Dungeon

Scholars wondered for years on the subject of dungeons, there as no definitive answer, but there was a prevalent theory.

The dungeons are pockets of other worlds, they seemed to invade ours by chance. If the world deemed them dangerous it would confine them with a barrier. However, sooner or later the Barrier’s energy would deplete and a gate would open allowing people in at first, and if it was left untreated the barrier would disappear and what’s inside would leave it to wreak havoc into the world.

A Dungeons was both a blessing and a curse, it contained dangerous monsters and precious metals and herbs. Once a dungeon was cleared of all the things the world deemed dangerous, it would collapse and merge with the world, revealing its treasures to the outside world to be mined. so the world's hidden powers would usually fight over them.

But before it is cleared, people can come in but not out.

That is not usually a problem, as once a dungeon was opened only Full Player can get in, and whoever controls it would send a ready team of players, but sometimes if the Dungeon opened where people were already standing, it would swallow them regardless of there status. Those people would then be granted a player status. It was called Dungeon Awakening.

Many powers tried to send their youths who were not fully awakened to search for such dungeons so they may get a chance to advance. But finding a dungeon before it opens is easier said than done. It was much later after the Reckoning when dungeons began to appear every other day that a method was created to forecast dungeons opening. And even then it was more of an art than a concrete science.

At this time dungeons are rare maybe one every month. The strong families and alliances started to fight for access rights long ago, but one day they stopped and formed the Dungeon agreement after they lost all their forces in an S rank dungeon. You can’t know the dungeon's rank until you go inside.

If it was dangerous you could only tell when a dungeon has already swallowed legions of players without being cleared.

The agreement was drafted officially to let unaffiliated players and all the powers have an equal chance to clear the dungeon and take whatever spoils they gained inside.

But the truth was they needed canon fodders to explore and act as shields.s once the dungeon closes, the precious land left behind is for whoever has enough power to own it and control it. And once it was owned the others have to respect that.

## About Dungeons

"…. First, when a dungeon opens, whoever is beside it would be dragged inside, be it mortals or players. The mortals would awaken as players, so would the semi-players.”

“That means if we take a semi-player there, he can become a player?” A student from a very minor family asked.

“Yes… But we can’t know where a dungeon is before it opens. Many tried to find a pattern, but all of them failed… And even if we locate one, how can we make it open? That is one of the unanswered questions in Dungeonology. The science of dungeons… For the last 500 years, only 10 such incidents were recorded. As dungeons usually open in uninhabited regions.”

“Now, after a dungeon opens, we must be very careful, as we can’t know its rank without an expert appraiser and even then, it might be appraised wrongly, as this is not dependent on a system skill, but scientific measurements... So usually, we stay away from dungeons until a team of experts arrives… Of course, some people take risks and enter early, because once a stronger power arrives, all rights for the dungeon would be transferred to them… ” She explained.

“A dungeon would belong to whoever owns the land… If no one owns the land, then it belongs to whoever clears it… there are other rules too, but they are beyond our course..” Isabella added.

“What ranks are the dungeons?” The girl from earlier asked again.

“They rank from F to SS… That’s the highest rank we know of. F-ranked dungeons are dangerous, but they can be conquered by a team of 5 experts… Usually, they are safe as long as you hide and wait for help… So are E-ranked dungeons, although they tend to be a little more dangerous… And like that, the difficulty increases depending on the rank. So does the size of the dungeon.” She explained. “An F ranked dungeon is the size of a normal big cave, It requires from 5 To 10 hours to cross from one side to the other, while the E ranked ones might get much bigger requiring about a day or two to cross. The smallest D-ranked dungeon required 5 Days to cross.” She added.

“What about higher-ranked ones?” Peter asked.

“The highest-ranked dungeon to ever be conquered was A Ranked. Its size was on the small side, requiring Only 20 Days to cross, And it took them six months to conquer it.” She explained with a proud smile. “I was a part of that expedition.” She said, gaining herself the admiration of her students.

“What about S and SS Ranked dungeons?” Tom asked.

“There exists 5 S ranked and 1 SS Ranked dungeons now…The last one opened 20 years ago… None of them were conquered, despite the families launching many expeditions… So no one goes there nowadays.” She said.

## Dungeons

* The Goblin’s General Dungeon - Cloudy Mountain
* The Spiders' Den Dungeon
* The Withered Snakes Dungeon