The Abandoned Dungeon (1)

The sun shone brilliantly in the clear, blue sky. The white, fluffy clouds drifted across the sky. It was a fine day to go outside and enjoyed the beauty of nature.

Ren strolled with a quick, but relaxed steps in the middle of pavement as the tall buildings on his left and right side covered him from the sunlight. Hordes of people walked past in flurry like a gust of wind and the noise gradually increased as the shops opened and readied to start their business for the day.

The smell of sweet confectionaries wafted past his nose, quickly followed by the greasy touch of smoking skewers. Curtains on the windows of luxury shops were rolled up as Ren continued his stroll along the path. He looked on those shops with an envious glance, not daring to visualize any of those fancy clothes and overly expensive accessories on his body.

He was currently on Felcra, one of the many land that was governed under Elsgard Kingdom. It was considered as one of three lavish city in the Elsgard Kingdom. The other two were Hortas City, the capital city for Elsgard and Roxenia, the land of Royal Palace.

The distance between Hortas City and Felcra was quite far as it needed around a day to reach Felcra from Hortas City if travelled by horse, while to reach Roxenia from Hortas City, it just needed 30 minutes.

However, Ren could not afforded to waste a day for travelling to Felcra. Luckily, he was on the era where he didn't have to travel by horse only and had another option. Thanks to Cobalt Industries made a travel portal from one city to another, people of Elsgard could fast travel to far place in instance and no longer wasting more time.

Cobalt Industries already built and placed a device known as travel portal at every big cities in Elsgard. These devices could teleported anyone from one city to another city in matter of seconds. So, it was the best option for Ren as he needed to save time as he only had two days to go to Felcra and going back to Hortas City.

The only drawback was the fee to use this service was so expensive. He needed to pay 1 gold coin to travel to Felcra and another 1 gold coin to go back to Hortas City. It was not much for people from noble families, but for Ren, it was worth of 2 months' allowances.

Ren stopped at the front of a building. 'Adventure Guild' was written on the signboard at the top of the building's door. Ren stepped inside and saw a crowd nearly filled the space inside that building. Ren pushed his way through the crowd and straight to the information counter.

A woman in early 20s was already waiting there and smiled politely when she noticed Ren's presence there.

"Hello, may I help you?"

"Hello," replied Ren. "I want to apply permission to enter Abandoned Dungeon."

The woman named Kayla looked at Ren from top to toe. "Are you sure?"

Ren nodded his head. In fact, that's the reason why he was going to this city in the first place.

Abandoned Dungeon was a dungeon located near the south of Felcra. When people of Felcra found the dungeon many years ago, they sent many teams to explore and pillage any treasure there. But after their many attempts, they did not found any treasure inside that dungeon even once.

They were frustrated when their efforts never came into fruition, so they no longer be bothered with the dungeon hence that's how its name became Abandoned Dungeon until now. But, there's someone from time to time tested their luck exploring the dungeon in hope they got anything from there, but not even once ever found any treasure inside.

That's why Kayla observed Ren with a sceptical look. She was pitying him for wasting his time explored the worthless dungeon like Abandoned Dungeon.

"Let me advice you, boy. There's nothing valuable inside that dungeon. You will see that your effort will be in vain later."

"It's okay. I'm aware with that." Ren smiled.

"But you still want to proceed?"

Ren bobbed his head a few times. Kayla let out a big sigh. She knew there's no use for her to talk to Ren anymore about it. The young boy in front of her already determined to enter the dungeon no matter what.

"Okay. But the prerequisite to enter the dungeon is 2nd circle mage and above or anything equivalent. One more thing, you must be registered with Adventure Guild." Kayla explained to Ren.

"What if I have special recommendation letter?" asked Ren.

"It depends on who issue the recommendation later. May I get the letter for checking?"

Ren pulled out an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and gave it to Kayla. Kayla took the letter out from the envelope after receiving it from Ren. She inspected the content of the letter carefully.

She folded the letter and put it back into the envelope before giving it back to Ren. The letter was a 'favor' that he asked from Chancellor Siegfried in order for him to become member of Student Council and accepted the decision of chancellor to appoint Ren as the 1st Rank for first-year students.

"We can let you enter the dungeon without any problem. After all, the recommendation letter was from Chancellor of Varion Academy, Sir Siegfried himself." Kayla continued after a short pause. "Do you need anything to assist you inside the dungeon?"

"It's okay." Ren spoke, rejecting the offer.

Kayla opened a drawer behind her and took an emerald pendant from there. She put it on the counter.

"Show this to the guards at the entrance of the dungeon. They will let you entered the dungeon."

