"Wait, what? Celestial Labyrinth? An interdimensional space? Aren't we like 10,000 leagues under the sea right now? We should still be on Earth!"
"We are both on Earth and the dimension where spirit beasts originated from," Long Wang explained patiently. "Where do you think spirit beasts came from? And I believe you have heard about the rift from the people of Atlantis, the breach in reality where the entities from the dimension I and many other spirit beasts originate enter your world. The Celestial Labyrinth is a location occupying that breach. It straddles the dimensional rift between the two dimensions, and geographically, it is located deep underground in your world. Your human species have yet to locate the entrance to the Celestial Labyrinth, but eventually they will."
He then smiled. "But fear not, for your Deep Sea Palace is a dungeon located in the lowest levels of the Celestial Labyrinth. Even when the humans eventually discover the Celestial Labyrinth, they will not find your dungeon for generations."
"Uh, okay." I was still kind of lost, but I forced myself to maintain my composure. Moving from the main hall, I proceeded to the area known as the Frontier. It was an area several sections away from the main hall, a subterranean space free of the sea that led deeper into the core of the world. Nothing but caves and rock beyond two colossal gates that barred access to my Deep Sea Palace. That said, there was a moat with seaweed ringing the gates.
I guess we needed some water to make it look like the Deep Sea Palace.
"The space beyond here will lead deeper into the Celestial Labyrinth, where other dungeons and their masters inhabit. The Celestial Labyrinth is also crawling with countless spirit beasts and demonic monsters, so you should be careful when venturing past here, my lord. At your current strength, it will be difficult for you to fight against the high ranked spirit beasts living this deep in the labyrinth."
I knew Long Wang actually meant survive, but he chose to be tactful and just say fight.
"I suppose I just won't leave this place for a while," I muttered. Long Wang nodded.
"My advice is that you attain at least beginner Earth rank before you venture outside of the gates of your dungeon. Many of the creatures here in this level are at least intermediate Mystic rank."
"Okay. Thanks for the advice. I will do my best to attain Earth rank one day." Taking a deep breath and staring into the vast darkness beyond the entrance of my Deep Sea Palace, I spun around and returned to the safety of my dungeon. The gates closed behind me. "We should seal this area off."
"I'm afraid we can't." Long Wang shook his head as he accompanied me. "While we don't have to worry about it for now, dungeon masters often venture out with their legions of spirit beasts and monsters to conquer other dungeons and add them to their territories. We will be subjected to the same risks eventually."
"We won't be able to defend ourselves right now if a high ranked dungeon master attacks with his army," I said with a gulp. "The majority of our citizens are Yellow Ranked. The only Mystic ranked is Hei Ba, and he's not exactly cooperative."
"Yes, that's why you must improve your strength as quickly as possible, my lord." Long Wang smiled faintly. "But we don't have to worry about it for now, as I said. Given that your dungeon is new, and the entrance to the frontier has only been recently opened up, we will not be found out for a long while. Nobody will know about the existence of your dungeon right now. The other dungeon masters will be too busy warring against each other to pay attention to us. That said, it is only a matter of time before one of their explorers or scouts stumble upon our location. When that happens, we will need to defend ourselves."
"We'll most likely get annihilated, though," I grumbled bitterly. "Unless you have suggestions?"
"Yes, my lord." If Long Wang was irritated by my toxic negativity, he didn't show it. Instead, the handsome, long-haired steward smiled pleasantly. "You will need to forge more contracts with powerful spirit beasts, transport them back here into your dungeon and have them stand guard. Don't just rely on marine spirit beasts. If I'm not mistaken, you told me about a week ago that you plan to go to Huo Yan Valley. Perhaps there will be a few spirit beasts there you can bring back to serve as guards to protect your dungeon."
He was right. Huo Yan Valley was notorious for the powerful spirit beasts living in the region. Not just fire-type spirit beasts like in the Di Yu Mountain range, but a variety of spirit beasts who had tempered their bodies to withstand the extreme temperatures and brutal environment there. Not only that, the system had issued me a quest to go there and hatch the Salamander egg.
I wouldn't be surprised if I would receive a few spirit contracts upon completing that mission. The system didn't issue me missions randomly. There was a pattern to its assignments.
"Also, if you can obtain high quality spirit stones in the Huo Yan Valley, like Spirit Diamonds, you can spend them to upgrade your dungeon. And the Collector Crabs will continue scavenging for more spirit stones too. I'll send them out to the Celestial Labyrinth – their small size will help them to explore while remaining unseen."
"Make sure to tell them to prioritize their safety over spirit stones."
"I will." Long Wang nodded. I sighed.
"I'm kind of worried that if I upgrade the dungeon, we'll expose ourselves more to the denizens of the Celestial Labyrinth."
"You might be correct, but further upgrades to your dungeon will augment our defenses. You should be able to unlock more functions such as siege weaponry, defensive towers, guardian arrays and fortress walls as you continually upgrade the dungeon. The higher the upgrades, the more formidable your dungeon will be, and the more difficult it will be for the enemy to invade. That, combined with the spirit beasts you bring back as sentries, will eventually make your dungeon an impregnable fortress."
"Understood. I'll do my best to recruit more higher ranked spirit beasts and collect higher grade spirit stones when in Huo Yan Valley. But I don't know how long I will take."
