This took longer than expected. Only 2 chapters and the short interlude so far today, but still 7k words. I'm gonna get a bit more done today, but not sure if I'll get the next chapter done before I call it a night.
Chapter 9- Enter the Dungeon
I was already excited thinking about what it would be like to go through a dungeon in an entirely different system. The guild master held his hand out and I shook it. Then he did the same with Selena and Samvek. “I guess we should all formally introduce ourselves if we’re gonna be in a dungeon together. I’m Clay Turner. I already read the names of your classes, so it’s only fair that you know mine. It’s called Black Blade, which is admittedly rather grim.
“I was part of an adventuring party that made it to the 100th floor. I was the youngest of them. Two of my team mates have died and one of us, a mage named Oliver, managed to reach grandmaster tier. Me, I’ve been stuck at level 100 for more than 20 years. I know I don’t look that old, but as you probably know adventurers don’t always age.”
I nodded. “Yeah, just don’t ask Selena how old she is.”
She elbowed me then and somehow made it feel like she had a blade attached to it. “This is what I get for robbing the cradle.”
The guild master nodded. “Frankly, seeing that playful banter between party members makes me feel more comfortable about going into the dungeon with you. I specialize in hitting stuff up close really hard. I have spells which will weaken foes, debuffing we call it. And once a target is below 20% health, as long as it’s not more than 25 levels higher than me, I have a chance to kill it with my assassinate spell.
“My dagger, armor, and necklace are all magical and either rare or epic tier. Now what about you all?”
“I’m Silas Renner and sorta the leader of this group, but they both have more experience to me. I count Samvek as my mentor. He fights with a spear mostly and can control both space and lightning. He has a good range to his attacks but is also comfortable up close. He just always wants to advance.
“Selena is my fiancé and fights with a pair of hooked swords. She is excellent up close, but also can use her abilities to alter the environment and control the battle field. Her spatial storage is also probably filled with a bunch of goodies.
“As for me, I’m our healer, I can shape force constructs for either offense or defense. I have abilities with spiritual attacks, lightning, and spatial manipulation.”
“Sounds like I’ll be perfectly safe with you all, but you never know with a dungeon. Now, you may have everything you need but I need to make a few preparations. Please meet me downstairs in an hour. In the meantime, Mary will take care of getting your badges and the crystal we’ll need to access the 90th floor.”
He turned his focus to the clerk and she nodded, “Yes, guild master.”
Mary wasted no time once Clay dismissed himself. She gestured for us to follow and led us back down into the main guild hall, her pace brisk but controlled. As we descended the stairs, I noticed how the noise below never truly stopped, only shifted in pitch and cadence. This place did not rest, it simply rotated through priorities.
At a side counter near the hall’s entrance, she retrieved three small metal badges from a locked drawer. Each bore the guild’s sigil and the word Trainee etched beneath it in clean lettering. She handed them out one by one and explained that the designation was temporary, meant to mark us as under evaluation rather than untrusted. Once we returned from our test, if successful, the badges would be updated to reflect our standing.
I turned the badge over in my hand, feeling its weight and construction. It was solid, practical, and deliberately unadorned. Around us, a few adventurers noticed the exchange and watched with open curiosity, their gazes lingering just a bit longer than politeness dictated. Trainee status was common enough, but few earned it alongside a guild master.
Mary then guided us across the hall to the crystal counter, where a different clerk straightened at her approach. She spoke quietly with him, producing a writ stamped with Clay’s seal. The clerk nodded once and disappeared into a secured cabinet before returning with a crystal wrapped in thick cloth. When Mary took it from him, I felt a faint pressure in my senses. It was almost like space warped around the crystal and up close it was difficult to look at it.
Crystal Key of the 90th Floor (artifact)
Identify didn’t give me much, but I had to assume that an artifact was something significant. Fortunately, Mary began to explain.
“This will take you to the ninetieth floor,” she said, careful and precise. “No one knows exactly how these are made but they are one of the guild’s greatest treasures. They can only be used here on Iporus Isle which is another reason why the dungeon here is so important.” She hesitated, then added, “Just remember, dungeons are dangerous. Not everyone who goes into one, comes back out.”
We waited after that, leaning against the stone wall near the stairwell. Selena remained relaxed, her attention inward, while Samvek watched the hall with the same quiet vigilance he always carried. I found myself thinking about how easily this all fit into place. Badges, crystals, rules, and tests were just another framework layered over danger. When Clay returned, we would step past all of it and into the dungeon, where none of these structures truly mattered. The excitement was building in me.
Clay returned right on time, fully equipped and moving with quiet purpose. He gave Mary a brief nod, took the crystal from her, and signaled for us to follow. We left the guild together and crossed Basetown without incident, the city giving way to rising stone as the mountain loomed ahead. I focused on Clay’s posture as we walked, the way his confidence tightened rather than relaxed. Whatever he told himself, he knew he was about to step beyond familiar ground.
