Dungeon at the End of the Universe

Time passed, progress was made, and everything was swell. The newest Dungeon Seeds connected to the Dungeon network, so I sent down half a dozen more to start tunnelling and connecting. I even managed to System lock all the Dungeons that were already connected to the network.

Faellen had cycled through a bunch more groups of adventurers. With the village and the class trials, it was able to handle two groups at once. One would be in the village acquiring classes, the other in the tutorial section of my Dungeon gaining levels.

In fact, we had even managed to cross the threshold and complete my quest. The rewards were, of course, another special quest along with an unknown.

Quest: Entrench the System [Special]
The seed of the System has been planted in its new Universe, yet the road is long ahead of us. While the System has begun to recover, it’ll take more than a few simple Users.
Objective: Select an appropriate System Anchor (0/1)
Reward: Quest [Special], ???

That was the new quest I received. It definitely raised some questions, but more on that later. It’s been a very long time since I’ve received a good quest reward.

Selecting reward.
Reward selected:
Permanent Level-Up Enhancement ticket {control}

That… was definitely not what I would have expected. Didn’t Faellen say these were super rare? And powerful? And most importantly, one time use?

Why and how in the hells did I get a second one already? Not to mention this time it’s permanent!? Sure, I won’t be able to select the benefit I get, but with my number of Aspect combined with the storing of charges this may very well be the best option.

Now I just need to Level-Up again. Which, shouldn’t take too much more time, I hope. I’ve actually had a good amount of adventurers this time, not to mention the permanent population of Sipaloons in my Dungeon.

From what I can gather, non-Dungeon entities generate much more of that ‘tainted’ mana which I use to grow.

But back to the quest. It is… worrying.

Is the System trying to replace me? Surely not. Even if did find a good System Anchor candidate, they would hardly have the opportunities I had to upgrade the Ability. Not to mention that without being or having a Core, they couldn’t even dream of getting the final stage of it.

Hmm, could I do that? I have a candidate in mind, but… no. let’s shelve that for later.

In other news, my Dungeon network was progressing splendidly. Yes, there was the shallow progress just underneath the surface, connecting new Dungeon Seeds to it. But there was also deeper progress. Literally.

With the Dungeon Seeds acting like the corners of a base, I had built and tunnelled deep underground, constructing a reverse pyramid. A super Dungeon. A world Dungeon. Whatever you want to call it, it had multiple Cores working on it.

Which is another thing. The earliest Seeds had grown enough that I could no longer categorize them as such. Now they were very small Cores. Which came with the benefit that they could perform some very rudimentary tasks on their own. I didn’t even have to dedicate a small part of my mind to it!

There was one unexpected result from my Dungeon network though. I lost the ability to Control the spread of mana within its borders. It wasn’t too bad, most of that territory was occupied by an ocean after all.

Except that that was also partially a problem.

There wouldn’t be any newly mutated land monsters that could wander off to Sipalian civilization. But there would be – in fact, there already were – ocean monsters. I’ve already spotted some that could eventually become the legendary krakens and leviathans.

I suppose sea travel would become much more stagnated in the near future.

Is this why sea monsters are always so much more stronger in all the stories I’ve read and heard? Because the introduction of mana wasn’t equally spread out?

Much to think about, much to think about.

Meanwhile, in the divine realm, panic reigned once more.

Just a little while ago, a minor deity on the fringes of the realm sensed some strange emanations of divine energy. Naturally, even though it knew such an unsecured form of communication was likely just a call for help and rescue, it was still curious. It’s always good to stay up to date on which rival has been dealt a blow.

Unfortunately, the message was not so simple. Well, it was. It only contained two words. But the implications, oh the implications.

The deity rushed towards the centre of the divine realm. It had to deliver this message. (Un)fortunately, by the time the deity reaches the densest concentration of deities, they all already knew.

The divine emanations had travelled fast and everyone had sensed them. And everyone was curious. And now everyone knew.

Time criminals. One of the few things even gods were afraid of. One of the few things that could get them acting unanimously.

A deity was selected. They’d follow the signal to its source and construct a divine palace there. With a connection established, they could then portal in the specialists. Which was what everyone else began working on.

Talking to the time police was nerve-wracking, even for gods. Especially for gods.

But not contacting them? Not notifying them about the time criminals? Not sharing all they knew and providing all the assistance they could? That would be even worse, so they swallowed their fears and pushed through.

Not long after, a hooded figure appeared in the divine realm. Another deity, another scapegoat, was selected to deal with it. To be their guide.

Of course, this time around they had no direct account of what had happened. Not yet. So the hooded figure remained by their lonesome, seeing no need to call for reinforcements for what may very well be a false alarm.