Chapter 37 - The dive III

Day 52

Neo's POV:

While his visitors took a break, Neo started to prepare the next batch of resources for his furnace. This time, he wanted to create ten tons of orichalcum. Neo had heard the suggestion the dwarf made when they found his furnace. In his opinion it was really a good idea, giving the miners the ability to process their ore inside the dungeon, would make them stay far longer. Sure, he would need more ores, but with his growing mana regeneration, this shouldn't be a real issue.

After he finished creating the raw materials and his newly created goblins began to load the furnace, he started to think about the control unit. The last one needed some mithril and he didn't have much of it left. In fact, it was not enough for it to be spent on the visitors convenience, when he himself couldn't be sure when he would get more. While he was contemplating this problem, the exploration team finished its break and they made their way to his 11th floor.

Sonja's POV:

When Sonja and her comrades entered the next floor, they felt relieved for a moment. What awaited them was just a long winding road, with some small trees on its side. The floor didn't look finished, probably the dungeon was waiting for the trees to grow. She wasn't sure why it didn't just create larger trees, but that was not her problem.

"When all of this trees are grown up, it would be a pretty good ambush site." Sardian observed.

"Yeah, I don't know how long this road is, but if it's more than a few miles, it will get pretty hard for divers to stay focused for the whole way." Khorgan commented.

"You're probably right, but it doesn't look finished right now, let's move on."

Ten minutes later, they finished the two kilometer long road and made their way to the 12th floor.

"Fuck me, another damned labyrinth. If this one is larger than the last, a lot of adventurers will be deterred to visit. You come to a dungeon to improve your skills, not to stumble around in an endless maze. If you want to make a run later on, for example the 15th floor and you have to move through two mazes on your way in as well as on your way out, it wouldn't really make sense to use this dungeon. There are others, which are much better for improving one's skills." Khorgan complained.

"Don't write of this dungeon so soon. Look at the walls, they are from a different material than the ground. For me, it looks like the dungeon made some last minute changes to slow us down or to frustrate us, so we turn around. Once it learns that not every visitor is out to kill it, the dungeon will probably start to create ways so lure adventurers in and not to keep them out. At least, that's my experience with new dungeons."

Then they started their long journey through the maze.

Neo's POV:

Neo had listened to the mage's complains and had to agree with the valid point he made. But for now, he let them stumble through his labyrinth. With the additional half a million m² from his last level up, its floor length was more than four hundred kilometers. In addition, he placed a lot of traps and weregoblins to slow them down even further.

While they were stumbling through his twelfth floor, he concentrated his focus on the fifth one.

"Hello Mike, do you mind moving to the boss room? Don't worry the bear is still dead. I just want to do some reconstruction work."

"Sure why not."

"Oh and Mike, you're probably at a to low level to notice, but the mana concentration in this floor is more than five times higher than in your village. Cultivating your mana in here will bring you five times the results."

"Wow, really? Thanks for the advice."

With that said, he saw Mike starting to meditate. Neo himself started to use his new batch of orichalcum and build another blast furnace. With the other one as a template, it didn't take him very long. Creating all the silver to connect it to his mana formation at his core, was another issue altogether, but he didn't have anything else to do at the moment, so he started creating silver.

Sonja's POV:

Sonja was getting annoyed. They've stumbled through this damn maze for more than a day now and she was at the end of her patience. It was time for another approach to this level.

"Ok, this is taking us forever. Hallvor take your hammer and try to break through one of the walls."

It worked, the walls weren't very thick and not much harder than normal granite.

"Ok, let's break through the maze walls until we reach the natural rock of the cave. Then we work around the edge of the cave, this way it should bring us to the exit sooner or later."

"Wouldn't this piss of the dungeon?" Sardian asked.

"Yes, but it pissed us of first!"

Neo's POV:

Neo was cursing, he hadn't thought about breaking through his maze walls.

"Luna, can you tell me why my walls are so weak and how I make them stronger? I've visited a lot of dungeons and I've never seen someone to break through their walls this easily."

"Sure, the stone of a dungeon will absorb mana over time and it will get stronger and stronger. These walls are all less than two days old, so they aren't much more than normal rock. You could infuse mana yourself, but this takes long and is basically a waste of time, except it's a very important structure like a newly blocked hallway or something."