The Endless Dungeon rose from the mountainside like a wound that refused to close. The entrance was not carved so much as torn open, a jagged, gaping maw more than a hundred feet high that split the stone with brutal indifference. Dark rock framed the opening in uneven arcs, scorched and smoothed in places as though something vast had passed through it again and again. The air around it felt heavier, not oppressive, but charged with an ancient patience that made my skin prickle.
More than the physical appearance though there was a great deal more at work here. We all stopped when we sensed the overwhelming amount of mana pulsing out of it. It was like a volcanic vent pushing ash into the atmosphere but with unrefined mana. Selena and Samvek both commented about it in group chat. We’d all been in dungeons before. In their case, hundreds of them.
As I focused on the aura that the dungeon put off, I realized it was very much like a living thing. I knew from some of what Lana had taught me when we were at the Bazaar that a dungeon core was considered to be a living being, so I wondered if it was just that. Yet, the level of spiritual energy I saw overlayed on the physical was intense.
I let out a hushed sound, “It feels almost like a god.”
I hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but Clay’s hearing was sharp enough to pick that up. “It’s interesting that you mention it. I’m not much of a scholar, but my old party member was. It was a joke with us that he always had his nose buried in a book even when we were in a dungeon. I don’t know anything about the veracity of what he said, but he claimed that one of the oldest manuscripts which he’d ever found claimed that the Endless Dungeon was some kind of god, or maybe a tool of the gods.”
I nodded but continued to take in the setting.
Basetown clustered at the mountain’s foot, and the dungeon dominated everything above it. Guard towers flanked the approach, their stonework reinforced and layered with decades of repair. Armed guards stood in disciplined lines along the path, their attention fixed outward rather than on one another. They clearly took security here very seriously. I noticed that there were both adventurers with guild insignia and city guards on duty here. When Clay approached, several of them straightened and stepped aside without question, recognition passing through the ranks faster than words.
We stopped just short of the threshold, where the light dimmed abruptly as though swallowed by shadow. Clay turned to face us, the crystal held carefully in both hands. Up close, I could feel it tugging at space itself, a subtle distortion that made my senses itch.
“For this to work,” he said, “we need to be in physical contact, so make a chain.” He extended one hand toward me and waited until I clasped it, then gestured for Selena and Samvek to do the same. The moment our hands connected, I felt a faint resonance ripple through the group, not power, but alignment. The crystal brightened slightly, its surface warping as though depth and distance were suggestions rather than rules.
Clay took a breath and looked at each of us in turn. “Once we step through, there’s no easing into it,” he said. “Floor ninety is not forgiving, and there’s no guarantee of a clear landing zone.” His voice was steady, but I could hear the tension beneath it. “This is your last chance to back out.”
I met his gaze and nodded once. “We’re good.” Selena’s grip tightened briefly, confident and unshaken. Samvek gave no verbal response at all, his posture already coiled for movement. Clay exhaled, squared his shoulders, and stepped forward.
The world lurched as we crossed the threshold, stone and light folding in on themselves. The mountain vanished, replaced by darkness and echoing space, and the dungeon closed around us with sudden, predatory intent.
We didn’t get a moment to orient ourselves, just as Clay had warned. That was fine though. We were more than ready for this. The dungeon answered our arrival with movement, wet and heavy sounds echoing through the connected caverns as shapes peeled themselves off the stone. They were vaguely humanoid, but only in the loosest sense, bodies formed from thick, glistening flesh that sagged and stretched like overfilled sacks. Slug-like heads lifted, eyeless faces splitting as they sensed us, and then they surged forward in uneven waves. Their movement was rather slow to us.
Wayfinder was already in my hands and I bisected the first of the slug men to come at us. Selena took two of them part. The speed and force of our blows was so great that despite the gelatinous nature of their bodies they were completely obliterated. Samvek’s attack was the most hilarious as he stabbed one of the creature’s straight through its chest with his spear and the force vibrated outward spraying it in every direction. He got it all over his fur and from the way he was spitting, I think some got up his nose or even in his mouth.
I didn’t hesitate but cast Clean before he could even ask. The upgraded version cleansed us all and I even got a quick upgrade.
For cleaning organic material from another system, Clean grows.
Clean (Uncommon 94%) >> Ready for evolution.
I wanted to do that upgrade, but we needed to deal with the present threat, even if it wasn’t very dangerous. Letting Selena get more of that gunk in her hair seemed like an entirely new kind of danger for me.
I expanded my perception outward, letting it flood the surrounding tunnels without restraint. The dungeon opened itself to me in layers of space and sound, revealing side passages, vertical shafts, and hidden alcoves where more of the creatures clung to walls and ceilings. There were dozens of them spread across the caverns, converging with clumsy determination. They moved quickly for their bulk, but speed meant nothing when every position was already known.
