The gold icon displayed three lines of text:
[New Feature Preview – Dungeon Network.]
[Unlock Conditions: Dungeon Level ≥ C ✓ / Management Panel Upgrade ✓ / Architect Level ≥ C ✗.]
[Current Progress: 2/3.] Three conditions, two green checkmarks, one red cross.
The dungeon is now C rank. The management panel automatically refreshed with the upgrade patch. It's stuck on the last requirement—his own level.
D-. A whole major level short.
Allen tucked the gold icon back into the corner. The warmth of the crystal still lingered in his fingertips.
The management panel's recovery countdown was displayed in the upper right corner, the number incrementing by one every second. Forty-seven hours.
He didn't close his eyes immediately.
Eighty rooms.
The capacity limit for C-rank dungeons has increased from fifty to eighty. Thirty new empty slots are arranged in three columns in the blueprint interface, each a gray dotted outline, waiting to be filled.
In Rank D, he focused on quantity—more monsters, denser traps, longer routes. A brutal stacking of resources.
Rank C can't continue this approach.
If the eighty rooms are just a series of homogenous ruined streets, adventurers' fatigue curve will plummet after the fortieth room. Immersion ratings will drop, and BP production will follow.
More importantly—high-level adventurers adapt much faster than low-level ones. A Rank B team can memorize the monster spawn points at every corner after three runs of the same layout. The fourth time, they can just walk in blindly.
The ruined city is retained. Rooms 1 to 50. Main city area.
A mature ecosystem—Twilight Hunters, Rift Spiders, Echoing Phantoms, Corrupted Sentinels. A combination already validated by hundreds of teams. No change.
Rooms 51 to 65.
Allen drags a new environment template onto the blueprint interface.
Underground sewers.
The ruined city's sewer system extends downwards into a separate area. Complete darkness—no twilight light from the sky, no faint illumination from the remnants of streetlights.
The sound of water drowns out footsteps. Visibility is reduced to less than three meters.
The monster slots are filled with four types of aquatic units.
Hagfish Swarm—Rank F, no attack power, but it wraps around your ankles, slowing your movement.
Rotting Leeches—Rank E, attached to ceiling pipes, dripping from above. For every three seconds an adventurer looks up, their gaze leaves the water's surface. Three seconds is enough.
Tidal Golems—Rank D, patrolling the underwater tunnels, their location revealed only by the ripples in the water. Adventurers pay no attention to the ripples; their attention is consumed by the rotting leeches on the ceiling.
Abyssal Anglerfish—Rank C, area boss, its glowing organ on its forehead is both the sole light source and bait. In complete darkness, humans instinctively move towards the light source. Biological hunting.
The core rule of this area: perception reigns supreme. Strength and agility types are discounted by half here.
What you can't see will see you first.
Pages 66 to 79.
Vertical Space.
Tower Zone. A concrete tower rising from the center of a ruined city. Its internal structure is distorted by the rules of spatial folding—floors with an actual height of three meters unfold into a fifteen-meter-high suspended battlefield.
No stairs. No handrails. The gaps between platforms require jumping or flying skills to cross.
Gravity Rule: 2x.
Weight doubled. Equipment doubled. Jump height halved.
What happens the moment a B-rank warrior in full plate armor steps onto the first platform—his knees bear double the load, and the concrete blocks beneath his feet begin calculating the accumulated load. Before he even draws his sword, the platform is already cracking.
Each platform will shatter after exceeding its load threshold.
Aerial monsters—Wind-Eroded Crows, Thunderridge Lizards, Fallen Weavers. They are unaffected by the doubled gravity.
The heavier the person on the ground, the slower they moved; the faster things flew in the sky, the faster they flew.
Room 80.
Allen dragged the Abyss Warden's deployment coordinates from Room 50 to Room 80.
The Blueprint interface popped up with a configuration panel for the added rules. A new feature unlocked at Tier C.
Time Flow Modification.
He switched it to 0.5x.
