Then, without fanfare, Mize stepped into the dungeon.

The air hit her first, fresh, earthy, and damp.

It carried the scent of wet bark, mossy undergrowth, and the breath of turned soil.

Her gaze swept slowly across the expanse, noting the details carefully: the flutter of leaves above, the faint trails etched into the dirt by creatures large and small, the shifting layers of humidity that clung to the forest’s skin.

The place was alive, not just from the towering trees or tangled vines, but from the distant echoes in the woods. 

From afar, she could already pick up the sounds of scuffles echoing through the foliage. 

Growls, hisses, the sudden rush of impact, faint, but frequent. 

These monsters were territorial by nature, summoned into a world they didn’t quite understand, and acting instinctively. 

Mize didn’t bat an eye. In fact, she expected this. 

But even so, something felt off.

She paused mid-step, floating just above a bed of soft grass, head tilting slightly as her fingers tapped idly against her arm. 

'I feel like I am missing something'

That itch of incompletion crept back in.

Everything here should’ve felt... fuller.

So why didn’t it?

A question rose from the back of her throat, dry “What makes a dungeon... a dungeon?”

Not the most philosophical line she’d ever dropped, sure, but it captured the issue well enough. 

There had to be something missing, and this question, dumb as it sounded, begged the right kind of answer.

She floated forward, arms loosely crossed behind her back, voice trailing into the air with quiet musings. 

 “I guess loot systems already tick one box, huh? Monsters with unique attack patterns, respawn mechanics so they don’t thin out... That’s decent structure already.”

Still, the hollow feeling lingered, something amiss. 

Her brow furrowed. “So... what else am I missing?”

She drifted through the air with grace, eyes scanning the towering trees, dense thickets, and winding clearings.

 Her thoughts churned until, suddenly, something clicked.

“Oh,” she muttered, her eyes flashing with realization. “A boss. Hidden treasures.”

That was it.

She spun mid-air and vanished with a flick of her wrist, then reappeared in a burst of pale light, dozens of kilometers deeper into the dungeon.

Before her stretched a broad waterfall, tumbling down layers of black stone into a still, sprawling lake. 

The water glistened under the scattered rays of light filtering through the canopy, but the lake itself was sterile, void of life.

Mize frowned. 

Empty water didn’t sit right with her.

She crouched near the bank, scooping up several lumps of clay from the lake’s edge.

 In her hands, they twitched faintly, as if reacting to her.

Bit by bit, she molded them, shaping them into sleek fish-like forms, twelve species in total. 

Some were nimble and miniscule, others were wide-bodied behemoths that looked like they could flip a boat if provoked.

To keep things balanced, she tweaked their dietary habits. 

Herbivores, mostly. 

She wasn’t trying to start a war underwater.

Once the shapes were complete, she hovered a hand above them, murmuring softly. 

A whisper of life passed from her palm into their bodies. 

The clay twitched. Skin bubbled over surface. Eyes blinked open. Fins flared.

They were alive.

But not too alive.

She deliberately restricted their minds, no civilization, no culture, no ability to evolve beyond their base instincts.

 Just swimming, feeding, and fleeing.

 That would do.

Just growing.

She released them gently into the lake. Ripples spread as they darted beneath the surface. 

Each species had been created in mating pairs, and she added one more twist: rapid breeding, capped at a stable number before it throttled down naturally.

“I’m getting a lot better at making this kind of stuff on the fly,” she muttered, cracking a smile, though it wasn't really a genuine one. 

She raised a hand and pulled up her skill panel.

