Secret Dungeon - 1

With the clean decapitation of his hundredth Outlaw, Sanghyuk finally seized the prize he had been chasing. It was the hard-earned fruit of roaming relentlessly across the wilderness for an entire week, making the reward taste all the sweeter.

"Whew. My instincts are still far too rusty. This is bad."

Any ordinary player would have puffed out their chest with pride after hunting a hundred Outlaws in a single week, but Sanghyuk merely scowled in dissatisfaction. Across those hundred kills, he had engaged in countless PvP skirmishes without suffering a single loss or making a critical blunder. Yet throughout the entire ordeal, the sluggishness of his own movements had gnawed at him.

By his own estimation, his current condition sat at barely seventy percent of his past peak. Despite all the effort he had poured into retraining, the countless years spent living as a washed-up shut-in had dulled his razor edge, and clawing that pinnacle back would take time.

Resolving to push himself even harder, Sanghyuk brought up the detailed information window for his newly minted title. He knew it was good, but having never memorized the exact figures, a spark of anticipation flared as he opened the display.

"Ah, so this carried percentage bonuses too."

Percentage scalings were always king. The moment he laid eyes on the numbers, Sanghyuk recalled why this title had enjoyed such legendary status in his past life. When it came to hunting Outlaws, finding a superior title was practically impossible. For someone like him who placed immense value on mobility, the movement speed bonus alone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠made it priceless.

I pushed my level up quite a bit during this hunt, and my PvP edge is sharp enough now that I won't embarrass myself anywhere. That alone makes this plenty satisfying. Add in the hefty pouch of coin I collected from their corpses, and it's an undeniable profit.

Sanghyuk nodded in quiet approval as he evaluated his campaign. Everything had fallen into place. Reaching Level 24 pleased him most of all; from what he could piece together, the frontrunners ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠blazing through the leveling curve sat somewhere between Level 27 and 30.

Almost all of those frontrunners were One Soul builds. While a tiny handful of Double Souls might have sneaked into that tier, there was not a single Triple Soul user above Level 25.

The hardcore pack at the very top is probably gearing up to hunt Outlaws right about now. I could keep stacking bounties, but there's no reason to waste energy competing with them. I have too many other treasures waiting for me. This is the perfect moment to step away.

Timing was everything. Having milked the Outlaw hunt for every drop of value long before anyone else caught on, Sanghyuk smoothly pivoted toward his next objective just as the latecomers arrived at the gate.

Dungeons dotted the surface of Planet Trinac in staggering numbers. Broadly speaking, they fell into two categories: Public Dungeons and Secret Dungeons. Public Dungeons were open to every traveler wandering the realm. While certain thresholds or prerequisites occasionally restricted entry, anyone who met the conditions could freely step inside.

Secret Dungeons, however, were an entirely different breed.

A Secret Dungeon bound itself exclusively to the pioneer who discovered it, unlike Public Dungeons, which were permanently anchored to the world under the dominion of the Creator God. This fundamental divergence created a massive divide in utility and value.

Countless Secret Dungeons lay scattered across Trinac. Because they continually spawned and collapsed according to hidden rules, their exact number remained impossible to calculate, whereas the permanent Public Dungeons could be cataloged with certainty. But Public Dungeons almost universally demanded organized raid parties to clear, placing them firmly out of Sanghyuk's reach for now.

Secret Dungeons offered the ideal alternative. Most were compact in scale, and merely uncovering one yielded tremendous bonus rewards. At this stage of his progression, funneling all his focus into Secret Dungeons was the only sensible choice.

While the rest of the player base mindlessly ground field mobs without a clue that such instances existed, Sanghyuk intended to monopolize these hidden realms, stacking bonus Karma to propel his level into the stratosphere.

Even I don't know who found the very first Secret Dungeon. But when it comes to the two famous ones that took the forums by storm years later, I know every last detail!

Not even a regressor could possess encyclopedic knowledge of every hidden lair in Eternal Life. Their very nature meant that far more remained shrouded in mystery than had ever been uncovered. Yet the sheer volume of information Sanghyuk retained far outstripped what any single individual had a right to know.

Specifically, he held the coordinates for two extraordinary early-game Secret Dungeons. Both had been monopolized by a privileged few until those players, drunk on their past exploits, bragged about them on a broadcast years later. Having watched that exact program with keen interest, Sanghyuk still remembered the details vividly.

Chronologically, the earlier of the two was the Merlog Dungeon, tucked away beneath the Abandoned Fishing Village.

