Chapter 122 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground” (Patreon)

Pov Shadow

I knew this was too good to be true. Damn it. Why did I read the whole thing, and what's with that reward? I sat on my bed with absolutely no clue how I should proceed.

Looking towards the table, I saw my wanted poster. Whoever gave me the name "Shadow," I thank you, but I might be dead in a couple of days.

There's no reason I should take this quest, but I can't resist. Why is it so hard to resist, even when I would come so close to death?

The idea, however, of pulling it off wormed its way into my head. Damn it, the dungeon knows me too well.

At first, I received a quest while delving, and I didn’t think too much about it. It was an innocent quest, right up my alley.

I needed to finish 20 rooms by sneaking past every monster. It was a bit harder than I expected, but I assumed I got the quest because the area I was in was filled with monsters that were quite observant. When I finished that quest, that's when things started to get weird.

I received a quest to steal something in one of the hub stations. The reward was amazing, and I was able to do something I was brilliant at. Stealing came naturally to me, and it was the reason I survived my youth. It was, something I rarely did in the dungeon and only when the itch got too strong. The reward was too good, and no one was going to miss the item I needed to steal.

It didn't, however, stop there. There were quests to steal information, sneak into places, and everything else along those lines, which I absolutely loved to do.

There were brief times when I didn’t receive new quests immediately. Those were terrible times, and I felt my anxiety rise until I got another one. Now, however, I would need to finish this quest; otherwise, I won’t get new ones.

I could still steal and sneak even without the quests, but I’ve only ever stolen because of need, and I don’t want to just start stealing. The quests are a sort of loophole. They’re never too damaging to the people I steal from.

If I were to take a contract to steal information for other adventurers, it would be different, but what would a dungeon do with that kind of information? It already knows everything going on inside, so it doesn't matter, and I get rewards.

Things got worse three quests ago and haven't gotten better, only worse. It started with an innocent quest, but this time it was up above in the city.

This current quest that was offered was also in the city, but just thinking about it made me shiver in fright, but also there was excitement. If I could pull it off, damn it, I can basically feel how my eyes are shining with excitement.

I once again opened up the quest to read it again. It hasn't changed, but it shouldn't be bad; it even says so here it will be returned. But the guild master would notice it even if it's gone only for a moment. I would need to time it and then escape. Damn it, I’m already thinking about how to do this. Once again, just in case, I read over the quest again.

Sneak into the adventure guild's main building and place a teleportation cube on top of the skill crystal. The current skill crystal will be replaced by a replicant for exactly 8 seconds before the original one is teleported back. Take the teleportation cube and escape before you’re caught. As a reward, you get to choose ten skill stones from the skill list the dungeon has available.

Ten skills. There is only one reason why the dungeon would do this to that skill crystal. It wanted all the skills; that would mean that, at the minimum, I would get to choose from all the skills available.

Just remembering the full list I was able to get my hands on a few years ago made me drool in excitement. There were many hidden parts to this skill crystal only accessible with permissions, and I was nowhere close to having enough guild points to get some of the better skills available.

I wouldn’t need Guild points if I could just choose from the entire list. There was no question the dungeon had a hold on me. Was this how being claimed by a dungeon felt? Probably not. But I have seen people addicted, and I am addicted. Perhaps this is an even better form of control. I don’t know, I don’t care; I just love it.

Now, I just have to make sure I don’t die from this quest, and let’s hope that what comes after it will not be so incredibly crazy.

Did I just decide to accept it? Looking towards the quest, I had accepted it. It seems like I need to go to the surface again. Fortunately, there wasn’t a time limit. It will take me a while to gather all the information I need.

Two months, three days, and fourteen hours later, I finally had everything I needed, and I would need to pull this off today, here at night, otherwise, it would probably take months before I could do this again.

I missed the last chance. Now a new one has come. It seems like the guild master chose to visit some of the other masters regularly. I think they’re friends, but I’ve never dared to go closer to their compounds.

This would not be possible if I didn’t have my skills, even if the guild master wasn’t around. One of them was a unique one; I was able to change myself.

It used to just be a skill that let you go through solid objects up to a certain thickness, but it couldn’t go through magic. The entire adventurers' Guild building was enchanted, so normal rogue-type skills, like the one that allowed me to pass through walls, wouldn’t normally work.

There were also sensors everywhere. Another skill would help me there. Air Mirror. It was normally a defensive skill for mages or long-range fighters. However, it had an interesting effect of bouncing back the alert sensors, and when you bounce the beams back exactly, they won't set off. It requires incredible control, but I have spent thousands of hours practicing this.

