Chapter 337:

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Chapter 337: Dark Demon and the Twelve Giant Statues

Professor Nini waited for all the students to put on their Dungeon Escapers before leading them to the entrance of the dungeon.

It was located near the forest almost a kilometer away from the castle. After walking for a quarter of an hour, the Roman palace style circular building could finally be seen.

There were only two floors to the entire building, but each floor was extremely high.

Stone pillars imprinted with traces of time stood aligned at a distance of more than ten meters apart outside the first floor of the building.

Upon walking closer, one would be able to see the lifelike monster engravings on the stone pillars, looking as if they would come to life at any moment.

This building, which hid the entrance to the dungeon, and the open-air duel stadium were actually buildings of the same style.

But the look of this building was obviously more rugged.

All the way forward, they went past the stone pillars and walked through the spacious passage.

It took about a few minutes to reach the inside of the building, whereupon a very wide open-air square could be seen.

However, the first thing that came into view wasn't the entrance of the dungeon located inside, but the enormous stone statues standing tall in the middle of the square.

"Professor, what's that?"

Robert, who was walking at the front, pointed to the nearest giant statue, unable to hold back from asking.

The students behind also couldn't help stopping to look at it.

Professor Nini, who had been walking the most energetically in high spirits, casually replied to him, "A giant statue."

Robert's face instantly darkened as he grumbled, "Professor, I know that it's a giant statue..."

Professor Nini looked down at him with a puzzled expression, "Then why did you ask me?"

Robert: "..."

While he fell speechless, Professor Nini had already skipped out of the passage.

She excitedly said, "We've arrived, everyone can sit down and rest for a while. You can also take a look around, but don't wander off. At around half past ten, we'll formally enter the dungeon."

The students rushed out of the passage like a school of fish.

Dark, Dianna, and Rose walked in the middle of the crowd. They followed the flow of people into the square and found a stone bench to sit down on.

DemiDevimon, who flew for half an hour carrying the lunch box, quickly landed beside him, panting from "tiredness".

Gatomon contemptuously glanced at it before curiously looking around.

It hadn't seen as many things as the young magisters, so its curiosity was stronger.

The huge stone statues standing in the middle of the square similarly attracted its attention.

Beside it, Dark looked past the stone statues to observe the so-called "dungeon entrance" from afar.

Before the entrance to the dungeon was unsealed, it was merely an arched gate about twenty meters tall.

The gatepost was composed of square sections, with spell-like symbols carved on the surface.

The width of the gate was more than ten meters.

The thickness of the gatepost was about five meters, and on the inside, there was a gully concaving into the gatepost.

He could more or less imagine that once the gate was unsealed, there should be magic energy released from that gully to form a magic gate.

Every twelve o'clock at noon on Friday to twelve o'clock at night on Sunday, there would be a large number of students going in from the front of this magic door and coming out on the opposite side.

Then, with the entrance of the dungeon left open wide just like this, who would be in charge of guarding it?

Dark's gaze reflexively turned to the giant stone statues!

"One, two, three… twelve giant statues in total."

Each of these twelve giant statues had a different appearance.

Among them, there was a soldier holding a spear, and there was also a monster with a lion head and human body.

The only thing these stone statues had in common was that each had a height of more than ten meters. The tallest one stood even higher than the gatepost, surpassing twenty meters!

The moment they moved...

It would be unimaginable!

Dark's pupils slightly constricted, eyes falling on a winged, scepter-wielding giant statue that looked very similar to an angel.

In the doctrine of the holy church, angels had always been depicted as genderless beings.

Ostensibly, it was to propagate the purity of angels.

And yet, this giant statue that looked very much like an angel had distinctly female characteristics.

If this was placed in the holy church, it would be regarded as a complete heresy.

"I wonder what era this building and those giant statues originated from?"

Dark couldn't help falling into thought.

……

"Mhm?"

It wasn't until Gatomon tugged on the corner of his clothes did he snap out of his reverie.

It was time.

The four houses' students had all gathered back together, each feeling a similar degree of excitement.

The dungeon was right in front of their eyes, and the yearning for their first adventure was about to come true.

