Ch 19: The Dragon Chain That Wrapped Around The World (9)

Kaori smiled before opening the door herself. The steel door is creaking echoes throughout the entire forest, and they quietly enter the dungeon, leaving Hao and Valka alone at the front of the dungeon.

Valka only stands there quietly with his back straight and eyes looking toward the inside of the dungeon. At the same time, Hao also stands quietly with his back hunched forward and his head tilted slightly, seemingly more interested in his surroundings than the dungeon itself.

It was quiet, calm, and awkward for Hao, while Valka seemed fine.

"So, uh... Anything you want to tell me about?" Hao said, breaking the silence.

Valka only turned and looked at Hao, who also looked back before turning back and answering.

"Nothing, there is nothing for me to say; currently, that is," Valka said

"Currently?"

"Yes, currently. While from what I see, you are not that bad of influence. Miss Kaori, you seem to get along well enough. It's good for miss Kaori to have someone to talk to that have the same age as her." Valka explain

"Thank... you? Or you're welcome?" Hao said

"Hm. While this is a good thing, I must warn you to watch your attitude, and you should act with more proper respect toward miss Kaori." Valka said, turning back toward Hao

"Now, that is something that I cannot agree on. While she and you saved my life there, it didn't make her earn my respect immediately. After all, respect is earned, not given away." Hao explain

Valka's face seems to tighten up slightly before relaxing slightly.

"Hm, it seems you do have some standard after all. While I agree that respect should be earned, sometimes people should get respect naturally because of who they are, and miss Kaori certainly deserve that."

"Ho? Interesting. Then you must know that you need to wait. You did say I should respect her for who she is, well, new flash; I certainly do not know who she is or like as a person."

"Oh, trust me, you will have respect for her after we finish this contract, no, after we finish this chain quest of yours," Valka explain.

"We will see about that."

Once again, silence fell upon them for a couple of minutes before a menu sound notification interrupted that silence.

[Crimson Kyuketsuki had invited you into a dungeon.]

[Do you want to join?]

Hao only raised his eyebrows seeing a dungeon invitation. While it is not something for Hao to see people send an invitation to a dungeon, what makes Hao surprised is that Kaori had sent an invite from inside the dungeon.

When you receive and accept the dungeon invitation, you will be immediately teleported toward the person that sent you the said invite. You and your group will then start doing a dungeon from there.

To send an invitation from inside the dungeon would undoubtedly be impossible, but Kaori seemed to be able to make the impossible possible.

Valka had already accepted the invite and disappeared in particles of light, indicating that he had already teleported in, which Hao quickly followed behind.

With light that was bright enough to make Hao close his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, he was now inside the dungeon.

What surprised him was that the dungeon inside, instead of being a rock cave like before, it looks more like a room that had been fully decorated with all kinds of furniture that made it look like some science lab.

[You have entered a dungeon!]

[Dungeon name: Ichi-Yomotsuhirasaka]

[Congratulations on being the first person to discover this dungeon!! You will receive a 100% exp bonus, increase the rarity of loot drops and guarantee legendary growth type gear drops that will fit your class at the end of the dungeon]

[Warning!! If you leave this dungeon or fail to clear it the first time, you will not receive these benefits again the second time!!]

[Warning!! You are entering this dungeon alone. We recommended clearing the dungeon with your group of friends]

'Hold up. Wait a minute. Something ain't right.' Hao thought, seeing the notification

"You noticed, didn't you?" Kaori's voice comes out from behind Hao. "I will not tell you how I did it, but I guess explaining what the exploit does would not be a bad thing," Kaori said before explaining to Hao what the exploit does.

"The exploit is simple; it is an exploit that would make the dungeon think that you are the only players in the dungeon and since the dungeon only think you are the only one in the dungeon..."

"You will get more rewards due to the solo reward bonus, not to mention the first discover bonus, guaranteeing a legendary growth-type gear at the end for all of us." Hao finishes Kaori's sentence.

"Correct. All we have to do is to find different dungeons that had not to be discovered in the game and first clear the dungeons." Kaori continues. "And because the game had just been recently released, it becomes elementary to find undiscovered dungeons." Kaori finish her explanation

Hao only nodded at her explanation; while he wanted to know how Kaori did what she did, Hao knew fully well that she would never answer his question.

So now, Hao's attention is on the dungeon room, which Hao will admit, is quite beautiful and have a terrific aesthetic; however, it certainly seems out of the genre.

"Well, this certainly quite a surprise. I was expecting more of a... primitive. Not something that looks like something that comes out of a sci-fi show." Hao said while looking around the room

"I must agree with you here. When I entered this dungeon, there was actual electricity in this dungeon. Just what kind of quest did you accept?" Kaori's voice comes from beside Hao, causing Hao to look back at her.

Most people understand that GEP is a game with a fantasy genre, not sci-fi fantasy, or to be more specific, it was straight up hard-fantasy. Hao, who has future knowledge, is also confident that there was no news or posts that said something related to technology or the sci-fi genre.

While the game developer keeps a lot of secrets when coming to this game, and there are a lot of things that people don't know about the game, Hao is sure something this big can never be hidden by the developer; it should be discovered one way or the others.

'Now that I think about it, I have never heard or seen anything about these dungeons. Did these dungeons spawn the moment I accepted the quest?' Hao thought

"Well, I expect this quest to be nothing more than another fetch quest, you know? I did not expect the dungeon to be something out of Firefly." Hao explain

"Hm, I guess I cannot blame you for your ignorance. Then let me tell you other things: enemies in these dungeons are not skeletons, but would you believe it is a group robot?" Kaori said, causing both Hao and Valka to turn toward her.

"Are you serious? Are you sure it was some robot, not some golem?" Hao ask

"Oh, I can assure you that those enemies were not golem. After all, I'm pretty sure no golem would be powered by electricity. While I have no proof to show you, I am certain that the next room would have the same types of enemies. And speaking of the next room..." Kaori said before turning her head toward a specific direction, in which Valka and Hao turned in the same direction.

It was a steel gate, sealed shut with no way to open it manually, no buttons nor anything. But what truly caught Hao and Valka's attention is what decorates each side of a door, holes on each side of the door that seem to be able to fit something in there. The gate's left side is yellow, and the right side is white.

When they look closely inside, those two holes are letters, and the left hole has Au while the left has Ag.

"A puzzle? Why am I don't surprised?" Hao mutter

While in average MMO, puzzle in a dungeon is something that is not quite popular because it would waste players' time, that is why when a game dev designs a dungeon to be room to room with enemies in them with no puzzle, with the dev only save puzzle would sometime only exist in a raid in some game.

But in GEP, this is not an average MMO; this is VRMMORPG, a first in a genre, so when it comes to design, they do not have an actual blueprint; that is why they design the game with all sorts of systems that cannot exist in a traditional MMO.

A system like a contract system would certainly not work in a traditional MMO. Still, with GEP being VRMMO, it creates all new opportunities for the game developer, making it develop some exciting systems. Whether it's a bad or a sound system depends on who you talk to.

A puzzle in dungeons and raids is one of these new experimental systems that split the player's opinion, and some said it was something new and quite fun to solve, and some said it to be annoying and nothing more than a waste of time.

Right now, the Hao group have now encountered one of these puzzles in the game.