Who designed this underworld dungeon?.

Chapter 604 Dragon Feast's Intelligence

The War Festival is one of the most important festivals in the land of warriors.

Holding a festival involves a great deal of complicated procedures. The choice of scale, date, and venue is a minor issue. There are also more troublesome steps, such as consulting the spirits of ancestors, worshipping the god of war, and lighting beacon fires. It is so complicated that it is simply not in line with the character of the people of the warrior nation.

The appearance of this mad dragon not only destroyed important sacrificial items, but its most significant disaster was the interruption of the war ritual.

If the ceremony is interrupted, there are complicated steps such as worshipping the God of War and consulting the spirits of the fallen heroes. It can take up to half a month at the fastest, and that is under the condition that there are no obstacles.

But not anymore.

"When we consulted the spirits of our ancestors, why did they refuse to let the ceremony continue?"

In the capital city, in the royal palace, King Bantowu closed his eyes in deep thought.

Seeking the spirits of ancestors might be considered superstitious in Gong Qiying's hometown, but in this magical fantasy world, it is an absolutely feasible approach.

The Warrior Kingdom has always valued the spirits of its ancestors. They believe that even though their ancestors are dead, they can still communicate with their remaining spirits through special rituals, like a riddle. It's never a bad thing to talk to the ancestors before making any important decisions.

Since Bontou became king, he has consulted with the Heroic Spirits on every decision he has made, and they have always agreed.

However, when he routinely asked the heroic spirits whether to continue the war festival that had been interrupted due to an accident, he received unprecedented opposition.

He was still somewhat skeptical at the time, so he asked several more times, and each time he received the same negative response.

He's now sitting on his throne, racking his brains, but can't figure out the reason.

"This is the first war ceremony since the reform movement began, and the heroic spirits have expressed their opposition. Could it be that..."

He paused for a moment, then shook his head.

"We can't think like that. Reform is our country's only future. The heroes' refusal may have other reasons."

No matter how he thought about it, his intuition told him that this seemed to be an ominous sign.

But the land of warriors is currently peaceful.

It's not as dangerous as the Kingdom of Anor was back then.

Bantoo worried that thinking about it further would affect his determination to implement the warrior reforms, so he took over the tasks to be handled that day from his guards and began to review them.

"The Battle Festival has attracted tremendous attention in the country."

He knew about the Battle Festival. A while ago, Lanler had sent him a message, taking a sum of money from him, supposedly to recruit warriors to participate in the Battle Festival.

Since it was rare for the other party to be so concerned about something, Bontoo allowed it, considering it a trial for Lanler.

His own assessment of the Battle Festival was:
"If I were still young and hadn't ascended the throne, I probably would have rushed to the Sien Dungeon immediately after seeing the contents of that memory stone."

But not now, because he has things to do right now.

“The Dungeon of Sein, my father and Ainz III of the neighboring country both speak highly of you. So far, you have saved two countries. Every place you set foot in becomes prosperous, and even the adventurers who have benefited from your kindness are shining brightly.”

Bantou muttered to himself:
"If you're really that effective, then come and change the current state of the Warrior Kingdom."

His exclamation didn't last long.

Upon seeing a certain message, his brows furrowed sharply once again.

"It's the Mad Dragon again."

News of sightings of the mad dragon reached him from various regions within the Warrior Kingdom. Sometimes the dragon would simply pass through, and sometimes it would stay briefly. Each time it stayed, it would do two things:

First, they shouted loudly; second, they ate the residents' food.

The noise pollution and violent looting of food, even though there seems to be no news of Kuanglong killing people, are enough to make people resent Kuanglong. Many people are fleeing in panic to safer big cities, and social order is in chaos for a time.

This matter must be resolved as soon as possible.

We urgently need to assemble a group of dragon-slaying warriors.

At this moment, a guard outside the palace came in to report.

"Your Majesty, that magic professor has come again, still demanding to see Master Eunka."

"here we go again"

Banto frowned; the magic professor the guard mentioned was none other than Tulsi.

The renowned copyright defender within the Magic Association.

Her purpose in coming here was to demand money from Eunka for the magic he had modified and disseminated without paying copyright fees, and to make up for the copyright fees paid by all the magic creators!
Furthermore, it brought with it stringent requirements that the safety, stability, practicality, and continued propagation of those improved spells must all be tested by the Magic Association!