Professor Nini walked up to the arched gate and reached out her hand to slap the gatepost. It was unknown what kind of method was used, but just as Dark had imagined, a huge amount of magic energy surged out of the arched gate.

Soon enough, the magic energy released from the gully of the gatepost formed a magic gate that looked like a water curtain.

Professor Nini pointed at the magic gate and explained, "This is the entrance of the dungeon. Upon entering from here, you'll arrive at the hall on the first floor of the dungeon. We usually call it the reception hall, it's the place where visitors would be received in the dungeon."

A girl from Magister House nervously asked, "Professor, there won't be any monster in the reception hall, right?"

Professor Nini glanced at her and said, "I should've talked about this before, haven't I? There's a special magic energy mark at the entrance of each floor of the dungeon. The magic energy waves released from the magic energy mark will create a deterring effect on the monsters, so the area around the entrance is generally safer. Of course, deterrence doesn't mean a complete expulsion. The entrance cannot completely eliminate the intrusion of monsters, so it's still best to be cautious." Updates are released by noⅴ

The girl from Magister House hurriedly nodded.

Professor Nini raised her chin in satisfaction and said to the students, "I'll go in and scout first, you guys wait a moment."

Just as she finished speaking, she strode right ahead into the magic gate.

Ripples akin to a surging wave appeared on the gate, completely engulfing her huge figure.

But before the students could feel nervous, Professor Nini had already walked out from the other side of the gate. She then walked around the gatepost back to the front, made a 'peace' gesture, and put on a wide grin, "It's safe."

……

Just as before, Professor Nini took the lead while the students behind her cautiously stepped inside.

With a precedent to follow, even the timid students successfully crossed the gate under the lead of collective will.

Dark entered alongside the crowd and saw the magic energy mark in the middle of the reception hall at first sight.

It was a mermaid-like statue floating above an altar.

With a quick mind, he took out the [Magic Energy Compass] from the backpack carried by Gatomon and walked towards the mermaid statue that was emitting a faint blue light.

Unexpectedly, there were quite a few students who walked towards the mermaid statue at the same time as he did.

After a little observation, he found that most of these students were from Magister House. Certainly, there were also students from other houses, but there weren't many of them.

The group of more than ten people looked at each other and smiled. Then, they surrounded the mermaid statue and began collecting its magic energy.

Knight House's Emma and Magister House's Sara were also among them.

"Huh?"

Looking at what Dark and the others were doing, Professor Nini's not-so-bright mind churned for a long while before suddenly realizing that she hadn't taught about this part.

She hurriedly rummaged through her backpack, but as expected, she couldn't find the [Magic Energy Compass] that had never been there in the first place…

Probably because she never got lost in the dungeon, Professor Nini had never used a [Magic Energy Compass] before, and so, she subconsciously overlooked it.

But with quick thinking, she found a magic tool in the shape of a key and hopped and skipped to the front of the mermaid statue.

Then, she clapped her hands and called the students to assemble.

Having just finished collecting the magic energy, Dark promptly stashed the [Magic Energy Compass] and looked up at Professor Nini.

He initially thought that Professor Nini was going to talk about something related to [Magic Energy Compass], but unexpectedly, Professor Nini only mentioned it briefly before skipping the matter. Then, she took out the key-shaped magic tool and waved it in front of the students.

Seeing the puzzled expressions on the students' faces, Professor Nini couldn't help proudly saying, "Does anyone know what this is? Since no one knows..."

"Professor Nini, is that a portkey(门钥匙)?"

Magister House's Sara Swati insensibly grabbed the chance to be the first to answer.

Professor Nini's words died in her throat, her neck subconsciously curling as she quickly amended, "That's right, this is a portkey, also known as the floor key. It's an exclusive item of this dungeon. As long as you activate the key in front of the item with the magic energy mark at the entrance of each floor, you can directly teleport to the corresponding floor. The number engraved on the portkey in my hand is 18, which means that this portkey can be used to teleport to the 18th floor."

White, who was quite concerned about the rules of the dungeon, immediately asked in shock, "Is there such a convenient item in the dungeon?"

Professor Nini giggled, "Of course. Saint Marian's dungeon is so vast, it's not a place where people can go back and forth within a day or two. It's precisely due to the existence of the portkey that we can complete an adventure within a certain range in just a weekend."