Ren grabbed the pendant and thanked Kayla. "Thank you for this." Then, Ren exited the building from the same door he entered before.

Ren went to the direction of the dungeon after exited the guild. He noticed that someone in hoodie was tailing him. As a matter of fact, he already noticed that someone followed him since he arrived at the Felcra. The person came from the same travel portal Ren was using before and that's means that person was following him from Hortas City.

For every steps Ren took, the stalker would follow him. If Ren took 2 steps forward, that person would took 2 step forwards. If Ren stopped his movement, that person also did the same. For every actions Ren did, that person would mimic them without failed.

Ren shifted his pace faster to shake his pursuer off from him. His stalker realised what he wanted to do and started chasing him. Ren sped up and turned left to a narrow alley as the pursuer followed him close from behind.

The stalker surprised as Ren had vanished from there when they followed him to the alley. They turned around to find any trace Ren had left there.

"Looking for me?"

The sudden appearance of Ren from behind made the stalker flinched and nearly fell down as Ren caught their hand in time.

"Who are you? Why you following me?"

The identity of the stalker was finally revealed to him as the hood no longer cover their face from Ren. It was the second princess of Elsgard, Princess Elena Elsgard.

A look of confusion appeared on Ren's face as he released Elena's hand. The princess held and rubbed her hand, probably she felt a pain from there as Ren indeed gripped her hand quite tight before.

"Big sis told me yesterday you would come here," told Elena. Her expression was stoic as usual.

'What? That spoiled princess never shut her mouth. It was a mistake to tell her…'

Ren sighed, confusion and frustration racing through his mind as he stared at Elena in front.

"Then, why are you here?"

"Because I'm following you?" replied Elena without showing any reaction.

Ren cover his face with hand in exasperation. He never know that Elena could be this frustrating even though he knew that's not her intention.

"I know you are following me, but the thing I want to know why are you following me?"

"Ah.. That's because I think you are going to do a secret training here. I'm gonna see how you train Aura in secret because you don't want to teach me," said Elena nonchalantly.

After hearing that, a deep, long sigh came out from Ren's mouth.

"But why are you going to Abandon Dungeon?" asked Elena curiously.

"There's something I need inside there."

"But.. there's nothing there."

Ren smiled. "Nah, the dungeon is full with treasure and artifacts. It just no one had found it."

"How did you know?"

"Come with me. I will show you later." Ren invited Elena to enter the dungeon and explore together with him.

Elena nodded her head in response of Ren's invitation. Ren grinned when Elena agreed to follow him to the dungeon.

"Here, take these."

Ren took out two things from his pocket and gave them to Elena. A green crystal and a red trinket.

"Teleport Crystal and Pursuit Pendant?" Elena confused why Ren gave her those items.

Teleport Crystal was made by emerald and its function was to teleport its user to another place. To use it, one must marked the place that they want to teleport by injecting their mana to that crystal and touched the ground with the crystal. The green 'X' light would appeared on the ground where the crystal touched. To teleport to that mark, its user could injected their mana to the same crystal and crushed it. Then, they would be instantly teleport to the place that they marked before.

Anyone could use the crystal although the one that marked the place and the one who used it to teleport were different as long as they could injected mana into the crystal. But, the range of effect was only 5km. If the distance between 'marked' place and user position was more than 5km, the effect could not be activated.

As for Pursuit Pendant, it was a pair trinkets that helped the user to teleport to each other. For instance, if Ren held one of the pendants while Elena held another one, Ren could teleport to Elena by injecting his mana into the pendant. The distance between the two pendants has no limit but the further the pendants were from each other, the greater mana needed to activate its effect.

In his original plan, Ren wanted to use Teleport Crystal to escape from the dungeon if something happened there but because of Elena was also already with him, he needed to change his plan and gave Elena the crystal. Luckily, he was bringing Pursuit Pendant too for emergency measure.

Ren was never knew the ability of Pursuit Pendant before Vesto told him. Ren noticed Gavin and Hani had used this pendant before during Rank Test that's why he asked Vesto what the pendant could do. That's pendant also the reason why Gavin could reunited with Hani so fast during the test.

"I already marked the place for Teleport Crystal, so you don't need to mark it. When I use magic from this dagger, I need you to use the crystal immediately." Ren brought out the magic dagger that he hid inside his uniform in a moment before put it back after Elena saw it.

"But, for what?" asked Elena, still confused.

"You will know later."

Ren continued his walking and left Elena. Elena quickly followed Ren from behind as both of them went to the direction of Abandon Dungeon together.