The dungeon was filled with terrible monsters whose power increased with every floor. In the past, the Baron didn't have too much trouble finding people to challenge it.
When they reached the 15th floor everything changed. The monsters seemed to jump a level and there were more of them. The relatively weak mercenaries couldn't stand against them.
This forced the Baron to hire more and more powerful mercenaries and this became cost prohibitive after a point. Even with powerful mercenaries, clearing the dungeon came to a crawl.
The first 15 floors only took about ten years. The 16th floor took almost five years.
The Baron was almost bankrupt and if not for finding that artifact on the 16th floor and gaining the help of the Children of Rajinn he would have needed to stop.
That was when a brilliant idea came to him, why not gather a bunch of low ranked warriors, spirit men, and so forth without any background or connections and use them?
He could enslave them and throw them in until the strongest made progress. He tried it and had limited success, but it wasn't just the monsters he needed to worry about.
There were also many traps in the dungeon, or what he believed to be the temple trapping the Great Being Rajinn.
That's when he developed the Training Pit. He had mercenaries capture some creatures from the dungeon and put them in the pit.
He could throw people into the pit and the ones that survived would be his new dungeon team. He could wait until he collected a solid team and then forced them to clear floors in the temple.
This was an approach that worked really well for him. It only took three years to clear the 17th floor and 2.5 years to clear the 18th floor. The 19th floor only took less than a year.
According to his reports, the last team he sent in was steadily working through the floors. Their only casualties were Major and Kim.
Under the leadership of the warrior Kane; they continued moving forward and were growing stronger.
When he originally heard about Major and Kim's deaths; he almost hired another mercenary to take charge. While he looked for new leaders; the dungeon team cleared the 20th floor.
According to Keason, Kane was a very potent fighter. If it weren't because of his curiosity about what he was being recruited for; he would never have fallen into their hands.
One of the Baron's fighters, Riley, was able to trick Kane into the pit, Unfortunately, Riley fell in with him, and according to the rules, once you're in the pit and you survive you become a slave.
It turned out Riley was an unpolished gem and with the aid of Kane, they survived the pit and became extremely powerful warriors.
Their growth didn't slow down in the pit; it only seemed to increase as they traveled through the dungeon.
After three months of progress, they finally reached the 30th floor. The Baron was very excited and although there weren't any new artifacts discovered; their progress was rewarded enough.
All he had to do was keep a steady stream of supplies coming to the dungeon team and wait for results.
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On the 30th floor, Kyle and his team were bitterly fighting against a mob of monsters. The strength of the dungeon team was indeed incredible.
No one knew why this was the case; actually, no one but Kyle knew why this was the case. After the loss of Major and Kim, Gramps pointed out that Kyle never used the group function of the system.
Using the group function gave the team a lot of useful options. The most obvious was they could share experience points and raise their abilities together. They also had the ability to group chat.
They shared a telepathic link with one another and could think during battle. It made communication both secret and fast as lightning.
Kyle discovered the group function would work better if he removed everyone's slave seals which he did. No one in the group was under the slave seal Kyle created. Major and Kim already died.
Riley never had a slave seal, and the others were outside of the dungeon and Kyle knew he couldn't trust them.
Right now their levels were: Kyle Kane (G-Hawk) Lvl 42 (50) Fighter, Riley Lvl 41 Fighter, Shadow Bow Lvl 45 Archer, Shadow Sis Lvl 35 Thief, Spirit Man Gilbrew Lvl 40 Spirit Warrior, Bragg Shield Lvl 50 Tank
After having the slave seal removed, Shadow Bow was determined to leave, but not long after he left, he came back. He changed his mind, but it wasn't clear why. No one cared.
With his amazing attack skills, he had saved all of their lives many times over. Another strange this is that everyone received their own game storage slots and even had access to the store.
They were given access to a temporary system and could utilize functions such as the HUD and map.
They could also share money and trade items through the system and were able to upgrade their items.
They were all in possession of better weapons than when they started. They were also able to purchase medicines and single-use items such as talismans.
They were even able to go on group missions and receive group rewards. Kyle was initially worried that this was a major secret.
If they knew this and left the group wouldn't they be in trouble when others learned of the amazing system?
Gramps just laughed at him and told him that as soon as they quit the group their memories of the system would be lost.
All they would remember is that working with Kyle made them very strong very fast. What if they didn't quit the group and spread information about the system?
The system would know and automatically kick them out of the group after erasing both their memory and the memory of whoever they told.
They would also lose all the items, money, experience they acquired as part of the group. Their level would be returned to what it was before they joined the group.
Kyle liked this feature and shared the information with everyone in the group. If any of them were thinking of betraying him before; they certainly weren't thinking about it now.
They were unified as a team and they continued working toward the goal of finishing the dungeon so they could find out what the great secret of the place was.
Little did any of them realize they were being used to unleash a catastrophe upon the world.
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We've started with 101 power stones and have enough for a bonus chapter on Sunday!
Today's power stone heroes are: lover_of_Milfs, Timestronaut, matteo_briccolani, and HeDuchennevg
Thank you all for your support! This book wouldn't be possible without you.
--Straythought
If you would like to read more chapters, I'll do a big release on Sundays if we can reach the weekly goal.
This week's goal is:
100 power stones for 1 extra chapter.
200 power stones for 2 extra chapters
250 power stones for 3 extra chapters