Darius Supreme

Darius pocketed the money as he had some need for it in his daily expenses. The fact that he almost always paid in silver and hardly had any bronze coins was a serious problem since it was the most used currency on the daily.

Besides that, there was the fact that he had little use for most of these drops at the moment. They only cluttered up his Inventory with their number and filled up many of his precious slots reserved for other things.

In the case that he learned something like Alchemy or similar in the future, he could easily come back and clear the first floor for the same drops in that case, taking far less time than he had spent here today.

As Darius walked away he pondered over the dungeon. His main purpose in coming here had been to explore it and understand its purpose after all, so it was not strange that he would do so.

Even though the Quest weighed heavily on his mind, he had to sit down and think carefully about what to do next, lest he ends up on a path outside the 56 successful ones.

Darius had learned how the dungeons of Faust worked after spelunking in this one. He now also fully understood why the Adventurers' Guild was so cruel to Novices but sucked up to Intermediate Adventurers and above.

The dungeons in Faust were instanced!

Darius had learned that term from games in his past life. Instanced dungeons or scenarios, as Darius understood it, were computer replicated environments that shared total similarity to one another usually, allowing multiple players to experience a certain scene individually or in a group.

In other words, instead of hundreds of players crowding a single zone, everyone got their own version that was the same as the main but could be enjoyed by only them. Once they left, the instance would be destroyed to return much-needed computing/processing resources to the main server.

Darius certainly understood why a feature like that was needed for a massively multiplayer online game, but not for a world like Faust. Assuming Faust wasn't a digital world, how did this even work?

How did dungeons form? What caused it? Who created the laws governing dungeons? Who provided the 'computing power' for the instances dungeons create? How many instances could dungeons create at a time? Was there a way to return to a destroyed instance?

How long could a single instance be kept active if one stayed stubbornly in the dungeon? How did resources generate? Were they perfectly replicated from an archetype, meaning that every run yielded the same amount of resources - forgoing the influence of the Supreme System - or was there a slight difference in every instance?

What about monsters? Were they in the same situation as the resources? Were the same monsters present in every instance or were they mixed up with every run?

Most importantly, what did dungeons or whoever was behind them gain from this? How did they get the energy to generate resources and monsters? Where was the main instance/true dungeon then? Was there even such a thing, and if yes was it even accessible?

So many questions, so little answers…

Darius realized that he would have to run many more dungeons after this stage climbing quest. It was imperative that he understand how such a feature of this world worked so he could maximize his profits off it.

However, Darius gazed at the Novice Adventurers still rushing towards the dungeon with pity. They had no clue how cruel their position was in this world and how brutally they were being exploited.

Darius had wondered, why contract so many weaklings to enter a dungeon instead of competent fellows? Why prioritize quantity over quality? Adventurers should be a select few skilled people, not just any random bloke who could launch a kick.

However, the answer had been found, the dungeons were instanced. What the Adventurers' Guild, and even the Andrato Kingdom, needed were not powerful combatants.

They had those through the Intermediate and above Adventurers. What they needed was a mass of cannon fodder to enter the dungeon and harvest whatever they could quickly and get out.

Since dungeons were instanced and assuming there were no limits to the number of instances, an infinite number of resources could be harvested from them! This raised the value of every dungeon out there exponentially, but also raised the problem of how to maximize gains!

Sure, skilled fellows like Darius could clear the first floor and acquire many resources, but how many people of Darius' skill level existed out here? No matter the number they were not enough to capitalize on the 'infinite' instances of the dungeons!

As such, gathering every able-bodied fellow and throwing them in had become the go-to method. If they die, then - as Darius theorized based on his knowledge of dungeons from fantasy games - their bodies and essence would most likely be absorbed by the dungeon to give it energy.

If they lived and made it out with some resources, then the town or city would confiscate 50% of whatever they had grabbed in the name of fees while encouraging the fellows to sell the rest to them as well.

The Adventurers Guild was… Darius did not even know what to call it. He felt like he, the billionaire of Earth, had a lot to learn about business. Not about the fundamentals, but how to merge his skill with the world of Faust.

For that, he would continue to learn more about the world and its rules. That was the only way to make the biggest profit wherever he went, though he understood that he could not solely focus on that since his goal was to amuse Vena.

Darius eventually returned to The Great Escape Inn with Gunner in tow. It had taken them only a short few hours to clear the dungeon, but it was still evening.

Seeing as dinner was being served, Darius decided to have a hearty meal with Gunner at their suite table. Darius noted that almost all the suite tables were full this time, meaning that even those fellows who had decided to skip out on breakfast and lunch had come back for dinner.

This intrigued Darius and made him look forward to the meal.