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

[Skills]

* Imagination Realism [Tier 3]

* Telepathic Control [Tier 3]

* Gravity Control [Tier 3]

* Ethereal Charm [Tier 3]

* Soul Flowers Domain [Tier 3]

* Wooden Guards, Wooden Soul [Tier 3]

* Set the Heart Ablaze, Set My Conviction on Fire [Tier 3]

* Purity of Soul, Neutrality of Mind [Tier 3]

* Cataclysmic Orbs [Tier 3]

* Teleportation [Tier 3]

* Heavenly Golden Palm [Tier 3]

* Almighty Push [Tier 3]

* Mirage Realm [Tier 3]

* Mental Tank [Tier 3] ×5

* Blessing of Reduction [Tier 3]

* Mental Strength Digitalisation [-]

* Rapid Breeding [Tier 3]

* Flesh and Blood Engineering [Tier 3]

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

She scanned the panel, eyes narrowing slightly. 

“Looks up-to-date,” she said with satisfaction, dismissing the screen with a lazy flick.

She also noticed the quiet addition of two new Mental Tanks, just what she needed to support the increasingly twisted lengths of her imagination.

From there, she set off to fine-tune the dungeon’s layout. 

Mize floated through the forest, manually tweaking sections casually. 

She layered mist in tighter areas, built deceptive quicksand pits, planted sharp corners and misleading paths. 

Here, she wasn’t just crafting terrain, she was creating an experience.

 An atmosphere that whispered danger, stillness, and calculated unpredictability.

Midway through, a faint prompt appeared before her eyes. 

A new skill added: [Terrain Manipulation].

“Not bad,” she murmured.

Eventually, she floated to the center of the dungeon. With a wave of her hand, the earth shook softly. 

A circular patch a hundred meters wide cleared itself, trees, roots, and shrubbery folding into the ground like water.

Then, with a single gesture, a towering figure rose from the center.

Ten meters tall. Bark-skinned. Broad and powerful. 

A Tree Guardian that she had created before.

 A legit tier 5 monster... 

This would be the dungeon’s boss.

'I hope this won't be an overkill for the Awakeners'

She planted a reward deep within its core: the Fruit of Life, capable of forcibly pushing someone up by a full realm, but only applicable up to tier 5 only and only one fruit per person. 

If someone tried eating more, nothing will happen. 

She tuned its strength to give a decent challenge without making it impossible, even reducing the guardian’s intelligence to something childlike.

 It would fight, but not outmaneuver the awakeners like a trained soldier. 

“If someone dies to it, then they were never meant to take the fruit anyway,” she said with a shrug.

Still, one question hung in the air. 

Without the backing of the card system’s natural refresh mechanic, what happened when the Tree Guardian died?

She paused, hovering over the thought.

“The best option,” she said, snapping her fingers, “is backup.”

She created ten more Tree Guardians, embedding them deep underground, and set a simple rule: after one died, another would sprout from below and emerge after five hours.

Creating her own version of systematic monster spawn planning. 

Neat...

She double-checked the rule logic in her head a few more times, running through possible exploits or oversights. 

Satisfied, she finally clapped her hands together.

“All done,” she said, dusting her palms. Her eyes roamed across the forest with a faint pride twinkling in them.

Everything was in place now.

She drifted higher, adjusting her altitude just beneath the shimmering ceiling of the dungeon’s outer film. 

The air thinned a little, crisp and cool against her skin as she hovered weightlessly, arms folded as her gaze swept across the land she had painstakingly molded.

There was a quiet satisfaction in her eyes as they lingered on the parts she’d engineered by hand, each section tuned with her odd sense of "perfect design." 

“I hope this dungeon draws more and more people into the territory,” she muttered, half to herself, half to the wind.

 Her voice carried no urgency, just that measured optimism of someone who had done their work and now waited for the results to play out.

“Really... it’s like killing two birds with one stone,” she continued, her smile tugging up lazily. 

“If enough Awakeners show up to train and explore, the place naturally becomes safer. Which, of course, attracts more mortals.”

She stretched her arms overhead and let out a soft hum, spinning once in place before locking her feet in the air again. 

The strange deaths from earlier didn’t even register in her mind anymore. 

Her mood had rebounded, bright and light like the sky above.

Besides, she’d already prepared an answer to that threat. 

Harapan, the so-called child of hope, was practically an extension of her will at this point. 

