Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

The thing in his hand was a small two leaf clover. When Simon used his analysis on it, he was stunned to find that the item was a [C] rank item.

<strong>Item-</strong> Poison Detoxifying Clover, <strong>Rank-</strong> [C]—an item capable of absorbing the poison from the surrounding. It blooms into a three and four leaf once enough poison is accumulated. Once the Poison Detoxifying Clover absorbs enough poison and blooms into four leaf, it discharges poison back into the surrounding.

Poison detoxifying Clover, based on how it is used, the item can become something truly terrifying. It was smaller than grass, can be planted anywhere and was easily overlooked. Both its poison absorption and expulsion ability was a powerful weapon.

Simon kept the Poison Detoxifying Clover back inside his inventory, he made a mental note to research more about its ability later. Right now, he had something more important to do. Apart from diving inside the pond, Simon had additional two objectives in mind for coming here.

His gaze that was up until now on the item in his hand, turned towards the beautiful crystal trees around the pond. Trees of mana crystals, another treasure that was growing inside his dungeon thanks to the miraculous abilities of Cecilia.

Each of the crystals bored by the trees contained a pure amount of mystical energy that when absorbed, increases your stats thus ultimately increasing your level.

Previously, the trees of mana crystals on his main floor was a sapling and capable of only producing only Grade 1, tier [C] mana crystals. Now though, it has become a young tree capable of producing better grades of those crystals.

Simon's second objective for coming here was to absorb these crystals that have been piling up. By now, there were large heaps of mana crystals that have fallen from the branches of the tree spilled all around the place.

Simon walked towards the area and casually picked a crystal from the ground. It had a shape of a rhombus and was easily grasped within his palm. It was releasing a multi-coloured light just like all the other crystals around it evident of the pure mystical energy inside it.

When Simon used analysis on it, he nodded his head in satisfaction when he saw that the grade of the crystal was [2].

Even though it was still tier [C], a grade [2] crystal contained much more potent and pure mystical energy than what a grade [1] mana crystal does. If we compare the two, it can be said that a grade [2] crystal was ten times more potent and precious than a grade [1] crystal.

That is to say One Grade [2] mana crystal = Ten Grade [1] mana crystals.

Mana crystals only grow in places abundant in mystical energy, they can either be harvested from a tree of mana crystals or mined from a crystal field.

Since they were expendables and everybody needed them to level up, it was a precious material. The kingdom of Ellesmere might have a few quandaries from where they excavate the mana crystals from.

However, it only produces low-grade crystals. It can be seen from the availability and scarcity of the mana crystals how precious the high grade Mana crystals were.

In fact, every quandary of mana crystals that was ever found in history, was quickly occupied by a kingdom/Empire or waged war for.

In the Battle of the Finest Tournament too, there were high grade mana crystals offered as a reward to encourage the participants. And now, his dungeon was also capable of producing grade [2] mana crystals.

Simon reckoned that it wouldn't be long before the trees start producing grade [3] crystals. Simon stored a heap full of grade [2] mana crystals probable numbering in the hundreds, inside his space ring. Since the level he was in wouldn't budge even if he absorbed one or two crystals of grade [2].

Simon came back to the large rock near the pond sat cross legged on top of it, and started absorbing the mystical energy from the mana crystals. To increase the efficiency, he also shattered a serenity stone.

Simon sat on the rock for hours continuing to absorb one mana crystals after another. Before long, there were more than ten empty husks of crystals lying around the place. It was only when Simon felt his rate of improvement slow down for the day, did he open his eyes back.

Phew… he exhaled a deep breath of air and stretched his body around. When he clenched and unclenched his hands, he felt his improved strength resulting from his levelling up. After using more than sixteen crystals, Simon had levelled up a total of two times bringing his current level to 407.

Although, levelling up with mana crystals was more efficient and safer than hunting monsters, it had a limit and required a lot of resources.

It must be mentioned that an average human around Simon's level or even a Demon Viscount of his rank would never even get to see much less enjoy these many resources as brazenly as he did. The only reason he stopped was because he felt like the effectiveness of the mana crystals have dropped and using any more today would simply be wasting them.

After absorbing the mana crystals for the day, Simon moved on to his third objective for which he came here. Upgrading his dungeon, although he could do this from anywhere, due to the calming and soothing effects of the serenity pond, it felt much better to work here rather than inside his White Palace.

Besides that, since his first and second objectives needed him to be near the pond as he was planning to hole himself up here for a few days, it was more efficient that he did his work as the dungeon master here.

As soon as Simon called out, the [Main Menu] appeared in front of him. He pressed the [Dungeon] option and immediately, a three dimensional structure of his dungeon from the first floor to the fiftieth floor appeared in front of him.

Yes, the dungeon currently had fifty floors, not including the [Workshop], [Forest Spring Spirit Village] and [Main Floor] which are the heart of his dungeon. The last two floors that are the forty-ninth and fiftieth floor were termed as the boss floors by Simon.

The reason behind him calling it that was because these two floors housed the former two overlords of the northern region of the forest, the Deep Sea Alligator King and the Lightning Draconic Serpent.

At the current moment, not counting his direct subordinates, they were the strongest monsters inside the dungeon that he could rely on to defend it from any possible strong intruders. In a way, their floors are the last defence line for the dungeon Laplace.

The current progress of the adventurers leading the exploration is the thirty-sixth floor and it was none other than the Tyrant Mountain one of the big guilds from the southern region of the kingdom leading the charge.

Starting from this floor and the floors below, new monsters that Simon had mutated from the many mutation crystals start showing their face. Each of them was around level 300- 350.  Apart from them, there was also the Andromeda MK 11 and 10 guarding the lower floors.

Not to mention the Fire Demon Apes which were the hidden boss of the middle floors. At a glance, the dungeon might seem very hard to conquer; however, Simon wasn't gullible enough to actually believe that.

He knew that the real powerhouse of the Kingdom, the top five guilds was yet to show up in the tower. Amongst them, the Sea God's trident was a guild that he was the most cautious of. They have spared no amount of effort to try to antagonise him, every time that they moved, they brought nothing but trouble for him.

Besides that, they were also now in possession of the information that his dungeon sheltered the Forest Spring Spirits. Simon did not know what kind of plans they were brewing right now, thus he had to be extremely careful. A moment of negligence or carelessness might even bring down this dungeon and the people he cared about.

Apart from them, there were also the shadowy groups like the Cerberus and behemoths like Adventurer's Association. Sooner or later, they were sure to turn up at his door.

Hence, it was paramount that he fortifies his dungeon at every opportunity he gets. Looking at the three dimensional structure of his dungeon, Simon started upgrading certain floors and adding new ones.

Like this, Simon spent his days around the pond dividing his time in diving inside the pond challenging his limits and collecting the Poison Detoxifying Clover, levelling up using the piles of mana crystals and using his remaining time to create new floors.

While Simon was busy doing his stuff, time flew by in the blink of an eye and a week had passed.

Currently, Simon was looking at [Main Menu] or more precisely, the three-dimensional structure of his dungeon. in the past few days, thanks to the constant influx of DP coming from the adventurers, he was able to create three floors each more than thirty kilometres big and with a wide environment.

He wanted to install some new features that were available to his dungeon but stopped when he realised that the growth of his DP was starting to show a decline for some reason. The trend was something that he noticed two days prior and it continued up until now making Simon worry.

Just when he starting to think if something was wrong, the space behind suddenly trembled and the sunning figure of Bea appeared.