I raised one hand and shaped force without conscious effort. Constructs formed and launched outward, invisible but absolute, threading through the dungeon like spears guided by intent alone. Each one struck true, punching through soft bodies and pinning them to stone or simply erasing mass where it hit. The creatures burst apart with wet impacts, their bodies collapsing into steaming heaps before they ever reached striking distance.
To my left, Samvek acted with the same ruthless efficiency. A sphere of lightning bloomed into existence above his palm, contained and brilliant, then drifted away from him as though alive, with tendrils of lighting trailing under it like some energy jelly fish. It floated through the caverns with predatory purpose, arcing from target to target in blinding flashes. Each strike left scorched stone and twitching remains, the smell of ozone cutting through the damp air.
Selena vanished the instant the first enemy closed within range. One moment she stood beside me, the next she was a blur of motion threading between the advancing forms. Her hooked blades flashed in tight arcs, severing limbs and cores with surgical precision. She did not waste movement or momentum, every strike placed where it would end the fight immediately. It was clear that she was shaping reality around her so that none of the creatures’ remains got on her.
The creatures tried to overwhelm us with numbers, pouring in from side tunnels and cracks in the stone. It was a pointless effort, but I could respect any creature fighting to live against an overwhelming force. For a moment, I wondered if they felt like I had when I’d had to deal with the Huntsman.
My constructs adjusted and multiplied, filling space where threats appeared and collapsing it where they vanished. Samvek’s lightning sphere split briefly, fragments breaking off to hunt stragglers before rejoining into a single, controlled mass. Selena flowed through the battlefield like a blade through water, never stopping, never slowing.
The fight lasted seconds, perhaps a minute at most. When the last of the creatures fell, the dungeon went still, the echoes of combat fading into dripping silence. I let my perception retract slightly, confirming what I already knew. Nothing else moved. Nothing else lived nearby.
I lowered my hand and felt the force constructs dissipate, leaving the caverns unmarred aside from scattered remains. Around us, the stone walls bore only superficial damage, a testament to how restrained we had been. This was not a test of strength. It was a demonstration of control.
When it was over, a notification popped up.
Your party has slain 438 Slugoids ranging between level 80 and 90, including the floor mini-boss. These creatures are too low level to generate an XP bonus for you. However you all gain a new title as a reward. Other rewards will be up to the Fey System to provide you for the duration of your stay within the Ways or at least until you negotiate an agreement with a system representative.
Cosmos Slayer (Ascendant) – this is the first layer of a title given to those few beings who have crossed multiple systems and have slain beings in each of them.
+10% effectiveness to all stat. This bonus will go up as you slay creatures within other system.
We all smiled, quite pleased with the reward. Only then did I notice that Clay had not moved at all. He stood where we had arrived, weapon still sheathed, eyes fixed on the aftermath with something between disbelief and awe written across his face. The monsters had never come close enough for him to act, and I realized that from his perspective, the battle must have looked less like a fight and more like a slaughter although much of it happened in other caverns on this floor so I wasn’t sure how much of that he could perceive.
Clay finally exhaled, a slow, controlled breath that sounded like it had been held far longer than was comfortable. He looked down at his hands as if expecting them to be shaking, then let out a quiet, humorless laugh when they were not. “I did ask you if you really wanted to go to the ninetieth floor,” he said, his voice steady but edged with disbelief. “I just didn’t expect the answer to look like that.”
I chuckled.
He turned in a slow circle, taking in the remains scattered across the caverns and the absence of any real damage. “You didn’t ask me a single question,” he continued. “Not about the floor layout, not about monster types, not about environmental hazards. Most parties won’t shut up about those things before stepping through a portal.” His eyes returned to me, sharp now, searching. “To be honest, I thought you might be over-powered but under experienced. It seemed a bit foolish not to ask questions.”
Selena elbowed me. “That’s our Silas. He tends to look before he leaps, but you’re right. My trainers would have my hide if they saw me acting like that. No matter how powerful one is you can always be surprised or overwhelmed by that which you didn’t expect.”
I knew that the rebuke was for me. I needed to do better. Samvek eased the burden a bit. “It isn’t just on you, Silas, although I know that’s what you’re thinking right now. Both of us were grilled to never act like this. I remember a lesson when I was chaffing at wanting to tier up and my instructors told me that rapid growth leads to foolhardiness. You’re the veritable poster child for rapid growth.”
I shrugged, feeling oddly grateful for their comments. “You heard them, and they’re right. We were wrong not to ask you more questions and don’t want you to think that is who we are. As you can see, everything we’ve experienced here is so much below our level that it doesn’t seem threatening, but as my grandmother liked to say, ‘pride comes before a fall’. Now, though let’s get the loot and then perhaps we should show you a bit more about the real us.”