The origin of the dungeon is now lost to history.
People only know that long before the gods descended to the mortal realm, a thousand years ago in ancient times, the dungeon already existed on this land.
At that time, the dungeon appeared as a cavern on the earth, like a giant maw from the abyss, constantly spewing forth various monsters that plagued the world.
To combat the monster calamities emerging from the dungeon, the people of that era built a massive tower at the dungeon's entrance, effectively placing a lid over the dungeon's mouth to block the monsters.
That tower, which served as a lid, is the predecessor of the current Tower of Babel.
The reason it is called the predecessor is that the original tower had been destroyed many times.
The current Tower of Babel was built with the help of the gods after they descended to the mortal realm a thousand years ago, and it has stood unbroken for a millennium.
Directly beneath the Tower of Babel lies the entrance to the dungeon.
As long as you come to the central square, you can see the towering, sacred, and majestic white tower at the heart of the city.
The base of the tower is several hundred meters wide, and on its first floor, dozens of large arches face in all directions. Adventurers constantly come and go through these arches, creating a bustling scene.
Eiji, suppressing his rising excitement, donned his prepared chest armor and short sword, and walked through one of the large arches.
This dungeon would become the resource for his self-improvement for a long time to come.
Upon entering the Tower of Babel, the first thing that caught his eye was a vast white hall. From the depths of the hall, the faint sound of flowing water could be heard. Many adventurers, covered in blood, walked in and then emerged refreshed.
Eiji only glanced briefly before quickly making his way to the center of the hall.
There, he saw a massive hole with a diameter of over tens of meters.
The hole was vertically oriented, dropping straight into the underground world, like a monster's gaping maw, waiting for prey to unwittingly jump in and be swallowed whole.
This was the entrance to the dungeon.
Descending into that entrance would mean officially stepping into the realm of the dungeon.
Following behind other adventurers, Eiji, cloaked and looking like a country bumpkin, glanced around as he slowly made his way down the silver spiral staircase leading underground.
***
"Gwah!"
As soon as he stepped into the dungeon, before he could even take in his surroundings, a monster let out a strange cry and charged at him.
It was a dog-headed monster, walking upright but with skin as rough and gray as stone. It was about half the height of a person, with black claws on its fingers and blood-red eyes, showing no sign of rationality.
The dog-headed monster charged at Eiji with remarkable speed.
Shlick!
The sound of a blade cutting through flesh echoed.
Eiji took a step back and to the side, and the dog-headed monster happened to crash right into the short sword he held horizontally.
The dog-headed monster's face twisted in horror, but it couldn't stop its momentum. Its head was instantly severed by the short sword, and black-red blood sprayed out.
The monster's body split in two and fell to the ground. Its colour quickly faded, and then its whitened body crumbled, dissipating into black smoke.
Clink!
Only a fingernail-sized blue-purple crystal remained, falling to the ground from where its chest had been.
"Unlike humans, monsters use all their strength without holding back, making their behaviour easier to predict."
Eiji picked up the blue-purple crystal, his expression calm.
To him, these monsters were like wild beasts encountered on the roadside, and these beasts had bared their fangs at him, showing clear killing intent.
When dealing with humans, he might hold back, but against monsters that showed him their claws, he would not show the slightest mercy.
"This is a magic stone."
Eiji looked down at the crystal in his hand.
Magic stones were the energy source that drove monsters, the magical crystals that served as the life force of these creatures. Defeating a monster would cause a magic stone to drop from its body. Taking it to the guild could exchange it for money, which was the primary way most adventurers earned their income.
Magic stones seemed to contain incredible power, and the guild had mastered methods to harness that energy, creating many devices powered by magic stones, such as magic stone lamps, magic stone stoves, magic stone refrigerators, and so on.
These were things clearly recorded in the guidebooks. It seemed the guild wanted adventurers to bring back as many magic stones as possible, as there was significant profit in the magic stone trade.
"Let's go deeper."
Eiji consulted the map in his hand and headed in the direction of the next level.
According to the guidebook, the first level only had very weak monsters like dog-headed creatures and goblins. With a bit of courage, even ordinary people could defeat them.
According to the guild's recommendations, a Level 1 solo adventurer could go down to around the 12th level at most, and that was for the elite among Level 1 adventurers. Newbie adventurers generally only operated within the first five levels.
Eiji could defeat Level 2 adventurers without using his special abilities, so going below the 12th level shouldn't be a problem. However, Finn had warned him not to go to the 13th level, and he must have had a good reason for saying that... So, he would take it one step at a time.
Eiji quickly advanced through the dungeon.
Following the somewhat abstract map, he swiftly navigated through straight paths and forks, moving between light blue caverns, and then found the staircase to the next level, descending without hesitation.
Before long, he had reached the 5th level.
"The guidebook says that every five levels, the dungeon's difficulty increases slightly..."
Eiji walked down a slope.
What greeted him was a narrower corridor than the 4th level, with more complex maze-like terrain. The cavern walls had turned a more eerie light green, and some moss had begun to grow in the corners. The complexity of the map had visibly doubled.
Not only that—
Whoosh!
Silently, a lizard about half the height of a person swooped down from the wall. Its colour blended seamlessly with the wall, making it hard to detect and catch adventurers off guard.
Shlick!
Eiji stepped forward instead of retreating, swinging his short sword in a backhanded motion. The blade cut into the lizard's gaping mouth, and with the sound of tearing flesh, its body was split in two.
A slightly larger magic stone dropped out, which he picked up and placed in his waist pouch.
"By the way, according to the guidebook, if you're lucky, monsters might not only drop magic stones but also drop 'items'..."
Magic stones were guaranteed drops from monsters.
But some monsters differed from others of their kind, perhaps having sharper claws. Defeating such a monster might yield a "sharp claw" as a drop, which was generally more valuable than the magic stone dropped by the same monster.
However, that was only if you were lucky. And Eiji's luck—
"Well, someone as wealthy as me doesn't need any drop items!"
***
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