Training in the Forgotten Dungeon
Yeon Cheong returned home first and emptied the sack of food onto the table.
What he had received was only a few slices of bread, a few mouthfuls of water in a small canteen, and several pieces of hardened jerky.
“Not much to it.”
This was all he had to last him until tomorrow.
Even this much was thanks to Uncle Ben slipping him extra, which gave him a glimpse of just how impoverished the other residents lived.
“It’s been a while since I ate like this.”
By his reckoning, more than a decade had passed since he last received rations in this manner.
Once he became an apprentice deliveryman, the amount of food issued had increased, and after he accepted the janitor proposal, he had lived in such abundance that hunger never crossed his mind.
“I suppose returning to the past means I have to be this poor again.”
Yeon Cheong bit into a slice of bread and chewed roughly.
It was so hard that he had to soak it with saliva before he could even bite through it.
“Tougher than I thought.”
While swallowing the bread, he rummaged through his pocket.
Inside was the knife he had taken from Min-chan.
“I’m definitely weak right now.”
Returning to his childhood body made weakness inevitable.
The time when Yeon Cheong had planned to retire was the peak of his physical prime, when he moved most actively and stood at the very top of the Tower.
Comparing that body to his current frail one left only one objective conclusion: he was weak.
“I can’t even use Yeongdeung as freely as before.”
Yeongdeung was a technique for reading an opponent’s presence, useful both for gathering information and in actual combat.
Because it let him predict the trajectory of attacks in advance, it was an extremely convenient martial art.
“Compared to back then, it feels unstable.”
A faint dissatisfaction with this fragile body that seemed ready to collapse at any moment began to surface.
It was natural for him to be weak after years of inadequate nutrition, yet the discomfort came from having once reached the Tower’s summit with pure skill.
“Maybe I should start training.”
Restoring his body and mind to their prime was clearly necessary.
Considering the events that would unfold in the Tower, he needed to build his physique, refine his martial arts, and strengthen the mental fortitude required to wield them.
“Is there a suitable place?”
Several facilities for physical training existed on the first floor.
Since there was a dedicated training zone for raising deliverymen, the setup was quite systematic.
However, the training zone was mainly used by deliverymen, and most residents did not train their bodies, making it difficult to find an appropriate spot.
“Training inside the house would be too cramped.”
Yeon Cheong glanced around the room.
Though it was his personal space, the only things he could do here were basic physical exercises—lifting heavy objects to build muscle or doing bodyweight movements to improve stamina.
To freely wield Yeongdeung, he needed a place with some presence and threat.
“Come to think of it…”
Yeon Cheong searched his memory and recalled a suitable training location.
“Wasn’t there a dungeon on the first floor?”
Dungeons, the primary resource of the ruined world, were scattered everywhere outside the Tower, each carrying high risk.
Deliverymen brought back water and food from them, making dungeons essentially the Tower’s main source of income.
Of course, dungeons were filled with all kinds of monsters and countless dangers.
It was surprising that such dungeons existed inside the Tower itself, and on the first floor no less.
Yet every one of them was broken beyond repair, so the guards managed them half-heartedly.
The monsters inside the first-floor dungeons rarely tried to come out, and even if they did, they were pathetically weak, so the guards mostly left the dungeons alone.
Moreover, it seemed the resources inside had already been completely drained, so deliverymen had long stopped visiting them.
“That should work.”
It offered just the right amount of presence and threat—exactly what Yeon Cheong needed.
After finishing his thoughts, he took a sip from the canteen and stood up.
“I remember one near the residential zone.”
Having roughly replenished his calories, it was time to put his body to work.
*
Yeon Cheong arrived at 001 Dungeon on the left side of the Floor 1 Residential Zone.
The dungeons inside the Tower were better maintained than expected.
Because the guards periodically checked them and kept the entrances tidy, the place did not look particularly dirty despite the drifting dust.
“Two people, huh.”
Two guards stood watch at the entrance, yawning widely with bored expressions.
Yeon Cheong slowly erased his presence and approached, eavesdropping on their conversation.
“Today’s shift is the worst. Guarding a dungeon? What a joke.”
“Still better than guarding the main gate, isn’t it?”
“Come on, at least the main gate has something to look at. They hang criminals’ heads there sometimes. That’s pretty entertaining.”
“Your tastes are seriously twisted.”
As they said, the Tower periodically carried out human purges.
Criminals, dissidents, or traitors inside the Tower were beheaded and their heads displayed at the main gate to instill fear and deter crime.
Yet crime on the first floor never improved.
If starving to death or being beheaded amounted to roughly the same fate, then feeling full for even a single moment was not so bad.
“So what? The criminal organizations on the first floor are still thriving. Only the innocent get killed.”