Affects Challengers. Ineffective against native dungeon units.
Those entering Room 80 had their actions executed at half the normal speed. Swinging a sword took twice as long. Dodging took twice as long. Drinking a potion took twice as long.
The Abyss Warden swung its sword at normal speed.
Allen stared at the parameters on the configuration panel.
Lina and Guts last lasted thirty seconds at normal time flow.
In the 0.5x environment, they could last fifteen seconds. Maybe twelve.
The Warden's adaptation counter was at 1. It had learned Lina's Shadowstep variant and Guts's Frontal Hammer. The next team needs a completely new attack pattern to leave a mark on it.
And each new pattern can only be used once.
Allen saved the configuration.
All eighty rooms on the blueprint interface lit up—the gray dotted outlines turned solid, and each cell was filled with its corresponding color code. The main city was cobalt blue, the waterway area was dark green, the tower area was dark orange, and room number 80 was black.
A city. Three layers of ecosystem. An ever-evolving monster guards the deepest part.
No longer just three rooms in the warehouse basement.
— Recovery period 47 hours and 58 minutes.
Allen stood up from the concrete floor.
It took four seconds. Eight seconds faster than last time.
The management panel's attribute display: D-. Full value. Recovery complete.
He did three things.
First: He washed the hoodie. The water from the faucet in the corner of the warehouse was cold and rusty. The bloodstains on the hoodie soaked for twenty minutes and rubbed five times, the color changing from dark red to light brown. It wasn't completely dry. There was still a damp patch on the back when I put it on.
Second item: Went to the convenience store three blocks outside the warehouse. Bought a pair of jeans. Fourteen dollars. The cheapest kind. The fabric at the knees was so thin you could see the loose threads, but at least there were no tears, no bloodstains, no cement dust.
Third item: Changed the shoelaces. The left shoelace of my sneakers broke when I got up from the ground one day. The new shoelaces were white. The old ones were gray.
One foot white, one foot gray.
Allen stood outside the warehouse. One o'clock in the afternoon.
The sky was gray. The Brooklyn sky is always that hue on non-sunny days—neither overcast nor sunny, the light filtering evenly from behind the clouds, washing away all shadows.
He wiped his glasses. There was a thin scratch on the left lens—from hitting it while lying on the concrete.
He couldn't wipe it off.
He looked at the lens for two seconds. The scratch was exactly across the lower third of his left eye's field of vision. It didn't affect his vision, but he noticed the line every time his gaze swept downwards.
From today onward, everything he saw would have an extra mark on it.
He put his glasses back on his nose. He took the subway to Manhattan.
— GWA New York office building. Three blocks east of Times Square. Fifty-two floors.
The glass curtain wall rose from the ground, the eagle emblem embedded in the curtain wall between the thirtieth and thirty-first floors. Metal relief. Wingspan covering the width of four windows.
The afternoon sun shone on the eagle's beak, reflecting a bright spot.
Allen stood on the sidewalk outside the building's main entrance.
Three years ago. The same building. Not this door.
The temporary entrance on the east side. He had waited in line for four hours. He wasn't getting a visitor's pass, but a victim's family information registration form.
A4 paper. Three pages.
The first two pages were personal information and confirmation of the victim's relationship; the third page was the intention to claim the remains/possessions.
He was nineteen. He dropped his pen twice while filling out the form. Not because his hand was shaking—his fingers were too cold. October in New York. No heating in the queuing area.
The last column on the third page. "Requesting a public accident investigation report?"
He checked "Yes."
Three years, and the report hadn't arrived.
Allen pushed open the main door.
Visitor registration. System authentication code: Architect_00.
The receptionist checked his information twice. The second time, she glanced up at him.
Twenty-two years old. Thin-rimmed glasses, a scratch on the left lens. A faded black hoodie, with a dark, still-wet stain on the back. Fourteen-dollar jeans. Sneakers with one white lace and one gray lace.
