Chapter 50

Chapter 50

I boarded the escalator down to the train station and made my way back to the main Dungeon Hub.

It's really crowded this time of day. Most hunters are finishing up their raids and heading off to the market to sell all kinds of loot.

I walked outside and started to head towards the market center as well, I am one of those hunters after all. It took me about 10 minutes to make my way over, I walked pretty quickly.

"Hey kid! Welcome back!"

The merchant smiled and looked me in the eyes curiously.

"Which dungeon did you end up going to? Any of the ones I recommended?"

"A couple of them actually. The Minotaur Dungeon is pretty cool."

He eyed me closer while narrowing his stare.

"You said you hunt solo though...right?

"Yeah, I can handle it. Don't worry about me old man."

With a grin I emptied my mana onto the table. It's almost 3 dozen crystals. The merchant raised an eyebrow and stared placing all of them on the measuring plate.

"Looks like you can handle yourself pretty well after all, not bad."

The scale read out 3881.66MU in big black text.

"Hmmm, I'll give ya-"

"Wait hold on I have more."

I pulled out the two large axes and the merchant's eyes lit up.

"Let me take a look at those."

I handed him the axes and he examined them closely.

"A 150 and a 200 strength boost axe. Not bad at all. Just like last time you sold me gear, I told you it'd be a better price at auction but I'm still happy to buy these from you today.'

"Yeah, I'm looking to get rid of them quick. Still, I hope you give me a decent price."

"I can do 30 for the 150 strength axe and 45 for the 200. You could easily get double in auction, but that's my price here."

They are low prices, but I understand how the business works. Going to the auction would take up a full day potentially, its really not worth my time right now.

"How about 120 silver for the mana and the axes all together?"

He looked over everything and nodded slowly.

"Hey! Looks like we meet again! This is my morning shift, you off loot farming today?"

I stood there with my arms crossed waiting for the train.

"Yeah, I'm In the city for a little while. This dungeon seems to be perfect for me."

"Screeeeeech"

The train pulled up and we boarded. Hudson leaned up against the inside wall and looked at me.

"Ya know, there's rumors we might get hit by a surge soon. This dungeon is very stable, so I doubt anything will happen. Just be careful about farming in any of the new dungeons until we get more news on the situation. Joining a party is probably a safer move as well."

"I appreciate the warning, but I hunt solo."

"Alright. I'm just looking out for a fellow hunter, that's all."

I raised an eyebrow. I wasn't fully listening to what he was saying, I assumed it was just small talk or guild recruitment nonsense. He mentioned a surge too... just like the Inn keeper did earlier.

"Hey, uh- one other thing. This surge? What is it anyways?"

He looked at me with a smirk. The underlings in his party looked at me with a concerned look.

"What?? Is it bad that I don't know?"

Hundson replied.

"You really haven't heard about it at all? There's been a few surges lately, about 3 big ones this year. The news is always trying to predict the next one haha."

"Okay... but what exactly is it? Why is it happening in the first place?"

"Well, we don't know exactly. It seems to be a large concentration of magic that surges through all the dungeons in the area. For a few days, some of the dungeons will start to break randomly. Elite teams from the Hunters Association and some large guilds have been put on guard to make sure the city and its civilians are protected . A few months ago during the last surge we had a high level C Class dungeon break. It breached the pre-built confinement and leaked some pretty large monsters into the capital. Luckily the Viridian Guild had a team nearby, they cleared it up hastily once they got to the scene."

I nodded as I looked out the train window watching the cement walls pass by.

"Interesting... You said this dungeon is very stable though?"

Hudson nodded.

"Yeah, this is one of the oldest D class dungeons in the area. It gets a lot of raiding traffic. The more magic items and mana that are taken out of the dungeon, the more stable it becomes. Even if the surge gets bad, the worst it'll do is spawn in a few mutants at most. That's my professional opinion at least."

"Hmmmm. Interesting. This is good insight, thanks a lot."

"No prob, just helping out. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but come by our guild any time!"

"Sure, sure. Maybe I will."

Hudson doesn't seem like a bad guy at all. Maybe I actually will stop by and check the place out once I finish farming this week.

The train came to a stop and a lot of other teams got off at the Minotaur Dungeon platform. Seems like its pretty common knowledge that this is one of the safer dungeons to dive into today. I can't wait to get started.