“True. Most of the heads hanging at the gate belong to petty thieves anyway.”
They clicked their tongues and slowly closed their eyes.
After all, no monsters would come out of the dungeon, and no one would enter it either.
Since they were only pretending to manage it, the guards chose to nap and pass the time instead.
Whoosh.
“Ah… wind’s picking up.”
“Damn it! That clueless wind. Let’s just go inside the outpost.”
They sighed at the incoming wind and stood up.
The dusty winds of the first floor were harsh, and staying outside was bad for their health.
Once the two guards left their post, Yeon Cheong moved swiftly.
Even with his weakened Yeongdeung, erasing his presence amid the blowing dust was simple.
Thud, thud, thud!
Kicking off the sand-covered ground, Yeon Cheong threw himself into the dungeon entrance.
As the dim view came into sight, he hung the small lantern he had prepared at his waist.
When the oil ignited, a small flame flickered and began illuminating the inside of the dungeon.
“Yeongdeung alone won’t be enough to grasp everything.”
No matter how much he tried to sense presences with Yeongdeung, there was a limit to what he could learn.
Yeongdeung detected living beings but did not reveal the surrounding terrain.
That was why Yeon Cheong always scouted first—memorizing every detail of the terrain and combining it with the information from Yeongdeung before acting.
“Straight ahead from here.”
Yeon Cheong advanced while looking around.
Since this was the first-floor dungeon he had only heard about, he needed to stay somewhat cautious.
Even if the monsters inside were weak, surprise attacks were still dangerous.
“Found an open space.”
After descending further, he discovered a vast, empty chamber.
It was a desolate and dark room, yet it was perfect for concentration.
Yeon Cheong set the lantern from his waist on the floor and extinguished the flame.
The oil inside was extremely rare, so he had to conserve it, but more importantly, light interfered with Yeongdeung training, so he put it out.
“Monsters nearby…”
Yeon Cheong began scanning for presences.
Deeper inside, monsters would appear, but at least none seemed to be in the immediate area.
He could faintly sense some living presences, but they did not appear to be entering this room, so leaving them alone seemed fine.
“Let’s begin.”
Yeon Cheong steadied his breathing, closed his eyes, and began meditating.
The longer he meditated, the clearer his mind felt.
With a clear mind, he activated Yeongdeung once more.
He focused on every small movement and paid attention to changes in his surroundings.
In the pitch-black darkness, the only thing he could rely on was the instinct inherent in humans.
He needed to feel changes in the air with his skin, hear every sound around him, smell the threatening odors that stung his nose, and taste the aura of life.
“Huu…”
Once Yeongdeung activated, he steadied his breathing again and concentrated as much as possible on every sound and movement made by living beings.
The number and types of monsters in this dungeon, what they were doing and where—they all came into focus.
Starting from Yeon Cheong, the detection range expanded: ten meters, twenty meters, thirty meters.
“…Damn it.”
Yeon Cheong suddenly felt his concentration drain and a headache set in.
His brain was being overloaded.
He meditated again to massage his brain and relieve the pain.
“Repeat.”
It was the most optimized method for training Yeongdeung.
Recover mental strength through meditation, then use Yeongdeung with the recovered strength.
When mental strength ran out again, recover it through meditation.
By repeating this process over and over, the detection range and duration of Yeongdeung would eventually increase.
Some time later, Yeon Cheong paused to rest, steadied his breathing, and pulled out a watch from his pocket.
He lit the lantern and checked the time.
Staring at the unmoving watch hands, Yeon Cheong stood dazed for a moment.
“…Right. This was an artifact.”
Focused on training Yeongdeung, he had momentarily forgotten that the old pocket watch in his pocket was a time artifact.
The mental strain had been so great that he remained in a hazy state.
“Still, it’s coming back.”
He could feel it through training.
His Yeongdeung was returning.
Though only slightly, he could sense it growing.
Since he had done this training before and knew the method, restoring it to this frail body was very simple.
“But…”
The occasional headaches.
They were a side effect of Yeongdeung and could even lead to fainting if pushed too far.
“Efficiency really is lower.”
His young body accumulated fatigue rapidly, causing efficiency to drop steadily.
Further training would harm his health, so he decided to rest for now.
“I should do some physical training too.”
Yeon Cheong sighed and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes for a moment.
“A monster.”
Yeon Cheong instantly detected a presence.
Because he had been training Yeongdeung, he could sense every presence nearby.
Unless it was deliberately hidden, he could catch even the smallest sounds.
“Kerrk?”
Two yellow glowing eyes appeared in the darkness.
It seemed to be a “Weakling Goblin” that inhabited this dungeon.
“Perfect timing. I was just about to move my body.”
Yeon Cheong rose from the wall and drew his knife.
Then he skillfully spun it in his hand.