit you after I have properly situated myself in the new world.”

With that said I walked towards the portal that would lead me to the outside world, Omni for her part was silent. I was wearing a plain black trouser, a white shirt and a black jacket, a pair of rugged black steel-toed leather boots with a rubber sole. I had 2 rings on my fingers and bracelets on both my wrists

One was an Item Box on my left middle finger, which contained all the goods and weapons that I had made in my time stuck here from common to legendary. I had collected them all and stuffed them into the ring. A ring enchanted with the matter-to-mana conversion enchantment on the right middle finger. This ring was connected to the two bracelets and I could actively siphon mana from it when needed.

The bracelet on my right wrist had been enchanted to generate a barrier that covered me when something approached me at a high speed be it a weapon or magic, it also acted as an emergency healing tool that automatically dumped healing mana into me when I was injured. The left one was enchanted to hide my power level; it could fool any tool or skill that was under the Relic tear. I had a similar skill but it was an active skill, this worked continuously as long as it had mana.

I took the final step through the portal and my vision was washed in a white light. The light lasted for a bit and then I was outside. I looked around to find myself just inside the mouth of a cave, it was dark here but it possessed no problem for me as I had the Dark-vision skill that let me see in the dark. The cave looked to be on a mountain side cliff with just a narrow path leading down from it. There was a ledge just outside the cave large enough for me to lie down on.

I took a minute to breathe the fresh air and stepped outside the cave. The second I fully stood outside the cave I felt a shooting pain all over my body. It felt like my insides were being pulled apart from the inside. I tried to see if there was anyone there attacking me but I sensed no one in the immediate vicinity. The pain was gradually increasing and then finally I blacked out.

Alice was not having a good night. She was not having a good week either. The week had started out good enough. She had just started her new job at the Guild, a position that she had worked her ass off to get. Training and studying all that had been on record about the dungeons and monsters. All she had done for the last year was study, study as if her life depended on it. All that time she had spent forgoing everything else had been worth it when she had passed the Test. She was now a member of the administrative team of the Guild. She had been excited to start her new work on Monday, so excited she was that she had slept late on Sunday and had woken up at 8:30 am on Monday. The alarm clock had not been set, a stupid mistake but it made her late on her first day of work.

Being late on her first day had not won her any points from her supervisor. That bitch had made it a point to remind her to do all her work on time and not be late every turn she got. It did not matter what she did or how hard she tried all her work was wrong in her supervisor’s eye.

Her work as a guild administrator was to manage the Hunters and gather information about the new dungeons that would randomly occur. As a new member she was responsible for newly joined Hunters, F ranked members that had just graduated from the various Hunter academies and were looking to gain fame and fortune by conquering dungeons.

Her coworkers were nice enough, helping her when needed. But she was being given work that required more experience and time to finish than she had. She had to work long hours often needing to sleep at work to finish them. She did not know who she had offended to receive such treatment but she would endure the treatment and thrive at her work that she promised to herself.

It was friday night when the alarm had gone off. A new dungeon had been discovered by the monitoring system. The night staff that were working at that time frantically typed commands into the system trying to see where the new dungeon had been born and the power level of the dungeon.

The system used the mana fluctuation that occurred during dungeon formation to locate and measure the power level of the dungeon. It was a vital job to find the dungeon as soon as they formed because if the dungeon was not concurred in a week after being formed a dungeon break would occur.

The dungeons location was located easily, in the nature park an hour outside of the city. A C-ranked team of Hunters had been gathered to explore the dungeon and Alice was chosen as an administrative representative. She worked to coordinate with the local police to seal off the area and the park rangers to make a list of people that were in the park.

The C-ranked team named The Lions, had 5 members and was led by a swordsman named Rick. Rick had been a Hunter for 10 years and had explored many new dungeons for the Guild. Martin was the Tank of the group, a hulking beast of a man; he stood 6.5 feet tall and was a wall of muscles and steel.

Sully an archer had just joined the team, their last archer had perished while exploring a c ranked dungeon recently. The team had two mages: Mary the offensive mage that specialized in fire and earth magic and Clara a light mage specializing in healing and barrier magic.

The team arrived at the park after 3 hours, after all the preparations had been made. Alice had already coordinated with the police and sealed off the area and a park ranger was waiting for them at the check in gate.

“Hello I am Roger Martin the senior park ranger at this park.” said a man dressed in the green park ranger uniform, extending a hand.

“Hello ranger Roger, I am Alice the Guild representative and these are the Hunter team that will be exploring the dungeon.” said Alice as she took the offered hand. They passed through the gate on foot and started walking towards the cliff face that had been pointed out to them by the Guild.

“Has anyone been to the cliff in the last 3 hours?” asked Rick looking around the park.

“As far as I know no one's been near the cliff and the park’s registry shows all the visitors have left the park. No overnight camping trips had been scheduled for today.”

The pak was a low mana density area with only F ranked monsters and unmutated wild animals in the area. This park was used by Hunter academies as training fields for their students. The low level making it ideal to ease in new Hunters to the concept of tracing, foraging and hunting monsters.

Alice and the ranger separated from the team to the ranger’s office while the Hunter team moved towards the cliff.

The team soon arrived at the cliff and started the climb. They examined the area around them marking anything that stood out to them. The dungeon entrance was about half way up the cliff 150 feet above the ground. They arrived at the entrance and stopped seeing a body just outside the entrance.

