This dungeon has mushrooms growing on it.

Chapter 162, page 161: You won't know until you read it.

About the Adventurers' Guild.

Besides the impressive architecture, many adventurers privately speculate that the building must have some unknown structure—for example, a hidden basement.

Of course, this is just one of the many wild and imaginative ideas of adventurers.

However, Mirabelle knew that although the adventurers were just guessing, they were right; there really was a basement below the guild.

Moreover, because it was buried deep underground, the monsters of the demonic tide were unable to cause any damage to the basement; every brick here came from the original guild.

At this moment, she was walking in the passageway leading to the basement...accompanying the new president.

Besides the two of them, there was only the maid who was always by Fal's side and served Chairman Fal.

Having already inquired about the relationship between the new president and the general president, Mirabelle was originally worried that her position would be replaced by the new president's subordinates.

After several days of contact, the other party seems to recognize my abilities and has not yet submitted any questions about accepting the job.

This brief period of calm did not completely put her at ease; she had a vague sense that the new president did not simply want to maintain the status quo of the branch.

Under his supervision, one certainly can no longer slack off as easily as before.

Sure enough, he had only been in office for a few days when trouble struck.

The air inside the passage was cold and stagnant, carrying a dusty and damp smell, clearly indicating that few people passed through this place.

The stone steps spiral down, as if they were about to sink into the earth's core.

With each step the three took on the stone steps, the sound of their footsteps was mostly swallowed up by the thick darkness, leaving only hollow echoes that swirled and dissipated below, where there was no end in sight.

It was as if some giant beast below had devoured everything.

Far stopped abruptly, frowned, looked at the small magic crystal lamp on the wall, and then at the darkness below the steps.

"Mirabelle, is the guild's finances tight?"

"Huh?" Surprised by the unexpected question, Mirabelle took two seconds to react before answering, "No, I'm not nervous at all."

"Then why don't you turn on the light? Don't you think it's a bit too dark?"

"Oh! Yes! Yes!"

As Mirabelle moved somewhat frantically, the array in the wall was activated, and the small magic crystal lamp lit up with an orange-yellow light.

The underground passage suddenly became bright.

Although it still smelled dusty, at least it no longer looked like we were heading into a dungeon.

Before long, the group arrived at the end of the passage, in front of a stone door with a defensive array.

Far raised the branch president's seal, infusing it with magic to activate the mark.

The massive stone wall slid open silently, without a single frictional noise, revealing the monitoring room behind it.

As Far stepped out, brushing away the dust, Lillian had already entered and surveyed the area.

This is a monitoring room for the underground city, but it's the old version.

The surveillance of the underground city was included in the scope of the intelligence department's work a long time ago.

The intelligence department has several detection devices placed in different levels of the dungeon to collect changes in magical energy, with the sole purpose of predicting the arrival of the magical tide.

As for the monitoring room in front of us, it is responsible for directly monitoring the core of the underground city.

The principle is actually quite similar: by using a device installed not far from the core, changes in magical energy are collected and analyzed.

However, this thing hasn't been used for a long time.

Since the equipment was installed approximately two hundred years ago, many of its alchemical designs are now outdated.

Compared to the newly installed monitoring equipment, it consumes more energy, provides less clear information, and is more cumbersome to operate.

The key issue is that we haven't been able to obtain any useful information yet.

The core technology remains the same, unchanged for centuries. If the goal is simply to provide early warning of demonic tides, new equipment would suffice.

During Oberon's tenure as branch president, he never used it even once, and Mirabelle wasn't even sure if it could still function!
I don't know what Chairman Far was thinking, insisting on using it once to see what it was like.

Looking at the old and complicated equipment structure in front of her, Mirabelle could only take out the instruction manual and follow the instructions to operate the array on the equipment through specific runes.

Fortunately, although Mirabelle was not familiar with this, she still had professional skills.

With the help of the instruction manual, I successfully started this old relic in just two hours.

Mirabelle’s only thought when she saw it light up was: This thing actually works!
Soon, the information obtained by the monitoring device was displayed to the group.

There were no visuals, no specific details, only data about the changes in magic power near the core.

Upon seeing the data, Mirabelle immediately frowned.

I repeatedly compared the instruction manual with the data in front of me.

"What's wrong?" Far asked.

He was not an expert in this field and did not understand the meaning behind the content.

Mirabelle glanced at it a few more times before replying, "It's strange. The magical activity level of the dungeon core shown on it is much lower than what's recorded in the manual, and..."

"And what?"

"And it seems to be continuing to decline?" Mirabelle herself didn't quite believe her own answer. "But that's impossible! This has never happened in the dungeon before."

At least not before.

Magic activity continues to decline?
What will happen to the dungeon if activity continues to decline?
Mirabelle didn't know, but she was terrified that such a situation would occur.

Far, on the other hand, had an expression that said, "I knew it."

Just as he had guessed on the way, the problem with the monsters crossing levels was indeed a core issue.

Although he guessed correctly, he was not happy at all; this was a big problem!
To put it in the worst-case scenario, the Amethyst Dungeon is at risk of collapsing.

So the question is, did the monster cause the change in the core, or did the core cause the monster's abnormality?
What about the other dungeons? Is it only the Amethyst Dungeon that's like this, or are they all the same, and this one was just discovered first?

The Tide Sanctuary is located in the Western Isles; the Amethyst Underground City is located in the southern part of the kingdom; and the Scarecrow Abyss is located at the junction of the territories of elves, dwarves, and humans.

These are all dungeons managed by the guild, so it's necessary to check them all.

Thinking of this, Far said, "Mirabelle, use the communication equipment to contact the guild headquarters directly, explain the whole situation, and ask them to notify the other dungeon branches to also conduct inspections and send 'experts' over!"

The term "expert" refers to both engineers familiar with formations and alchemy, and truly high-level combat personnel.

Venturing deep into the core of the dungeon is no leisurely trip. There are many monsters inside that are far stronger than diamond-level monsters. Without sufficient protection, going down there is no different from committing suicide.

Mirabelle quite approved of the new president's behavior of passing the buck. She was afraid of those hotheads who wanted to solve everything themselves and ended up looking like clowns, dragging their subordinates down with them.

However, the commanding tone Fal used towards the guild headquarters still made her eyelids twitch; probably only someone of Fal's status would dare to speak like that...

She knew the importance of the matter, so she quickly shut down the old equipment and ran to the communications room.

As for Far, he didn't intend to idle before the 'experts' from headquarters arrived.

The 'experts' were in charge of investigating the core of the dungeon, while he planned to start with this unusual monster to see if he could gain anything.

……

……

……

Two days later.

Inside the Adventurers' Guild, in the meeting room responsible for receiving important personnel.

A dead, lit-up Poji lay quietly in the center of the long table, surrounded by elites who had come either voluntarily or by invitation, ready to participate in the operation.

(End of this chapter)