This was the "creator of the man-made underground city" who had been making headlines worldwide for three days.
The receptionist didn't speak. She swiped her pass.
Thirty-seventh floor.
—The interview room. Standard setup.
A long table with a metal top. Two chairs. A one-way mirror. The recording equipment in the corner of the ceiling was lit with a red light. There was an empty paper cup holder on the table.
Allen sat down.
The chair was fixed, its base bolted to the floor. The angle couldn't be adjusted. The backrest rested directly on the third thoracic vertebra; sitting for a long time would cause soreness.
The door opened.
Robert Chen walked in. He was wearing a gray suit and a tie today. He was carrying two cups of coffee.
He pushed one of them towards Allen.
Allen didn't touch it.
Robert sat down. He took a recorder from his suit pocket and placed it in the center of the table. The red light was already on.
"Formal interview begins. Interviewee code: Architect_00, operator of GWA registered underground city NYC-BK-0513. Interviewer—Robert Chen, Senior Investigator, Investigation Division, GWA New York Branch. Date—" He announced the date.
"First question. Are you Architect_00?"
"I am the operator of NYC-BK-0513. System registration is valid."
"How did you create this dungeon?"
"System-authorized capabilities. The specific mechanisms are professional secrets. GWA Regulation Article 12, Section 3—Details of the core professional skills of Awakened Ones are protected by privacy." Robert's pen paused on the notebook for half a second.
In that pause, Allen read a stubbed-out cigarette butt—Robert had stopped himself from asking the question he was about to ask.
Article 12, Section 3. Allen looked it up on the subway. Public text of the GWA Regulation, PDF, page 47.
Robert didn't ask further. Next question.
"What is the highest level of monsters currently in your dungeon?"
"Matching the dungeon's level. C-rank."
"Among the existing monsters, are there any units capable of autonomously leaving the dungeon's boundaries?"
The wording of this question is crucial. "Autonomous departure." Not "Can they escape?" Not "Is there a risk of loss of control?" The more neutral the wording, the more room Allen has to answer.
"All native dungeon units are physically anchored to the System and cannot leave the dungeon boundary."
Question 4.
"Your dungeon's impact on public safety assessment—can you guarantee that the dungeon will not experience an uncontrolled outbreak?"
"System registration itself is a security certification. The System will not approve an artificial dungeon with an outbreak risk."
Questions 5 through 12 progressed even faster. Each question hovered just short of compliance. Every answer precisely fell within the safe zone of legal terminology.
Not because Allen was adept at legal language.
It was because every question Robert asked taught him how to answer.
The wording of the questions, the selection of keywords, the direction of the follow-up questions—all guided him down one path. A path that appeared impeccably clean in the official records.
Question 13.
"Does your dungeon operation involve any personal injury to challengers?"
"All challengers are forcibly teleported back to the dungeon entrance after their health reaches zero. Security protocol coverage is 100%."
"Has anyone died in your dungeon?"
"Zero deaths." Robert wrote these two words in his notebook with a slightly heavier stroke than before. Allen saw that pressure—this answer was important to Robert. Not as an investigator. As a stance he hadn't fully revealed yet.
Questions 15 through 17 were procedural closing.
"Are you willing to cooperate with GWA's routine inspections in the future?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any objections to GWA's compliance review?"
"No."
"Interview ended." The red light on the recorder went out.
Robert capped the pen and closed the notebook.
The interview wasn't an interrogation.
It was forging a shield.
Then he picked up his coffee and took a sip.
"Recording stopped."
"Hmm."
"Your dungeon has been upgraded to C-rank." Allen didn't respond. No response was needed. This wasn't a question.
"System registration information updates automatically. You are the first—and only—in the GWA database to advance from F-rank to C-rank dungeon within two weeks. The upgrade cycle for natural dungeons starts at ten years." Steam rose from Robert's cup, condensing into a thin mist on the one-way mirror.
"What does that mean?" Allen asked.
"It means you're not normal." Robert put down his cup.
