Dungeons were special places in Epoch, as their rules were different from the outside world. For example, one of the most fundamental rules, the space-time rules, were significantly different.
If one entered the dungeon alone, then no interference from the outside world were possible, or at least it would be very difficult for anyone outside the dungeon to reach someone in the dungeon.
This was a special space effect known as Mirroring. A place affected by Mirroring would create parallel version of itself, the number of versions depending on the strength of the space rule present.
But that wasn't all as time as special too, the dungeons were put in a Temporal Loop, or a Time Loop. This meant that the instant someone entered the dungeon, they would enter into a special time, and the moment they left would be a special time too.
This had two effects. First, whatever was changed into the dungeon would be restored to its original state, including the terrain and the living beings. Second was that anyone entering the dungeon and got killed wouldn't actually die, but rather be sent back to their original state before they entered.
Those two effects, Mirroring and Time Loop, were extremely powerful and put together made dungeons places of incredible wonder.
However, there were still limits to them. First, the Mirroring and Time Loop would vary in power and intensity depending on what were powering them. The variation of power of the Mirroring would determine the number of parallel version that could be created.
As for the Time Loop, the power set would determine the items it could restore. A Time Loop with a weak Time Rule would be able to recreate a piece of iron or a Common monster, however it wouldn't be able to bring back a piece of Divine Crystal or a God monster.
And for a dungeon, the power of its internal Rules would depend on what was powering it. That's why, no matter what, some items and people would never be found in any dungeon, or even if they were there they wouldn't ever be recreated.
Of course, this wasn't something Adam knew himself, but rather something he would learn in the future. Even that though was but a part of the truth, as the Rules were not something for mere mortals to understand.
For Adam, all he knew was that each of the difficulties would make him fight monsters of different strengths, like every game. Since the monsters inside went from Level 20 to 30, Adam decided to first go with the Easy difficulty.
This was a 5-man dungeon after all, meaning that normally 5 Level 30 would be needed to finish this dungeon on Normal difficulty. Adam wasn't even Level 20 and was alone. So even though he was confidant in his strength, he preferred to go with the Easy difficulty first.
Moreover it wouldn't even be a waste of time because an Easy difficulty would change the strength of the monsters and the rarity of their drop, but what Adam wanted was basic materials that would be dropped even in Easy difficulty, it was just that there would be less of them.
Now that he had chosen the difficulty he wanted, the doors in front of him opened. The abandoned mine inside didn't actually look that creepy though because there were lit torches.
Adam entered within the dungeon as the doors behind him closed themselves. He also received a notification.
[You have entered the dungeon 'Venomous Web'! Death penalty reduced to 10%, XP reduced to 10%.]
Adam was surprised by the special effects from the dungeon, but they actually made sense, the second one at least. The number of monsters within dungeon was much more than in the outside world, in one run one could kill more monsters than someone else who grinded in the outside world for an entire day. Moreover, when monsters in the outside world were killed, they would either disappear forever or take a long time to respawn. This XP reduction only made it fair.
This also made Adam realize that the drops in the dungeon would probably be lessened too, both in number and rarity.
But an even more important point was the value of dungeons. They were the perfect training grounds for training martial arts. In here, one could fight against hundreds of monsters, not caring about death, nor about leveling up past the level for a promotion.
Adam's eyes shone, this was exactly what he needed himself!
Since Adam had been able to open the 1st Gate in the virtual world, then it meant opening the next ones was also possible. Fighting against waves of enemies until he reaches his limit and then let his body heal by itself would make his training so much faster, he would gain days of training!
With a brightened face and a happy heart Adam took his first steps inside the dungeon. The interior of the dungeon was quite cold, colder than the sunny plain outside at least.
There was only a single path down into the earth for now, which was only as wide as two or three people. This would make it harder for adventurers to fight, especially the ones using big weapons like Adam as the weapons would collide with the walls and the ceiling.
It wasn't a problem for Adam though as he could wield his sword efficiently in an even smaller space if he had to.
It didn't take long for him to feel the first monsters. He could hear multiple legs tapping against the walls, advancing toward him. A couple seconds later, a brown spider appeared against the wall. It's color served as a natural camouflage, but once again this didn't work against Adam.
[Cave Spider] (Common, Level 20)
2000/2000
The HP of the spider was the same as the goblins, this was going to be easy. Before the spider could jump at him he instead jumped at it, stabbing the spider with his sword in the next instant, [Mighty Strike] activated.
-1870 HP! Cripple!
Almost its entire HP bar was emptied out with this single strike. Moreover, the sword had pierced through it and the earth wall behind it, impaling it on the wall. It tried to move but that only dealt additional damage that killed it quickly.
Adam took his sword back and the spider suddenly disintegrated, leaving nothing behind. Adam didn't feel bothered by this as he expected it and instead decided to move on.
The dungeon had a simple outline at first, with only a single path in the beginning. However after some time several smaller paths appeared on the sides. Every time one appeared Adam would take it and it would lead him to a big room with many spiders having nested in them, and in some of them there were chests.
Adam concluded that the main path was going straight forward, while the smaller paths were additional rewards for those who felt confidant enough to take them.
It took three hours to Adam to reach the very end of the dungeon. However, in those three hours, he had made sure to visit every nook and cranny of this dungeon, killing absolutely every spider in it and opening the additional chests.
The spiders he killed dropped three items. [Spider Eyes], [Spider Webs] and [Black Iron Ore]. As fro the chests, in most of them Adam picked up [Black Iron Ore], but he also found some Common equipment, nothing too fancy. Moreover, despite the amount of chests he opened and the number of spiders he killed, he barely got anything.
In term of loot, this run really wasn't that good, three hours in the outside world would have given him more. However, it wasn't worthless. He had been keeping his health at around 50% for the whole run, and always let his natural healing heal him.
When he met spiders, he would let them hit him until he fell to 50% health, and then let himself recover to around 70% before taking damage once again. In those three hours, he had felt considerable progress in the opening of his 2nd Gate.
Unfortunately, he wasn't even once at his limit, they simply weren't strong enough.
Finally, his skills were what got enhanced the most. His [Charge] was now Level 9, his [Wind Blade] level 8 and his [Parry] level 7.
After Adam's health got back up to 100%, he entered the boss room, which was separated by doors made of [Black Iron], the metal one would get once they smelted [Black Iron Ore].
Once past the doors, Adam saw a large room which looked like the main storage room for the mine when it was back in working condition. There were many chests all around the room. However, all of them were opened and empty, except for one.
However, that one chest was different from the others who looked like each other. It looked like a better treasure was hiding in that chest. Unfortunately that chest was hiding behind a spider. This spider was as big as a car and was standing menacingly in front of the chest.
[Big Cave Spider] (Elite, Level 25)
9000/9000
Unfortunately for the spider, it just wasn't enough to impress Adam. He unsheathed his sword and sprinted toward it, his sword lighting up.
The spider boss angrily squealed and lifted one of its front legs to stab Adam, but the latter dodged it and attacked the spider.
-4640 HP!
-1650 HP!
-1650 HP!
-1650 HP!
The spider, which was supposed to be the boss of this dungeon and who was supposed to be very strong, crashed backwards with a single slash, dead.