New Earth- The Dungeon of Madness 3 The Core of Madness

After that, he started examining the room, it was a habit he developed. Looking under the sofa and the bed, moving the chairs and even feeling the walls for any sign of hidden parts, but Five did not find anything.

He sat on the bed, hesitating whether he should go and explore outside his room but at that moment, he heard a familiar voice.

[Greetings to all dungeon masters, I hope that you have all safely arrived at your teacher's dungeon. Please make the most of your stay there and learn as much as you can, your future achievement depends on it. On another note, I am informing all of you that you have access to your character's status as well as several other services, just make a downward motion with a finger to open an interface, the rest is self explanatory. I wish you all best of luck.]

Five instantly recognised that voice, it was Gaia. He calmly listened to her speech and directly tried to open the interface and the followings appeared in front of him :

Name: Five

Race: Human/Dungeon Core

Level: 1 (0/500)

Class: Dungeon Master

Title: None

HP: 40/40

MP: 70/70

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 7

Vitality: 4

Intelligence: 7

Wisdom: 5

Stat Points available : 0

Skills : 0

Fatigue: 10%

[Information]

Increasing strength increases the physical damage inflicted per strike

Increasing dexterity increases the attack speed, reaction speed, and movement speed

Increasing Vitality increases the amount of HP, HP is calculated by Vitality*10

Increasing Intelligence increases the amount of MP, MP is calculated by Intelligence*10

Increasing Wisdom increases the magical damage inflicted per spell

Your race is half human half dungeon core, since you have a different origin from the monsters, you were provided with a core, it can be found in your inventory.

Due to your race, you can only level up using Dungeon Points, DP.

Just by looking at the interface, Five had a general understanding of the situation.

"How can my vitality be so low !! And what about wisdom? Are they saying I am stupid!?" exclaimed Five.

He continued to observe the interface, and quickly found other icons at the top, he pressed the one representing a storage which was clearly the inventory. In it, he found his dungeon core.

[Core of Madness](Grade 0)(Upgradable)

Activate to found a dungeon at a specific location. (Cannot be used within 1 km of another dungeon core)

Effect 1: 100% chance to drop upon death

Effect 2: DP gained +2%

Five took out the core and held it in his hand, he felt a sort of bond between him and the core. The latter was a small sphere, inside, it looked like a constantly rotating galaxy.

"So this is my core" thought Five and at the same time, the core flashed for a fraction of a second as if saying "yes"

Five smiled but then returned the core to his inventory, he turned back his attention towards the interface. In his inventory, he found out that he had 204 DP. From the novels he read and the movies he watched, he naturally determined that these were generated daily as a flat amount.

Moving on, Five pressed onto the forums' symbol. He found out that one was created solely for dungeon masters like him, but right now, it was empty aside from an automated welcoming thread. After all, criminals were very keen on working solo and rarely shared their information.

Finding nothing else interesting, Five gradually got bored and relaxed. He was already tired from all the previous events and in this dull environment, he gradually fell asleep.

....

"Crrrk"

Five was peacefully sleeping when he suddenly heard a creaking noise, instinctively, he jumped awake moving his arm to grab his usual knife but his hand grabbed nothing. It was just his old habit to always have a weapon near him when sleeping, and even when he was sleeping, he was never 100% relaxed, his senses were still on alert.

"Good morning, did you sleep well ?" asked a voice.

Five looked around, disoriented but quickly recovered and focused his gaze towards the door. Harriet was standing there, smiling at Five; somehow, her wings were nowhere to be found.

"Morning " politely answered Five, while shifting his body to get out of the bed.

She happily hopped into the room, and magically, another tray appeared in her hands. She placed it on the sofa and took a step back looking at Five.

"Here's some food, you will need a lot of energy for the task ahead," explained Harriet, she then stood behind the sofa, quietly humming a song.

"Thank you !" said Five, before grabbing what looked like a croissant on the tray. He then started eating but seeing that Harriet remained in his room, he felt that the silence was awkward and so asked : "Harriet ? Didn't you have wings yesterday ?"

"Oh, it is one of my abilities, I can retract and take out my wings at will, I can even change their size to a certain degree" happily said, Harriet, while demonstrating it, her black wings once again emerged from behind her purple hair.

Five looked closely at the wings, it was his first time seeing something like that. They looked exactly like angel's wings except that they were completely black. Instinctively, Five moved his free hand trying to touch them.

Immediately, Harriet retracted her wings, took a step back and made a "Hmmmp" while looking at Five with an annoyed look.

"What is it? I just wanted to touch your wings." ask Five, wondering what he did wrong.

"Precisely! It is rude to touch the wings of a Harpy unless you are her husband" drily answered Harriet while crossing her arms and retracting her wings.

"Ahh, I am sorry I did not know, it is the first time I am seeing such wings and I just wanted to have a feel." answered Five with a sorry expression, he knew that he was at fault, after all, he did not know the culture of this world.

'Could it be that the harpy's wings are the equivalent of human's chest' thought Five making an embarrassed expression as he realized that.

In an attempt to repair the situation, Five continued talking. "It is just that you are the first harpy I am seeing, where I came form, there are only humans. Although, I did see digital wings, I was just curious about the feel."

"What is 'digital'? " Hesitantly asked Harriet, still crossing her arms.

"It is hard to explain, it is just a term used by people to describe imaginary things... The world I come from is different, we have screens that can show us things or holograms; these are digital things"

"Can you tell me more about where you came from ? " asked Harriet with a curious look, leaving aside the previous incident.

Five hesitated for a second since he did not want to recall his previous incidents but he found no harm in talking about benign things: "Sure, I come from a place called..."

Few minutes later,

"Since you've finished, follow me, master wants to see you, your first lesson is about to begin." Having said that, Harriet pushed the door open and walked out of the room, moving her hands as if telling Five to follow her.

Five naturally got up and followed up. He naturally started to examine his new environment, it was as if he was walking in a tunnel, the corridors were circular and looked like they were made of a material like clay, but it was clearly not clay since they were emitting light, there were no torches or light bulb there, just the wall themselves were emitting some light.

Harriet was happily humming a tone while walking ahead, from time to time, she would turn her head to look at Five but would just smile not say anything. The latter noticed that there were several doors in the corridor just like the one in his room, he determined that this should be a sort of dormitory.

Gradually, the surroundings changed and five entered a large and well-decorated room. The walls were well decorated such that it looked nothing like the previous corridors, in the center of the room, was Kroff seated on a throne.

"Good morning Five, did you sleep well?" greeted Kroff.

"Good morning Dr. Kroff, the night was pleasant, thank you." politely answered Five while sweeping his eyes across the room.

Kroff just smiled and invited Five to come closer to him. "Now that you are well rested, it is time for your first lesson."

Chapter end