Chapter 209 Weird Building

They talked until late at night before everyone had been given a task about what to do and how to distribute the tasks amongst the Survivors.

With 2500 Survivors by their side, they had more than enough working force to do something. However, while it was great to have so many Survivors to do all kinds of tasks, it was also a fact that they had a lot of preparations to do especially because their group was quite large.

Dilan slept for a few hours before he woke up not long after sunrise. There were lots of things for him to do but the first thing he did was to use his replenished Mana to use [Regeneration] over and over again.

Afterward, he ate some of the leftover food of the night before. He quickly bathed, prepared everything he needed, and set off not long after.

‘It should be better for me to stay alone for the time being.’ Dilan thought with a wry smile, knowing that he was ignoring the other’s concern.

They knew that he was still in a weakened state and that it decreased his stats.

But even if he was not in his peak state right now, the only one who could come close to his combat prowess was probably Yvonne.

The others would have to go all out to fight him, the moment he made use of [Bracing Pain] and [Thunder Step].

Bracing pain was truly a powerful ability. Its downside might be that Dilan’s strength only increased when he was injured and that he needed to be severely injured in order to gain a higher overall amplification but that was something Dilan could live with.-.

Pain was nothing new for him, and he had always lived with it. He was a bit different from others and had long since accepted this.

He was not worried about his own well-being or safety as he ran through the city. Rather, if someone was by his side, Dilan worried that they might have an unlucky encounter with a powerful monster and that the people by his side might get injured.

That was not something he wanted to happen, which was why Dilan went out all by himself to comb through the city in the hopes of finding a few Gates that were of great use to them.

Finding them was not really difficult. He had to search for areas where the mana density was higher, but that was the only issue.

Either, he would find monsters like the slimes, who were able to actively release mana, or he could find some treasures like the Stonemonkey Devial fruit, or a Gate.

All of that would be quite beneficial for their group.

‘They forgot to bring the Mana Fog Slimes on the bus, so I cannot even think about creating a mana-rich environment for everyone to improve their proficiency with mana.’

In the end, improving one’s proficiency over mana would be beneficial in many ways.

Right from a shorter duration to replenish Mana, to faster circulation of Mana which allowed an increased speed in activation of pieces of equipment, up to better control over abilities, everything had to do with Mana.

Dilan was aware of this so he was looking forward to the mana-rich areas in and near Shiron.

He expected a lot from them and was actually not disappointed by what he found in a matter of six hours.

It was necessary for him to spend the entire morning combing through Shiron, even though his Agility was high.

However, Dilan was not in a hurry and reminded himself to act with a calm head.

And this was certainly necessary because there were only a total of three mana-dense areas, two of which were barely perceptible.

One of the weaker mana-dense areas was a large corporate building that was overflowing with monsters.

Dilan didn’t enter the building but he could tell that the number of monsters was already more than enough to create a small area that was filled with Mana.

‘There is not a single Tier-1 monster inside, but there are far more than a thousand tierless monsters. Is there possibly a permanent Gate that is weaker than the Krendel’s Underground Valley?’

Dilan shrugged his shoulders before he set his focus on the other mana-rich areas. Or at least that was what he wanted to do…

He knew that both were Gates but he didn’t see many monsters in their proximity.

The last spot he had visited was just a little bit weird because the large building’s appearance was different to the remaining buildings all over Shiron.

Instead of looking modern, the last building he visited had an old touch to its architecture.

Usually, Dilan wouldn’t care about this but this time was different because a few things irked him about that place.

‘Even if the mana density is amongst the lowest of the three mana-rich areas, why is that building so weird? It doesn’t fit in this area, or the entire city…weird.

Wait…is the building itself radiating mana?’

Turning back to the building that he had deemed unimportant just a moment earlier, Dilan felt a bit confused all of a sudden.

‘Buildings shouldn’t be able to radiate any mana.’

If that was the only problem, Dilan wouldn’t feel odd all of a sudden. The sun temple was also a weird construct that had radiated Mana. That simply indicated the possibility of the weird old building being from somewhere else as well.

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It might not necessarily be the case but Dilan had no other explanation.

By watching the building for some time he figured out a few things, which led him to approach the building once again.

However, now instead of looking through a window, Dilan walked towards the entrance door.

“As expected, another shitty place…or we’ll see if it’s shitty, to be precise.” He blurted out in frustration as he read through the notification he received.

[Instance Dungeon <Pagoda of Time I>. Limitations: Maximum of 10 Ascenders, Tier-1 Level 15.]

“An Instance dungeon… Is that like in those games, where an area turns into a dungeon…and one can clear it with a maximum of 10 Ascenders below Level 16 at Tier-1…”

Dilan felt a little bit confused at the sight of the building that resembled a Pagoda the more he looked at it.

He had been able to look into it before but it was not actually dangerous enough for him to consider it a necessity to enter it with 10 Tier-1 Ascenders above Level 10.

‘Well, it’s merely a limitation. That doesn’t mean they need so many Ascenders at Tier-1 Level 15 to clear it…’

Just as Dilan made this clear for himself, he noticed that he had received not only one notification but two.

[First ‘Human’ to find the Instance dungeon <Pagoda of Time I>. Drop rate for unique loot has been doubled. Dungeon points awarded for conquering Instance Dungeons in a given period will be doubled for 24 hours!]

After carefully reading through the message once again, Dilan began to smile.

Excitement spread through his body, and for a short time, he forgot about Mason, his people, or the fact that he had to fulfill a heavy responsibility.

An opportunity had appeared in front of him and he didn’t feel like wasting it, at all.

Whether it was stupid or not, Dilan couldn’t care less. He felt like doing something reckless and potentially suicidal.

Thus, he simply did it…despite knowing that it was reckless and potentially suicidal. Without giving it another thought, he stepped through the Pagoda’s entrance and entered the Instance Dungeon; the Pagoda of Time!