Though designated as D-rank, the Merlog Dungeon granted an absurd forty percent bonus Karma. Better yet, its layout was tiny, and the native Merlogs were notoriously frail pushovers, making it an unrivaled factory for vacuuming up Karma at blistering speed.

Because history recorded it as being discovered very early in the game's lifespan, Sanghyuk had rushed straight to the Abandoned Fishing Village to stake his claim before anyone else stumbled upon it.

Slay all sixteen distinct monster types that roam the Abandoned Fishing Village, gather the differently colored pearls they drop, and dive into the waters off the village shore. Deep along the seabed rests a weathered stone slab, and slotting all sixteen pearls into the ring of indentations unseals the dungeon. That's the formula....

Even explaining the process sounded absurdly convoluted. Sanghyuk had the luxury of glancing at the answer sheet beforehand, but ordinary players would have needed to piece together vague hints scattered across dozens of locations just to deduce the puzzle. Some might call it cheating, but expecting a regressor to play by the rules would have been far more ridiculous.

Before heading out, Sanghyuk had stopped by the consignment house to buy all sixteen colors of pearls with gold. At this early juncture, not a soul suspected that those seemingly useless trinkets held such a secret, allowing him to scoop them up for pocket change. Purchasing them was vastly more efficient; pearl drops were subject to random chance, and camping out in the village to farm sixteen separate variants by hand would have been a colossal waste of time.

With the pearls secured and the location firmly mapped in his mind, Sanghyuk plunged into the coastal waters without hesitation. All that remained was locating the ancient stone slab resting on the ocean floor.

After three grueling hours of diving and combing the seabed inch by inch, his fingers finally brushed against the weathered stone. The prolonged underwater search also unlocked the basic life skill Swimming—a handy bonus that would inevitably prove its worth down the line.

The moment ownership bound itself to his avatar, Sanghyuk crossed the threshold without delay. Though the shelf was not particularly deep, holding his breath underwater had begun to strain his lungs, and he needed a pocket of dry air to catch his breath.

Once safely inside the cavernous foyer, Sanghyuk pulled up the ledger detailing the dungeon's specifications.

The readout matched his memory to the letter. No other travelers were registered, and the bonus Karma sat squarely at +40%. Considering standard Secret Dungeons typically offered a modest ten to twenty percent boost, this was an astonishing windfall.

The layout of Merlog's Treasure Warehouse followed a straightforward corridor punctuated by three small chambers, culminating in a sanctum where the dungeon boss, the Blue-Horned Merlog, resided. Slaying the horned chieftain was the sole victory condition, and bringing it down yielded a guaranteed clear reward.

While most of the "glittering treasures" hoarded by amphibious scavengers amounted to worthless baubles, the loot pool held a slim chance of dropping genuinely remarkable artifacts.

Once cleared, the dungeon entered a one-hour cooldown before reactivating. Unlike many fragile Secret Dungeons that collapsed after a set number of hours or days, this instance boasted an infinite duration—with the crucial caveat that after one hundred clears, the dungeon would permanently dissolve.

"No wonder those guys couldn't stop bragging about this goldmine."

Sanghyuk had experienced his fair share of Secret Dungeons in his previous life, but for an early-game zone, this was practically peerless. Crucially, Merlogs ranked among the top five easiest monsters to dispatch in the entire game, ensuring that clearing the instance would take a mere fraction of the time required by normal dungeons. In gaming as in reality, time was gold.

Since the duration is infinite, I can lock in ownership here and set out to claim the second Secret Dungeon right away.

Once bound to him, not a single soul could set foot inside unless Sanghyuk personally registered them as authorized co-masters. In the present era, the very existence of Secret Dungeons remained a total mystery, but once word spread, dedicated broker platforms would crop up solely to trade dungeon rights for astronomical sums.

Yet despite knowing the fortunes they would eventually command, Sanghyuk had no intention of parting with this treasure house. A jackpot this sweet was meant to be swallowed whole, solitary and undisturbed.

"Still, since I walked all the way down here, I might as well run it once. It'll give me a baseline for the clear time anyway."

He had originally planned to swim back to shore immediately, but a spark of curiosity changed his mind.

Shring.

Sanghyuk drew the Traveler's Treasure Sword strapped across his back and leveled his gaze ahead. Looming before him was a jagged fissure in the subterranean rock—the entrance to Merlog's Treasure Warehouse.