The next pack of dogs they ran into was fewer in number, but even larger in size. These were true horse-sized beasts.

  Still, working together, they managed to deal with each of them as they came.

  Hours later, they were still picking their way through the forest. All the trees around them had experienced a surge in growth as the qi in the area increased and began to affect the natural world. The plants and herbs had been mutating and changing for years.

  Nate hadn’t originally thought about picking herbs as they went, but many of them were too valuable to pass up.

  His mother had taught him how to make her Wakeup tea, and there were some variations allowed, but not much. So, while the herbs he was finding were valuable, they weren’t useful for the one item he knew how to make. Which was also why they hadn’t really considered picking most of them. Classes at school had taught them much about recognizing herbs they would encounter.

  “Are we going to be able to make it there tonight?” Angie asked as they kept pushing onward.

  Nate shook his head. “It doesn’t seem likely, no. I hadn’t realized that the dungeon would be quite this far away from the road.”

  “Don’t you know where the dungeon is?” Lindsay asked him. “How could you not know how far away from the road it was?”

  “Of course, I know where it is, but that doesn’t do me much good if I don’t know where I am.” Nate wanted to say more, but neither of the girls would know what a GPS system was. “I know where the dungeon is in relation to certain landmarks. It’s not like I know where I am in relation to the dungeon at this very moment.”

  A light of understanding came into both of their eyes as he said that.

  Nate made a few changes to several of the dungeons, chasing those ever-better numbers. He made sure not to touch the dungeon they would reach in the morning, as that was something Angie and Lindsay would help with. After finishing those tasks, he spent the rest of the night in the Grand Canyon dungeon, watching the floating jellyfish. He was still trying to learn their secrets and create his new meditation method.

  He was making progress in that particular endeavor, but it was slow going. Doing what he was attempting to do didn’t exactly come with a manual to explain everything. A lot of it was nothing but guesswork on his part or using the energy skill binding ties. That still resulted in guesswork; however, it at least gave him hints to work with.

  ***

  “So, this is the dungeon you dragged us out here to see?” Lindsay asked shortly before lunchtime the next day. “I can’t say as I am exactly impressed. From the outside it looks the same as the one near our home. Just, you know, without all the signs.”

  Nate chuckled. He had only put those signs outside of two dungeons and left all the rest alone. At this point, word had started to spread about the dungeons and what they were. That meant he didn’t even need to have signs out front explaining what the place was to all the idiots.

  “Are we actually going inside it?” Angie wondered, noticing what Lindsay had missed. The outside of the small building did indeed look similar to the structure near their city. There was one clear difference with this one though, the back half of it was built directly into the hill behind it.

  The group had been on plenty of expeditions by that point and fought hundreds of monsters. They had even gone to the community outside of the dungeon near their home several times. Despite that, they had never actually gone inside the dungeon. This would be the first time for the girls, and for Nathan outside of his dreams, at least.

  “That’s the plan, yeah. What I have to show you is inside the place.”

  “Aura, if he tries anything funny, sit on him while we beat him up,” Lindsay told the kitsune while flexing her muscles. Physically, she was the strongest one in the group, as years of training with her heavy halberd had honed her muscles to a fine degree.

  The fox chuffed and led the way into the dungeon.

  They had gotten lucky and missed seeing any kobolds in the area that had left the dungeon.

  The group’s luck didn’t last any longer than them entering the dungeon and seeing the first room. Some kobolds had camped out inside the exit area, a room that was half mining tunnel and half typical dungeon room.

  The four didn’t give the kobolds time to react as they drew their weapons and attacked.

  Lindsay’s halberd chopped down into the first one, the heavy axe blade crushing through its protective scales. With a roar of defiance, she pulled it back and then thrust the spike on its head into the mushy gap she had created. Twisting the haft of the halberd caused the spike to spin and rip the insides of the lizard being.

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  Behind her, Angie wasn’t even bothering with her sword, having already realized that her sword would do little against those scales. Instead, she was spinning her sling with heavy ball bearings in the pouch. Her speed enhancement came into effect as her wrist blurred, encouraging the heavy metal ball inside the sling to speed at ever faster speeds.

  The metal orb shot out and hit the kobold she had been aiming for, sending it flying backward until it crumpled lifeless against the wall. Its entire chest had caved in from the force of the shocking blow.

  On the side, Nate and Aura were working together with practiced familiarity to take out their own targets.

  The fight might have taken them somewhat by surprise, with its suddenness, but they were able to handle the kobolds with minimal difficulty. There weren’t enough of them to cause the group any actual problems. The main difficulty Nate and Aura had always faced with the kobolds, even outside of the stronger ones, was their ability to work together. Having the girls right there next to them solved that particular issue splendidly.