All acts of transmission must be stopped before testing is completed!
"It's like a persistent ghost; I didn't expect it to come knocking on our door so quickly."

The Magic Association is an organization established by the most accomplished magicians, spread across the world.

Although it may seem insignificant in the daily lives of ordinary people, its reach is actually more extensive than that of the Adventurers' Guild, and its influence can be seen in all walks of life.

Furthermore, the association's professors are all top experts in the field of magic, and the energy that such a group of people can generate is immense.
Even the warrior nation would find it troublesome to deal with.

If it would cause so much trouble, why allow Eunka's improved magic to spread widely in the first place, and even promote it as the main reform for warriors?

Because Bontou and Yunka are gambling.

They were betting that they could quickly complete the nationwide warrior reform before the Magic Association came knocking. The goals they could achieve after the reform would be enough for the Magic Association to forgive their past infringements and perhaps even actively assist them!
However, these things must never be known to the Magic Association before the plan succeeds!
Tell the magic professor outside that I don't have time right now.

Leaving the guards behind, frowning and pondering an excuse, Bantou rose and walked deeper into the palace, eventually arriving at a magic circle. He poured magic power into it and activated the magic circle.

The lines of the magic circle emitted a faint glow, and his projection appeared inside the magician's tower in the next moment.

It was still a dark scene. Eunka sat in front of him, looking at him with a blank expression.

Banto looked around and saw the broken sapphire stone set lying on the ground.

“Eunka, I need an explanation.”

He felt that he was now speaking very calmly.

Eunka had assured him that the end of the war festival would be the moment their plan would be realized, but what happened?
Eunka let out a strange scream during the festival and ran back to the mage tower. He hasn't shown up for the past few days and seems to have become withdrawn. When Tulsi came to his door, it was Bontou who was bearing the pressure.

The feeling of guilt I had when facing Tulsi was simply indescribable.

"Failed."

The word escaped from Eunka's parched lips.

Bontou immediately raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? Do you know what this word represents? You can't just say things like that."

"Of course I know."

Eunka's hands suddenly clenched, her nails digging deep into her palms, but her face remained expressionless as she spoke:

"All the efforts of the past few years have evaporated overnight. I still can't believe it. Why did it disappear so quickly?"

He worked hard for several years to gradually increase the concentration of magical faith in the country, pushing it to near full capacity this year.

and then?
Nearly half of the troops evaporated during the war festival!
That's progress that took several years to accumulate!

Based on past experience, once progress drops, it takes much longer and is much harder to catch up than the first time!
The concentration could have been pushed to its peak by displaying the power of magic again at the war festival, but due to an unexpected reason, half of the progress was evaporated.

Not long ago, he finally understood what had been holding him back time and time again.

“The Dungeon of Sein” Yunka’s tone finally wavered, revealing a deep resentment.

The temperature of the entire mage tower dropped instantly. Even though the real body was not there, Bontou seemed to feel the chill.

"I thought it would be a source of hope and support, but it turned out to be just stirring up trouble."

The court's great magic sage glanced at the Radiant Stone set on the ground.

He finally understood why he and the Sien Dungeon seemed to be at odds.

What he wanted was for people to trust and rely on magic like religious believers trust in a god. The most important aspect of this system was to demonstrate the "omnipotence" of magic, to never show any signs of fatigue, and to create a perfect existence called "magic".

The Sion Dungeon offers a dazzling array of highly practical magic with a very high ceiling and a solid floor. People will absolutely trust the magic produced by Sion, and even if he, Yunka, modifies Sion's magic, no one will hold him accountable. From this perspective, his goal and the Sion Dungeon seem like a match made in heaven.

However, after the Sion dungeon demonstrated the power of magic.

Then Tops immediately used his force field to shatter it into pieces.

People's faith in the magic of Sion was shattered before it could take shape, which also led to a series of sensational rumors such as magicians having no future.

After arriving in the Warrior's Kingdom from the Sien Dungeon, everything went wrong for Yunka, from the teaching of combat skills by Bernal, the battle ceremony of Rataen, to the thirty heroes of the Glory Dungeon.

This is no help; it's clearly a jinx that brings disaster.

Is there any way to stop it?

Even the brilliant Eunka was no match for an underground city that defied conventional wisdom.

Now I can't help but feel very distressed.

"In short, let's prohibit contact for now."

------------------

"Have you heard? There are strange people wandering around the city of Sien."

