Val woke up from the best sleep he had had in a while, being able to sleep on an actual bed was a blessing he had taken for granted. It had not been that long since he left the orphanage but camping out in a tent and sleeping on the floor had left his back quite stiff, but now it was feeling completely renewed.
Val had woken up with Larz snuggling to his right and Leo snuggling to his left. He very much enjoyed the feeling of having them next to him. It helped him feel safe and secure.
The trio woke up and Val gave some of the leftovers from the food stalls to Larz to take with him inside the [Personal Dimension], before having him re-enter the [Personal Dimension]. Larz did not mind, he planned to just continue sleeping inside anyway, and he could eat when he was hungry.
Val quickly washed his face and got dressed, he planned to head to the adventurers guild to gather some information about the dungeon.
Val and Leo headed downstairs, it was still early, the sun was only just starting to rise, and it would still be another 30 - 60 minutes before most adventurers would wake up to start their day.
When Val got downstairs he headed to the dining hall for breakfast. As he entered he saw Michelle, as he took a seat he casually called out to her to order some food for himself and Leo,
"Good morning Michelle, could I get to servings of scrambled eggs with bacon?"
The girl looked at Val with her head tilted to the side, she seemed confused and annoyed. This caused Val to take a second look at the girl he had called out to. It was only after focusing his attention on her did he realize that the girl he called out to was shorter and had a little more baby fat on her face, she looked extremely similar but just a bit younger. Val soon realized his mistake, but before he could correct himself, the girl finally responded,
"I'm not Michelle, I'm Mika, the youngest daughter of the owners. Don't get us mixed up again, got it?"
Val was stumped by her response, which showed such a contrasting personality to her elder sister. Val was the one at fault, so he did not think it'd be right for him to be rude back to her, so he decided to just suck it up and apologize so he could get his breakfast sooner.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I did not notice, it's still very early, and I just woke up. It won't happen again."
The youngest sister, Mika, wanted to continue reprimanding the boy in front of her but she noticed that the 3 merchants, who were the only other people in the dining hall were currently giggling at the interaction between the two kids. She decided to just let it go, for now at least.
"That's fine as long as you don't do it again. I will give your order to the chef, it shouldn't take too long for your food to be ready. It will cost 4 bronze coins, 2 bronze for each serving."
Val nodded and handed the coins over,
"Thank you."
As Mika walked toward the kitchen, Val let out a deep breath, he had also noticed the merchants giggling at his mistake and the scolding he received, and was quite embarrassed.
It did not take long for Mika to return with the food, which Val and Leo ate quickly. There was a lot Val wanted to do today, and he did not want to waste time. Once they had finished their food the duo left, heading to the adventurers guild.
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Val enjoyed his walk to the adventurers guild, continuing to observe the landscape and architecture of the buildings. Leo casually walked beside him, far less interested in the buildings, and more interested in the food stalls.
It did not take too long for the duo to arrive, and they headed inside the adventurers guild immediately.
When they entered Val noticed that it was still not very busy. Val assumed in an hour or so it would be completely packed. Most adventurers arrived around the same time, about 7.30 am. It was currently 6.30 am, the reason they all arrived at 7.30 am was because that was the time that the new requests for the day were posted.
There were a few people at different counters, talking to the receptionists but not many, and none that Val had seen when he was here yesterday.
Val waited patiently for a receptionist to be available, he waited for a few minutes before, a party finished up what they had been discussing and headed out. The party looked exhausted and it seemed to Val like they had just gotten back from a tough request.
Val turned back and approached the reception counter with the free receptionist. She looked at him but did not speak, she looked pretty tired and Val assumed she had worked the night shift. Since she did not greet Val, Val decided to just speak about what he was after,
"Good morning, I'm wondering if I can get some information on the dungeon?"
The receptionist looked at Val and slowly responded, clearly completely uninterested in the young boy talking to her, she seemed to just be counting the seconds till her shift ends,
"The dungeon information costs 1 bronze per floor, and you have to purchase information in groups of 10 floors. So for the first 10 floors will be 10 bronze."
If Val was a poor and struggling adventurer, he would have been pretty displeased with having to purchase this information. But as he was probably the richest adventurer in town, he did not mind the cost.
He handed the 10 bronze over to the receptionist and she handed him a booklet. Val took the booklet, thanked the receptionist, and walked over to a seat and table which was on the right side of the guild hall.
He opened the booklet and began to read about the first 10 floors of the dungeon.
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After half an hour of reading, Val closed the booklet. He had read up to the 5th floor, and there was not that much important information. To summarise what Val had learned:
- The first 5 floors have a forest scenery, it is apparently the same as being in a real forest, and is quite large. The dungeon either manipulates space to increase the area or takes you to a sub-dimension, similar to Val's [Personal Dimension]. This is present in all dungeons but the scenery and setting change, it is constantly argued by researchers which theory is right, but no one has been able to provide solid evidence to prove or disprove either theory.
- Only Goblins appear on the first 5 floors, no other beasts or monsters are present. On the 5th Floor, there is a boss area which if you complete you receive a treasure.
- The goblins get stronger the higher floor you travel to. You have to find a set of stairs to take you to the next floor. There are a number of different sets of stairs and they all take you to different parts of the next floor.
- Treasures can be gained by either finding them naturally or by defeating a boss or sub-boss. The boss will be on every 5th floor of the dungeon, there is no limit to the amount of sub-boss which can be found on each floor, and even the information in the booklet was unsure about how many were on each floor, it only stated that there was at least 1 on each of the first 5 floors.
- Sub-bosses and bosses are revived by the dungeon after a certain amount of time and will always reward you with a treasure when you defeat them. But the quality of the treasure can vary.
-Sub-bosses and Bosses will always be significantly stronger than the other monsters on the same floor.
-It is possible to find treasures in the ground, in caves, or at the top of trees but it is very unlikely, it is believed that these treasures are one-offs, and once they have been found and claimed by someone, that's it, they will not be replaced by the dungeon.
Once Val closed the booklet, he closed his eyes and took a moment to comprehend everything he had read. He had learned quite a lot from the booklet and was happy with his purchase, he was sure that there would be more for him to learn about the dungeon but he had the basic knowledge now, and knew what to expect.
He was also pretty excited to explore and fight the goblins. For him, Leo, and Larz the goblins were easy opponents, he had fought a fair few now and was very familiar with killing them.
He also could not help but smile when he thought about the treasure that he would find. His [Mana Eyes] was basically a radar to find treasures that had mana properties in them.
Val was in a very good mood when he stood up and headed out of the adventurers guild, which had started to fill up by the time he had finished reading the booklet. He headed to the town gate to get instructions on how to get to the dungeon.
He was excited to explore but knew not to take unnecessary risks, so he planned to only explore the first and maybe second floors of the dungeon.
After a bit of a walk Val arrived at the town gate.