  The armor-like scales, while a problem, were less of an issue overall.

  Taking a moment to rest once the party of kobolds was all dead, Nate watched as the last of the bodies sank into the dungeon, leaving nothing behind. The process was slow enough on the one that they could have taken some of its crappy gear if they had worked fast.

  It was interesting to watch the process happen from his own body for once. Every time he had seen this happen before, it had always been from the eyes of his avatar or the camera screens, as it happened to other cultivators. It always seemed to happen faster during those times.

  He wondered if that was in his head, or if the dungeon was actually slowing the process down for them… him? Not a lot, obviously, but some.

  “This is what you do every night?” Lindsay asked, wiping the last of the blood from her halberd. “No wonder you’re so good with your crossbow and kukris.”

  He waggled his hand back and forth. “Most nights, yeah. Aura and I do this for practice. It’s how we get all of those.” He pointed to a green orb which had appeared when the last kobold vanished, a further sign that the dungeon, or Dungeon Core, was responding to his and Aura’s presence. Aura quickly tapped it and after the usual show of light it iturned into an herb. He had never seen any of them drop an item for anyone but the two of them before.

  All the cultivators got were the spices in the treasure chests and anything from the bodies they were quick enough to grab before they vanished.

  “Is that a healing herb?” Angie asked, picking it up.

  “Yup, like I said. It’s how we got most of our advanced herbs.” Nate bit the corner of his mouth, feeling a small weight begin to lift off his chest.

  She carefully examined it before passing it to Lindsay, who did the same thing and then handed it over to Nate. “Is this one of the things you wanted to show us?”

  “Honestly? I had no idea that this would even happen.” He admitted with a chuckle. “All the cultivators who come through here don’t get anything outside of the treasure chests. I’ve never seen anyone get anything like the items Aura and I get when I’m in my avatar form.” He paused, rolling that sentence through his mind. “Though, now that I think about it, I’m the only one in an avatar. Aura doesn’t have one. She is always in her natural form, just like she is now.”

  Now that he had made that realization, he wondered if the dungeon wasn’t doing anything after all and it was just because of Aura’s presence.

  That was an experiment for a later time. For the moment, it was enough that they were getting items.

  “I don’t think that herb was because of me,” Aura told them, seeming to understand where his thoughts were going. “I did get one, but it went directly into my inventory like usual.”

  Ah, that was right. The items she got went directly into the inventory the dungeon had given her when she became his beast companion.

  “Right, well, I guess the why of it all doesn’t actually matter, as long as it works.” He slapped his thighs and stood. “Shall we continue? There is a lot more to see, and neither Aura nor I have been inside this dungeon yet.”

  “Then how do you know there is a lot more to see?” Angie joked.

  He rolled his eyes and pulled up several camera screens to the side of his vision. He wanted to be forewarned before they stumbled on another group of kobolds.

  They continued working their way through the rooms, the dungeon gradually taking on more characteristics of a mine. They were also going slowly downhill, which was unusual for Nate’s dungeons, which were typically level inside.

  A smaller, third group of kobolds fell to their attacks, allowing them to quickly move on.

  A couple of rooms later, they came across the first couple of rock golems. Nate and Aura stopped Angie and Lindsay from pre-emptively attacking them. From what they had seen of the creatures, they rarely attacked unless previously provoked. They appeared to be mostly peaceful beings who only really cared about getting more rocks and gems.

  The dwarves worked with them and fought against them over the spoils they dug and then hoarded to eat.

  Sure enough, as they stepped into the large room, the golems didn’t even react to their presence. Each of them merely continued to thrust their fists into the wall and tear out small chunks. Over time, the walls regenerated, putting the golems back at the beginning again. Something that they didn’t seem to mind.

  Neither did the dwarves, for that matter. As far as they were concerned, the place was the greatest treasure trove that they could have ever asked for. All the gems and other materials that they could hope to mine. The only problem was that they had no way of getting it back to their own world and making use of the items.

  “This is an odd dungeon,” Lindsay muttered as they walked past the golems without touching them.

  Another group of kobolds fell to their attacks as they bypassed the room with the portal. Finally, they entered the section of the dungeon that the dwarves had unofficially claimed as theirs. The only beings they allowed in this section were the golems, the kobolds they killed on sight.

  There were guards posted two rooms past the portal that Nate could see on the cameras.

  Clearing his throat, he called out to them, glad that he had already completed the research on their language. They might not be able to understand him, but thanks to the power of subtitles, he and Aura would know what they were saying.

  https://www.amazon.com/author/joshuakern

  https://joshuakernbooks.com/