"But it means you're useful." The pause between the two sentences was less than a second. "Not normal" and "useful" were juxtaposed, without any transition word.
Allen's coffee cup remained untouched. A droplet of water slid from the top to the bottom, spreading in a circle on the metal tabletop.
"Two things." Robert reached into his suit pocket again. This time, it wasn't a recording pen.
"First—Victor Stone received a formal warning letter from the GWA two days ago. Rule seven violation. He didn't reply." As expected. The standard reaction for an S-rank Awakened to a GWA warning letter: archive it, ignore it.
"But he changed direction. Black Serpent is assembling an 'elite exploration team.' The objective—to apply to the GWA for permission to enter the Brooklyn Ruins for 'cooperative dungeon exploration.'" Allen's spine straightened slightly in his chair.
"GWA regulations allow registered dungeons to accept cooperative exploration applications from external guilds." Robert's pace remained the same, but each keyword was emphasized more firmly. "If the operator refuses, a reasonable explanation is required. If no explanation is provided—the GWA can rule to force entry." Security checks were blocked. Victor Stone had found another way.
Still the rules. Still the regulations. Still the high-sounding rhetoric.
"The second thing." Robert pulled a USB drive from his pocket.
Black. No markings. The size of a fingernail.
He pushed the USB drive to the center of the table. Next to Allen's untouched cup of coffee.
"Manhattan S-level outbreak. Investigation documents. Incomplete—my clearance only goes up to A-level. Content above B-level is still sealed."
Allen stared at the USB drive.
The size of a fingernail. A few grams.
Three years ago, he checked the "yes" box. After that, he waited 1095 days. Part of the answer was contained in this case.
"Don't open it on any internet-connected device."
Allen's hand reached out. The moment his fingertips touched the USB drive's casing, the plastic was cool. The coolness of the tabletop.
He picked up the USB drive. He stuffed it into the right pocket of his jeans. The pocket fabric was thin. The sharp edges of the USB drive dug into the muscles on the outside of his thigh.
He stood up. The chair legs made no sound on the ground—fixed, immovable.
"Robert." Robert had just picked up his coffee.
"Protect me while you're recording. Turn off the recording and give me the intelligence."
Allen's glasses reflected the one-way mirror, just enough to block out what was in his pupils.
"What are you after?" Robert took a sip.
"I hope you live long enough to actually use what's in that document."
He put down his cup. The bottom tapped briefly on the metal table.
"The outbreak three years ago killed 23,000 people. The investigation concluded it was a 'natural outbreak.' I signed it."
The sharp edge of the USB drive in Allen's jeans pocket rubbed against him again.
"That signature was the most disgusting thing I've ever done in my life." A persistent, low-frequency hum emanated from the air conditioning vents in the interview room.
Whether there was anyone behind the one-way mirror, Allen didn't know. The voice recorder was on the table, its red light off. An off light didn't mean no other lights were on.
Allen pushed open the interview room door.
The corridor lights were two shades brighter than inside, making him squint.
He didn't turn around.
— The elevator descended.
It took forty-seven seconds to descend from the fifty-second floor to the first. Allen leaned against the back wall of the elevator. His right hand was in his pocket, his fingertips pressing against the surface of the USB drive.
There was no one else in the elevator.
Forty-seven seconds. He wasn't thinking about anything.
Not intentionally clearing his mind. Too many things were queuing up to come in at the same time, crowding the entrance, none of them able to get through. The revolving doors in the lobby pushed him back onto the sidewalk. The sunlight was bright.
He walked towards the subway station. — Line F. Towards Brooklyn.
Eleven people in the carriage. It was 3 PM, off-peak time, and half the seats were empty.
Allen sat near the door. The plastic casing of his USB drive was warm from his body heat.
An update popped up on the management panel in the corner of his vision.
[Dungeon Network - Unlock Progress: 2/3.]
[Architect Level Detection - Current: D. Target: C.]