She had armed bim well.

Giving several Tier 5 guards at his side.

 A handful of skills she’d passed down herself.

 If that lineup couldn’t handle the situation, then maybe it wasn’t worth worrying about to begin with.

Her gaze returned to the horizon, eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to see past what was visible.

“For now, he should focus on cleaning up anything behind those deaths. Once that’s done, he can start pushing outward. Hunt them in the wild,” she mused, voice calm but deliberate.

“One step at a time,” she added after a pause, arms crossing loosely over her chest as her hips tilted in the air, weightless.

 A faint smirk flicked across her lips. “It’s barely been a week. Push too fast, and we’ll end up lost in our own momentum.”

She nodded to herself, satisfied with that wisdom, and flicked her fingers casually.

 “Now then… let’s wait for our first customers. Wonder how much Elias is charging for the dungeon entrance,” she grinned.

With nothing else to do for the moment, she flipped open the mirage orb and started running a few new combat simulations. Efficient boredom, she called it.

Minutes passed.

The earlier rumble of thunder had scattered the crowd nearby, but as always, curiosity worked faster than fear. 

More people began to trickle in, drawn toward the strange, forested dome that hovered in the air like a sleeping beast. 

There was something about it that caught the eye, and refused to let go.

Mize’s pupils flickered faintly as she focused, honing in on the newcomers. 

Her floating body shifted slightly in the air, sharp eyes locking onto a small cluster buried within the growing crowd.

A group of Awakeners.

Her interest spiked. “Huh. So they’re here already.”

She zoomed in mentally, scanning their aura signatures. “Most of them are still Tier 1,” she noted. “But the one in front... hmm... he’s right on the cusp of Tier 2.”

She observed silently, fingertips pressed together. 

The dungeon’s layout was carefully structured. 

The outer layers were littered with Tier 1 monsters, easing players into the rhythm of the place. 

But the deeper one went, the fewer the creatures, and the more dangerous they became. Tier 3s waited at the center.

And finally tier 5 in the dead center of the dungeon. 

Mize wasn’t worried. These Awakeners were fresh, she doubted they’d stray far from the edge.

 If they kept their distance from the core, they’d be fine. Probably.

Now, her perspective shifted, zooming closer toward the party of five threading their way through the murmuring crowd.

Three men. Two women. 

They moved with that subtle discipline of old awakeners always carried, eyes sharp, steps coordinated even without words. 

You know, like those war veterans, without wanting to show it, their movements showed, and it was visible.

They passed through the throng and emerged into the open, only to stop short as they finally saw it, the forest behind the bubble.

Their reactions came instantly.

“A dungeon?” The blue-haired woman near the front, her voice slightly tense, staff clutched against her chest. 

Her long robe fluttered with the breeze, and her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward to study the shimmering film. “It feels… off. Like it’s bigger inside than it looks.”

“You’re not wrong, Ilya.” A calm, steady voice answered her. 

It belonged to a man with short, golden hair and a silver earring in one ear. 

He wore sleek, white armor, trimmed in soft metallic hues, and a crimson cloak draped neatly across his back. 

His hand rested on the pommel of a broad sword, the weapon half-asleep in its scabbard. “Normal dungeons don’t look like this. Judging by the exterior, the interior’s probably five, maybe ten times larger.”

His eyes didn’t blink. “Dungeons like this are rare.”

"Extremely rare"

“Which means better loot, huh, Loyd?” chimed in another from the group, a bulky man with thick red beard, bald scalp catching the sun, and a massive mace resting on his shoulder like it weighed nothing. 

He wore rough leather gear and had a permanent grin stitched into his features. “Heard stories about these from the deeper wilds, weird places where the loot’s stacked sky-high.”

Loyd, still standing at the front, grunted. “Lavish, sure. But don’t forget: the better the loot, the nastier the things guarding it.”

His tone wasn’t fearful, just factual. 

"Well... I am just saying" 

"Doesn't sound like a ticket to get rich though"