Kisuke, Yoruichi, and Kuroka reached the shore where a sizable port was constructed. However, this port was neither for fishermen nor for traders. It was an outpost for the Mercenaries wanting to reach the Dungeon.
Similar to a large market, the area was bustling with people. Some were doing small or personal trades, some were arranging their supplies and others were leaving the area, either by returning to one of the cities around or in specially crafted sailboats towards the spot where the entrance to the Dungeon was located.
"There are five entrances to the Dungeon and the nearest entrance is the southern entrance, located around two kilometers away from here. We'll be taking the next entrance which is around five kilometers from here since it has a network of tunnels that leads directly to the lower floors.", explained Yoruichi as they walked around, trying to find a sailboat that they could ride on.
A few minutes later, they found a sailboat that had just docked after returning some Mercenaries to the land, Yoruichi immediately approached him and said, "We'd like to go to the central entrance."
The relatively old man with a wide conical straw hat to fend off direct sunlight looked at them and replied, "A thousand Valis for each person. If you want to leave immediately, three thousand each."
The three of them immediately hopped on and Yoruichi said, "Let's go now."
The old man tipped his hat and quietly operated the sailboat, leaving the dock, along with the other sailboats that had Mercenaries in them.
Kisuke, Yoruichi and Kuroka didn't say anything throughout the entire journey and that was also the same for the operator. Along the way, they encountered several attacks from the Sea Goblins but the old man dispatched each one of them.
More than an hour later, they reached their destination. Although there weren't any landmarks in the area and all one could see was the vastness of the ocean, the entrance to the Dungeon was very easy to spot due to the steady stream of Magic Power coming from below and the number of sailboats that were also in the area.
Looking around, Kisuke saw how the Mercenaries who'd just arrived from land would dive down and were replaced by other Mercenaries who were done with their exploration, taking the sailboats that became free.
Yoruichi stood up and passed a bag of Valis to the old man. After waiting for him to count the coins, the old man nodded, "I've received it. Thank you for your patronage. Have a safe exploration."
"Good luck to you too, old man.", replied Yoruichi before jumping down directly to the water with Kisuke and Kuroka immediately following after her.
As soon as they went beyond a certain depth, the water became so clear that they were able to see the entrance to the Dungeon.
Instead of a large hole in the ocean floor like Kisuke was expecting, it looked like a gigantic anthill with several hundred holes, spanning almost a kilometer wide. Each hole was three to ten meters wide and they were randomly placed along the mountain.
While each group of Mercenaries was taking a tunnel of their own, various monsters also came out from them. This was the reason why there were so many monsters on the surface within the Dizara Region and nobody had the resources to block these holes, not to mention that this was only one of the five entrances which were all on the ocean floor.
Yoruichi already had a target entrance, but because he'd failed to control one of his kicks, Kisuke was suddenly shot forward in an unintended direction, entering a tunnel.
Immediately following him, Yoruichi and Kuroka traveled through the same tunnel, reaching the room beyond it that was devoid of seawater because it was being kept out by an invisible force.
Chuckling, Kuroka commented on Kisuke who was laying on the ground, "I just knew that would happen, nyaa~!"
Kisuke stood up before throwing his dummy backpack towards Kuroka, "How do others go to this place? Normally, you would have to swim for about ten minutes and you still have to deal with the monsters that come after you."
Yoruichi also threw her dummy backpack towards Kuroka so that she could keep it in her inventory and used Magic to dry everyone and remove the mud from Kisuke while also simultaneously fixing the tears in his clothes, "There's a potion that allows one to stay for long periods of time underwater and equipment that makes it easier to move with all the pressure."
"So what's the plan?", asked Kisuke after stretching his limbs.
"The next respawn of the Surtr will be three weeks from now and it was announced that the Astarte Familia would be killing it this time. Let's go straight to the 47th floor and make a camp there. It'll be up to you what you want to do next."
Kisuke contemplated for a bit before deciding, "I guess I'm going to divide that time between investigation, combat practice and spell practice. I want at least to release my Shikai before it respawns."
The difficulty of the first floor was similar to that of the 13th floor of the Dungeon in Orario. Due to that, only Level 2 and above could actually start exploring the Dungeon and those who were Level 1 would have to settle for those monsters escaping to the surface.
After reaching the 6th floor, the halls became taller and wider, allowing multiple paths to meet. With large cloaks, Kisuke, Yoruichi and Kuroka passed through several groups without garnering much attention until they reached the 9th floor, a safe zone.
More than half of the safety points were covered by water and there are several waterfalls that led to the lower floors. Of course, there were proper staircases, but there was only one and it was located at the west end of the floor.
Like the 18th floor of the Orario Dungeon, the ceiling of the 9th floor was also covered by innumerable shining crystals, giving light to everything. But unlike the former, there wasn't a big settlement similar to Rivira. Instead, there were various camps erected on the islands.
Not stopping, Yoruichi led the way towards one of the waterfalls and the group directly jumped down. Some Mercenaries saw them but weren't able to identify them. They were very curious about their identities as the only people who would take the path directly leading to the 33rd floor were the top fighters of the top Familias.
As they fell through the waterfall, the temperature kept dropping considerably until around 5 minutes later when they finally saw the light below. Kuroka immediately used her Magic to slow their descent and carried everyone away from the lake where the water dropped.
Thanks to that long drop, Yoruichi and Kuroka were able to clearly feel the space of the Dungeon warping around them, signifying that some sort of space laws were used to make the Dungeon expand beyond common sense. Since Kisuke's senses aside from the normal ones were busted, he couldn't feel a thing about it, though he already knew of this fact way before.
Right now, the temperature was already way below the freezing point such that if any weak normal people without the blessing of the Falna were to stand here, they'd be frozen to death within just a few seconds.
Kisuke looked around and noted that everything was covered in ice.
"Beyond this is the room of the Monster Rex, Kuraokami, an Ice Dragon.", explained Yoruichi as she and Kuroka got ready to fight.