[Gap: Approximately 45,000 Experience Points. Recommendation: Conduct high-density test mode training in a C-level dungeon. Estimated Time: 72-96 hours.] Three to four days. He'd grind monsters around the clock in his own C-level dungeon. D-level monsters against C-level monsters, maximizing the experience multiplier.
Three to four days later, he'd be C-level. The third green checkmark would light up. The Dungeon Network unlocked.
One dungeon became many.
But he didn't have a three-to-four-day window.
The Black Serpent's collaborative exploration application—from initiation to GWA ruling—takes 48 to 72 hours. Victor Stone's legal team won't waste a second.
The S-level investigation is still looming overhead. Today's meeting is just the first step. Robert can withstand the initial review, but he can't stop Washington headquarters from sending people down.
Global Abnormal Fluctuation Index—he glanced at it in the corner of the management panel.
The end of the broken line has already touched the lower edge of the red threshold line. Not "approaching." It's contact.
Three things are pressing down simultaneously.
Training upgrade. Dealing with the Black Serpent. Investigating his parents' deaths.
One person.
Outside the car window is the underground tunnel connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. Occasionally, a section of pipe flashes in the darkness, its reflection flickering.
Allen's left hand pulls his phone out of his pocket. He opens the customer tracking module's tab page.
The SilentBlade_7 entry is still there.
B-level Shadow Assassin. Completed in eleven minutes. Four columns of garbled text. Reward forfeited.
Not here to raid the dungeon. He came to see the dungeon.
For whom?
On the phone screen, the garbled text in the SilentBlade_7's registration location field flashed.
It wasn't a system refresh. The characters were changing.
The arrangement of the garbled text changed from random noise to a repeating sequence—segments, cycling periodically.
Allen brought his face closer to the screen.
The garbled text cycled through seven characters.
Five of those seven characters were ASCII codes. He mentally calculated for two seconds.
83-78-65-75-69.
S. N. A. K. E.
The subway arrived. The station announcement drowned out the metallic clang of wheels rolling over seams. Brooklyn.
Allen's thumb was still pressed against the screen.
The garbled text cycled through the screen again before he looked away, then returned to random noise.
Five letters.
The spies Black Serpent sent into his dungeon had already been there, and earlier than anyone else.
The train doors opened. Allen stood up.
The USB drive in his pocket was digging into his thigh, the fluctuation index on the management panel was near the red line, and the garbled text on his phone screen still lingered on his retina.
He stepped out of the train car.
One of the platform lights was flickering. The frequency was irregular. In the shifting light and shadow, his shadow on the floor tiles stretched and shortened, constantly changing.
Allen didn't look at his shadow.
He was looking at the billboard above the exit stairs—three years ago it was a subway company safety poster, now it was a recruitment poster for the Black Serpent Guild.
Victor Stone's face occupied three-quarters of the image.
S-class. Black and gold armor. Arms crossed. A downward angle.
At the bottom of the poster was a slogan: "We conquer what others fear."
Allen walked past the poster.
He ascended the stairs. Light streamed down from the exit. The Brooklyn evening sky was still gray.
His hood was down. The scratch on his left lens sliced through the afterimage of the Victor Stone poster.
He took five steps.
He stopped on the sixth. Not because of the poster—but because the decoding result of the garbled text on his phone screen had completed a second round of cross-validation in his mind.
SilentBlade_7.
Rank B Shadow Assassin. Completed in eleven minutes. The attack type field displayed garbled text—meaning the System's combat log couldn't parse its attack pattern. All four registration information fields were contaminated at the source. He voluntarily forfeited the rewards after completing the level.
This wasn't an adventurer coming to farm equipment.
This was reconnaissance.
Allen continued upstairs.
Exiting the subway, a thin layer of industrial fog floated on the skyline towards the warehouse district. The outline of the Red Hook District blurred in the fog into a gray, undulating line.
His dungeon lay below that line.
Eighty rooms. Three layers of ecosystem. An evolved boss.