"As I said, you don't have to worry about us. We should still have a long while before your dungeon is discovered by others. and even then, you have Hei Ba. As insolent as he is, even he will not want to lose his new home to other dungeon masters or spirit beasts. I will persuade him to stand guard and protect the dungeon should we ever be discovered. But even so, Hei Ba is only a temporary measure. Even he cannot fend off an entire dungeon legion on his own."
"Okay. I will do my best. I'll leave everything to you when I'm away, but contact me immediately if something happens and I'll teleport here to help."
"Focus on your mission, my lord." Long Wang lowered his head. "Prioritize on improving your strength and recruiting new spirit beasts. That is the best defense plan you can do for all of us."
"All right." I sighed, feeling a heavy weight on my shoulders. "I'll get going then. I need to prepare for the journey to Huo Yan Valley."
With that, I teleported back to my room, feeling tremendous pressure. Damn it, this dungeon thing was starting to be more trouble than it was worth.
Oh, right. Before the existences beyond the fourth wall could start berating me on my lack of imagination and trying to teach me how I should exploit the teleportation function, I had better put it out here. I could only teleport back to the place I was in before I teleported to my dungeon. In other words, if I chose to teleport to my dungeon while I was in my room, no matter what I did in my dungeon, the moment I chose to teleport to the surface, I would inevitably teleport back to my room. The same went for any locations I chose to teleport in. If I teleported to my dungeon when in school, when I returned, I would be forced to teleport back to school.
That meant no convenient teleportation to wherever I wanted through using my dungeon as a midway point. No teleporting to safety in the middle of a battle or escaping a trap or something. For example, if I was imprisoned, I couldn't escape by teleporting into my dungeon, and then teleporting into my room. I also couldn't conveniently teleport back home if I found Huo Yan Valley too dangerous to traverse. Come on, not every mechanic was meant to be abused. Sometimes things worked the way they were, and nothing more.
Still, I wondered if the spirit stones that I obtained from my Collector Crabs was worth all the trouble despite the profit they generated. Maybe I would look back in these early days and laughed at how troubled I was over these little things in future after upgrading my dungeon, but for now it was causing me some stress.
"But this is getting really…convoluted."
Dropping on my bed, I stared at the ceiling of my room and scowled. Wasn't this supposed to be a world of cultivators? Why was there suddenly a dungeon? And what was the deal with this Celestial Labyrinth? If my life was a story, I bet there would be readers complaining about how this was some summoning system-cultivation-dungeon hybrid that didn't know which genre it wanted to be. The way everything was bound together felt sloppy and not very well thought out. I mean, seriously, it took almost 10 chapters for the first summoned spirit beast to show up, the Salamander egg still hadn't hatched more than 50 chapters later, and then we had a random dungeon, almost as if God was reading multiple stories and was suddenly inspired by a dungeon manhwa he was reading while in the middle of writing this story.
Hell, the title could be changed to I am a Cultivator with a Dungeon or Cultivator Dungeon, except that the dungeon was only mentioned almost 30 chapters into the story. Most readers would be frustrated and give up when they hit chapter 20 and still see no sign of any dungeon, and I wouldn't blame them. What did I even need a dungeon for? Yeah, well…it was supposed to be a superior summoning space for my spirit beasts to roam around freely and breed, so there was that. But still, the existence of a dungeon, the sudden revelation of a Celestial Labyrinth filled with other dungeons and dungeon masters who might declare war on us in future to annex my territory, still felt kind of arbitrary.
Seriously, it felt as if the heavens were toying with my life and making stuff up as I went along. I wasn't sure I was pleased about that.
Forget it, I told myself. Right now, I had several pressing concerns, all of which could be resolved by my trip to the Huo Yan Valley. First, the hiring of the renowned blacksmiths there to forge me new weapons. Second, hatching the Salamander egg in the lava of a Huo Yan volcano. Third, recruiting new, powerful spirit beasts to help protect my dungeon (capturing would be a more accurate term, actually). Fourth, obtaining higher quality spirit stones such as Spirit Diamonds to upgrade my dungeon further (and maybe help me with my cultivation, though I will save one for my eventual breakthrough to Earth rank when I reach peak Mystic rank later).
Sneaking out of my room, I headed to the front door and pretended to return home from the outside before popping in to greet my parents.
"Hey, dad, mom!" I waved at them as I stepped into the hall after loudly shutting the door to make a show of me "returning home." They would never realize I had been in my room this entire time. "I will be going on a trip in a couple of days' time!"
"Where?" Mom asked, concerned. I smiled.
"Didn't I tell you last week? I'm going to Huo Yan Valley to get new weapons."
"Have you attained Mystic rank then?" Dad asked, rising from his seat and studying me. Once he was satisfied, he nodded in approval and placed both hands on my shoulders. "Stay safe, son. And be careful."
"Oh yeah, big bro." This time, it was from Jun Hai. He poked his head out of his room, waving at me. "I found a couple of blacksmiths who you might want to approach when you reach Huo Yan Valley. And I mean couple literally – they are a husband-and-wife pair of blacksmiths whose weapons are prized for their incredible quality."
"Thanks!" I hurried over excitedly. "Please send me the details!"
"Already did, check your smartphone." Jun Hai grinned. "But I might as well tell you their names now. They are Gan Jiang and Mo Ye."