The murky brown water, the twisted trees stretching from the water to the sky, the thick mud and fungus that clung to the ground, and the stench of decay had confirmed his situation.
Hale, had been transmigrated.
Not only that, he had been transmigrated into a game that had swept the 21st century, Cataclysmic Realms. It was unique because its VR MMORPG-like style was ahead of its time. Using black technology, the developers of the game allowed players to experience what it would be like in a fantasy world.
Players could feel, taste, experience, and even feel pain.
Everyone was addicted to it, as it had major updates, regular patches, and the most unique part about it: dungeons!
Dungeons were what made up the majority of the game, as the in-game setting called them realms, but players coined them as dungeons. Dungeons were integral to the game, as they offered countless loots to players.
Not only that progression of the story was tied with these dungeons. You would have to fight your way through countless bosses and enemies in these dungeons. Which offered very unique challenges to the players.
As for how Hale ended up here?
Honestly, he had no idea. He was sleeping peacefully on his bed when he was suddenly awakened by loud prompts inside his head.
[You have been transmigrated into 'Cataclysmic Realms'.]
[You are a Dungeon Core, with the plague system.]
[Manage your dungeon well and create a legacy that will be immortalized.]
[Open beta will start in 3 days, it is advised to set up your dungeon before then.]
[Good luck.]
Reading the prompts, Hale had thought it was a joke. Until he realized that he wasn't sleeping on his comfortable bed anymore and was now inside some disgusting swamp.
'Fine. You forcibly transmigrated me and sent me back into time. But, why the fuck am I a Dungeon Core?! How the hell am I supposed to use my future-like knowledge? Give me a refund.'
'In other novels, players were transmigrated as NPCs or just sent back in time, so why am I a Dungeon Core? What kind of unfair situation is this?'
'I can't even move outside of the dungeon!'
Were the only thoughts that plagued Hale's mind, until he decided to accept reality. He was now a Dungeon Core, so he will create a damn good dungeon, that will give the players a run for their money.
'But still, what kind of dungeon have I been given? The only thing I see is a swampland, not only that, I can't hear anything or sense any life? It feels kinda desolate.'
As a Dungeon Core, he was the master of the dungeon. The dungeon was his body and he could feel and sense everything inside of it. The only drawback? He had lost his human body. His real body was now a purple sphere, that constantly emitted a poisonous like miasma around it.
[Please accept Newbie Pack x1]
Hitting 'Accept' with his fog-like finger. Hale was greeted with a list of items.
[Swamp Leeches x15]
[Swamp Alligators x5]
[Widow's Fang x10]
[Miasma's roots x20]
[Dungeon Entrance Point x1]
[Boss Template x1]
Before he could figure out the items that were given to him, he received another prompt.
[Congratulations on accepting the Newbie Pack, you have unlocked your menu.]
Opening the menu he saw three pages, 'Missions', 'Shop', and 'Dungeon'. Opening the 'Missions' page he was greeted with a list of missions he had to do.
[Successfully defend your first dungeon raid (0/1)]
[Reward: Swamp Hags x3]
[Defend against 5 dungeon raids (0/5)]
[Reward: Swamp Giant x1]
[Defend against 10 dungeon raids (0/10)]
[Reward: Poisonous Miasma x1]
The missions page was just a list of tasks he could do and if he completed them, he got rewards. The only missions were these 3, but Hale had an intuition that he would receive more tasks if he successfully completed all 3 of them.
Not only that, the rewards for these missions were quite ludicrous.
The swamp giant and the swamp hags would be quite overpowered in the current state of the game. Any newbie players that met them would probably lose their lives. The only issue was that he couldn't complete the tasks right now, open beta wouldn't start until 3 days later.
Although he couldn't leave the dungeon he still had a pretty good grasp of the environment outside of the dungeon. It was located inside some swamp and the sun barely scraped through the fog and twisting branches of the swamp.
The entrance to the dungeon was an old wooden gate that was lodged into the biggest tree inside the swamp.
Now that he thought about it. This starting position was kind of shit. If players couldn't find the dungeon then how was he supposed to complete the missions? What if players couldn't find the dungeon and when they did they were so overpowered that they could easily blitz through it?
That thought shuddered through his mind.
'Damn it, hopefully, I started somewhere close to players.'
Getting the messy thought out of his head he soon explored the other pages. The shop page allowed him to browse through a list of items that he could buy. There were countless monsters, ghosts, demons, plants, buildings, lands, and even NPCs.
The item he can purchase although vast and unique still shares some sort of similarity. That being, they had something related to poison, toxins, diseases, and all other harmful things that would make players break out in frustration.
'This is probably what the system meant when he said, plague system, I assume the theme of my dungeon has something to do with poison. So everything I can buy inside the shop and even the mission rewards have to match up with this theme.'
'Well, I don't have to worry about it because I'm freaking broke.'
Everything inside the shop needed to be bought with a currency called 'Dungeon Points' and he had a fat whopping number of 0.
As for the dungeon page? It allowed him to add or delete things inside the dungeon. This was the page that allowed him to customize his dungeon to his fit, granted he had the resources.
After he finished sorting out his menu he could finally look at the list of items the newbie pack gave him. The swamp leeches and swamp alligators were monsters.
Swamp leeches could barely measure up to a normal human adult's finger. They could easily camouflage into a murky and dark environment, allowing them to launch bite onto their prey unnoticed. Their bites didn't cause that much damage by themselves, but it was the fact that their bite could poison that made them annoying.
Their poison although not strong, deals 10 damage every 5 seconds. Luckily, it only lasts for 30 seconds, so the maximum amount of damage you would take would only be 60. You can also use an antidote or spells to cure it too.
As for the swamp alligator? They were 3 meters in length and had tough scales that stopped normal strikes from causing too much damage to them. Not only that, they could launch a sneak attack that can cause 1.5x the damage if successful.
The Widow's Fangs and Miasma's Roots were plants that he could set up in the dungeon. Widow's fangs could only be planted on land while Miasma's Roots could only be planted on the murky water of the swamp.
Both of them inflicted the same poison damage as the leeches. Just the method of diffusion was different. Widow's Fang had branches that would scratch players, inflicting poison. While Miasma's Roots would contaminate the water around it, making those in contact with the water for too long be poisoned.
Both the monsters and plants were quite strong in the current environment. Cataclysmic Realms would start open beta in 3 days, he would be quite surprised if players had skills that allowed them to not only detect the monsters but allowed them to appraise the plants.
The Dungeon Entrance Point was a marker for where players would be sent into the dungeon. He could only place it on land and it had to be large enough to accommodate the entrance point.
The really exciting thing was the Boss Template! It could allow him to customize a boss for the dungeon. Bosses were the main point of all dungeons, with the defeat of the boss, marked the defeat of the dungeon.
So this same rule applied to him. If his boss was defeated that would count as defeat.
Luckily, the boss template allowed him to customize a boss that had two phases. In the first phase of the boss, the boss could only use 3 skills. While in the second phase, what players usually called the enraged phase, allowed him to add two more skills to the boss.
Although it sounded overpowered right now, the skills that he added to the bosses were quite limited. It probably had to do with the fact, that he was incredibly weak right now. So it limited the amount of skills he could program into the boss.
So Felix spent the new few days molding and shaping his boss to be as cancerous as possible. While planting the monsters and plants in different areas of the dungeon.
Patiently waiting for the players to experience the harsh reality of life.