"What strange person? That's Prince Lanle, trying to recruit people!"

"You called me?"

Near the portal to the Sien dungeon, a Lanler suddenly appeared beside several adventurers who were chatting, startling them quite a bit.

Lanler then flashed the same professional smile he'd worn countless times in recent days, and said:
"Judging by your battle-hardened appearance, are you interested in following me?"

"Excuse me, Your Highness, we must be leaving now!"

Seeing the adventurers fleeing in disarray, Lanler finally spoke the rest of his sentence in an increasingly lower voice.

"Come with me to the Battle Festival."

"."

"Ugh."

He watched the adventurers flee from him and couldn't help but sigh.

"Even with money, it's still so hard to hire people."

Most people who are attracted by money are not qualified to challenge the Battle Festival.

Those qualified to challenge the Battle Festival were unwilling to respond to his call.

As for the reformists, there's no hope at all; they definitely won't come.

Because of the order from Yunka to temporarily avoid in-depth contact with the Sien Dungeon, the reformists, who were almost all Yunka's die-hard fans, naturally accepted the order completely.

Without the support of the reformists, Langler suddenly realized that he had no capable people under his command.

He even went out into the street to recruit people, but clearly, it wasn't very effective.

"Is it all because my reputation is not as good as Temud's?" He refused the bodyguards around him, found a clean place to sit down, and did not act like a prince at all. "If Temud were here, he would have a lot of people responding with a single call."

His appearance was clearly seen by Temud, who was disguised and unrecognized by anyone, not far away.

"Lanler is actually serious about participating in the Battle Festival. I thought he would only be enthusiastic for a short time like before."

He was almost tempted to help the other person, but then he thought about it.

Although my older brother is usually very annoying and goes against me, if he really wants to participate in the battle festival, I can help him out.

However, this is convincing if he himself has enough prestige. Lanler now needs an identity other than that of a prince, an identity that is worthy of recognition by other warriors.

He needs to work hard to achieve these things himself; I will only help him if he can do so.

Coincidentally, based on recent information about the Sien Dungeon, Temud has a preliminary idea for giving Lanler another identity.

He said to the guards beside him, who were dressed similarly:

"Go ahead, pretend to be a passerby and give him the information."

Before long, the guards, disguised as passersby, walked past Lanle, their casual conversation reaching his ears at just the right volume.

"Hey, have you heard? Someone killed that dragon that was roaming Lake Yakil!"

"I know that. And it's said that person honed his katana skills in the forest area of ​​the Sien Dungeon for a very, very long time. He's mastered the [Rising Dragon] and [Divine Might] techniques to perfection, and he's practically a professional dragon slayer!"

"That's so cool! Just by learning the katana, you can become a dragon-slaying hero? That would be so admirable!"

Lanler caught the key words and looked up at the group of people.

As he watched them walk further and further away, he cast a sound-mute spell on his footsteps and quietly followed them.

Not far away, Temud was very happy.

"That's not all, I've heard even more secret information," a guard said in a low voice, speaking mysteriously.
"After that katana master defeated the dragon Agil, it is said that a line of magical runes appeared in front of him. Can you guess what it was?"

"What? Stop teasing us."

"That phrase, it's: 'The Great Dragon Sacrifice Church has gained new power!'"

The guard seemed to get excited and said:
"That person obtained the heart of Aqir. It is said that as long as you can find the Great Dragon's Sacrifice Church and swallow the heart inside, you can gain the power of the dragon!"

"In the oldest times of our warrior nation, weren't these the very fierce warriors that our warriors admired most?"

"If someone can do these things now, that person will definitely be considered a real man by all the soldiers!"

A real man!
The word startled Lanler, and he suddenly felt his body heat up.

He's good at everything, especially magic, but he's never been praised as a "real man"!
Moreover, does obtaining the power of a dragon grant prestige among warriors?
God helps me too!

"I heard that the Great Dragon's Sacrifice Church is located in Galid, and some people have already set out to find it."

Before the guard could finish speaking, Lanler straightened his collar, walked over with a sly smile, and said:
"Gentlemen, shall we have a talk?"

　The issue of the book title has been discussed with the editor, and it can be changed back to its original name at any time.

　　I also feel that the current name is... well, let's see how it goes if we change it.

　　If the data doesn't show a positive trend, we'll change it back tomorrow or the day after.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)