Chapter 22: Public and Private Dungeons

"Logically speaking, I should distribute Strength and Intelligence equally so that I have extra mana to use more abilities and I can defeat high leveled monsters in the future that have a lot of endurance and durability."

"However... Do I really need Strength? My Devastate ability allows me to kill anything below a certain level just by touching them, meaning their high defenses are useless before me."

"Furthermore, my Plunder ability allows me to acquire more abilities from killing monsters and even other Players..."

"This means that I am technically an ability-based Player and having extra mana will benefit me the most."

With his powerful ability Plunder, Lucas will eventually have countless abilities at his disposal, and he'd need a lot of mana to use so many abilities.

As for his Devastate ability, he could pretty much kill everything in existence as long as it was below what the ability allows, meaning that he won't have to worry about monsters with high defenses since he can simply ignore their defenses.

After spending the rest of the day pondering how he should distribute his available points, Lucas decided to invest them into Intelligence.

However, he didn't invest all 50 points into Intelligence— only half of them just in case he needed to invest in the other abilities in the future.

After investing 25 points into Intelligence, his total mana increased to 500, and his Intelligence went to 90.

"I don't need to over-invest into my Character Status when I can already deal with Novice-rank dungeons with ease, and I might need to improve the other stats in the future."

Now that he finally has a somewhat clear path for his Character Status, it was time for Lucas to focus on his quest.

"50 kills using Devastate... I will need to enter another Novice-rank dungeon if not a few more. Let's see if there are any available dungeons in this city."

Lucas then left his room and went back downstairs to the guild's lobby and asked one of the receptionists, "Do you guys have a list of all available dungeons right now?"

The woman behind the desk nodded and pointed to the bulletin board not far away and said, "You can find every public dungeon currently available within Stellar City on the bulletin board on the right. If you want to enter a private dungeon, you can see if there are any guilds looking for Players to join them on the bulletin board on the left. Dungeons outside the city are in the center."

Lucas then made his way to the three bulletin boards.

There were two types of dungeons— public dungeons and private dungeons.

Public dungeons are akin to public parks that are available to everyone as long as they are in a party, and private dungeons are dungeons that have been bought out by other people, so only the person who bought the dungeon and those who received their permission are allowed to enter the dungeon.

As for how people can purchase dungeons, the world has managed to create a system that can tell if a dungeon will open in the near future and its approximate location, allowing for them to prepare for the dungeon before it appears.

However, whoever has jurisdiction on the location the dungeon appears on will have all the rights to the dungeon, meaning if a dungeon appears in someone's backyard and they own the land, they will also own the dungeon.

In the case that a dungeon appears in a public area, the government or power that has jurisdiction over that area will have the rights to the dungeon.

The owner or the power that owns the dungeons has the ability to sell their dungeon, and most of the time they end up in dungeon auctions to be bid on by guilds owned by Players and businesses.

However, there was a flaw in this system, as that would deprive the public of access to these dungeons, affecting the world's economy. Therefore, the world made it so that after every 4 dungeons that appear, the fifth dungeon will be open to the public no matter where it appears.

This would allow the public access to dungeons, and with how frequent dungeons appear nowadays, it was enough to keep the public satisfied.

Furthermore, private dungeons are opened to the public after a certain amount of time passes to prevent the dungeon from releasing monsters if the monsters inside are not cleared in time.

As for how common dungeons appear, they usually show up across the world ten times a week, sometimes even more, but since they show up randomly around the world, Players are required to travel around the world if they want to utilize public dungeons fully.

Lucas spent only a couple of minutes looking at the bulletin board with public dungeons in Stellar City since there were only a few left, and all of them were close to being cleared.

As for dungeons outside the city, he wasn't comfortable with traveling too far away from his home at this moment, nor does he have the funds to do so, so he decided to check out the other bulletin boards with the private dungeons.

After looking at a few s from people who own dungeons, it was clear to Lucas that he had to pay a fee to use these dungeons, and he was only allowed to kill a limited number of monsters inside these dungeons.

However, since he didn't have any choice, and it was unsure when another public dungeon would open up in Stellar City, he had no choice but to pay to use a private dungeon.