The Dungeon's Boss

Shingi focused his detection skills on where he heard the chuckle and could detect a figure a few meters further into the tunnel.

It seemed like the tunnel was leading to an open space, probably a room, and there was a humanoid figure in it.

It surprised Shingi as he didn't detect an Ooze's aura for it as expected, but he was confident this was the Boss of the Dungeon.

He could see that it had a Mana Pool, but the Boss seemed to have something not to allow detection skills to work on it like in the barrier, but didn't entirely work on his MANA SENSE. It was still hiding the Element of his mana, so Shingi could only tell its existence.

He was confident that the figure cast some spell, but he couldn't be sure what kind.

He checked the cat once more and noticed something which wasn't there before.

There was some mana in its eyes, but it was only there when it was watching toward Phoenix and, more specifically, at her chest.

Shingi grasped the current situation, and he acted out by kicking a stone into the tunnel towards the figure. He made this attack when there was mana in the eyes of the cat.

He hid the figure in the face, and then the cat ran back into the tunnel.

The tunnel was small for them to walk standing up, and they would have to crawl to get there.

But Shingi knew the figure knew of them being here, so he would not use that kind of dangerous means to get to it.

Shingi could see the figure using some of his mana, and he was confident for the reason as he told everyone to get ready.

Some blue smoke appeared in front of the tunnel's hole, and then a human figure appeared out of it.

The figure seemed male and wasn't too tall or too young. He had blue sky hair with the sides of them to be white as also one eye of his was white, and the other was sky blue. His skin was quite pale, like it had never seen the sun. He was wearing a red scarf around his neck, and at the one end of it, it seemed to have a golden symbol of a bell. He was wearing a simple sky blue colored vest and was wearing some white shorts and had no shoes.

Even if he wasn't too tall and quite pale, his face was of one of an attractive individual, and each characteristic of his seemed to add to it.

It created another poof of smoke after that, but this time over the figure's shoulder. Out of the smoke came the cat and stayed on the figure's shoulder.

One could see a scratch on the left cheek on the figure's face, which was where Shingi's stone hit him.

"Who do you think you are to come here and throw stuff to my face? DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH?!?" [Boss???]

Everyone waited for Shingi's order for them to attack, but it didn't come.

Shingi was curious to see how clever the Boss was, as it seemed to have a personality, which was rare.

Most times, from what he gathered, the bosses at Low-Level Dungeons were mindless monsters, and at a higher, of 50+ level, some could exist with some personality.

"Well, are you deaf or just stupid?" [Boss???]

Shingi didn't take those words at heart and stayed as calm as ever.

"Well, we are here investigating this place, and we came across the weak seal over there and after dealing with it.... well, you know the rest." [Shingi]

The moment he finished talking, he noticed the figure getting frustrated by what he said.

"WHAT... WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WEAK SEAL?!?" [Boss???]

Shingi was testing the waters to see what the Boss was about, and he now knew.

He was a weakling.

An individual of power wouldn't just sit and talk and attack them or restrain them when they showed defiance towards him. But this one seemed only to be a dog that barks but doesn't bite.

At that point, Shingi focused his Light Mana on his hand and made a ball of light to brighten the entire room.

The moment the light appeared, the figure tried to step away from it, but there was a wall behind him, and he didn't seem to teleport away.

"You better lower your voice, or things will get brighter." [Shingi]

He made the light less bright, so it wouldn't affect the figure but enough to be there still and remind him of its existence.

"So, are you the one behind the Oozes of this place?" [Shingi]

"I have developed most of them, but some were by the one who made the place." [Boss???]

"Then who is the one who made this place?" [Shingi]

He seemed unable to answer this question as something kept him from speaking, and he said nothing at the end.

Shingi used some of the light to make him tell, but it didn't work. Instead, it seemed like they used some unique means not to allow him to speak about specific things.

Shingi asked more questions and found out that this individual was the Boss of the Dungeon or the closest to what one could be.

The figure's name was Zhen, and he was creating Oozes and experimenting on them and on things they brought him. He had made the Oozes with the transformation abilities and used the memories they gathered for his 'personal' experiments, mainly the female ones.

Shingi told Hineko and Little Phoenix to get through the tunnel to check things out while speaking with him.

They found some crystals that they learned of being Memory Crystals used to store the memories his Oozes gathered. There were also a few alchemical materials and also quite a few Mana Gems.

The Mana Gems differed from the ones Shingi knew, but Zhen told him he was the one who created and rechargeable Mana Gems.

