Chapter 413: Morning Run

As if the sound of utensils drew them to the tent, Colonel Valerie arrived with the head of the church research team as soon as the food was served, and happily sat for a meal.

"We will need a team to go check to see if they can enter yet. The other team did the twelve-hour check, and they couldn't enter, so we are hoping that it is only one day of waiting and not a full week or something even longer." The Colonel explained as she cut her eggs to let the yolk run out over her potatoes.

"Once a day does sound like a rather good deal. The amount of gear and loot that could be brought out by multiple teams farming a dungeon every day is rather impressive." Karl agreed.

"Eventually, it won't be worth it for the team anymore. Some dungeons will let you enter indefinitely, and they are the primary source for our lower level equipment, but that is very rarely true about one as powerful as a Commander Rank dungeon. If we could just farm equipment drops from a dungeon at this level, we would be able to provide much better gear for our soldiers." Colonel Valerie laughed.

"So, what is stopping it? Is there an entry limit beyond the timer?" Karl asked, unsure how this worked.

"Normally, yes. Each person will only be allowed to enter so many times, after which the dungeon won't provide them any more rewards if they continue."

"So, you can keep going in, but you won't get any loot? What if it were one out of five, with a fresh team? We could keep someone here from the Inquisition to lead weaker teams through so they could get the benefits." Valerie shook her head. "Just like with the members without a class, a fully formed dungeon considers all members. Now, we expected that they would just be excluded from the rewards as they didn't have a class, and actually giving them one was a shock, but the principle still applies."

"So, we're likely going to be here until the dungeon stops giving us rewards?" Karl asked carefully.

There were sure to be limits on what she was allowed to tell them, and this had been an emergency deployment, after which the response teams would normally be sent to a new location. That meant either back to fight the Hill Giants, or off to a new battlefield.

Colonel Valerie nodded. "That's right. Team One will be reassigned later today, off to another emergency call, while your team will remain here until the construction of the new facility is complete and the long-term staff have arrived. Construction will start today, after we have determined that the dungeon is indeed repeatable. That isn't expected to be an issue, there are rarely cases where an instance stabilizes and can't be repeated. Normally, the single entry versions vanish after the first use or fail to fully stabilize, like the First Advancement Trial that you underwent."

Karl nodded in understanding. It made sense that a stabilized dungeon wouldn't have the same sort of restrictions on it as an unstable instance. It would have been much better if they could just assign someone to farm them for equipment, though. They were at war on too many sides, and being able to send Elites out to train in a predictable dungeon before going to the front would probably reduce some of the trauma when they faced Giants in real combat.

"Are we at our timer yet?" Bob asked as they finished eating.

"Ten minutes ago. We start the timer when you leave the dungeon, as that seems to be the most reliable version of what the dungeons consider twenty-four hours to be."

Karl's core team, Tessa, Dana, Lotus and Ophelia, stood to join him in the mission to the dungeon, and the two clerics winked as they prepared to head out.

"Oh no, you don't. Lotus is staying here, we've got work to do. You can take one of the others." Doug reprimanded them.

They were the two Nature Clerics, and there was a birthday dinner to prepare. Doug wasn't about to let the second chef escape for hours to go play in a dungeon if he didn't get to come with her.

Lotus sighed, and Bob patted her on the head as he got to his feet. "I will take her spot today. We will let the Nature Clerics do their thing, and then we will be back for lunch."

Karl noticed that Morgana and Colonel Valerie shared a secret smile as they were headed out, so he was certain that the Colonel knew what they were up to today, and likely had something planned for the evening, as Doug was intent on making lunch and not dinner.

Fortunately, Dana was facing the other way, adjusting her face mask and hood, which were attached to each other, and she wasn't fully accustomed to yet.

The cloth armour might not prevent broken bones from the impact force, but it would keep her from being cut or hit with particularly nasty sprays. Now that she was learning a combat style that mixed blades and spells, often in close quarters, getting sprayed with blood or something worse was becoming a concern.

Karl led the team to the dungeon entrance, and extended his hand, so he didn't walk face-first into the portal if it was still closed. Luck was on their side, and the team passed smoothly through, with Bob moving to the front to take his usual position as Tank, while Karl called out the beasts.

"I'm almost to Royal Rank, I can feel it. I was so close last time I was in here that I could feel the barrier trembling, and I think that now I will be able to advance. I've got a good feeling about this time." Bob explained.

"In that case, lead the way. The Golems will support you, but a bit more practice with your new skill might be just the thing that you need to push you to the next level." Karl agreed.

The others weren't going to argue. There was no observer in here with them, so they could move as fast as they pleased, or take breaks between the bosses so they didn't come back out too early, before the food was ready.

The others would definitely know if they were slacking, but there wasn't much that could actually be done about it even if they were aware.

Bob led the way, knocking the Ogres to the ground with his [Shield Slam], and then chopping them with [Titanic Cleave]. It was a pair of mana intensive skills, but it severely wounded all of the Ogres, and the golems finished them off before any of them could even defend themselves.

They didn't even slow when they made it to the first boss, everyone just attacked, hacking it apart in seconds to see what would be in the box.

[Boss Defeated]

This time the announcement wasn't in the air above the chest, but in Karl's view, as if he had the interface active. He didn't keep it up all the time, as it was just distracting, especially with his highly enhanced vision, but seeing the announcement was enough to remind him that he was gaining more System functions by the day.

Bob opened the chest, and inside was a small assortment of armour, along with a large number of coins.

[Split Coins or Claim?] Karl saw from his interface.

[Split] he chose.

[73 Gold Coins gained]

Karl checked his interface quickly, and saw that the money function was now active, while everyone else looked around, confused as the money vanished.

"It gave me the option to split it. Check your interface and your bag, it should be there." Karl explained.

"Oh, there it is, right in the bottom of my bag. Well, that's a fun new function. Auto-splitting the money makes things much less difficult, especially when you have a berserker in the team. You know how they feel about math." Bob joked.

"Me? Excuse you very much. Your math is worse than mine." Ophelia laughed.

They tossed the armour pieces into Thor's bags, and Tessa checked the ring that was left in the bottom of the chest.

"A ring of [Fireball Enhancement]. It only works on the Fireball spell, but it increases damage by fifteen percent." She explained.

"Might as well put it in the bag. None of us use the actual [Fireball] spell, but the two new mages might."