Dark curiously asked, "Then, professor, how long is the CD time of this portkey? And how many people can be simultaneously transported with each use?"

Professor Nini put out three fingers. "The CD time is only one hour. After an hour, it can immediately be used again once the magic energy is replenished. As for the number of people that can be transported..."

Dark: "Thirty people?"

"No." Professor Nini shook her head, "It's three people. A portkey can only transport three people at a time. If you want to transport more people, you need an advanced version of the portkey—port-crystal(门水晶)!"

Curious, Dark asked, "What's a port-crystal?"

Professor Nini answered, "Port-crystal is a high-level version of portkey, its full name is the 'dungeon-special portal crystal'(地下城专用传送门水晶). It can transport thirty people at a time, and its CD time is three hours. After each use, it needs a large amount of magic energy to replenish. Moreover, it's very scarce."

Dark: "Then… How can we get the portkey and the port-crystal? Buy it from Traveller Street?"

Professor Nini said, "That's one of the channels. After obtaining portkeys and port-crystals from the dungeon, some students will sell them on Traveller Street—it's just that the price is a bit expensive. Of course, the main way to procure them is to get them from the dungeon. Every week when the dungeon resets, it will refresh the treasure chests. There's a chance of getting a portkey from the treasure chests, but the port-crystal can only be obtained from the high-level treasure chests guarded by the floor bosses."

The students nodded with vague understanding.

Even with the whole world as a scope, Saint Marian Academy's dungeon was considered very special.

In the dungeons outside, there was no such thing as a weekly refresh mechanism, let alone the saying "treasure chests". What they had were "treasure hoarding monsters(宝箱怪)" who had a habit of collecting all kinds of items.

The people in this world might not feel anything about it, but when Dark first learned about this dungeon, he felt that it was very similar to the dungeons in games.

The dungeon in Saint Marian Academy would generally refresh between Monday to Wednesday, with some rare big bosses taking longer to respawn, so the students were only allowed to enter the dungeon between Friday to Sunday.

"Alright." Professor Nini clapped her hands and said, "For us, the portkey and port-crystal are not of importance. Our mission today is for each person to hunt at least one monster and take the items they drop as proof. The activity range is limited to the first floor and the second floor, and it'll be best to move with me. Those who want to move freely can apply to me after we arrive at the entrance of the second floor, but the prerequisite is that there must be three people in a group, and you have to bring along a [Magic Energy Compass]."

As soon as they heard this, the students instantly broke into an uproar.

Someone couldn't help saying, "Professor, do we still have to hunt monsters? I thought we were just going to tour the dungeon..."

Professor Nini turned away without looking at him. "Hmm."

However, there were more students who became pumped up.

"What's the point in sightseeing? We came here to hunt!"

"The goal is to slay dragons, go go go!"

People like White and Doron secretly pumped their fists.

Glancing at White, Robert tentatively asked, "White, do you have that… [Magic Energy Compass]?"

White's freshly clenched fist instantly loosened. He hesitantly replied, "I don't, what about you?"

Robert: "How could I have it…"

White: "You're right. That means we can only go with Professor Nini?"

Robert: "Let's borrow it from someone. Also, the requirement is a group of three, don't we still need one person? We can just find someone who brought a [Magic Energy Compass]."

White spontaneously nodded, "That makes sense."

Robert leaned over and whispered as he pointed in Dark's direction, "How about we ask Demon to join? Not only does he have a [Magic Energy Compass], it feels very safe to go with him… With him around, we can even challenge the floor boss!"

White turned to look at Dark. After a long silence, he said, "Forget it, let's find someone else. There's definitely someone who wants to move freely but can't find a companion."

"Okay." Robert regretfully said, "You have the final say."

Thus, the two began to observe among the crowd.

……

An undercurrent surged in the crowd. Many people had already begun to secretly form a team.

The requirement of a group of three with a [Magic Energy Compass] in possession was indeed a difficult issue.

Not everyone wanted to go adventuring, and this resulted in the shortage of members in some small teams.

Furthermore, the number of people who brought a [Magic Energy Compass] was also limited. At most, only a little more than ten groups could be formed.

Only about a quarter of them were qualified to make an application.

……

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