Clara the healer started towards the man but was stopped by Rick.

“Stop Clara we do not know who he is or what he is doing here. This place is supposed to be empty. That man being here is suspicious.”

“But Rick he might be dying. I know to be careful around dungeons you know. I have been doing this as long as you have. I cannot just leave him there it would go against the oath of the healers guild.”

“I know that but be patient for a moment. Let us check for traps and other hazards.” after saying that Rick motioned Sully to check for traps while he asked Mary to take out the survey device.

The survey device was a combination of mana and technology, the device had been made after studying the measuring crystals that were found in C-rank and higher dungeons. This specific model was developed to measure the mana density of dungeons and categorize them from F-rank to S-rank.

As Mary checked the dungeon, Sully had cleared the area of any traps and signaled them forward. As soon as she was given the clear Clara jumped forward and ran towards the man. The man had fallen on his face and fainted. Turning him around Clara saw a teenager, he looked to be 15-16 years old, with brown hair and a pale face that looked like he had not been in the sun for a long time.

She checked the boy using a beginner healer skill Examine and saw no serious damage to the body. The boy’s mana well was almost empty though, it looked as if he had used a spell or ability above his level which had drained him dry.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Rick who was standing guarde near her.

“Physically nothing, he has no external or internal injury, but his mana well is almost dry.”

“So he passed out due to mana drain?”

“Probably. What now then captain? We cannot leave him here all alone, as he is now a low level mob can off him in seconds.”

“I will contact Alice and have her call someone. Until then we will set up a perimeter here. Mary, what rank is the dungeon?”

“Captain this is a E-ranked dungeon.”

“Ok, Martin, Sully and Mary secure a perimeter just inside the dungeon entrance, we will further explore it when the civilian has been removed from the premises.”

“Ok boss.” came the reply from his team. Rick then called Alice on the radio they were wearing.

“Alice, this is Rick from the exploration team. Do you read me? Over.”

“Loud & clear Rick. Over.”

“We have a civilian passed out in front of the dungeon. Over.”

“A civilian Rick. Does he have any id’s on him?Over”

“Stand by.”

Rick turned and asked Clara to search the boy. Clara carefully searched the boy but found nothing on him except two rings and two bracelets. There were no identification papers on him.

“Negative. The boy is not carrying any id’s. Over.”

“Ok Rick I will ask the headquarter to send in an additional team to retrieve the civilian. Please stand by until then. Over.”

“Acknowledged. Standing by. Over.”

Alice called the Guild headquarter and requested an additional team for help. The new team arrived an hour later with an ambulance. The team was promptly sent to the dungeon to retrieve the civilian.

Rick’s team had been at the cliff for two hours when the new team arrived. Clara explained the boy’s condition to them and watched as he was carried away.

“Ok team since the excitement is over let's do our job here.”

Alice waited for the rescue team at the park’s gate. She hoped that nothing was wrong with the civilian as it would cause more problems for her, even though the civilian being here was not her fault. Her supervisor was sure to find her liable for the civilian’s health in some way.

The rescue team arrived 45 minutes later carrying the civilian. He was promptly carried to the ambulance and rushed to the nearest hospital for treatment. The rescue team was stationed in the park ranger’s office until further notice.

Alice made her initial report and waited for the Lions to return. The night passed slowly for Alice, she found herself anxiously waiting for the team to return. For every hour that passed her anxiety gradually increased.

The team finally returned at mid morning. Seeing them Alice let out a long breath and sat down on the steps leading to the ranger’s office.

“Admin Alice good to see you are up. Would you like to hear the report now or after breakfast?” asked Rick, his tone a bit exhausted.

“You can give me the report over breakfast captain if you don’t mind me intruding.”

“Please join us. We will give you an initial report over breakfast and forward you the full report by the end of the day if it is alright with you.” agreed Rick, moving towards the parked food truck.

The dungeon as reported by Rick was E-ranked. It was a forest themed one with four floors. The team had encountered five types of monsters in the dungeon; the first ones were large carnivorous plants that could easily swallow an adult human being. These monsters were stationary and easily avoidable. They encountered a horned rabbit next, these rabbits more aggressive than those found outside but manageable.

The dungeon had scattering of useful herbs on each floor. These herbs were guarded by large chameleons well hidden amongst the patches of herbs. It attacked by dropping down on them from the ceiling and clawing at them.

The third floor was populated by packs of wolves and panthers. The floor was divided into five zones, each zone was either populated by a pack of five wolves or two panthers. Teams would require proper coordination among them if they were to pass this floor.

The last floor was the boss room, a central area cleared of trees. The boss was an armoured wolf with two subordinates. The subordinates would attack first and then the boss would attack after them. It had three skills that it used first: a skill that boosted its speed, a howling attack that stunned them and a rage skill that boosted its attack power. The last skill was a last ditch skill that lasted for 30 seconds and left it weak after.

Alice after hearing the things she needed to make a follow up report excused herself and left the team to go check on the civilian. She could guess that she would have to report on it.

Feeling tired and almost burned out she mumbled to herself,”Ok Alice one trip to the hospital a small follow up report then home we go.” She knew that it would not be as simple as that but a small lie to herself was not so bad, was it?