Typically, a Mana Gem had a specific amount of mana, and once it was entirely used up, it turned to dust. There were ways to recharge them, but only for high-quality ones, but these seemed to be the same as low-quality ones.

But their value wasn't less than high quality since they could last pretty much forever unless you use all the mana entirely and not let it recharge.

It seemed like you could either use your mana if you had the same Element as the one it was producing or gather mana from the environment if any of that type of Element was around.

It mainly had Earth Element ones and Fire Element ones, and a few Water Element ones. There weren't any Air or Light Element ones, but Phoenix found a single hidden Dark Element One, but she was more sensitive to detect Dark Element mana than others.

Those were perfect for Hineko's dagger as they weren't too big, but Shingi had to make some adjustments to the Gems still to use them when they got back to the shop.

When they gathered everything, all they had left to do was to deal with Zhen.

Shingi wasn't sure what to do with him, though.

He could kill him, but it would be a waste since it seemed it was someone he could use and make a deal with.

Since no player was hunting him or would assume that he was the Boss of the Dungeon, he could use his ability to craft things like these special Mana Gems to his benefit.

Of course, there were some problems with that plan.

First, even if he could leave the Dungeon, he had to stay to make Oozes here, and then, or at some point, the Dungeon would have no monsters.

Second, he couldn't handle light, and sunlight could harm him, so getting outside would be hard for him during daylight.

Last, he didn't want to leave the Dungeon but couldn't say why, but Shingi could tell that it was because of his programming and probably the valid owner of the Dungeon.

But Shingi had still able to make a deal with him.

He could bring him resources from outside of original materials, and he would produce more of his unique Mana Gems and possibly other future products.

Zhen seemed to have a way to get outside the Dungeon, but he was using it only at night. There was a tiny tunnel the same size as the one leading to the secret room, as he seemed to have a similar ability to Little Phoenix's SHADOW FORM Spell.

Shingi told him he would deliver some stuff by leaving them in that place outside as Zhen could have some Oozes there to let him know and get them. Zhen could turn items into blue smoke so he could quickly get them at his lab.

So it seemed things worked better than what he thought as he earned new resources to help in future projects. It was better that way, as even if he killed Zhen, he wouldn't gain any exp as he still didn't have any class, and his students were close to level 20, so they had to be careful about their level-ups. Or at least some of them had to.

Level 20 was an important one as you could earn Special taught classes at that level.

These were classes that unique NPCs could teach to the Players but under specific circumstances. For example, one of them was for the Player to be level 20. They would consider them too weak if he was lower and unsuitable if they had a higher level as they progressed too far.

But the other requirements were quite tricky to handle, especially since one had only one chance to interact with that NPC, and if they failed, they wouldn't be able to try again.

Some classes also seemed not to have a specific list of requirements but differed for each person.

Shingi planned to have Little Phoenix and Wild Tycoon learn these kinds of classes as Hineko had his special class already, and Mizuneko was working on evolving his.

Tycoon's class was an easy one as he knew a lot about Special based Warrior classes since he was a Warrior as a player, but Phoenix's wasn't that easy but had a few ideas.

So since they couldn't do anything else after Phoenix learning a few tips for her SHADOW FORM from Zhen, who was happy to help her, they headed back to the town.

They put their Illusion cloaks in use once more to be safe, even if they didn't cause the Dungeon to disappear, and they each went back on their own.

Shingi noticed when he reached the town that he had considered some players at the Wolfhead Guild gate and among them being Fire Whip.

Shingi could tell by his Player aura that he had leveled up and probably would be challenging to fight him now.

But he could pass without being detected by him, but he was still wondering why he was around and why none was near the store but only at the gates.

He got to the shop and found Volig talking with one of the townspeople, who probably came here to order things out.

Volig seemed to be ready to fight this individual, and Shingi considered he came just in time.

Volig, even before he reincarnated, wasn't ever good with customers; that's why he always had one hired to talk to them. In the past, many of his customers left the shop with broken bones. Most times was because they delayed giving their orders or wasted his time.

Shingi took over to handle the customer, who seemed to have a problem deciding the exact number of things he needed, but Shingi solved this problem quite fast and took the last order.

The customer left happy as Shingi turned towards Volig.

"I guess we need to hire someone to be in the shop's front." [Shingi]

He then brought out one of the rechargeable Mana Gems and explained to Volig what happened to the Dungeon.