Spending My Retirement In A Game

Chapter 929 Dark Forest Dungeon (1)

Eisen continued to work throughout the night, making sure that the main expedition crew, the "Transcendent Killers', had all the equipment that they needed. Until now, they just had the standardized equipment that was mass-produced in prototype, but considering the situation, it was better for them to be given some upgraded items. Of course, that didn't mean that Eisen made unique items for all of them; beside Brody, Eisen, and Eisen's group, there were about a dozen elite soldiers that were joining them. Even Eisen couldn't make that many items over night, and he didn't exactly have the longest time to prepare before this either. So, for now, Eisen just gave them some other pre-made items, though ones that were much stronger. Over time, he had accrued quite a large collection of different types of weapons and armor that he stashed away inside of Fafnir, so it wasn't too hard to find items that they could use for the time being. He did have to make a couple of small changes here and there, but it was nothing too massive.

With the more powerful items, the expedition crew had already grown in power quite a bit, so Eisen felt a lot more confident in heading down to the dungeon's bottom. "No, I'm sorry, you can't come with us," the old man said with a slight smile, trying to cheer Fafnir up. The young dungeon didn't seem to quite understand why, though. He was able to join Eisen almost anywhere, but in this case, it was quite literally impossible. Placing a dungeon inside of another dungeon could cause immense damage. Not only was it possible that Fafnir's body could be damaged, but in the worst-case scenario, according to Eisen's understanding of how dungeons worked, it was possible that Fafnir could be taken over by the transcendent's dungeon. And that was, for obvious reasons, something that Eisen could never risk happening.

As such, Fafnir had to stay out here for a while. Eisen made sure to place some drones here so that he could keep watch of the young dungeon while he was in the dungeon. They even had speakers so that Eisen could speak to Fafnir, though he was confident that Sigurd would be able to do make sure that the dungeon wasn't going to feel lonely. The wolf golem was, of course, also going to be left out here so that Fafnir had someone to play with.

"I'm sure it won't take too long," the old man said, rubbing the underside of Fafnir's snout, "Just protect this place, okay? And don't let anyone that isn't with us get in here."

As if trying to agree, Fafnir nodded his head. Sigurd also popped up in a cloud of blue smoke. It saluted at the old man, "Leave it to us, Eisen!"

Eisen ruffled up Sigurd's metallic hair, smiling, "Thanks. If anything's wrong, make sure to call me through one of the drones."

Sigurd quickly nodded its head. Before the conversation could continue further than this. Brody called out to Eisen. "Yo! Are you coming, or not?"

"Yes, yes, I'll be there in a second, take it easy," Eisen sighed, turning around. He looked over toward his group, nervous. This dungeon would be dangerous, but they all said they were going to join, no matter what. And of course, Eisen knew that they were strong, but were they really strong enough for a dungeon like this?

These anxieties really, really didn't help Eisen in moments like this. He couldn't just coddle them and protect them from dangers. Sure, this scenario might be a little more extreme than what they've dealt with so far, but even if none of those five participated in combat, they each had abilities that would come in extremely useful as theye proceeded down into the dungeon.

Everyone was waiting for Eisen, so the old man quickly made his way over toward the dungeon's entrance. Looking inside of it, there was really nothing but a steep descent downward, leading into the unnatural darkness that was surrounding this whole forest. It was like they were about to descend right into deep, black ink. But in the end, it seemed to be just the 'barrier' of the dungeon. Basically, once they passed into that blackness, they were going to be officially inside of the dungeon. Taking the lead, Brody was the first to step down, but the others soon followed. While Brody took the front, Eisen made sure to protect the rear.

Soon, a wave of magic came over Eisen; the telltale sign of having entered a dungeon. The sound of all the rest of the soldiers still waiting outside was immediately muffled, as if they had stepped a hundred yards away in just a single step. The first part of the dungeon seemed quite simple at first glance.

At least right here, on the first floor, they were inside of a narrow cave-network. Roots were sticking out from the walls, and insects were crawling around through the dirt. It was a pretty classic start to a dungeon, as far as Eisen could tell.

"Bree?" the old man said, turning toward the half-fey. She quickly nodded her head and stepped forward to the front of the group. After taking a deep breath, she directed a pulse of magic forward. It was a slightly altered version of her 'sensor' ability, specifically made for cave networks like this. Eisen was sure that on later floors, the dungeon would open up into 'impossible' spaces where this ability-setup wasn't quite as useful. It was basically fine-tuned to sense geography, travelling along small nooks and crannies. Usually, the sensor ability sensed everything in a set range, but here, the ability could travel an incredibly long way in caves, though its range was shorter than normal in an open field.

Eisen could watch the waves of the ability travel forward through the caves, as Bree's eyes briefly lit up with magic themselves.

"Alrighty! Here we go, this is the initial area around here," Bree held forward an item that Eisen had made for her and created a three-dimensional display of the information her ability had gathered. There were some glowing red dots in the area, seemingly showing 'special mana signatures' that Bree figured to be monsters, "I made sure to tag them so that we can keep track of them! Once I get a chance to analyse a couple of them, I should be able to make a better guess at how big the first floor is!" "Huh?" Brody let out, raising his brow, "What do you mean? How would you do that?" "Well.." Bree seemed to think about how to best explain it, "So, the ways that a dungeon is set up is that the first floor always has to be the weakest, and the last floor has to be the strongest. This is shown in a lot of ways, but for one, the mana density of cach floor, as well as the mana making up each dungeon monster's mana. By figuring out the type and habits of the dungeon monster, I can compare that to my database of general monster habits, systematic dungeon patterns, and historical dungeon-performance in similar past circumstances."

"Mhm, mhm..." slowly nodding along, though he clearly didn't quite follow, Brody cupped his chin in his hand.

"And that's how I can make a guess at how much total mana this floor should roughly have, and in turn, the overall size of this floor. In that same way, once we get to the second, third, fourth, and finally fifth floor, by then I should be able to analyze the general dungeon pattern well enough to predict the strength and frequency of the monsters on each floor, as well as how many floors this dungeon actually has in the first place!"

After a few moments, Brody slowly looked over toward Eisen, "Can she... actually do that?"

"What, did you think I brought her along just to lift the mood?" the old man laughed, patting his friend on the back, "She's more than capable of that. I've relied on her a lot. until now, for a ton of things."

"Huh... well, that means it's going to be a pretty easy ride, huh? You gonna guide us through the whole way?"

"Well... I can try, but dungeon floors get really large after a while," Bree replied to the half-orc, who thought about it for a moment, "I guess so. Well, not that it matters much. Either way, thanks for the help. Let's get you that monster data."