With this, Neo could only watch them slowly coming closer to his core floor. He thought about his visitors for a moment, then he decided to calm them down a bit and he started to create a sloped tunnel next to the entrance of his core level.

Sonja's POV:

After breaking through walls for more than an hour, they reached the exit. This one was different, next to it, there was another tunnel. When looking into it, one was able to see its upward slope and above it was a sign with a green arrow pointing upwards and a ten written next to it.

"So much for your complaining about going through the maze twice, Khorgan. Looks like the dungeon was listening to you."

"Yeah, seems like it. Maybe, it saw us getting annoyed and breaking through its walls. Now, it probably hopes for us to leave."Khorgan answered.

"You're probably right, look at that, there is another red X sign on top of the way down. Do we really want to enter? If we do so, the dungeon will probably throw everything at us it got." Sardian observed.

"Yes, we are an exploration party. We can't turn around unless it is getting too dangerous or we find the dungeon core. I'll go ahead, the dungeon should be still too weak to give us any real danger."

When they stepped into the 13th floor, they were greeted by a large room. In it, at least two hundred hobgoblins, shamans and weregoblins were blocking their way. They were not moving and just looked at them threatening. Behind them, Sonja was able to spot another, smaller room with a large white crystal sitting on a pedestal. When her eyes wandered back at the small army in front of them, she noticed a small, horned, gray rabbit in front of it. It just caught fire and started to fly in their direction. Sonja wasn't believing her eyes for a moment, but the rabbit flew at Hallvor and poked him with its horn.

"Goddamned, you will pay for that rabbit!" Hallvor cursed.

The others weren't really sure what to do, so they just watched. Hallvor activated his flame aura and he tried to kill the small rabbit, but it was way too fast to hit it with his large warhammer. Again and again, it poked and it even breathed fire at him.

The first one who started laughing was Khorgan, but the others quickly followed while they watched the cursing Hallvor trying to hit the rabbit.

"Do you know the tale of the great Hallvor Giantsbane, slayer of countless monsters and his epic fight against the mighty bunny of doom?" Khorgan said, while he almost choked from laughing.

"Damn you little shit, after I take care of this evil rabbit, it'll be your turn to get hit few times with the hammer!" Hallvor cursed.

Sonja decided to step in, with a quick motion, she grabbed the little rabbit at its neck and she used her other hand to stop the blow of the warhammer.

"That's enough. Hallvor, stand down!"

With the rabbit in her arms, she looked back at the army in front of her. She couldn't help herself and started to pet the rabbit, it was just too cute. While at it, she saw the movement of one of the shamans who stepped in front of the army.

"Greetings adventurers, welcome to the Dungeon of Advancement. This floor is not cleared for public access and we must request you to leave - Oh, and free Mr. Floppy, a certain person would get very angry if you take him with you." the goblins proclaimed.

"Listen you little shit, if you think your little group of weaklings is impressive, you are as stupid as you look." Hallvor threatened the goblin.

Sonja moved and she knocked out Hallvor with a backhanded slap.

"I have to apologize for my irritable comrade, but before we can leave, I have to check if the dungeon is of infernal origin."

With that said, she moved and she reached the dungeon core, before the goblins were able to react. When she checked it for its elemental affinity, she wasn't able to determine any element. This was weird like the rest of this dungeon and she decided to only mention "no infernal affinity" in her report. With that thought, she let go of the rabbit and moved back to her party.

"We have what we came for, we can leave now."Sonja commanded.

They moved back up to the 12th floor with Khorgan carrying Hallvor. When they arrived, they were surprised. In front of the upwards tunnel there were twenty silver ingots laying on a table.

"Haha, finally some good loot. That's is about forty gold for each of us. Not bad, for a few days work." Khorgan smiled and ungently dropped Hallvor to the ground so he could get this loot.

A little later, they arrived at forking of their tunnel. Above one of them, there was an arrow with a five next to it, above the other a ten.

"Let's get back at the boy to the fifth floor."

When they arrived, they spotted three brand new blast furnaces in the middle of the mining floor. Khorgan went out of control and immediately took a pickaxe out of his spatial bag and started to mine.

"Where is the boy?" Sardian asked.

"I can sense him in the boss room." Khadgar answered.

After they collected Mike, they left the dungeon, while Khorgan was not responsive and stayed on the mining floor.