The third skill that would be required was my hover skill. Once again, mostly useless, but it does help cross rivers. It lets you hover at the current height you're at. Now, if you trigger that skill while you are a little bit off the ground and moving, you will continue to hover in that direction, but you can't change your direction without cancelling the skill.

This will help me not touch the floor and set off the alarms monitoring for any pressure or movement.

I found a good angle and have already set up the rope I need to swing with to get the speed and the correct angles to be able to land on top of the skill crystal.

It seems that they had made a crucial error. There was no pressure sensor for the crystal itself. Now, all I need to do was keep myself hidden and wait until it's 11:22 PM. That would give me a window of almost 3 minutes until the guards patrolling would catch me.

I should be gone in about 20 seconds since entering the building, and I truly hope the guild master isn't fast enough to get back here in that time.

Now, I’m quite certain he would know that I’m escaping, but he should check on the skill crystal that had been returned and not follow me for a bit. I should have enough time to get to the dungeon gateway and escape into the dungeon. If the skill crystal isn't returned, I would be screwed.

The time ticked by slowly, but finally, it was time. I held the rope at the exact point I needed to, ran the calculations in my head one more time, and then swung.

The release point was just after I reached the lowest point, and if I went a few milliseconds over that, I would miss my target. I wasn’t an amateur, and as soon as I let go, I knew I had done it. Immediately, I activated hover.

I couldn’t be too high over the ground; otherwise, the skill didn’t work. If I would have been 5 centimeters higher, the skill would have failed.

When I reached near the wall, I activated the rest of my skills and immediately started to manipulate the air mirror skill to bounce back the sensor beams. This was incredibly tough to do, and I could feel how much mana I was using. I should, however, have enough.

When I was about to land on the skill crystal, I dropped the teleportation cube onto it and watched it flicker. Faster than my eyes could see, there was another skill crystal, the exact same size, underneath me just before I landed. Now, I counted the seconds: 1, 2.

Pov Guild Master

I was about to take another sip of my tea while listening to others discussing politics when I felt it. The connection I had to the skill crystal let me know that it was moved. Where did it go? I couldn’t sense it any longer.

Immediately, I got up and simply jumped through the walls in front of me. Never stopping, I rushed towards the Guild building because my senses were telling me the person who stole the skill crystal was still there.

Damn it, I was too far away. Why the hell did they build so far up the mountain? How is this even possible? No teleportation skills should have been able to do that. And why was the person still there?

The next step I took, I sank into the mountain almost up to my knee, breaking apart all the stone underneath me. That slowed me a bit. Damn it, I need to control my strength.

Taking a deep breath in, I continued to run. It has been almost 7 seconds, and I am already 1/3 of the way back. The person was still there, which was weird. Then, however, I felt the skill crystal back again. What?

That made me stumble out of pure surprise. What was going on? There is no one else besides me and the masters here that approach our rank. There’s no way they would be able to fake the connection I have to the skill crystal.

That meant it was actually returned. No, I need to confirm it myself. Whoever did this also escaped, but I sensed where they were heading: toward the dungeon of all things.

Should I try to catch him before I check on the skill crystal? No, I’m quite certain that the skill crystal is the real one, but I need to check it just in case. Whoever could do this was just using a pawn. And if I hurry, I can still catch him.

Not wanting to waste time, I simply crashed through the walls of the guild building. As soon as I reached the skill crystal and placed my hand on it, I was able to confirm that it was completely real.

Damn it, what is going on? I took a deep breath in through my nose. Now I had his scent, and he would never be able to escape from me, even if we met 100 years from now.

I almost rushed through another wall but winced at the cost. Taking the front door cost me, but I should still make it. I rushed at my top speed. He had just entered the dungeon entrance, and I was able to catch sight of him.

Then I saw a young boy, perhaps aged nine, walking with his father. They had just walked in front of me. Immediately, I slowed down as I couldn’t maneuver at that speed fast enough to dodge them. As soon as I was past the dungeon entrance, I saw the person looking back at me when he touched the gateway and disappeared.

Damn it, he had some sort of skill that made it impossible to identify him. I still had his scent, but it was still too early for me to go inside the dungeon.

For some reason, I wasn’t as angry as I expected myself to be. I do not know what happened; they stole the skill crystal for 8 seconds and then returned it. Why?

For a brief moment, a thought came to my mind, and I looked downwards to where I sensed the dungeon core to be. There's no way. No, there's something else going on.

Wasn’t there a report that the dungeon fairies were moving a lot of assets? There were a few skills in my skill crystal that they would like to get their hands on, but there were so many others who would like the skills as well. Of course, I can never rule out Christoff. That crazy bastard would do this just for the laughs.