Core of Knowledge

Xu Han watched as the adventurers gathered at the end of the floor. There must be some consensus among them as no one approached the chest while they were waiting. Most looked bored, but there was a stir when the two adventurers who escaped his pit traps entered the clearing.

Xu Han saw the two adventurers freely giving the information of the traps to the rest of the group, an action Xu Han still found hard to believe, and heard several of the adventurers cursing. Not at Xu Han, but at the exploration group for failing to notice the traps. Xu Han realized the exploration group might be more important than he thought.

Then, the adventurer who found the treasure chest came to the clearing.

He showed off the bolt of silk and the stir among the adventurers grew. Xu Han saw greed and excitement among the adventurers and the new traps were almost forgotten as they grilled the lucky adventurer who found the chest. Mostly, many adventurers wished to know what they need to look out for. It reminded Xu Han of something.

“Jemma, what do think about increasing the toxicity of the fog in areas where the treasure chests are located? It will increase the difficulty, but they can also serve as a sort of landmark telling adventurers where the chests are.”

Jemma struck her thinking pose, thought for a moment before nodding her head. “That is a good idea. This will make adventurers think when they plan a route to the end of the floor, just make sure not to place a treasure chest in every area of highly poisonous fog. Risk and reward are part of a dungeon, and you want to leave some doubt on whether there will be a chest in every dangerous area. Let the adventurer decide on whether to risk it.”

Xu Han agreed with his dungeon fairy’s suggestion, and they went back to watching the adventurers. When the last of the adventurers reached the end of the floor, Xu Han was expecting them to immediately open the chest. They didn’t.

The adventurers continued to sit around, as if they were waiting for something. Xu Han wondered what they were doing before realizing that the adventurers were waiting for the dead. They had no idea the rest of their group had fallen to the floor.

Xu Han considered telling the adventurers their friends were dead, but quickly abandoned the idea. He was drawing divine power from the adventurers’ continued presence and besides, it’s not a dungeon core’s job to tell adventurers their friends were dead.

Time did not make much of a difference in the dungeon, but after some time one of the adventurers called out to the group. The adventurers had waited long enough.

Xu Han saw one of the female adventurers cried out in anguish and several others looking sad. No doubt, they were friends of the fallen but Xu Han felt nothing at their pain. He had lived too long and seen too many dead family, friends and enemies to feel sorrow at the death of strangers.

Xu Han watch dispassionately as three of the adventurers approached the chest. These three adventurers were dressed like [Rogues], but unlike the elf woman who came with the exploration team, these [Rogues] were careful in their approach. One of them, the only elf of the three, took out some tools. Xu Han wondered what the tools were for as there was no lock on the chest. The adventurers could just flip open the chest.

The elf took out a strange small item that Xu Han did not recognize and slid it beneath the lid of the chest. He turned the item, and the item opened the chest by a few centimetres. The elf looked in the chest, and Xu Han finally understood what they were doing.

The [Rogues] were trying to disarm the trap!

Xu Han would tell them not to bother. The treasure chest was magical in nature, and there was no springs or wires for the [Rogues] to cut. The elf must have heard Xu Han because he shook his head and turned to a [Rogue] beside him. The second [Rogue] took over the elf’s position in front of the chest, took a quick look at the small opening, and cast a spell. It was directed in at the small opening, and Xu Han saw a bolt of red energy enter the chest before the elf quickly opened it. To Xu Han’s surprise, the trap he placed on the chest did not go off.

The trap had been disarmed!

Xu Han did not know that was even possible. When he created the treasure chest, Xu Han had used a little more power to arm it with a trap, but he did not manually create the trap like he did the Printing Press book or the Qiyao Ruqun dress. The trap was a system generated item that came with the chest. Xu Han had thought it was good enough, but that no longer seems like the case.

Was the quality of items automatically created by the dungeon worse than items personally created by him? How did the [Rogue] even managed to disarm the trap? What spell was that? Was that spell common among the Classed with the [Rogue] class?

Xu Han wondered as the adventurers took out the treasure in the chest. The adventurers weren’t excited about the gold they found, it wasn’t much when shared among so many, but the weapon in the chest gave them pause. There was a sword in the chest but unlike the sword commonly used by the adventurers, this sword was different. It was a Jian.

When he first created the first floor and the chest, Xu Han had created several items to give out as rewards. Outside the Skill Scroll that gave the dwarf the White Tiger Movement technique, Xu Han created the gold and several weapons. He had set it up for the chest to give them out randomly, and it looks that these adventurers got lucky. That was a problem.

The Jian was a straight, double-edged sword commonly found in some of the regions of the Crimson Lands. A weapon that relies on technique and finesse instead of brute strength, the jian was a beloved weapon due to its graceful and refined movements. It was also a weapon that requires a great deal of skill and training to master.

Skill and training that the local people did not have.

When Xu Han first created the weapons for the chest to give out, he had no knowledge of the weapons in this world and created the weapons with the knowledge he had from the Crimson Lands. From what he had seen, the typical sword an adventurer used in this world was very different from the jian.

The local sword was a straight, double-edged weapon with a single-handed, cross-shaped hilt with a blade length of between 70 to 80 centimetres. As the Thief of Ten Thousand Techniques, Xu Han has knowledge in swordsmanship and blacksmithing, and he could see some advantage in the local sword.

It could be used either with one hand or two, it was well-suited for mounted combat, and has a good balance between strength and manoeuvrability. It was also very different from the jian. Known as the ‘Gentleman of Weapons’, the jian embodies elegance and sophistication, and it requires a totally different skillset to use.

“I need to remake all the weapons I created for the treasure chests.” Xu Han murmured.

Jemma rejected the idea out of hand. “Don’t bother. The Classed will find a way to use them properly, and if not, they will become collector’s items. No harm done.”

Xu Han was about to say weapons are not supposed to be collector’s items when he recalled the number of cultivators, emperors, and kings he knew who did collect weapons. In some cases, they treated the weapons better than people. Xu Han could only sigh.

The spell circle to the second floor lit up, and to Xu Han’s surprise, a small group of adventurers broke off. Most of the adventurers would continue to the second floor, but several, including the female adventurer who cried, chose to return to the surface. They were abandoning their run.

Not wanting to lose it back to the dungeon, the jian was given to an adventurer who was exiting the dungeon. Xu Han heard that the adventurers would put it up for auction and dividing the proceeds among the group. Xu Han almost chuckled. Such teamwork would never happen between cultivators assaulting a Secret Realm.

After wishing the adventurers luck, the smaller group stepped on the spell circle and exited the dungeon. After seeing the smaller group leaving, the remaining adventurers stepped on the circle to the second floor. Xu Han mentally smiled as Jemma gave a loud laugh. The changes on the first floor were successful. Now, now the duo will see how the adventurers fare against the changes on the second floor.