Chapter 284 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

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No chapters tomorrow, need to do stuff.

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Pov Dungeon Core

We were now officially done with the first defensive layer of the outer defenses. This also meant that I could now power it, and I was glad to do so. It took quite a lot of mana, and the way all of this worked meant that I barely had to do anything to use that mana.

If I made crystals or other high-cost materials, I needed to actually make them. Here, I just needed to pass mana streams through the correct locations that would then gather the mana and power all the enchantments.

Up to this point, we had only powered up some sections to test things out, but now everything was coming to life. Power ran through the enchantment lines as I fixed in place mana streams that all ran through me and then eventually made their way to the correct locations. It was fun to make all of this. It was like city lights coming on, but for an entire megacity.

It seemed like the enchantments had a yellowish glow. Once the enchantments were properly powered up, that glow diminished quite a lot. Normally, you wouldn’t see it at all, but there were so many enchantments that if you viewed it from far away, my entire surface glowed yellow. I kinda liked the color. It also didn’t extend too far away, which was good news, as I didn’t really want to become a beacon.

I let everyone revel in the success for a week. While most of the work was done by my monsters, there were still millions and millions of creatures who helped finish all of this. When the week was up, it was time to get back to work. We still had so many layers to build that would probably take centuries to finish because all the previous layers would also be strengthened.

We needed to do it this way, even though it would take a lot longer, simply because if we wanted to build the first layer the way we wanted it to be, it would have taken decades, and we simply didn’t have that much time to go without proper protection.

We tested three melters at the same time, aimed at the same spot, and not only did they do nothing—I actually didn’t feel anything, with my core suffering zero damage.

This was an unexpected benefit. Some of the enchantments were meant to keep out negative influences, and I guess whatever was causing me damage was also blocked by those.

That made me feel a lot better, and it also meant a part of my weakness was gone. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that with enough attacks, I wouldn’t still feel it and that my core wouldn’t get cracks, but I was certainly a lot more resistant to this type of damage now.

The image of the Pixie leader’s beam still scared me, but even in that premonition, it still took time to reach anywhere near my core, and it could be interrupted. That’s why our defenses had the capability of launching our own attacks, and in certain buildings, those attacks would be amplified. In fact, I think it was time for a mock battle.

It had now been two weeks since the party ended. Everyone was back to work, and while most were focused on the next layer, many were also practicing and standing guard inside the fortifications, ready to defend.

With my current allocation of my mind, I’ve only been able to man the portion of the exposed defenses. I would still need to begin with the lower half to secure that entrance as well, but I could push that back to simulate an attacking army without informing the defenders. Let’s see how they would handle an attack.

I still couldn’t make diamond ranks, but there were some monstrous platinums that could do real damage. Also, I was going to make a lot of adventurer species, give them the best talents and skills I could, and make them as powerful as possible. Many of the templates I already had, as a lot of them were currently manning the defenses.

I didn’t want to put too much of myself into this, so it took me a whole week to get ready to attack. Then I made them appear at the edge of my territory and commanded them to attack. These were not your regular monsters—their reasoning capabilities were a lot higher, and all of them knew what they needed to do.

I was glad that it only took about 20 seconds to raise the alarm, and mostly that was because all of our sentries were confused, as the army that seemed to be attacking didn’t feel hostile. That was because they were my monsters, but as one of the sentries said, perhaps it was a purposeful misdirection by the enemy.

Pov Ant Sentry

It was amazing to feel the power underneath my six feet. Ever since the first layer was activated, we ants could feel much farther with our vibration sense. It was a bit disorienting at first, but it would allow us to do our job better. While we had good detection and no one should get through, even if someone did, we should be able to feel their footsteps.

I had a long shift ahead of me, then there would be a little bit of torpor, and then it was back to building, after which came another sentry shift. A lot of the adventurers felt that this was too much work, but those adventurers were weird creatures. A lot of their work seemed to be in the pursuit of entertainment, which is just strange. But I’ve been around long enough to understand that other beings are strange.

Alarms started to ring out. It took me a moment to realize that they signaled an attack. Was this a drill? But I didn’t remember anything being scheduled. There had been quite a few in the past weeks. Fortunately, I was already in position, but I could feel a lot of movement as many stopped working on the second layer and rushed into defensive positions.

There seemed to be a lot of confusion, and I could even feel some running into each other in their rush to get to their places. Yeah, that needed to be fixed. I could see one of the adventurers who was with me in this section wince, as he probably sensed some of the same things I did, only in a different way. Then we heard our commander’s voice.

“It’s confirmed that an army of nearly a million is approaching. All platinum. They have monstrosities that could cause damage to our defenses. Everyone assigned as long-range attackers, get to your positions, and when the command is given attack.”

I saw the adventurer close to me swallow in nervousness, and I kind of wished I could do that as well. Instead, I cleaned my antennas—a nervous tick almost all ants shared. How had we not heard anything about this army?

A moment later, I felt a voice in my head. "How did our scouts miss the army approaching?" the adventurer close to me asked, using the communication necklace all of us had.

I shook my antennas in a way that humans understood meant ‘I have no idea.’ I believe they called it a shrug. It was when they lifted both of their shoulders. It was funny that even with our communication necklaces, it was sometimes easier to just learn other creatures’ body language, as every creature had some form of it, and it was really easy to learn.

We were further back, and we would not see any combat, but we could feel some of what was happening outside. I could feel the mana moving as attacks started to land on the walls that protected the very dungeon itself. The attacks seemed to not be able to get through, and I didn’t think that they would, but I could feel the mana moving in different ways than before—more active.

Periodically, we got updates. Apparently, some attackers had been able to get inside, but none of the walls were actually breached. Everyone was still confused as to who was actually attacking us. The way the bodies disappeared, it must have been a dungeon that connected with Father’s territory. But then why were there adventurers with them? And how could another dungeon make adventurers? It was just so confusing.

It took four hours for the fighting to die down, and all of a sudden, all of our attackers disappeared at the same time. Then I heard the voice of Father.

"Do not worry, this was a test. It was my army that attacked. We now have an idea of what our defenses can do and what we need to improve. I thank you for your diligence—everyone did excellent."

It took me an embarrassingly long time to actually understand what that meant. It seems that the adventurer close to me also finally received word, as they couldn’t hear Father like I could. He looked quite pale.

"Did he just make one of the strongest armies in the world just a test for our defenses on a whim?"

The mental waves had a quiver to them, and I think I felt the same way as he did as I slowly nodded, confirming to him that I felt the same—a gesture both of our species shared.